Monday 29 June 2009

Home

So I have now finished my first year at University - moved out of Student Halls. I am back in London for the next few months.

Oh, and it is insanely hot at the moment.

Sunday 28 June 2009

Contact Lenses

Anyways, I recently decided to take up the opticians on their offer of a free trial on contact lenses. I normally don't even think about my glasses while I am wearing them, but sometimes it would be far easier to be spectacle-free. When playing football for example, or whilst out for the evening. Also, glasses have a habit of getting blurry in the rain, so contact lenses would be practical in many ways.

So, as I was saying, a few weeks ago I decided to try contact lenses. The biggest problem is that I hate anything having anything close to my eye - and the idea of putting things in my eye definitely seemed unappealing. So when I went in for the trial, and was shown how to put them in, the biggest barrier was that everytime my finger, with a lens balanced on my fingertip, got close, I would blink. It took me quite a few goes to get the hang of it. About half an hour passed before I managed to get the first one in, but as soon as I had the technique for one - and found that it did not hurt in the slightest - I was able to put the second one in with half the attempts. Happily, contact lenses want to sit on your eye, and so getting them in position is no trouble at all. And taking them out is no bother either. Additionally, they are incredibly painless! I can easily forget about them when they are in. I had feared they would be uncomfortable, but this has not turned out to be the case at all.

For those of you who don't know, the technique for contact lenses is this: to put them in, you balance the lens on you index finger, and holding you eyelid out of the way with the other hand, touch the lens to your pupil. You then gently blink and it slides into position naturally. To take a lens out you slide it with your finger to the edge of your eye, which allows you to simply pluck it out. Simple! And I can now do these first time! Yay!

Since the trial was such a success I signed up for 10 (pairs) a month, of single-use daily disposables; I am happy with how this entire adventure has worked out.

Saturday 27 June 2009

Northernhay House Review

So I have just finished my first year at Exeter University, and moved out of student halls. I was put in Northernhay House, a privately owned self-catered accommodation. Being self-catered has some huge perks: you can eat whenever you want, meaning you don’t have to get up ridiculously early for breakfast or have to be home at a certain time for dinner. You also get to eat whatever you want, which is nice. Tho' if you are in catered halls, you get all your meals cooked for you, which is an extra worry taken care of. But the worst thing about being self-catered is how communal dining is such a more social experience.

The best, and worst, thing about Northernhay is the location. It is not on Campus like many halls, but instead it is right behind the high street. This is fantastic in many ways, being only a few yards from shops and bars and clubs and cinemas and everything is wonderful. It means that you can go to the high street on a whim. The only drawback is that does give it a fair walk to campus, about 20mins to the bottom of the hill, and puts it even further away from all the other student halls. Also it can sometimes be unbearably loud with traffic, if you have a window on the side of the building I was on.

Northernhay also suffers from being privately owned. The free internet we were promised at the beginning of the year turned into paid internet and the promised parcel collection service was stopped. The building also suffered from electrical problems while I was staying there, meaning we lost power for days - and no power meant everything in the kitchen was offline, there were no lights, no water, and no heat, for a long stretch of a cold winter. This sucked. But I guess then there is an upside to being privately owned, that you are left alone for much of the time.

My room in Northernhay was actually quite nice. It had a shared bathroom, but that was never a problem, and it was only a single bed, but then that is normal is most places. It had a nice and big desk, with a decent chair, and a large cupboard. The room had an odd shaped wall that prevented me from putting my bed flat against the wall, which was inconvenient, but I got used to it. The room was actually pretty big, and once I had everything set up, it was a really nice place to be. Tho' I should mention, Northernhay has incredibly thin walls. You do hear almost every word of anything the person in the next room says.

Anyway, Northernhay was not brilliant. There were big electrical problems while I was there, the long walk to campus was inconvenient, and opening the window was unbearable due to the noise of traffic. But then again, being so close to the city centre was wonderful, plus it was nicer than some of the other halls I saw, and my room was larger than expected. I enjoyed my stay there, and I will miss it, despite its flaws.

Monday 22 June 2009

Beach

Went to the beach today. Exmouth is only about 15mins on the train, and is like, £1.50 return. And the sand is fantastic! Still a pain as it get in hair/room/bed/food/eyes/nose/ears/etc, but worth it when the weather is this good. Today was brilliant, it got just the right level of hot and sunny without being sweltering. Sat around most of the time while there; also got burger and chips from cute ice cream lady, with the coldest lemon fanta ever, and played some beach cricket - which is entirely unlike regular cricket as their is no intention to run, or really to get people out. Since there is no bounce on the sand, the bowler has to go underarm, so the batsman can just whack it and watch the fielders go for spectacular dives and catches 'most every time. Yay!

Saturday 13 June 2009

Exams Over!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!