Thursdays

Today I went up to London for my interview at University College London (UCL). It took me about an hour and a half and the journey wasn't too arduous, but then I caught the train at about 11 o'clock, way off rush hour. After getting a little lost once off the tube I found my way to my destination and had to wait another half an hour before we were invited in. Then, I had to wait another half an hour whilst everyone registered before finally being whisked away to, well, a room. There were maybe 30 of us there for the Ancient History course and we were given a brief talk by a professor. Now, when I went for my open day at Royol Holloway we had the initial talk in a big lecture theater with a powerpoint presentation on a cinema screen and talks from various different people like the finance monkey and some current students. UCL, however, thought it would be much more impressive to just scrawl a few notes on a napkin and drawl at length about nothing in particular whilst constantly trying to 'engage' with the front row (which just happend to mean me - I sat at the back, but she decided that she'd force everyone to turn around by giving the talk from the back, thus making me the front) by directing every question at us with inescapable AMRAAM-style eye contact.

Eventually she buggered off and we were supposed to have a tour, guided by some students. The students arrived but called by name who they wanted (those with later interview times). My name was not called. pretty much left us to it. After another hour or so of waiting and having nothing to do but read, were running woefully low on biscuit supplies when I got called in for my interview. It went ok I suppose. Neither a thrilling success nor a disastrous failure. Now, I had hoped to go on a tour but, firstly, my interview was twenty minutes later than it should have been and I wanted to get home. Secondly, I simply could nto be fucked to wait around in the gloomy room any longer and, finally, the whole place seemed like a shit hole, I didn't particularily want to spend more time exploring it.

So off I went on my way home. Everything was going well until, just outside Slough of all places, the train stopped (some of you may have heard the funny story of me, Slough and trains - it involves me falling asleep and my shoes disappearing). I didn't think anything of it at first, I assumed we were just waiting to go into the station. We did start on again but the resurgence in engine noise was accompanied by a message from the driver that the train would be stopping at Slough and then going back to London Paddington. Wonderful. Exiting the train at Slough I learn that there had been a fire on a train and that no trains would be going in the direction I wanted for some time. Exactly how a fire on a single train on a single track, especially a fire so small and insignificant that the driver of said trai nwas reclining in his seat reading a book, could bring the entire rail network of that part of the country to a standstill is beyond me. I managed to persuade my sister to come and pick me up in the car, but to add insult to injury, on the way back, the train I had been on overtook us.

What a fantastic day. Yesterday was even worse, but I won't go into that. And tommorow is Thursday, my least favourite day of the week. I wish I was born in Uganda. Sure, there's the genocide, the mass rape, the extreme poverty, but I bet they don't have Thursdays...