Brie My Baby

Before I left home today, one of the first things I did was to drink a cup of tea. Tea where I'd left the teabag inside the cup to stew for what seemed like ages (I'm more of a 3-4 minute tea bag person) as I guilty washed up all the dirty dishes I'd used yesterday. Now I don't know how long I took to wash those dishes up, but I'm sure it was more than 4 minutes. So by my definition, I had a pretty damn strong cup of tea. Except during class just now, I only heard about 50% of the words everyone said, and the rest was background noise. The only word that really stood out was when someone said 'middle eastern' and 'conspiracy theory' pretty near to each other, like in a sentence or something. And only because it was a class on economic policy, so words like 'middle eastern' and 'conspiracy theory' stood out. What, a conspiracy economic theory? To get them to buy up the whole of the UK, like they already are? Anyway so needless to say, 9am class was an utter washout. I also noted today that Murray Mint, has dandruff in his hair, but that somehow doesn't make him any less hot.

So anyway I washed up the dishes this morning. Now for some time, we've been having quite a mouse problem. The fucker has been in my room, eating my honey almonds, scattering the crumbs all over my high heels, and shitting all over my luggage and floor. Recently however, after the fucker appeared in Tiff's room on Sunday night, she went ballistic and bought a bunch of glue traps (with express delivery, she is most proud to add). So anyway Tuesday night, after I came back from Wild Times, I heard a bunch of scraping sounds. True enough as I came up the flight of stairs, I actually saw the fucker. EXCEPT: I saw really only half of it. The back bit. And it was half under Flat 3's door, and it seemed to be stuck.

So i screamed. And screamed. And Tiff and ZW came out and screamed more. And the mouse panicked and started forcing itself more through the little door gap, until it's bum disappeared and all we saw was it's tail. And then that made us scream more, and that then made the mouse struggle more, and blablabla ad infinitum. But of course some of the screaming made some sense. For example, some of it was: "JOSHUAAAAAAA! BENJAMIN!!!!!!!!!!!! OEIJ! OIEJ! WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS!!!!!!" (said by me, the names of the guys in Flat 3 upstairs), but most of it was "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" (said by everyone) and "OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!" (I think said by Tiff and me). And as we stood there screaming our heads off, we wondered why NO ONE SEEMED TO REACT. It's like if you scream in London, no one can hear you.

ZW managed to call someone, who then got in contact with the guys upstairs, and FINALLY they came down. And as they opened the door to 'rescue' us, we screamed more as we finally saw the full mouse, stuck to the glue trap. The first thing O said as he lifted the glue trap to look at the mouse was, "HAHAHA IT'S SO SCARED IT SHAT ITSELF". No shit, there were 3 girls screaming non-stop at it. If I was the mouse I'd be scared too. And then that's when they told us the bad news: it wasn't just A mouse we were reckoning with, it was multiple mice. Like a mice family. 'Cause they'd just killed one last week. Anyway we left the guys to dispose of the mouse. They said they'd leave it on the ledge and let it freeze to death, just like they did to the mouse they caught and killed last week. At night as I lay in bed, about to sleep, I heard the loudest singular SQUEAK I heard on Earth. I had just been contemplating at the moment whether to go use the bathroom. I decided against it and somehow went to sleep.

The next day, O and B came, and set up a bunch of glue traps in a row under their door. True enough yesterday morning, we woke up to a yet another mouse stuck. Except this time they didn't remove it straight away, electing to leave it stuck there till night time, when they got back to school. As I cleaned up the mess the mice left outside our flat last night with the vacuum cleaner, I could see it struggling and freaking out with the wail of the vacuum cleaning approaching. I wonder if you can suck a mouse up a vacuum cleaning, come to think of it. But I didn't.

