jmtd → log → misc → Strange week

Last Tuesday I received a letter from my University College informing me that Ollie Streatfield, a friend from University, had died. It turns out that an e-mail was circulating amongst my graduation year with further details, although no-one forwarded it onto me: he committed suicide at the new year.

I received the letter on tuesday night and the funeral was the following thursday, so I only had that night to write out a condolences card for the family.

That made an already stressful week all the more upsetting. The first full week back at work since the holidays and a lot of meetings and work to catch up on. One piece of work was some statistical analysis of a questionnaire. I'm not too good with statistics: Actually, I'm terrible, but at least I am aware and acknowledge this, which puts me a few rungs of the ladder above the average CS graduate.

I also had my second driving test on the friday, which I thankfully passed. This may not seem like a big deal for you non-british, but the british driving test is now insanely hard. It's a two-parter, the first being theory (complete with a virtual-reality style drive-along) and the second being a 40-minute practise test. My girlfriend took about 6 attempts at the test and a close friend is still trying, having taken roughly 6 attempts so far, too.

I did not sleep properly from the tuesday night until the friday night in anticipation. I can hardly believe that I did pass. I thought my driving was significantly worse than during the last test.

Now begins the next chapter of my life, where I don't have to arrange short working days to get home for driving lessons, I'm several hundred quid better off every week, and I can get from place to place without a sickening dependence on friends and family