Student Diaries 2004: Darren

I'm at Keele University for the next three years studying Computing and History, and have turned up three days early so I can do a bit of mobility and route-learning around campus with my white cane before the rest of the students turn up and get in my way.

On arrival at uni we conveniently bumped into the mobility officer I was due to meet up with tomorrow morning. She was able to show us to my room. I'm very fortunate to be on the ground floor, with an on-suite room as I requested.

Unfortunately, I am quite literally the only resident in a block built to accommodate several hundred, as everyone else is due to arrive Saturday.

Got up and ready to meet my mobility officer for some serious campus orientation lessons. With her help, I quickly got to grips with the main route to and from the Learning Support building, which turns out to be the basis for many other routes elsewhere.

We were joined by an officer from Assist to look through my timetable. Assist are in charge of organising note-taking support at the university.

I got back to halls around 12.30pm, and I was very much hoping that I'd be sharing with some international students, for whom today was their certified day of arrival. No such luck. While I heard doors and creaks from somewhere upstairs, I got lost trying to chase it, so in the end I gave up and had lunch alone.

Our kitchen is equipped with an unusual unit which is a convection and microwave all-in-one thing. I had no idea how to use it so my food options for the rest of the day were limited to a sandwich, an apple, half a bottle of sparkling peach-flavoured water, and a flake ice-cream dessert bought from the supermarket yesterday.

Made a point of asking my mobility officer this morning to show me how to use the microwave before we did anything else.

At 9.00am, we set out to learn some new routes. We revisited yesterday's route to the Learning Support building, and then covered the way to the main history building. I learnt where the pigeonholes and stuff were.

Next on our list were the Computer Science block and the post room. It took some time to get used to the main route to these buildings though, because there's no paving on one side of the road, and on the other there are lots of over-hanging branches to bang into.

It's definitely a good thing to turn up early at university if you need to learn routes, but the only people I've seen so far are members of staff. Still, tomorrow is bound to change all that.

Another early start! Today's the day of all days - the day when university life kicks off, and I have to go and register as a student.

The first big task for me that morning was to be able to travel unaided to Learning Support. I came out of the front door of the block as per normal and crossed the first road. I then turned left and proceeded down the pavement, and followed the corner round to the right to find the main road as expected. But, somehow, I soon managed to stray onto a random footpath I'd never seen before. I decided to keep going and not turn back and was eventually intercepted by the driver of a delivery vehicle, who offered me a lift. Several maps later, a pencil or two further down the line, and with the combined knowledge of a psychology tutor and several other students and kind/gentle/quiet members of the public, I made it to the Learning Support building, and surprisingly arrived early to meet the person Assist had arranged to help me register. It took an hour and I successfully found my way back to halls.

As students began to arrive, I found my nerves mounting for the rest of Saturday afternoon. I'm usually a pretty confident person when approaching new people, but I felt extremely reluctant to follow everyone's advice of politely knocking on doors and introducing myself. So instead, I just went next door into the kitchen, found some more stuff from my freezer shelf and set about making tea.

As it turned out, this was easily the best move I could have made. I didn't have to wait long for almost everyone else in our corridor to make an appearance, and with more than one person to talk to it was far easier to gloss over my disability. To be honest, it was this which sort of worried me about introducing myself one on one. As a disabled student, I know I'll perhaps have to rely on my flatmates for a bit of direction-finding until I know the routes to all the important places like the nearest laundrette, the library and, of course, the student union. Fortunately, that has so far not proved a barrier.

Later, we all decided to go hit the union for a night out. Naturally I was one of the first there ready; I've not really been out much since leaving all my pals behind at boarding school at the beginning of summer, so I was going to make the most of this.

We had a fantastic time, although it has to be said that the union, pumping out extremely loud music, was a nightmare for me! I tried to keep up with the conversation as best I could, but ended up just smiling a lot. Not being able to see facial expressions or do a little remedial lip-reading really hampers you in these situations if you can't see. So I stayed put, deciding not to try and circulate more: I was reluctant to disorientate myself and lose my new mates in the process.

