Sunday morning yesterday, 3 of us went to the Quaker House located just around the block from Passfield Hall. Service started at 11am. When we went in we were greeted at the door and the friendly man gave us a "Your First Quaker Meeting" flyer, then another man with a crutch who just arrived too showed us to the main meeting room. Along the way up he was telling us a little about the meeting, to expect much silence. Still the actual experience of stepping into a meeting hall which was almost full with people sitting in silence was startling.
What followed next was more silence for about an hour, with 2 people getting up to talk. This time was spent pondering what my 2 companions were thinking about (the stain in the carpet apparently), listening to the sirens outside, thinking about random old prayers I learnt in church and general stoning (because I took drowsy medicine the previous night). It was strange. I was bored and mildly disappointed.
Later after the meeting, we gathered outside in the foyer randomly chatting to people. As I had lost my voice I wandered away from the other 2 who were chatting with some guy and went to look at the pictures of the members. As I did so, one of the other attendees came to join me and we started talking. His name was Andrew and he was doing his PhD in UCL Psych. He mentioned how he would wave to the bust of Virginia Woolf in Tavistock Gardens every morning as he walked by. I thought that was really cute. He also turned out to be the first openly gay guy I met (being the sad Singaporean I am, my first thought was 'SO COOL!'). Nice chap. He also said today was oddly quieter than usual, that usually more people would get up to talk.
As we ended up being the last few in the foyer, the ushers gave us the free leftover sandwiches. We (and one of the other attendees, a Malaysian Birkback Masters student) ended up going to Tavistock Gardens to eat the sandwiches and talk. Then because I really wanted to eat porridge badly, we went to China House at nearby Marchmont only to find it closed (and it didn't serve porridge at all anyway) :/ so Rufus decided to make porridge instead. We went to Waitrose and got all the ingredients, and went back to the dorm to make porridge.
At night I went to sleep at about 11:30-ish because I was still feeling unwell. At about 12:00 I woke up suddenly and noted that the room was entirely dark and my roommates were all asleep. I went back to sleep. I woke up again at 12:30am by an alarm. The fire alarm. I hopped out of bed and went to peep outside the door, I thought it was a false alarm. Instead there were people running down the stairs and out the door. SHIT. I ran back into the room and got my handphone/inhaler/key card/jacket while yelling to my roommates to get dressed. Then we all ran out into the cold where everyone had assembled.
I walked away from the Taviton group and went to look outside the main Passfield Hall. Everyone was there, so I walked back and told the group and everyone slowly came over. Outside, it was really cold and some people had ran out without their jackets. As I had 2 jackets on (I had slept with one on), I passed one to a guy who had none. The jacket was one of those windbreakers and the fabric was not stretchable, and as the guy was muscular he had trouble putting it on. Then dead terrorist* came over, shivering, SNATCHED MY FUCKING JACKET from my friends back and RAN THE FUCK AWAY.
WHAT THE FLYING SON OF A FUCK?
I was DAMN FUCKING PISSED OFF. As you can imagine. I was so angry the guys around me got scared (damn meek things) and went to get the jacket back. Only when they pointed out it belonged to me, a female AND that I was quite sick, did he give it back. Seriously? Apparently earlier he was going around asking all the girls from their jackets because he was cold. EVERYONE IS COLD DICKWAD. WHAT THE HELL GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO HAVE A JACKET MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE?
Then what he did next shocked everyone. Like a silence fell over the entire 200 of us standing outside in the cold, the entire incredulity of the thing just blowing everyones mind to a billion bits. He ran into the building. The building that we had just evacuated because the fire alarm went off. Ran and tried to HEADBUTT his way into the dorm past all the wardens. Suddenly everyone just burst out laughing because NO ONE could believe what they just witnessed.
I later saw him sulking around the back. URGH. I'm going to avoid him like the plague now.
Monday was packed lecture day. I woke up early and walked to school with the actuarial science people for HY114 (War and Society). After the lecture I went to the Shaw Library and did my readings. Around 2pm I got hungry and I got a craving for a corned beef sandwich, so I went near the Temple tube stop to get a sandwich with salad (1.90 pounds) from this Taxi Stand Shop which is in a little caboose-like structure on the roadside. Then I headed for class early and tried to get in, only to find it occupied by the Anime club. I found another empty classroom and ended up talking to the girl there who turned out to be in the same HY114 class as me next.
After class I rushed for the GV100 lecture, which turned out to be an utter waste of time. The professor is really something else. And when I say that something else, I mean not from this world. Now I know philosophers are supposed to be poetic and all that, but this one was Mrs Dalloway and Ulysses on a mixture of speed and weed. Nothing that came out of her mouth showed linear thinking whatsoever. I thought I was a random thinker, but everything she said was a separate unrelated point to the earlier statement. It was hell for 1 hour. I drew a mini Socrates in my file. I walked back with Anesh and complained about dead terrorist*.
At night I went out to Sainsburys at Tottenham Court Road (the Warren Street tube one) with Sheun and we ended up walking around the dorm area looking at things (and looking for Dylon ColourRun Remover -_-). When I came back to my room both my roommates were asleep, so I didn't want to wake them. However I accidentally let go of the door handle and the door started to close (and it closes with a really loud slam). I started to reach out for it instinctively... and the door slammed on my finger joint bones.
I wanted to started screaming bloody murder, but that would defeat the effect of my earlier valiant (and painful) save. So I opened my mouth and screamed silently. I don't even know how that was possible. I just did it anyway. I staggered back to my desk and looked at my fingers. They were throbbing and swollen. Nice one. Sheun messaged me on adium asking for a marker. Typing back hurt. ARGH(UV*@%&@$*.
The next day I woke up early again and went for the Student Tutor training, a volunteer programme which I signed up for. I couldn't hold a pen properly. My fingers hurt. Roar. After training I ran into Allen, some guy I met at the government reception, and I ended up dropping by the Sainsburys at Holborn to get some food and groceries before rushing back for EH101. I ended up falling asleep. One of the most interesting lectures I have and I fell asleep because I suddenly felt so exhausted. After lecture I walked back to the dorm, talked to my parents and went to sleep for 3 hours.
I woke up at about 5:30-ish and met Rufus to go look for the Dylon ColourRun Remover (silly dress I wore for Crush). We found it at Waitrose. Then we met the Malaysian Quaker guy again and went to a nearby bookstore he recommended.
Today I woke up after a nice full 8 hours of sleep and lazed about. I ended up leaving at about 11:30 to go buy minced meat from Waitrose. I came back and the 2 Sheun/Shons ended up helping me cook Spaghetti Bolognese. It actually turned out better than I expected and I was quite pleased with myself.
Later, I went downstairs after lunch to get something from my room and I ran into Michelle in the room. She was upset. It turned out she had been pickpocketed on the bus ride back to Passfield. WHAT THE. On a selfish note my mind was like thankgoditsnotme/omgsoscarywhatifithappenedtome but I felt really sad for her too. All the trouble to get to the banks to cancel cards, the embassy to report the national identity missing and then having to deal with the famous British police in order to REPORT the damn crime.
And the rest of my day is boring. Comparatively. To everything here.
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*dead terrorist is a nickname Rufus and I have given to that person. When he first met Rufus he went I HATE LAWYERS!!! IN BANGLADESH ALL THE LAWYERS ARE CORRUPT AND EVIL AND BLABLABLA. Nice introduction.
Then during the Warden's dinner he got wasted. On 2 glasses of wine. He went around pretending to speak in an American accent and randomly slamming tables/doors, pointing at people and challenging them to drink MOAR.
Fucking retard.
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