Which brings me to this morning. So I was cleaning up the dishes, with my usual token Yellow Rubber Gloves. And those gloves + water + clean dishes = SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK. So I spent my entire time washing up in utter terror. I started singing to myself a made up song which was Christian gospel-ly. I thought of the mouse suddenly running out from under the sink and eating my toes, to take revenge for it's fallen comrades. I was freaked out beyond comparison, all the while conscious of the fact that DAMNIT IT WAS THE GLOVES.

So that's been my life thus far: swing dance and mice.

I also read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild in less than 8 hours, from midnight Thursday to evening Thursday. It's a fascinating, fascinating book on the nature of youth.

"So what do you usually do?"

I always get asked this question often, along with "so where do you usually go?". And everytime, my brain sort of dies because honestly I don't have the foggiest idea what exactly it is I do or where I go. I mean I go to the gym, I go Waitrose. I exercise and I grocery shop. But I'm pretty bloody sure that's not the answer the asker usually wants. So on review of my life I've compiled a few facts:-

FACT ONE: I am a very boring person. All I do is spend time sleeping and slothing at home. I don't even study. I sort of just hack away at bits of the iceberg that is SCHOOL and spend the rest of my time in a totally inefficient manner, that makes me get frustrated at the end of the day.

FACT TWO: I like my comfort zones. Shopping? I go to Oxford Circus. Sometimes if I feel adventurous/am near school, I actually go to Covent Garden! Shocking innit? You'll never catch me near South Kensington. This also means I spend at least what must be 70% of my life at home, in my small 5m by 3.5m room. I've been to Portobello market 3 times, and at the same time never been to Spitalfields, that's because Portobello is Familiar and Comfortable (relatively). I also totally form going-out routines and patterns.

FACT THREE: The only thing I go out really is because I have a reason. Like I want to go to the V&A, or something. But even that I must plan about a week in advance. Which reminds me, I do want to see the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery pretty soon. Often, studying is not a good enough reason. I need a pull factor to get me out of the house first, then only I can linger and stay and study. Often this reason is school or having to meet friends.

FACT FOUR: The currently most exciting part of my life is Swing Dance.

FACT FIVE: I do go out alone, for shopping, films, seeing exhibits. I don't mind being alone, and often enjoy it, but it also means I do it seldom because my inertia is just so massive.

Anyway I totally had a brain fart today. After spending hours bumming around at home, I finally left to run some small errands (post office, get prescriptions, look for an eyebrow pencil), just as the sun was setting. So anyway I bought hydrocortisone cream from Boots and the cashier asked me "when are you going to use it?". I sort of went "uh nuh-ooooooooowwwwww?" and gave her a really blank look. She then gave me a really confused glance and said, "I asked, WHERE are you going to use it?". Cue whale face
(-_________________________-")

I just booked a ticket to watch Confucius at the BFI by myself in Feb. Can't wait to feel Asian and go OH YEAH at a movie, unlike the pretentious shitfest that was Shame, which I saw last week.

A New Year

Just came back not too long ago from Flat 8, where ZW and I went to celebrate Chinese New Year's Eve, the day of the traditional family gathering. I made my awesome chicken wings, after marinating them for almost 24 hours, and I'm pleased to say they were wiped out by everyone. I grin inside as I think about it.

Flat 8 (esp Jean!) cooked up a veritable feast. They made siu yok (roast pork) and char siu (bbq pork), and there were traditional favourites like dried shiitake mushrooms. Made me think of him, where they usually have shiitake mushrooms with hair moss. Hair moss is a strange thing, because it looks literally like a pile of hair. When I was younger I think my uncle used to scare me by saying it was the hair of naughty girls. It tasty mainly because it's very good at absorbing and holding onto the thickened oyster sauce it's often cooked in. Mmmm.

There were 8 of us in attendance, mainly because Tiff was too tired and decided not to turn up. The table was nicely cramped full of food and people. For dessert, Hui Min and Jean made tang yuan (glutinous rice dumplings), which was really tasty and a nice surprise, and we ended up having a debate about WHY it was traditional to eat it. We ended up resorting to wiki. We really are half-assed Asian people.