Before I knew it though, I was surrounded by more great people. In fact, while I've been here, I'm positive I've made far more acquaintances than anyone else in our corridor. In the end, I went back with them, and was startled to find out the next morning that the others from my corridor left just after me. Am I really the missing link?

Woke up and went next door to meet up with everyone else from our corridor. We began a busy day by actually attending a lecture about living in halls, and then went off to get some other stuff sorted out.

We then went back to halls where I signed onto the internet successfully. I then got a call from the guys who bumped into me last night, and we arranged to go out to one of the other bars on campus later. Cool. I'm one for going out for a quieter more civilised social drink, but I'm not really into the clubbing thing to be honest. I'm sure I would be if I didn't need my hearing quite so much, but there you go.

None of my Disability Students' Allowance-funded access equipment has arrived, and so at the moment I'm being supported by a human note-taker in all my lectures.

After a coffee, I had to go back to the Computer Science building for some meetings with various tutors about my access needs.

It seems that all the computer systems I am expected to use on the course are currently inaccessible. For those who know, it's XWindowws, Gnome and Java programming.

I did my best to suggest solutions, but it's looking like I'll have to use an assistant to read the screen out to me.

We ended the meeting with me agreeing to go off and research accessibility to their systems.

While there clearly will be difficulties, I honestly can't say a bad word about anyone from the department. They are all very willing to help wherever they can, and I've always found where that's the case then it's more than half way to solving any access issues.

Third nine o'clock start in succession.

Yesterday's lectures were great; I can tell I'm really going to enjoy it here. Today though, it was an introduction to one of the four complementary studies modules.

For various complex reasons, I am only permitted to take a Geology module called 'This Is Planet Earth'.

So I find myself studying rock and mineral formation for the first time in over seven years. Distressingly, practical experiments are an assessed portion of the module and the specialist scientific lab equipment is not available to me. Actually, never in my life have I independently conducted any sort of scientific experiment. Even when I was at mainstream school (where I last attended science classes) I was afraid of all the lab equipment, so instead I just observed experiments carried out by other people.

The first assessed piece of coursework for this module is to create a PowerPoint presentation of rock samples, including animations. Bit of an issue. It turns out that the first time the tutor knew I was on the course was when I went up to him at the end of our introductory lecture to explain my difficulties. Well, we'll see if I can do this or not.

My faith in their module allocation system having evaporated, I returned to my room to seek out information about the complementary Solar System course I am to take.

The course materials are on the intranet thankfully, but I had thought this module would be about basic mathematical principles. But no, that would be far too simple. Instead, the module assignments are based on highly graphical software only available in the Physics computing lab. All four assignments seem to involve this software. Oh dear.

Wow. Today was my first chance for a lie-in since Sunday, and boy did I embrace it!

My one and only lecture was at 11.00am - a programming lecture, which went well.

I spent the afternoon composing a detailed e-mail with all my concerns about the Solar System module to its co-ordinator, in order that I can find out just how feasible it would be for me to take the course, or whether the only option is to pick an alternative module somehow.

Went to the shop, bought a pizza and ate it.

Again, only the one lecture this morning. I've now become very familiar with the route to the Learning Support building, and so I can now get there in about half the time it would have taken me last week.

Internet is down. Very annoying.

Later, another night out. This time, after setting out with two fellow flatmates, we split up and I found a guy who was really the first non-corridor bloke I met last week. I spent the evening with him, and when I'd had enough of the boom boom boom upstairs in the union, he even had the decency to show me to the place in the union where you can get a great large portion of chips very cheaply. They were great! He also showed me back to my halls. I was still alert enough to notice when he was heading the wrong way.

Before bed, I checked the internet again, but still no go. I just don't get it!

Feeling very relaxed.

I knew I had e-mail waiting for me, but the internet connection was still down. I decided to go to the Library to access it.

I don't yet know the route, but I had no hesitation in asking one of my most excellent flatmates for assistance.

It turned out that they have a very old version of the Supernova screenreader on the Keele network, so I couldn't access my mail there either.

Being as there is a webmail version of Keele Mail, I called my Dad back home in High Wycombe, got him to logon to my mail and read it to me down the phone.

