scumbum vs railways, banks and cambridge dons
This will be quite long.. (fnar fnar)

I have just arrived home from my interview to do Philosophy at Queens College Cambridge, after an ordeal in which I triumphed over every cricumstance that could have been engineered against me.

I started tuesday unsure of where I was sleeping once I arrived whether I did actually have a reserved room at Queens or would be staying at my uncles, but I was at least fairly confident of getting to cambridge using my mums cash card.

On tuesday morn I woke up and called the college, they said they did have my booking and that was ACE.

Then I went to the first bank machine I walked past on the way to the station and tried to get money out. WRONG PIN NUMBER. Thats cool though, I'm not worried yet and I have a half hour wait at ManPic anyway. So I decided to try again from manchester and call mummy from a payphone because I had no credit because I couldnt get money out because I didnt have the correct pin.

I spent 3 of my 7 quid payphoning my mum and only got her answer phone.

At this point I only have 4 quid of my own money left for a potentially 60 pound train journey. So I rang superbestfriend Daniel and got him to ring me back, then we had to go through all the rigmarole of ordering a fast ticket collection over the net because you dont need a pin number. So I missed the train I wanted but I did have a ticket.

Except the machine said I didnt have a ticket.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

So I tried all the machines and they all said no. So I started to panic. What must one do in a time of panic? Remember your primary school education thats what. So I went and asked a grown up. Who told me that it would take 3-4 hours to prcess. In the end it only took 2. So that was excellent.

I got on the train with no money left to get the one stop connection from Ely to Cambridge which you're not allowed to book online for some reason. And I still had no means of phoning ahead.

So I turn on my notoriously devastating charm (just ask ya mam, spouse, or lover if you dont believe me) and eventually the woman I sat let me send messages asking for a lift off my uncle. Except my uncle replies and says he doesnt have a car.

Minor moment of panic but then he agrees to pay for my ticket from ely and come and get me in person. Immediately after this my mum called me having just got my message 6 hours after I left it. She HAD told me the wrong pin number and the 4 digits i'd written on my chest in marker pen were indeed useless.

So eventually I got to Queen's and the actual interview went pretty well. The journey back passed without much incident.

And there endeth the most stressful 3 days of my life to date.
(scumbum, Thu 7 Dec 2006, 16:34, Reply)