Happy Just-Another-Day To Me...

Greetings from Xamblor-VII. I, Wik, present to you my first blog post in what feels like a century (it actually must be closer to a millennium by Xamblorian standards).

Anyway, enough with the stupid, pointless lame-o jokes and incoherent ramblings (though there will be plenty of incoherent rambling if I proceed to use this blog more than all my previous blogs). I shall get a move on with this first post formality, 'cos time is precious. Indeed, as I sit here in my University library, the clock ticks down to the end of my 20th birthday, just 52 minutes of which are left by local time (for those people out there who are attempting to satisfy their need to indulge in 1st standard Maths by trying to calculate from the time of the post where I live, let me save you some time by telling you the answer is South-West England). So, how did I spend time on this 'truly momentous' occasion? Well, the answer to that lies not so much in these 24 hours, but more in the preceding 120.

You see, I am a mechanical engineering student at the University of Bath. By this, I mean that all my time is taken up by random projects that will never be of any use to anyone. At the moment, we are busy with a project to create a machine to wind a grip around a tennis racquet- and no, my lecturers don't seem to realise only idiots with more money than common sense would want to use such a device. Anyway, as things go, between Sunday morning and 11:58 PM on Thursday, I had slept a total of 6 hours slogging away on the first half of this project, which was due on Thursday afternoon. A truly nocturnal creature by now, I was perhaps in my element or somewhere thereabouts as we were able to get the project done on time, but focussing all my energy on this one project had its adverse consequences- I now have a lab report to finish in 3 days (Monday), a presentation and an assignment on Wednesday, and another tennis gripping-related hand-in on Thursday.

So, what did I do on my birthday? Well, having reached home late last night, I passed out in front of the computer around 11:58 PM and woke up half an hour before I needed to be at a lecture. I just rushed out of the house and walked robot-like until I reached campus (I live in the centre of town, the University is a fair bit away) with about 6 minutes to spare. Lecture over, had drinks with a couple of friends, then was accosted by someone who wanted to have a lunch 'cos he seemed to be aware it was my birthday, and there was found by a few other friends whom I had drinks with. My night plan to eat out with housemates was cancelled after it turned out one of them had already had dinner. So apart from meeting a friend who works at McDonald's all I did the rest of the day, after my afternoon drinks and food session, was to read some random Computational Fluid Dynamics stuff and I am now back on campus to work on the lab report due in on Monday. Pointless birthday, really. To sum up:
a) I was on campus all day, not really celebrating.
b) My birthday dinner was at McDonald's, sitting alone in the corner except when my friend was able to move his location of duty to my part of the restaurant so we could talk.
c) I went home for a brief while to find my mom had arranged for flowers to be delivered to my house. This is why I am not giving her my REAL address next year, but more on that in my next post.

Now, while most of you (I am unwisely assuming at this point more than 1 person will read this post in the course of its life) will note, justifiably so, that I am a person with no life whatsoever, some of you will also have noticed a few odd things. For one, I seem a little taken aback about being accosted by a friend who knew it was my birthday. Surely he would know if he's a friend? Another would be that my own housemate didn't want to come out for dinner as he had already prepared dinner. Why would he do that on his housemate's birthday? Well, it's like this. I tried to make sure people didn't find out about my birthday, apart from a handful who remembered it from when I told them long back, or made a note on their mobile phone on hearing the date.

Why would someone not tell friends about his 20th birthday? Well, I don't want it to be my '20th birthday.' This isn't some sort of age denial thing, I just don't make a big deal out of my birthday. The way I see it, it's just another day. Why should I do something 'special' or slack off with 4 courseworks to complete for just another day? And by avoiding telling other people it is my birthday, I can keep it that way, as just another day.

So, to sum up my day again, I was exhausted in the morning from sleep deprivation, was on campus most of the day, had a few drinks (all J20 or coke, btw, no alcohol) with friends, had a somewhat lonely dinner, and I am now on campus to work on a horrible lab report. Just as I would do on any other day.

Frankly, I can't imagine spending my birthday any better way :)