Off the cuff, we decided that it would be a great idea to drive to the cinema and take advantage of the 23.00 showing of DodgeBall that night. So that's what we did - aren't cars great things!

Having come from a boarding school populated by blind teenagers, I still find it weird being driven about the place by people younger than me.

Yet another lie-in! None of us did much today - just a little glancing through our handbooks in preparation for tomorrow's first full day of real lectures.

One of our flatmates, Steve, hasn't been seen for about five days now. We've all been wondering where he might be. We're all feeling a little bit guilty because we are worrying that we might be a little bit responsible for his disappearance.

A few days ago we were all having a bit of fun at his expense. He's a mature student and has a girlfriend, as a mature studen would. So we found ourselves in a nightclub surrounded by lots of female students. Jokingly, we single freshers suggested that maybe he should start thinking about a newer, younger model to take her place now that he's here at university and starting a new life. We all thought it was very funny, but then we were all very drunk.

We were worried that we'd perhaps gone a bit far, because we've just not seen him around the flat since Tuesday. No sounds from his room, no dirty pots in the kitchen that could have been his, no nothing. Let's hope he turns up soon; he's a nice guy, and maybe we're all being a bit sensitive here, but we like him and hope he hasn't taken offence and that it has nothing to do with us.

Having compiled my timetable, I've discovered that most of my lectures are at the start of the week, so my first full day of study mmeans almost five hours of continuous work. It'll do me good.

Nationalism was the subject of my first History seminar. My tutor has provided the relevant learning materials on a disk, although I'm unsure yet as to how I can get hold of materials to support my observations, as the books I'll need to aid in my research are still stuck in the post. Also, I still don't have a reader, not to mention any scanning equipment to scan print books in to my computer.

Later, I went to the science block, where I still have zero access to their computers because they use Gnome in order to access the Linux operating system (stick with me here, it's an issue). Am working on it.

It seems that most people in our group are really confident already about the library, and about their course. It'll be some while before I can entirely share in their confidence, as at this stage there seem to be all sorts of other issues I need to consider that are irrelevant to most students. However, I know it's only a matter of time before I can start to relax about these things, as I'm sure I'll soon get used to the routine of academic life ... but I need to sleep.

Still no Steve, by the way.

I got my wish of a good night's sleep, so much so that I was very close to being late. I just about managed to hold it together for the 9.00am start, though.

Sat through two Computer Science lectures: programming then hardware and software. Having very nearly fallen asleep in both of them, I was glad to return to halls, where I spent the rest of the day reading up on the accessibility options available for Gnome. It seems that there are two different screen readers available, although installation and configuration for both appear complicated.

Back at halls I walked into the kitchen and, blow me down, there was Steve. Um, I didn't ask him where he'd been.

The denizens of our corridor congregated in the dining area as per usual that evening. We were all mighty relieved to see that Steve was back.

Had a really interesting lecture this morning from the 'This is Planet Earth' module: an overview of the Earth's known history in relation to the Solar System and the galaxy. However, all is not well in the practical. As I'd predicted, our first task was indeed to produce a PowerPoint presentation. Although I have the software, I'm not familiar with PowerPoint. It would take me an awful long time to learn it because it's not greatly accessible. Point and click easy-to-use applications are often the most unusable for me. Oh, and it also crashed my computer 5 times.

After discussions with the tutor, we concluded that the most sensible course of action would be for me to change to another module. Learning Support are now helping me find an alternative.

Hurrah, great news! I finally have in my hands a letter approving my application for Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA). So it's now only a matter of time before my computer access equipment gets ordered, which will be rather helpful, I think you'll agree.

I need sleep!

Have now ordered my DSA equipment. I probably won't get it for several weeks yet, but it's a start at least!

The quietest day on the timetable, but one of the busiest of the week. It would be wrong not to compliment our lecturer this morning, as he had just the right style to keep all us early risers going. Good lecturers have an extra dimension to their content, however they show it. This guy just kept making jokes about data packets and computers talking to each other, which culminated in our master performing an extremely accurate mobile phone interference impression. Great stuff!

