I climbed what is controversially the highest mountain in Wales!

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Some say that the mountain I climbed in the Brecon Beacons National Park, carrying CAVRA's entire water supply for six hours on my back, in the sleet and the mist and the mud and the wind and the sheep, is not the highest mountain in Wales. But it sure felt like it. Luckily CAVRA's emergency rations (which I also had to carry - the curse of being the only person in the group who voluntarily runs in their spare time) include Mars Bars and custard cream biscuits, so I was rather easily appeased at the summit. There was so much mist and fog the whole time that we could barely see the ridges we were walking on, which gave the whole hike this surreally beautiful, mystical quality (even the sheep). Being the only CAVRAn in my entire house also allowed me the chance to go home (and yes, I do call it 'home' now) and savor my extra emergency rations in the dayroom, slowly enough to inflict the maximum amount of torture on my constantly hungry Swiss friend Victor. I really do feel like I'm living and going to school here now, not just swimming in the Bristol Channel and climbiong mountians and singing the Queen of the night aria from The Magic Flute at summer camp. I wrote my first unbelievably cheesy six-page English essay on William Blake's The Tyger yesterday, and my first maths test was today (we were given forty minutes, and I was one of three people in the entire class who finished). However, I still can't really understand the first-years who stay up until 2 in the morning studying, as there simply isn't that much to study for us yet. We've started composing in Music now, which is rather daunting as everyone else is writing largos for a string quartet while I'm writing for a full jazz band, and I'm not sure the teacher is too happy with it ; I'm getting the sense that he likes me because he directs Madrigals, but he thinks I'm just being rebellious by writing a jazz piece. Ah well, there are worse things to be.Like being someone who eats in the cafeteria every day...since some days the thought of soggy potato croquettes and chicken drowned in unrecognizable red sauce (which may very well just be salmonella, in semi-congealed liquid form) on a bed of overcooked sticky rice is just not very appealing, I've basically learned to cook in four weeks (maybe I should write a book?). Rice pudding, chicken-asparagus sir fry, bean salad, penne carbonara, nutella-strawberry smoothies - they have all made an appearance in the Morgannwg kitchen over the course of the past week. Who knew it was so easy to make friends?

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