This is the place I will be spending most of my waking hours for the next year.

It's the end of day one proper. The first day of the "real" course - last week was supposedly an introductory week even though it was much more intense than a "normal" introductory week. What's surprising and really rather pleasing is that although I was desperately intimidated by the content of today's programme, I actually found myself enjoying the learning and revelling in the experience.

It's true to say that I did things today that pushed me way beyond the things I thought I would ever do again in my life - some of them are things I've never done before. Not only that, but the most intimidating thing of all was SO much less hideous than I'd imagined. It could have even been described as pleasurable. Some of the things I expected to happen did happen but the lecturer was kind and managed to scoop me up into a much warmer and less miserable place than I'd imagined could exist within the subject. The way the subject was taught was so inclusive - in the past this subject has excluded me comprehensively from its environs to the extent that I feel "scarred for life" based on my pre-course experiences.

By the end of the morning, at a point when I thought I'd feel thoroughly dejected, I felt encouraged and heartened and could see a way in which I could make this work for me. It's early days of course and I'm sure there will be many more peaks, troughs, challenges and triumphs before I find my way out of the other end of the experience. The great football game of life has, today, throw up a ball that curved into the top corner of the net rather than hitting row Z. Let's hope that tomorrow sees more of the same.

Interestingly I found out something rather lovely today. I bumped into a friend of mine who works as an employee on campus and she told me that it was her who'd put me forward for the Enterprise award (that I didn't win but nonetheless) that I mentioned some months back. It had been a mystery as to who'd nominated me as no-one I spoke to seemed to know anything about it at the time. She'd done it because I'd been going "above and beyond" the call of duty with my fellow students. I was so touched and delighted to hear how the nomination came about and feel thrilled that someone thought what I did was "special".