I only have to finish the proofreading and last little bits and pieces, then I will no longer have to worry about the huge beast that has been lurking in the background of my life since September. I’m really looking forward to this being out of the way so I can focus on revising for my finals before throwing myself into the last weeks of the election campaign.

Before I realized just how busy i’d be at this time, I decided to attend the FYEG General Assembly in Maastricht, so I’ll be getting back on the train to Brussel on Wednesday morning for a few days of young green stuff. I’m looking forward to when I’m no longer based in Manchester, as I’ll be able to use the nicer and more convenient Flying Scotsman into Kings Cross, instead of the rubbish Virgin service into the horrible Euston. Anyway, I mainly wrote this to play with Wordpress for iPhone, which I finally got working with a little patching of the functions.php file.

Seven thousand words in eight days is my current target. I’m referring to my dissertation, which if all goes well will be complete by Wednesday, ready for proof-reading on Thursday, binding on Friday and handing in on the following Monday. I’m not sure what it is in my mind which makes me work in a last minute way, but it seems to run in the family, like the love of trains which has entrapped all male Redfords. It usually seems to work out well. I’ve already managed to achieve quite good marks on several essays which were each written and submitted within the same twenty-four hour period. I just have to hope that I can pull off a dissertation in a month. It isn’t quite as bad as it sounds though. I have spent the past two terms researching the thing, so now is mainly just a process of writing up notes and plans in a form which has some semblance of a dissertation.

My decision to participate in the Münster University International Model United Nations (MUIMUN) last week was probably not the wisest one as far as time-management goes, but I’m certainly very glad I did it. I was representing the Russian Federation on the UNDP, so I decided to engage in a little characteristic ego-power building (Russia’s ego, not mine of course) by trying to create a developing world bloc under the wing of Moscow. Surprisingly it worked, and all our demands were included in the resolution we produced, with not one policy compromise from Russia. I’m not entirely sure how realistic the warm relationship between Russia and Venezuela was, but it certainly worked to the advantage of both of us.

Anyway, I now have to focus on getting the dissertation completed before the twentieth, so that I can go off to Maastricht for a young green conference with significantly less stress.

After all, I’ll only have finals to deal with then..