The past few days have been spent in what one may call 'idle leisure', i.e. not doing any work at all, which is unusual for me.

Apart from an obsession with multi-player Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on one of my hall-mates' PS2, I've done some reading, reading the newspapers end-to-end, and I've also gotten around to reading Dickens' Great Expectations. I have never read Dickens before, mostly because I always thought that his portrayal of the Victorian era was rather gloomy (from what I know of his plots), as well as my instinctive aversion to anything popularly acclaimed. In fact, I started reading the book as a soporific, to help me sleep, but very quickly his wit and the humanity of his characters won me over. I also found his portrayal of children to be wonderfully charming and warm.

I've also lost control of my appetite in the past week. I have managed to lose a couple of kilograms in the past couple of months through my regime of running, volleyball, gym and not eating junk food, but lately I've thought 'what the hell...' and stuffed my face. So this afternoon, in guilt of the double-scoop Baskin Robbin's I had scoffed earlier, I decided to go out for a run, my first in a few weeks.

It was dark by then (6pm), and as usual I went out in just a long-sleeved t-shirt, shorts and gloves. I made good progress in the first couple of km, heading down towards Regent's Park, before start my ascent up Primrose Hill, looping back towards Netherhall. Primrose Hill, which overlooks central London, isn't very high, but nevertheless running up it is about 7 minutes of exertion which stretches into what seems like an eternity of pain (all you long-distance runners out there, bear with this beginner for a while...).

I've run up this slope many times, but this time the lights along the running path were broken, so it was dark near the top. As I trudged up the hill, a bitter sub-zero wind started blowing at me, just as I was pushing my muscles and lungs to carry me through. So there I was in a t-shirt as the biting wind made my whole body go numb, muscles and lungs straining while I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me thanks to the dark and my watering eyes (from the wind). Everything seemed unreal, and my consciousness started detaching from my body undergoing punishment. As I gritted my way through, every second seemed to last a lifetime, but finally I got down the other side of the hill, where the worst of the wind was blocked off by the rows of houses.

I usually only run about 4-5 km at a time, and yet everytime it's a struggle for me to keep going in the final km. I can't help but admire the runners who can run 42 km of a marathon; while they have superb stamina, nevertheless after about 20km they start aching, and the last few kilometres are always sustained through sheer willpower.

Apologies for my prolonged absence from this blog. The past month or so has been occupied with filling in forms for my PhD applications, and preparing myself for the two GRE exams (General and Physics) for US applications, which I had already taken.

The GRE Physics was held in LEEDS of all places, presumably because it was the geographical centre of the UK (they should have held it at geographical centre weighted by population, which would probably mean something like Watford in North London...). So I had to undertake the 5 hour coach journey northwards to Leeds, but fortunately Rachel, one of my classmates, was going as well. As the exam was on Saturday morning, we arrived in Leeds the night before and stayed at a B&B nearby. The place was OK, but for the fact that Leeds was unseasonably warm (warmer than London, in fact), and the room had heating I could not seem to turn off and a very tiny window. As a result, I was sweating like a horse, and couldn't get a wink of sleep all night.

Not a good preparation for what is probably the most important single exam of my life. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be done except to sit down and do the exam. The exam was 100 physics multiple-choice questions that had to be done in 170 minutes. A few of them are really easy high school stuff, but most of them involve some thought and calculations (NO calculator allowed), and quite a few are difficult. So one has to fast and accurate, which isn't particulary easy to pull off in state. It was so bad that my sleep-deprived brain thought that 1.5/2 was the same as 3/2. Nevertheless, I don't think I performed superbly, but it should still be an acceptable mark.

As we were boarding the coach home, Rachel boarded first and showed the driver the e-ticket for both of us. As I was getting on, I gestured at her and told him 'I'm with her'. He then replied with his Yorkshire burr, 'But are you sure she wants you to be with her?' and waved me on.

It's the last week of term, and I can't be arsed to do anything. Due to my applications, I have not done much of my project work, and it's menacing presence looms over my consciousness at all times. Also, my supervisor Kinwah gave me a major slagging off last week, the gist of which was that I may be the top student here, but I may become small fry if I do my Phd in a top university.

So I'm momentarily discouraged, and burnt out from working almost non-stop all year (I spent summer doing my two internships, as you may recall). I really need a break...