Last weekend was the Weekend Of Truth. I went to the Peak District to meet the bunch of randoms that I’m going to be spending 4 months in South America with. There were a number of talks, on flights and expensive immunizations and equipment, a bloody long walk, a number of ‘team-building’ exercises, an evening in the pub, and a terrifying experience attempting to climb what the youth hostel had termed ‘Jacob’s ladder’. This was essentially a kind of gigantic rope ladder strung up between two trees, with wooden logs for rungs and metal wires holding them together at the sides. Three people had to climb up it at a time. It was called Jacob’s ladder because the rungs got further apart the higher up you got, so by the time we’d got maybe 15 feet off the ground, halfway up, each rung was almost a person’s height apart, with nothing to hold onto apart from each other. Scary indeed.

And then there were the people. Three I thought were lovely (incidentally the three who’d been to University, which might just be coincidence, but I think maybe not), two I thought were alright, three quite frankly I wouldn’t want to spend another day with, let alone 4 months, and there were a few that couldn’t make the weekend so I haven’t met them yet. Yeah. Slightly worried now, but I suppose that’s what I get for buggering everything up and throwing myself upon the mercy of a gap-year organization. And at least I didn’t hate them all. And I think with any bunch of randoms there’d always be a few that I didn’t get on with, because I’m just that sort of person. And I am, still, going to see some amazing places and do some amazing things. You can tell that I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m doing the right thing, can’t you, but I think that I am now pretty much convinced. Pretty much. Part of me really wishes that I’d actually gone back to RHUL this autumn, and sod the gap year, but then of course when I was in the position to make that decision I still thought I was going off traveling with Rob, which makes it a bit of a stupid regret as far as regrets go.

I do, however, swear to God and the Devil and on my own life that I am never, ever going to spend as long at home again as I have done this year. Ever.

I did manage to escape this weekend though for the company of people that I actually like, and have just come back from a fantastic few days down at RHUL. Hurrah! I managed to catch-up with loads of different people, slept on three different sofas, had a good laugh in the Happy Man with all the best people left in choir, watched DVDs with Trish and Mary until far too late, had a lovely afternoon and a dodgy Chinese with Rob in London, gate-crashed a choir service, an ethno lecture and an Andean band rehearsal, and had a good two-hour chat plus tea and flapjacks with Henry Stobart. I think it is true that having something again makes you realize how much you miss it - friends, music, Crossland’s bacon rolls, Royal Holloway - and so being back there made me sad as well as happy, but most importantly it gave me a great thing which is hope. I’d sort of lost that before going down to RHUL, but now I think I’ve got it back again. I’ve got renewed faith the fact that things will get better. I’m now really looking forward to having another year at RHUL, because even though pretty much all my friends will have left by the time I go back I will still be a student again, and there’ll still be Andean band and Henry and choir and gamelan and new friends. And 4 months in the Andes, whatever happens, will still be A Good Experience, and everyone knows how much I adore those. Oh yes.

So hope is good.