Then it was off to the Union for a meeting with the other participants of Kube Radio, Keele University's student radio station. Due to legal issues, we can only stream to other residents on campus, although we will have a four-week temporary FM license later on this academic year. I'm helping the webmaster at the moment, but later on hope to get my own show. Watch out for Darren the DJ!

I came back here to find that pretty much everyone had gone home. So it was a quiet Friday night for me. But I've arranged to go off to the Union and meet up with some more lads to watch the England v Wales match tomorrow.

Fantastic game, although Wales were disappointing. It was the first time that we were all together and yet all sober. I was amazed at the great support the Welsh got in the Student Union, although in hindsight it's hardly surprising given that we're only a few miles from the Welsh border.

Being as everyone has gone home I stayed in again tonight. Yeah, Saturday night. Hopefully I can make up for this complete lack of a social life next week. It would help if I knew the route to the Union independently. I know most of the way, but the last bit is confusing. If only I had a map!

Spent the day catching up on sleep, and then looking for historical resources for Nationalism online. Didn't get very far, although that's probably because I got a little bored.

It's very frustrating. I have several books on my shelf now which would really help me with my history strand tomorrow ... and yet I can't read any of them due to lack of readers and/or scanning equipment. Having said that, I did succeed in finding the answers to the questions for tomorrow's Computer Science tutorial.

Gradually, people started to return to uni today, but sadly John - another guy on the history course who could have helped me out a bit - did not come back. I'm hoping to have a reader, at the very least, to help me prepare for next week. This is all getting rather complicated.

Not looking forward to today's Nationalism seminar because I don't' have any of the reading materials in an accessible format. Even went looking online for something relevant that I would be able to read but no luck.

My computing practical class today was enlightening, but difficult. We were given five programming tasks now that we're familiar with the machines we'll be working with. I managed to complete the first task, and more-or-less the second. However, I'm still using someone to help me read the screen because my equipment hasn't yet arrived and access to this rather non-standard system still hasn't been sorted out anyway. I know if I had the ability to independently use the computer, I would have found it much easier.

Back in halls, and the evening begins with a series of phone calls. There are big plans afoot for this weekend. You may remember that I went to a special school before university - RNIB New College, Worcester. Well a bunch of us blindies are all planning to meet up in Birmingham on Saturday. Some are current students at Worcester, and some of us have moved on to University. We're all going to share our new experiences. Also, a group of us here are all off out for the England match on Wednesday, which should be a laugh!

It was a Hardware and Software lecture this morning. It appears these lectures are more involved than the programming ones. We all had great fun watching and secretly hoping for a fault somewhere, as our lecturer bashed around with a screw driver and a few other tools to show us the hidden components of a computer. I've fitted many computer peripheral devices in my time but I have never succeeded in taking one apart and putting it back together in under ten minutes like my lecturer did. Very impressive!

In the afternoon I spoke to Learning Support about getting a reader. They said it might work out best if I go off and find a willing volunteer to read to me, perhaps another student on my course.

For now I agreed to go and ask around, although to be honest I don't hold out much hope doing it this way. Students are generally a lazy lot, and even though reading is paid work, and would probably save them time in the long run, it's a different matter reading for someone else's benefit rather than your own.

Evening and it appears it's the plan for the two physiotherapists on our corridor to go for their first proper night out, to celebrate a free day on their timetable. But since it's physios only, I'll have to find something else to do.

Tuesday evenings are usually reserved for a comedy night in the union, and tonight was the first of the semester, or at least the first I knew about. Unfortunately it seems I was too tired to remember this basic fact of Keele life last night when I ordered a whole load of stuff from the supermarket for delivery, and so I instead spent my evening patiently awaiting my food supply for the next week or two.

Grocery shopping online is considerably cheaper than the small student shop on campus, however while buying in bulk more than makes up for the service charge, remember not to buy too much. Space in our shared freezer is limited; I have the one shelf and don't want to be on the receiving end of complaints from fellow freezer users about missing chips.

5:34am: The block's first fire drill. Needless to say our two dirty stop-out physios were far from impressed.

As it turns out, the bell inside each room isn't nearly as bad as it might be: It's quiet enough so I can hear some things and don't completely lose orientation. Mind, I don't particularly want to make a habit out of putting a T-shirt on over my jumper.

