To be a finished finalist - how does it feel?

Great, amazing, fantastic, and far more positive adjectives. Suddenly all the stresses and strains of the past few months are just fading away. I feel like a butterfly, emerging from the cocoon of the library, able to stretch my wings and sparkle again having been enclosed for so long. The days are now filled with punting and pimms and barbeques and lazing out on the grass... my kind of life.

There was a BBQ at my philosophy tutor's house yesterday. It was so lovely! She lives in one of the villages just outside of oxford in an old cottage with a huge, wild garden - lots of hidden paths. We wandered through and came upon a castle (well it wasn't a castle, more an abbey, but still a pretty cool thing to have at the end of the garden). Finally got to know the first year ppeists - better late than never huh. They are far cooler than my year - cool in the trendy sense, we are cool too of course, but in a different way, whilst the 2nd yrs I think are the most studious ones of the three.

I've emailed everyone for reading suggestions for my year of culture. It's fantastic, not only do I now have stacks to read - there will be no excuses for boredom next year, but the recommendations people send give me a little insight into them. What they like, their cultural reference points, what books have influenced them. It's interesting to see where my reading intersects with others and where our favourites overlap. Johann sent a five page list filled with the canons of literature and film - now I know why he is so erudite, having read all of those already. Raph a friend of mine who works at Pearson, has sent me a list of multicultural modern classics, including a few that haven't even been published yet. But whether the lists have been short or long, advance previews or tried and tested classics I am still loving receiving them. If you haven't already sent me your list please do!

I decided to take my hair out this week - figured with all this time on my hands I could cope with having it loose. It fitted in with the post-finals feeling of liberation. It's really cool. I keep finding all these hidden curls and really tight spirals and ringlets that I didn't know existed. I hear it has also become a bit of a talking point around college as well - me and my fantastic versatile hair.