My dream of running off to my Sponsored Acre of rainforest with Melapi, my Adopted Orangutan is sounding evermore appealing recently. The romanticism of escaping and living free, with no dissertations, money worries or political scandals to worry about, is always attractive. But what keeps those hunter-gatherer rainforest groups together is a complex kin-network, based on reciprocal co-operation. Therefore, living in a "tribe" is roughly equivalent to spending months travelling around with your entire family. Maybe in the Western world, we have alienated our extended family for good reason – wandering carefree in the jungle is not for us any more.

A letter from Nicaragua:

"Wow...Would LOVE to have you back here again. Would $100 a month working as a volunteer coordinator and managing the new Street Academy Computer LEarning Center be any kind of an incentive? I can´t seem to get the program off the ground...though it´s all set up...new computers and library for kids, everything!...but alas and alack, no volunteers! ¨You could scour the city and drag some in for us, along with the kid street vendors who don´t go to school and need to be literate at least.
Think about it...
Donna"

Off I go again then?!

So, I am thinking about, fantasizing about and reliving Nicaragua. All the best moments in life are unplanned, it seems. I remember that crazy, crazy night with Johanna, laughing until we fell into bed. I lay awake for hours, listening to the surf crash and the calls of thousands of exotic birds. Lying beside her, hearing her breathe so peacefully, silently begging her to roll over in her sleep and come closer, aching for her touch. All totally innocent of course, and all the more exquisite for it. Like many parts of that trip, a beautiful, unforgettable accident of fate.

Another day, another unexpected opportunity. Batty summoned me into her private hovel, to talk dissertations and Phds, or so I thought. But no, she had a favour to ask me. Not knowing what to expect, I agreed instantly; after all, she has basically rescued my dissertation for me and I owe her a lot. The favour is this – give a lecture on street-children in Latin America to the Applied Anthropology module students, over at the Stockton campus. Well, that did my ego some good, to be considered an expert on Latin America. But what on earth am I gonna say?!

Carl has been absolutely wonderful to me recently, and I love him so completely. And I'm scared I don't have time for him. All this talk of the future and everything being so up in the air at the moment; I dunno where I'm going to be next year, dunno what I'll be doing, but I know something has to change. Where will Carl fit into all this?

Read a good book:
"The desire, on one hand, to go on and on, to lean towards infinity. On the other hand, to be caught, completed with no more yearning…" (Sue Wolfe)

I am gloomy. I am panicking. Usually I delight in stress, I work better under pressure, and I seem to have a worry-addiction. I go out of my way to find myself new things to worry about when one such stressful project draws to a close. However, there appears to be a limit on this. When I'm so worried about some things that I can't concentrate on the task in hand, and then get stressed about getting frustrated myself.

AND its pissing it down with rain, the whole town is grey and populated by stressed people always in a hurry…….

My abstract makes the project sounds so boring:

"This study aims to compare and contrast differing attitudes towards education in Nicaragua. Two schools were chosen for comparison purposes, one state primary school, and one primary school set up and run by a Western NGO. Both schools are in Granada, Nicaragua and both are attended by children of roughly the same socio-economic background. The main method of collecting information was through participant observation and informal interviews."

It does go on to explain what I found, thus spoiling the surprise, but that is basically it. A year's work in 67 words. Depressing.

DISSENT magazine is out, and it is wonderful!! My baby. My life's – well, term's – work, completed. And it's purple. Classy! It looks so good, it has finally cheered me up from the Doom and Gloom of the last few days. I have less than two weeks to finish my dissertation, and I have a million other commitments, a nasty head-cold and too little time, but at least one thing I've worked on is something to be proud of. Either that or I am subconsciously celebrating the fact that it is finished and I don't have to worry about it anymore.

FOUND: The Ultimate Stress Relief! Making bread! Vent all your pent up anger on bashing dough about, take your frustrations out on it by kneading. Sit calmly and watch the absurd spectacle of a pot full of white-ish goo slowly grow bigger and bigger as it sits on your radiator. Be comforted by the smell of beer, whilst knowing that you are not actually working in the pub. Fulfil house-proud fantasies by stuffing freshly baked, warm loaves even if you are not hungry.

Just don't work out how much it costs to make, in comparison with buying a pre-sliced loaf.

Education is a way of transmitting culture to the next generation. Education also affects nearly all everyday life, and an educated population can change a whole country. Consequently, if all schools were like Quinta Los Chavalos, with well-paid, devoted teachers, ample resources and manageable class sizes, then Nicaragua would be a very different place. However, all schools are not like this, and are not likely to be in the foreseeable future. As such, Nicaragua remains as much a product of its education system as the education system remains a product of Nicaragua, and this is a difficult circle to break.