When you've got yourself out of bed and sufficiently together enough to get out into the corridor, you find that the bell there is one of those awful deafening sounds that really Drills inside your head.

I don't really know the fire route very well so it's a good job I emerged into a throng of people. I had a fair inkling of where to go but being guided by the student tidal flow made life much easier.

Spent some time today trying to make the Java programming language accessible on my computer and partially succeeded. I can now do the practical work on here.

Then, off to the match. Very dull affair on the big screen, so we just had to make up for it off-screen. More to the point, it's great to be away from work or sorting out work, or just anything to do with computers for a bit! One of these days I really should see about finding the nearest shooting club round here, but that can wait for the time being.

Still no news about the progress of my DSA computer order, although I do now have a reader, at least for tomorrow. One session isn't enough but it's a start. Unfortunately, this late arrangement means that I'm unable to attend Kube Radio's final meeting before we go on-air at noon this Monday. But in this instance, reading has to take priority.

Rounded off the day by finalising the arrangements for the weekend. It was just too easy booking the tickets online, I'll bet those ticket collection machines don't hold up to my expectations.

We discovered today that there has always been an occupant for the room we all thought empty. Today, I saw the elusive occupant for about two minutes in the kitchen area, but when I returned he'd gone again. Maybe he has another life elsewhere in the block, on campus, or a few miles away or something.

Two more days 'til the big Worcester blindie reunion.

Needed to take relevant books with me today but since I didn't have a clue which book was which, I had to squash the whole shelf's worth into my old school bag and take them all. Could never have done that with Braille books at my old college, have you ever seen the size of them?

Our one and only lecture today was all about electrical circuits, and their role in computing. I've not done any of this stuff for several years, but it came back quickly enough which is just as well, as I had no means to follow the circuit diagrams.

After the lecture I accompanied my support worker back to the learning support building, where we had the rest of the morning together to do some reading. I can't possibly describe just how much of a relief it was to finally be reading and learning outside of lecture times.

In the future, the plan is to perhaps send some of these books off to be read onto tape. But for now, all we can do is skim through looking for obvious themes. Ok, so it's not full background reading as such, but it's the best we can do for the moment.

I then paid a visit to the history department, to hand back a few disks. This was one to remember, as I found my way to the office door for the first time, and back again.

Today's the day of the blindie reunion. The journey up to Birmingham was almost flawless. The slight delay was entirely due to me choosing to wait for another friend, Joy, coming up from Norwich.

It's the birthday of our friend Chris today and we had a big surprise planned. We set about getting the place ready. Michael, our host, lives in fantastic student accommodation with lots of room for the 20 or so (surprise) guests.

While he and his housemates set about blowing up balloons, I had the task of getting the evening's sound system installed. While we were busy, Joy from Norwich brought us all up-to-date with the state of affairs in Worcester's adopted soap, Neighbours.

Gradually, more and more people joined in the preparations. Eventually, all was set for our birthday boy to enter the house, and so we rang him and told him to drop on over. Of course the advantage of putting on a surprise celebration for a blind person is that you don't have to all find hiding places to jump out from.

We frightened the life out of Chris when he came in, and the evening was fantastic. However, still no-one's told me of a better "getting lost story" than mine in the first week, where I ended up in the charge of a random Saturday morning delivery guy.

Joy said that, like me, she also hadn't received her DSA equipment restricting her to the computers in the library that had access software on. This meant she could only work between 9 and 5 (cos blind people can't use biros n'stuff, yes?) She's also considering getting a guide dog to make her feel a bit safer and more confident in the city-based university she is at.

We played all sorts of silly games, including "the name game", where each person took turns at describing as many people as possible in two minutes on the list in front of them. Eventually everyone manage to find a few square feet of floorspace for the night.

Before the day started, I had a meeting with my Solar System module leader. I've mentioned this course before. We've agreed that the highly visual moon observation task can be replaced with something, ahem, more appropriate for me. We've also 'reasonably adjusted' some of the other work I'll be set this semester and are working on how I can participate in peer-assessed work. Any ideas?

