2004-07-23..4:48 p.m.

Ok. It�s been a couple of hours. I�ve been looking up international student loan scheme and there�s SO MUCH FUCKING RUBBISH! This is too much. I don�t know where to start, or who�s reputable enough to ask, or how I will manage. I�ll only have been here two and a half years by the time I�m done, which means I�m not a permanent resident even then. I feel like I�m drowning.

And hey, guess what?! I get to work tonight! And my tummy feels hoopy and gloopy and gelatinally heavy! And I can�t concentrate on a thing! It�s all! So! Fab!

Sorry. But this it just driving me nutty. My mum suggested asking my Nan if she would be a co-signer on a loan, and I�m actually beginning to think that�s a good idea (see my level of desperation??). I think I�ll only need about �3000, because if I�m working (sporadically) I�ll be able to cover the majority of my costs that way. Really it�s just to fall back on, for books, and to finance my dissertation (printing/binding/any research/library memberships, etc.), right? I keep fluctuating between thinking really very lucidly about it, and diving into a mad panic. I feel so helpless! I�m not ready to grow up! I want a magic wand. I want my mum.

I had a great uncle who rejected his family (literally! He�d pretend he didn�t see them if they passed in the street, or cross the road entirely) and the norms of 1920s society to hobo across the British countryside. I rather feel there�s a connection between me and this wandering spider. Maybe after work, instead of blazing down to the Betsey, I�ll hop on an open railcar and see where it takes me.

I just realised I had starred my Elvis clock in the last entry without going ahead with the footnote. It was just in reference to how no matter how close to 7 o�clock I set it, it still always ends up going off at about half 5. Does this happen to anyone else?