Wilf Wilson

And self consciousness sinks in.

Guys who I know (hi Dave!) have found out about my blog, so now I’m going to have to defend it in person rather than against abstract concepts (hi WiBu!).

I was up until 4 am last night, packing a few bits, but mainly setting my computer to how I wanted it whilst I still had my own internet connection.

I’d read the relevant information on St Andrews’ website, and as far as I could tell ((Those things are never clear, are they?)) there’d be a lot of restrictions. Basically, you’re only supposed to use your internet connection for university-related things, but I thought that’s probably what all universities says; it doesn’t mean they enforce it.

But I’m here now and I’m can definitively say that… it’s pretty bad. Whilst I was able to purchase Monkey Island 1 & 2 (59p each!) from iTunes and download them in only a few seconds, I couldn’t load steam in online mode. That means no steam chat, no downloading games, and no playing multiplayers or games that I don’t already have install. At least I’ll still be able to purchase through the website. Skype can’t log in either. [UPDATE: Skype works actually] Peer to peer software is out of the question.

I knew this was going to be the case but: there’s no Wi-Fi here. That means, in halls at least, I’ll no longer be able to use my iPod to read my emails, browse Facebook and Twitter, read my RSS feeds and Instapaper, use Game Center, and do pretty much anything else on my iPod beside listen to music and play games.

I wonder what else doesn’t work? I’ll see…

But it’s not that important, I’ll make do. I was up at 8, and my bed’s made. I think I’ll go for a nap now.

P.S. They supplied me with an ethernet cable! I even reaches from the socket to my bed – ace.

I’d like to dedicate this post to Murray, who walked past reading on his way home from work just as I was starting this post. He looked up from his novel towards my house, but I don’t know if he saw me looking back. Hi Murray, and thanks Mum, for pointing out that Murray was walking past.

I always have a strange feeling when there’s something big coming up. It’s how I felt before I traveled around France, and how I often felt during the last few days of the summer holidays. It’s how I feel right now, too.

I’m moving to university this Saturday, the 18th of September. This is my last Sunday at home before I move to university, but to be honest I wish it wasn’t. I want my move to St Andrews to remain a safe month or so away. That’d be close enough that living the amazing life of student will feel near, but I will still be able to do what I want ?and there’ll nothing urgent that needs doing. Not yet.

It’s not because I think it’s going to be shit. In fact, I tell myself that I’m going to love it, that I’ll have a great time, and I think I believe it. I’m going to a place that I like studying a subject that really interests me. I look at my friends who didn’t take a gap year and went straight to university – particularly Ruairidh and his flatmates – and I see that they love being university students. I joined them overnight in Glasgow a few times and they were some of the highlights of my gap year. They’re counting down the days until they return to Glasgow, that’s how much they enjoy being at university.

Why, then, am I still apprehensive? There’s a couple of small points that I can think of:

• I will know absolutely no one at the university when I begin. Even though St Andrews’ university is the second closest to Perth after Dundee, no one from my school year group nor from my brother’s ((Who was in the year below me at school.)) from Perth Academy has decided to study at St Andrews University. That’s weird. It could be because they’re not clever enough to get in, but hardly anyone even applied so that’s hard to know. Or it could be that they think St Andrews is too posh – maybe that’s why they all went to Glasgow.
  • Ruairidh, on the other hand, was already good friends with two of his 5 flatmates at Strathclyde. That’s nice.
  • FYI, I think St Andrews University is a good university in a nice place and a decent location. That’s why I chose it.
• I’ve still got loads of things to do before I can start university, much of which I’m not sure how to do ((The worst type of task is one which is poorly defined or which you don’t know how to complete. More on that another time.)). Before I go, I need to do online matriculation, I have to provisionally pick my modules for my first year, I need to upload a photo for my student ID card, and there are plenty of other forms to fill out. Once at St Andrews, there’ll be plenty more to do – matriculation, meeting my adviser of studies, and sorting out funding. There are also plenty of other things I need to do whilst I’m still at home. Also: I have to pack.
  • I know it sounds like I’m moaning, but don’t take it like that. I just can’t get excited about something when there’s this much stuff that I have to do before it becomes a reality. And yes, I know everyone else has to do all this too.
• I’ve been out of education or full-time anything for well over a year now. Will I be able to cope with everything? Not only will the work be much harder than at school (much of which I have probably forgotten), but I’ll have to look after myself too now.

On the whole, they’re only slight distractions from my enjoyment – and knowing no one might even be a good thing. I’ll probably make more friends that way.

I think the main reason is that I’ll be leaving my comfort zone. It’s an annoying term but I think it captures the idea well.? It’s difficult for me to be excited about moving to university when I’m so comfortable at home with my family. Why would I want to leave somewhere like that? Some people might find Perth boring, but for me it’s just fine: pretty, decent weather, and lots of places to walk. People assume I’ve been bored on my gap year, but I’ve loved it. ?I never get bored at home whereas my friends are so bored at home over the summer break that they can’t wait to go back to university. Had I won the lottery during my gap year and had enough money to sustain me for life, perhaps I would have stayed living here for ever. You know, I wouldn’t do that, but if I did I think I’d be happy doing it.

