The last fortnight has been just a little bit crazy. I’m now into the exam period, and the last leg of my undergraduate degree, so in just over 25 days I should be free from academia until at least September (when, all things going to plan, I should be starting a masters at Universiteit Leiden). Technically this continuation of studies makes me no more liberated from scholarly endeavours than any other summer holiday for the past three years has done, but the feeling of getting away from all the problems of MMU and letdowns of Manchester (don’t get me wrong, the place has its good points, they just seem outnumbered sometimes) is one I look forward to very much.

Last week I had a very poorly timed trip to Maastricht for the FYEG General Assembly. It was much fun, but I couldn’t get the guilt of not being at home revising for my human rights exam out of my head. As usual, the Netherlands proved itself to be beautiful and almost perfect in every way. I say almost perfect, because the darker side of one of the city parks was revealed on Saturday night, when two FYEGers were subject to a homophobic attack on their walk back to the hostel. The injuries weren’t too severe, though they looked painful. Of all the places for such an attack to happen, I wouldn’t have thought of Maastricht. I guess it shows how much work greens and other tolerant people have left to do.

Just now though, I’m trying to avoid too much politics until I get finals out of the way. It’s a task easier said than done when revising for a green politics exam.

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..