More terrorist attacks, this time in Spain. Last week, the MORI people phoned me asking if I was worried about terrorism. Yes, but only after my long list of other worries, such as dissertations, impending unemployment, debts and audience numbers. Maybe I should be more worried. I mean, why Spain? ETA have nothing to gain from bombing a train, and Al-Qaeda shouldn't have anything against Spain. Yes they support the US, but so do we. It's not so much ‘how long before London is attacked?' but more, ‘Why hasn't happened yet?' I'm kinda glad trains don't run in Britain anymore….

So, this afternoon I went down to Stockton and gave my very first lecture to Stocktonite trainee anthropologists. Quite impressed with myself really. Especially since these were third years… Batty forgot to accidentally mention this to me!! So, I was standing there with my Powerpoint presentation on cute little Peruvian street kids, wallowing in pretend expertise and authority, whilst talking to people the same age or older than me, doing the same course as me, and supposedly learning something from me. Quite embarrassing in hindsight, but hey, I survived. I just hope I didn't come across as too up myself!

Reduced Shakespeare Company are back! Woohoo! The best thing to grace the stage at the Gala since this time last year. A brand new show too – The History of Literature (Abridged). God knows how many books they got through, only I'd heard of and read most of them, which was great. I have to admit I didn't get half of their Complete History of America show, knowing sod all about American history. They seemed to spend a lot of time on War and Peace, and I'm sure it never used to have Long John Silver in it. Or Santa Claus.

I have finally met someone worse than me when it comes to stressing about life's little irrelevancies. This would be Dan, who is currently directing ‘Teechers.' I am producing it. From experience, I know that I have the hard job – the admin, the budgeting, scheduling, basically organising everything except the actual artistic look of the show. However, after much difficulty, I have weaned myself off worrying about this, in favour of dissertations and so on. So, Dan is going into overdrive on my behalf, worrying about publicity and room bookings. Dan, matey, its all ok! It's already sorted! Panic not!

Today I am going to write about Hannah, or Rumble as she prefers to call herself. She certainly sticks out at uni. She had a gap year during the course – just vanished to India, Thailand and ended up living in a Tipi in New Zealand – as you do. I admire her incredibly – not just for all her amazing travel and laid back attitude to life, but because after all that, she came back to boring, claustrophobic little Durham, to carry on her degree where she left off. I found coming back so hard, and I only left for a month.

It is done! It is done! It is done! The whole project is handed in, three days early. God I am smug. After weeks of fiddling it, the dissertation was a mere 700 words too long, and at 79 pages, looks impressively chunky. I can't be too smug and proud though, because the only reason why I finished early, is because I have yet another essay to do before Thursday, which I haven't even started. Sometimes life is just plain evil, especially uni life. On the upside, I never have to think about frigging ‘globalisation affecting education policies' ever again.

Can the world get any eviler? Is eviler even a word? I mean, can the world get any more evil, I suppose. Not content with setting a ridiculously long and tedious essay that's worth 25% of the grade for that module, Dr Evil Barton even made the deadline the day before the dissertations have to be in. I actually planned for this, so, just to spite me, he's gone and set another TOTALLY POINTLESS seminar for us, TOMORROW. Do I know anything about the subject? Noooooo. Do I give a shit? Noooooo. Will I end up going anyway? Yes. Sucker.

My little brother would have been eighteen today! Happy Birthday Rohan! A sombre thought, I can't really picture him being eighteen. Probably still skinny, tall and lanky, but I wonder if the trademark cap would have survived? Just about to do his A-levels, probably in Graphics, IT and Maths unless he rebelled at some point. Would he have followed his big sister and gone travelling for a year? He loved the idea of Australia, but I'm not sure he would've gone. Deep down, I think I wouldn't have been so keen to run away either, if he was still around.

I am feeling flat again. Went over to see MadHannah and Soph today, we had wine at Hannah's house, and even Shoo turned up with a million promises of how we ought to see each other more next term (exactly as she said at Christmas!). We did a toast to The End of Stress and congratulated ourselves on surviving The Projects, but none of us had the energy to go out celebrating properly. It all seems an anti-climax. Like with theatre, we've put so much time and energy into this, and now its just gone! All over before we realised.

Carl has finally been bullied into giving an opinion on The Wedding. More specifically, things like music and readings. This can only be a good thing, since I feel I am taking over everything with Bel-ism. We need something to replace the usual religious blurb that a vicar would come out with, something very personal and uniquely us. So, Carl being a scientist and amateur astronomer, he's now suggested the best man read "The Little Cosmic Dust Poem". Oh, and to avoid hymns, I get to walk up the aisle to Smashing Pumpkins' "Beautiful." The subtly of this is amazing.

I've invited my Peruvian family to the wedding; I even translated the invitation into my best Spanish. It's a lot to ask, a flight over here is not only 17 hours on a plane, but probably costs several months salary for them. Still, I love them to come. I keep thinking of the things I'd show Allison, to translate our culture, just as I had to over there. I wonder what they'd make of our wedding? Its hardly the traditional Catholic ceremony they'd expect, although if they'd like to contribute Coca leaves for an Andean ceremony, I'm not gonna decline!!