Maybe that’s sad. When you hear about someone reluctant to leave their comfort zone, you think of some pathetic person lacking in confidence and self-esteem. But I don’t think that describes me; indeed I think the majority of people prefer to stay in their comfort zone. And it’s not a major problem: ?my reluctance isn’t stopping me from moving to university, it’s only stopping me from getting excited about it.? That means I’ll get a nice reward of satisfaction when, some time after moving to university, I come to realise just how cool it really is. Unless it isn’t. But it will be. Right? Until that point, however, this feeling sucks.

P.S. Before I leave with you too gloomy an impression, there are certain points I’m very much looking forward to:

• Having my own room again.
• Living right next to a beach and on the coast in general.
• Living near an RAF airbase.
• Hardcore learning and facing challenges.
• Making friends.

P.P.S. I’m interested to see what my feelings are at this point next year.

Much has happened since my last post, and I would have written about it to record my state of mind had circumstances been different. However, history did not differ from reality.

Last Wednesday, just after I published the previous post, Apple announced a stunningly cool new iPod touch. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I hope to buy one in the near future (before Christmas). I hope you enjoy yours Ruairidh. As I had expected, the Terms and Conditions of Apple’s Back to School offer restricted my choice to previous generation iPods (the iPod classic was unchanged, meaning that technically there is one current generation iPod that I could have bought).

Fair enough.

On Thursday, with money transferred and everything ready, I placed my order with Nigel:

• £858 MacBook Pro, 13.3″ screen, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2x2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, and so on. It’s the cheapest MacBook Pro currently available.
• £90 HP Photosmart Wireless Printer ((I thought it was worth paying £20 for a wireless printer, it’ll be much handier than a wired one.)).
• £152 8GB 3rd generation iPod touch ((I say 3rd generation, though it’s almost exactly the same as the 2nd generation 8GB iPod touch.)).
• £47 AppleCare upgrade to my warranty.

(I will hopefully receive a rebate of £200 for the printer and iPod.)

And that was that: estimated shipping was within 24 hours; estimated delivery was either the next day, Friday 3rd, or the following Monday or Tuesday. Now, you know already that none of these things happened, as I would have posted something immediately upon delivery, probably a photo of me passing out from fanboyism. But no.

My order didn’t ship on Thursday.

And then stuff started to happen.

For some reason, I started to research the warranty that I had purchased. It was not easy, but I slowly pieced information together. Unbeknownst to me – and I realise that I should have researched this more fully prior to placing my order – all Macs bought through Apple’s Higher Education store come with a complimentary 3 year hardware warranty, as well as a year of telephone support. I had purchased the AppleCare ‘uplift’ to that warranty, which meant that I had a 3 year hardware warranty and 3 years of telephone support. Stupidly, I hadn’t thought to ask what the basic warranty was; I was assuming that it was Apple’s basic 1 year hardware warranty with 90 days of phone support – not 3 years and 1 year!

The next morning, Friday, I woke early after worrying about this the previous night. I got up and called Apple to confirm the information that I had found out. Thanks to conflicting reports, after my research I was unsure whether or not, under the basic Higher Education warranty, Apple would collect and return my computer free of charge if it required servicing (as opposed to having to take it to an Apple Store). As far as I remember, the representative said, yes, this is included. That’s good. I also asked about telephone support – apparently that’s what you call if you want to know how to use the Finder or something. It can cost £35 a call. Oh well, I don’t need that. I have Google.

I’ll keep my £47 thank you very much, and thank you whoever got Apple to agree to a 3 year warranty for Higher Education customers. That’s saved me a lot of money ((Had the £47 warranty extension extended my hardware warranty from 1 to 3 years, I totally would have bought it.)).

I cancelled it with no problems after being on the phone for around 30 minutes discussing everything with various people ((I hope those calls weren’t expensive.)).

My order didn’t ship on Friday, and I was disappointed. It wouldn’t ship over the weekend.

My order didn’t ship on Monday, and this was worrisome. The shipping estimate was within 24 hours, and it was now well over 48 hours, so I called Apple. After dodging the robot voice, I asked the representative ((Asian accent this time. When cancelling my warranty, I spoke to 2 Americans, and Irishman and an Asian.)) where the hell my order was. After being on hold for even longer, he didn’t know, and he escalated the problem. I would have a response within “12 [working] hours”. Of course, I had no response, but a response wasn’t necessary.

On Tuesday, at around 18:00, I checked my order status. It had just changed from “Not yet shipped”… to “Shipped“! Jesus fuck, finally.

I received my tracking number later on, and my package was in Tamworth! This morning it arrived at Dundee at about 10, but I assumed that this was too late to be part of the day’s deliveries. I had plans to see George at any rate, so I went out, not expecting my order to arrive.

Well, I returned home and saw the little UPS slip. That’s life for you. It had been delivered at the of the few times in the past couple of weeks that the house has been empty! FUCK!

I’m going to stay in tomorrow so I can receive my order (even though there’ll be others in).

Wow, what a boring story and a weak ending. At least I’m excited. It’s coming tomorrow!