Then in the afternoon, I had a surprise awaiting me in the computing lab. Unfortunately, it wasn't all that pleasant. It seems that today's practical isn't programming, but involves running an electronic circuit simulation.

This particular software turned out to be inaccessible to any kind of screen reading software I cared to try with it, and so I missed out on that. However, the underlying learning objective is merely to become familiar with the construction of truth tables (kind of like logic construction diagrams), so I'm going to try and suss it out through looking at the PowerPoint slides the lecturer has given me.

Come Monday evening, my heavy weekend finally caught up with me. I lay down for what was intended to be a late afternoon nap - a nap which lasted for over twelve hours.

After a busy morning of lectures, I came back here to do some more work for the afternoon, when I remembered that Tuesday usually means Comedy Night at the union. Sadly though, this is the wrong week in the every-other-week rotation, so we'll just have to wait another week.

Instead I called up Lee, another friend from my old 'blind school' in Worcester. He's started university at Nottingham Trent, and has invited me up for the weekend. Should be great! With any luck, I'll also get to see Justin, another ex-Worcester student, who is at the original Nottingham University.

As far as I know, neither of them have received their Disabled Students' Allowance funded equipment yet either, so it should be a good opportunity to compare notes on how to manage for five weeks at a high academic level without all the necessary support.

Began the day with an appointment with one of the Computer Science network administrators, who came over to give me a hand configuring Linux on my machine. We worked away for a couple of hours before we gave up. Instead, we decided that the best way forward would be for the department to borrow my machine next week, wipe Linux, and start from scratch - this is fine by me, as long as they don't "wipe Windows" in the process.

Our corridor was truly back to its usual ways tonight. We all gathered round the communal area, and concluded that none of us really could be bothered with cooking. So we ordered a takeaway from an establishment claiming to be specialists in all areas.

We went for pizza, and were rewarded with a twelve-inch each for around £7. We found out why it was so cheap when we started eating. None of us could quite define exactly what "turned us off", but we all gave up and threw the pizzas away, most disappointed.

So we had no alternative but to go and drown our sorrows. In fact, on the walk back, we were drenched from one of the most horrific showers I've been in. We were out in it for barely five minutes, in water-proof clothing. But it took until the morning for our clothes to dry out.

I spent the morning in Computer Science, playing around with some of the programming software. Although bits and pieces work here and there, it's proving unreliable at best. Once we do eventually get the hang of using BlueJ with speech, I might just make it my mission to write out a mini tutorial, in the hope that the next blind student learning Java won't have to troubleshoot their way around quite so much.

Tonight, I got talking to some friends who are also into comedy, and we've agreed to meet up for next Tuesday's show in the union. Also, I may have found an extra volunteer for reading. We'll see.

I've been at Keele for exactly one month today! Not bad.

As usual, I had to be up and about for a 9.00am start, and this morning's was particularly difficult. In my haste to make it on time, I brought about my first mobility-related injury by bashing my left wrist straight into some lamp-post positioned right on the corner of a driveway.

Ordinarily, I'd just walk straight past it - in fact, my white cane hand isn't normally pumping me forwards quite as much. I've not cut myself or anything, but it sure don't feel too good on the inside. Still, it didn't stop me getting in on time - just. I'd better not do this too often!

Come lunchtime, and it was the weekly Kube Radio meeting, where I was startled to find that many of them read this diary.

Today, we found out that we just might have an outside possibility of gaining a community FM license, which would entitle us to five years of FM broadcasting. It would also be really cool if we could one day stream over the internet rather than just the campus network, but that's still in the works.

I then met up with a student who has very kindly volunteered to read to me. So we went off in search of food, and eventually settled on a sandwich place in the university.

It seems he is happy to read in the evenings too, as long as we can sort it out a day or two beforehand. We agreed to go and talk it over with the learning support staff next week.

My final activity at Keele today was to go and seek out my history tutor. We have resolved the issue I was having with accessing peer-assessed work, by transferring work to and from each other by email.