FEED day. I am celebrating the fact that for once, I'm not alone in Durham for the Easter break. Both Soph and Hannah, and a few others are around, so I invited them all over for a Feed. This term's Feed was Greek, since I've never made it before. I did the hugest Mousakka you have ever seen, and then had to make another one minus the lamb, for Taz-the-Veggie. It was DAMN good, though I said it myself!! I even made olive bread, to dunk in the tsaziki dip. Laura's real ale didn't quite go, but hey, who cares?

Sitting on the bus, watching in horrified fascination. Youngish, rough looking woman has just got on, with two kids in tow. Her little girl, a toddler, desperately wants to sit at the back of the bus, but the woman has to park her pushchair at the front. The little girl runs off, until the mother starts yelling at her, swearing and everything. The now-frightened little girl starts screaming and crying, and falls over as the bus rounds a corner. The mother chases after her, abandoning the baby in the pushchair, who also starts wailing.

I never ever ever want kids.

Am thinking about this PhD again. The university have been encouraging about the actual project proposal, but also downright unhelpful when it comes to giving me practical advice, like where do I get funding? I enjoyed doing my undergrad dissertation, I liked being given a year to write a book on whatever I chose. My topic was interesting enough for me to want to continue. However, the burning issue at the moment is, do I want to carry on for another four years living like a student, running up yet more debts, and living in the North East? Maybe not.

Of course, if I do end up doing my PhD at Durham, we can stay put quite easily. I can theoretically support myself by working at the pub. I made the mistake of telling Tich I'd finished uni for Easter, so he has taken it upon himself to give me every spare shift under the sun, to the extent I've been in everyday this week. Only four hours at a time thank god, but enough to make my brain melt with the tedium of it. Maybe I need to keep studying to keep the grey-matter alive during Thursday afternoon shifts…

Selling myself again, at least on paper. Filling out endless applications for jobs I'm not sure I want, and trying to convince people I am perfectly capable of doing the jobs, even though I have very little practical experience. The Newspaper informed me that one reason why women still get paid more than men, is because we apparently do not feel comfortable pointing out our ‘talents and assets' in salary negotiations. Personally, I would put that down more to male arrogance than female modesty. I mean, who actually enjoys writing out their employment history, over and over? I certainly don't.

I have Curls! Proper, untidy, Medieval-style waves in my hair. And all it cost me was £30 and two hours of my time spent under a huge head-blower, reminiscent of a Darth Vader mask. Oh, that and the whole effect will only last 24hours….
Still, at least I know the Mop will curl for the wedding. I've never had a single curl in my entire life. My Mum tried to do ringlets for me once when I was eight, and got the hotbrush stuck in my hair. She had to cut it out, leaving me with a Mullet. Not good.

I'm convinced the members of the Working Men's Club live in their own private time zone. Either that, or the entire upstairs bar is a time vacuum – normal time cannot penetrate it, and the whole room exists in its own little unreality bubble. Everyone in there still does the dances they did when they were teens, fifty years ago. When the club singer claims to be singing the ‘oldies' he/she is generally referring to songs from the 1920s, and the 50s and 60s songs need no such introduction. The place even has drab wartime décor, that just screams "Mustn't grumble."

Talking of the club singers…. Oh dear god. The problem the club has, is that various members of the committee hire out these singers, but never actually venture upstairs to hear what they are like. And sometimes you really need to hear to believe! You can guarantee that all female singers will do Tina Turner, Shania Twain and Cher. Men will do Sinatra, Tom Jones, Ronan Keating and, if they're feeling inspired, that song off the car ad by the Mavericks. Every week the same, and every week, the same old folks dance all the same dances and clap appreciatively.

THE PARTY! The pub staff Christmas party, in March. Much beer was had by all, with none of us paying a penny. This resulted in forced karaoke, and all eight of us wailing down mics, as if in pain. I maintain, the committee are sadistic. Dawn fell over about midnight, and remain spread-eagled on the floor for a good 20 minutes before someone rescued her again. Carl turned up for an honourary free beer but refused to dance with me. And I dutifully drank everything that was put in front of me, and talked utter bollocks at Tichie until 4am.

Christ, I am so crap at this….. Haven't finished March properly at all. And now can't even bring myself to type, cos they keyboard is too noisy for my damaged and suffering head. Yes folks! Bel is hungover. Yet again. Actually, this particular bout of alcohol poisoning is far worse than anything I've experienced for a long time. I can't move. I throw up if I eat, and it takes A LOT to put me off food. I didn't get out of bed til 2pm, and then all I could do was lie on the sofa watching crappy daytime TV…