Grrr...

The internet decided to fail me again. Ah well, worse things happen in space. (or was it at sea?) I managed to save what I'd written last night as a word document, but before I post it, I'd like to share something that happened today.

This morning, after breakfast, I had some free time so I decided to see if there was anything good on CBBC. (And I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Young Dracula is awesome!)

Anyway, I was watching the telly (sitting next to the window) when I noticed a daddy long-legs (crane fly) trying to get out. So I did what any true gentleman would do and opened the window. It flew straight out the window (on it's on initiative, I didn't need to coax it or anything) and into a spider's web. All but one of its six legs was trapped, and it struggled gallantly, even managing to free one of its legs, but eventually it fell still, and its captor (a 2cm, round, fat, garden spider) approached. Upon seeing the spider, the daddy long-legs again started to struggle, but it was too late. The spider climbed on top of its prey, and the struggling ceased. I watched as it carefully wrapped up the bundle. (It was a surprisingly tight package, especially considering the length of those legs.) It then painstakingly removed the package from its surroundings and carried it to a place near the web's anchors, and began repairing the web where it was broken.

I've been thinking about it a lot today, and I feel it illustrates the nature of life. Death could come any second. We struggle so hard to make our lives work, to find meaning and purpose and comfort. Sometimes I think it's the struggle that defines us. We are who we are, and we live to fight against the constraints and dangers of the world we live in. But again, we don't know the future. A meteorite (or a plane, or anything really) could fall out of the sky and kill me this instant. It's unlikely (and I don't think meteorites have ever killed a human being) but there's no universal law that says it couldn't happen.

But as I was saying, life is a series of little hurdles. Some of them we cross, some of them we don't. And some of them are more vital than others. Take that crane fly. It was struggling against a barrier it couldn't see. Then, in a random act of kindness on my part, I took away the barrier and in its last moments of freedom it tasted fresh air again. But a second later it was trapped again, and this time, death came quickly.

And on that note, here's what happened yesterday:

Something freaky happened today. I said I wasn't going to let paranoia ruin my life, and I'm sure this is just coincidence (and a pretty loose connection at that), but still, the what-ifs are driving me ... crazier?

Heh, you might already know I had a Physics test today. If not then, I had a Physics test today. It was first thing, and I finished early so I decided to log on and see if anyone had updated (after I finished my sandwich of course ^_^). I only had time to post one comment before A joined me (and I can't let my friends know I have a blog). B was soon to follow, and we still had half an hour before Maths so we decided to surf YouTube (with all the hillarity/conflict you would expect). In fact, I think I'll share this classic with you before I carry on:



So we stayed on the computer until around five minutes before class was due to start. Just as we got upstairs (all my classes are on the second floor, despite there being classrooms on the first and third floors) the fire alarm went off.

Now, my college has a strange alarm. It's basically a calm, authoritative (= male English), voice saying that an alarm's gone off, people have been sent to check it, and we might have to evacuate. At least, that's the first-stage alarm. (Until today I hadn't heard the second stage, and I'd only heard the first stage because they test the system every Friday in the middle of Chemistry.)

We waited at the top of the stairs for a few minutes, looking out the window (we were right above the front door), waiting to see if it would switch off or change. Eventually we saw people leaving the building en masse, but the alarm was still repeating the same message. We didn't know what to do, so we decided to go downstairs to see what was happening. When we got to the first floor, we found that the alarm had changed to the same calm, authoritative (= male English), voice now saying that it was an emergency and we should "please evacuate the building".

When we got to the ground floor, the smell was rancid - reminiscent of burnt orange peel. We were ushered out by safety officers and had to make our way to the park behind the college. We weren't able to see if any fire engines turned up, but twenty minutes later we were once again climbing two flights of stairs to get to Maths. And as it turned out, the second floor hadn't had an order to evacuate, and everybody else was sitting in class.

Nobody there was sure if it was intentional, and I'm not likely to find out without sounding paranoid and/or obsessive. Apparently the kitchen went on fire. [I don't know how extensive the damage is, but the cantine was closed for the rest of yesterday (wed) and today (thurs).] The freaky thing is, my Maths classroom is right above the kitchen (well, two floors above).

None of us on the second floor were in any danger, and it was only by chance that A, B and I were evacuated, but it's freaked me out nonetheless. I don't know what to make of it.