Then a few more minutes back here doing the usual last-minute packing, and waiting for the taxi to turn up to take me to the station. Unfortunately the traffic was bad, so I missed my original train and had to wait nearly an hour for the next. When I got off at Nottingham, I was startled to find that I'd been recognised by someone from my history group. There's hope yet!

The whole student experience really isn't the same for me being accompanied everywhere by an adult note taker, as I am currently. Also, so far I've spent much of the practical time (especially in computing) in conversation with staff. I've therefore found it difficult to get to know other people on my course, although this will doubtless improve once I'm properly settled down. Still, at least other people can recognise and approach me rather than the other way around.

It was a straightforward journey from the station to go and find my friend Lee's accommodation at Nottingham Trent University.

After lots of catch-up on all sorts of stuff, but mainly computers and tech-talk, we headed on over to see Justin, who is at the original Nottingham University. Lauren (another friend from Worcester) was also there waiting for us, as was our pizza which we'd ordered just before we left for Justin's, which was a nice surprise.

While scoffing our food we listened to the new series of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We were all too tired to do much else, so we saved planning the weekend until tomorrow.

Back to Lee's, and a night's sleep on yet another floor - only this time with two (count them, yes, two!) pillows! Now that is truly what I call quality hospitality.

Justin woke us both up by ringing up with all sorts of cinema ideas, but we couldn't all agree on a film. So instead, we said we'd go round and watch a DVD.

Before getting our acts together, Lee and I did some messing around on his computer. We spent rather longer than intended on it, so didn't get to Justin's until gone 4.00pm. We gave up on the DVD idea. Instead we just hung out there for an hour or two, before we toddled off into Nottingham itself to go find a restaurant.

We had a very fine Italian meal, made all the more enjoyable by the excellent service we received from the staff. In fact, they even read out the entire menu for us all.

After waiting for ages in the rain for a taxi, we got back to Justin's halls of residence just in time to hear the fire alarm go off. So it was back out again. Fortunately, it had stopped raining, and we were allowed back inside within a few minutes.

We spent the rest of our evening just generally chatting about life. It turns out that neither Lee nor Justin have received any kind of funding from their DSA application yet, and therefore no equipment. In fact, out of the eight or nine disabled freshers I know, only one has so far received their equipment.

As a result, Justin is having a hard time of it, as his support unit at Nottingham don't appear to be as communicative as mine and have succeeded in losing many of the lecture handouts that Justin had sent them to be brailled. In fact, he's already had to ask for deadline extensions, as he received the materials for one particular essay over a week after it was due.

Even so, we've all agreed that we're enjoying ourselves, and that it's all worthwhile in the end.

Once more, Lee and I returned to his room and were almost asleep when our fire alarm went off. Lee has three minutes in which to evacuate the building, or receive a fine, and we must have cut it fine as it's never quick getting out of a sleeping bag and finding one's clothing, particularly with a fire bell ringing all the while. We made it out OK, and saw the fire engines pull up within a matter of minutes. We were soon allowed back in, although a security guy tapped us on the shoulder and told us that next time we should go and wait by the reception desk, where we'll be told whether or not the fire is serious, so that we can go back before the mad rush of everyone else. So back to bed, and this time to sleep.

A rush getting ready this morning, or rather this afternoon. We got up about an hour before I was due to leave for the train, but we both just about managed to get ready in time. I caught the train and arrived back at Keele in time to do a bit of work for tomorrow.

Well, I guess that really is just over a month here at university. Sure it's gone quickly, but I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've had challenges along the way, and will continue to do so.

While I've fortunately received outstanding help from Keele's learning support infrastructure, there is still room for improvement with regard to the provision of support from the moment a student arrives at university. Surely the ultimate aim of the Disabled Students' Allowance is that the necessary equipment can be in place and working before a student starts their studies?

I have yet to receive a penny of my equipment allowance, even though the equipment was ordered well over two weeks ago. I also only began reading in my third week of academic study, when other students had had the opportunity to begin their study weeks before even arriving at university.

While any support is better than no support, and although a disabled student has to accept that no support will ever be entirely perfect, there is clearly a long way to go before the best possible access to a degree course becomes a reality for everyone.

Goodbye from Keele University, and thanks for reading my diary.