All Nighter

It is currently 3:30 am.

I have been working virtually non-stop on my essays now for twelve and a half hours, sat on my own in lecture room one.

I have drunk 7 espressos, and done ALOT of work.

I decided to take a moment and write this blog at the halfway point. I have 2 essays 99% completed now, with footnotes, bibliographies and all that jazz. One was 3000 words, the other 2250 words.

I now have another 3000 worder to complete, and another 1500 worder.

I expect that I will be finished around 9 am. This is going to be interesting.

I could just say 'sack it', go to bed, miss a few deadlines and not get the first I know I am capable of...

But I'm not going to do that, for several reasons.

I found out yesterday morning at the hospital that our baby is another little boy, and today while working was hit by the same feeling I had when we were pregnant with Joel; a sort of reality check moment something along the lines of 'Wow, I'm about to have a child, I must provide for it, I must do something with my life', but this time I was so pleased that I'm over halfway through my degree now, and en route to getting a first, that the feeling came as a sigh of relief rather than a moment of panic.

The awareness that these essays I am writing are my family's future mean that it's ok, I'll pull a 7-espresso dazed 24 hours of non-stop work all-nighter, because this is my wife and my sons we're talking about here, and they will have the best of me.

Anti-Semitism

Here's a question for you.

Why do so many people just absolutely hate the Jews?

I don't get it at all.

I mean, I don't personally know any Jews, and I have no problem with them whatsoever

But why on earth have so many people, (and not just Hitler and the Nazis) simply hated their guts and wanted to erase every trace of them from the face of the earth?

I truly, truly don't understand.

Roald Dahl for example, writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a self-confessed anti-Semite, mega-successful Hollywood actor Mel Gibson recently had a huge Jew-hater rant to a police officer, and one of the worst is the great Christian reformer Martin Luther - that guy was violently anti-Jew, calling for them to convert or be murdered!

Why were they repeatedly expelled from countries all throughout the world, all throughout history?

Any idea at all? Anyone?

4 Essays In A Day

The combination of losing my Grandad, having a sick and pregnant wife, a one-year old baby, going to hospital several times and having a job has meant that today is the only full day I have had in 2 weeks to work on my essays, all of which are due on Thursday. I have done a decent amount of work on them so far, but the barrage of life which I have been attempting to stand up under has been distracting me quite effectively, and so now I am sat in my parents front room in Richmond with my laptop, totally exhausted at 11 am, hoping to be able to get somewhere near completion of all my essays in one day.
Fat chance.

I think Ill post updates to this blog post as I go to help keep me sane :)

Bring it on (in the most weary sense possible).

Update 1 - 13:22
It's amazing what food, drink and a shower do for a mind that needs to focus. I have a thousand words done for 'covenants' now, and 500 more to go before I comb back through the whole thing adding footnotes, condensing sentences, and finding sources on google books. The baby is sleeping (glory be) and I am finally feeling 'in the zone'.

Update 2 - 16:07
We had an appointment at 2 to look at a house were possibly moving to in Catterick. I just got back on and am no further forward.

Update 3 - 17:03
The first rough draft of 1500 words on Covenants in the Old Testament is now finished. Moving on to the significance of Martin Luther now. Just had a sandwich. Ham and Wensleydale cheese. Nom nom nom.

Update 4 - 19:17
1500 words done on Martin Luther so far... And just went to pick up a curry for Sydney. Man, Luther was a racist! That dude really hated the Jews. Another 1500 to do...

Update 5 - 22:55
Just had a very long talk with Sydney about University stuff, still not done much more. Aaaaaagh.

Update 6 - 00:05
Spent an hour working through it all and deleting fluff and pointless filler from the essay. I still only have 1500 words. Gonna go pee, then have a bit to eat and a drink and see if I have any more work left in me.

Update 7 - 01:10
Hrrrngg. Orange yoghurt is the best yoghurt. I am so tired. MMM nice warm fire. Im going to bed now. Got 2200 words done on Luther. All 4 essays are done up to a first draft. They all need tidying up considerably and all need loads of references, but that will have to happen another day. Good night, and good riddance.

Goodbye Grandad

I found out last night at 10:45 that my Grandad passed away.
It's the first death of a close loved one I've ever had to come to terms with.
My body celebrated the occasion by kindly sending my stomach haywire and hospitalising me via ambulance within an hour of the news.
It was not fun.
Apparently the mind and the stomach are closely linked, and the stomach produces excess acid when I am anxious.
Last night it produced so much that it began eating itself.
I spent half an hour curled up on the stairs in miserable agony before the medics arrived.
Man, that really hurt.

Hearing the news about Grandad was like a slow-motion car wreck where you don't actually feel the initial impact but just see everything disintegrate around you in horrific style.
It was like being punched in the stomach by an invisible fist, and not feeling it, but seeing your guts exploding everywhere.
The medics put me on gas and air (oxygen and nitrogen) for about 3 hours, because the cause of the pain was acid and the cause of the acid was anxiety, so they need to chill me out.
I'll be honest, it was fun spending 3 hours high as a kite. It certainly kept the acid at bay.
I experienced that dopey stoner place where you 'understand, man', and not only that, but you understand that you understand, man.
I realise why so many stoners get philosophical under the influence - life makes a sweet kind of stupid sense when you combine low-level euphoria with a fractionally operational brain.
Happy plus stupid equals a gormless satisfaction, which sometimes is preferable to enlightened, painful understanding.
Death is such an impossible thing to fully process.
Where is my Grandad now? Is he anywhere at all, or has he ceased to exist?
You may answer 'yes' or 'no' as you read, but whatever your persuasion, you dont really know.
The only true answer is 'who knows'.
There is no real intellectual proof that he exists in heaven, or is once again in the simple oblivion that existed before birth.
The not-knowing is infuriating, enraging, so typical of the fundamentally frustrating and vexing nature of life.
It's almost as if the point of life is to exist with the knowledge we desire permanently just out of reach.
I wish I had some kind of belief in which I could take solace about my Grandad and where he is now, because then I could begin to process it all.
Its hard to get closure on something when all the answers are 'I dont know'.
He was a great man, and I will miss him alot.
Thinking about these things is infuriating enough to hospitalise anyone.