Two Things

...well...one thing and one list really, or, if you really want to break it down, one thing and a list of four things, making five things, but let's not get too picky here. Things.

So, yesterday at 10:30am, I walked out of the last Cambridge exam that I will ever have to do in my life (barring any unhappy accident whereby I end up doing a PhD). Although you'd think this would be occasion for much celebration and alcohol abuse of the highest order, this particular Cambridge degree has the sting in the tail of a behemoth of a project write up to it (my estimated report will be ~16000 words and 50 pages long), which means that the end of exams isn't really the end, unfortunately.

Putting that to one side though, it is quite a relief to be done with exams at least. I've worked very hard; the final push for the final exams for the final year of my degree, and hopefully the results will reflect that. It was amusing in a way to read back on some of my old blog posts, posted in the face of impending A-Levels, where I was lamenting the amount of work I had to do. I can scarcely imagine what my past self would have been like had he been witness to the weeks of library sessions that I did this time round.

Anyway, I worked hard, and I'm proud of it.

Obviously, a lot of this time was spent in the library, and although extended stints of the library are not something that is new to me, it's the first time that I've found some things that consistently annoyed me during my study sessions (I must be getting old).

Because of this, I've put together a list of four things that made me irate in the library:

1) People who talk directly outside the library windows. No, they aren't soundproof (design fail), yes, I can hear you. And yes, it is bloody annoying when I'm trying to do math and all I can hear is someone lamenting how drunk they were the previous night.

2) Keyboard Pianists. There are computers provided in the quiet areas so you can look stuff up on the internet. This does not mean writing an essay on them, or using them to fire off long-ass e-mails every five minutes (go to the computer room to do that, seriously...). I mean, the fact that they've even been fitted with extra quiet keyboards does not seem to have registered with these wanton scoundrels, who fill the entire room with the incessant drumming of their keyboard keys. It was like having a swarm of flies hitting me in the head with tiny hammers.

3) Rhythmic Sniffling. You know the sort, someone obviously has a bit of a runny nose, but instead of using tissue to sort it out, they instead rely on the big sniff. Unbelievably distracting as, of course, it is not a one time event. In fact, I have realised that sniffs occur with great regularity and at quite a well defined period, dependant on the amplitude of the previous sniff. This made it hard to concentrate because I was always expectantly looking forward to when the next sniff would occur, and when it inevitably did, whatever chain of thought I had was inevitably broken by a raging desire to shout at the offender to blow their effing nose.

4) Darth Vader Syndrome. These people obviously haven't had their legs chopped off by a lightsaber and then set on fire by a nearby lava flow before being put in a suit with an assisted breathing device, so why the hell do they sound like they have? During the last few days before exams, I shared a study room with one of this kind. "You will not pass Tripos," his breaths intoned, with a touch of sith-like sibilance. Well, not with you sounding like an ox with asthma I won't.