After ZW and I came back, I started cleaning my room. I basically didn't clean it since coming back from Morocco, even though the mess was bugging me. Now for once in weeks, there is nothing on my floor that isn't actually supposed to be there - well except the two packets of Special Tea I have under my desk, because there's no space to leave it in the kitchen. I feel very pleased with myself, especially since I beat cleaning it up BEFORE midnight, because it's bad luck to clean the floors on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. (Not that I seriously care about such things, but it seems rather twee to adhere to them now) It's something about sweeping away the good luck that a new year brings.

So anyway, hopefully this means I'll get good luck for this new lunar year. Been feeling blah the past few days, and hopefully that rights itself after today, oho.

Dry Cleaning: £4.99

On my way back home today, I finally picked up my dry cleaning. The dry cleaner's shop is in reality, 30 seconds from my house, but on the other side from school. So I never really walk by it on my day-to-day path. This meant I manage to leave my sweater there for 2 weeks, despite them actually taking just a day to clean the damn thing. The more I think about it, the more I feel intrigued by my own behaviour, because I managed to deem a 30 second walk as "too far". That and I suppose I had no urgent need to pick up the sweater, what with it being so warm nowadays. Also for some reason I remember them telling me it would cost £6, not the £4.99 I paid.

Anyway today I went to the UCL Chinese New Year fair. It turned out to be something of a misnomer, for it was more of a Singaporean fair. I swear of the lot there were no Malaysians, no China Chinese, and no random other Chinese people, it was just Singaporeans. As a consequence I ran into loads of people I hadn't seen at all. I even ran into Gen from school, which was really nice. We ended up going out for coffee at the super hipster No. 114 coffee place along Tottenham Court Road. I initially went to the fair with Shu and Hui Min, and Jeff's family (their ex-JC teacher). I swear their daughter, Sophie, was such a heartbreaker. She's 2. Everywhere we went, people were cooing over her and taking photos. Even the girl doing the Wushu performance from Imperial (which was excellent and extremely enjoyable to watch), noticed her as she was doing her routine, and gave Sophie a smile. Also Jeff's mum was highly entertaining. She dragged me to go to the bathroom with here, and there she spoke about things like doing makeup and her red skinny jeans (all in Mandarin of course). Nice lady, nice family.

After I left Gen, I got slightly lost in UCL as I tried to find my way back out to Byng Place, because I wanted to go to Waterstones. I'm just thankful that LSE seems to be better planned out than UCL, with it's random appearing courtyards. At Waterstones I walked about a bit, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by so many books. I just bought the BBC History magazine though, because I've got a massive backlog of books here at home. Aiming to read Into the Wild after I finish Parting Shots. I wandered into the FOPP bit and found the second hand DVD section. Picked up This is England for £2 and at the counter I impulsively bought A Town Called Panic for £3 (£5 w/o any other purchase). Remembered how last year I was trying to find a cinema near enough to Jeygrove Court that showed A Town Called Panic, but it only showed in all sorts of odd places.

Going out tonight to celebrate Hui Min's birthday at a dinner place. Need to remember to wrap her gift.

Love me or leave me

I have come to the conclusion that every single awful day I have in existence is primarily of my own doing. That and I seem to always be my own worst enemy, etc. etc.

Today as I walked back from school/Sainsbury's, I walked by the fruit seller (I just learned his name is Adel Shah) and said hi as usual. He stopped me and started talking in pidgin English about how he was sick today and had to close his fruit stand for 3 hours. Then he took out his wallet and pulled out an appointment card, telling me he next had an appointment on 30th Jan. I flipped the card around and then I very awkwardly realised that it was for a NHS specialist sexual health clinic in Archway. Then he took out his medicine and showed it to me. I took note of the name, because I'm curious like that, and when I came back and googled it, wiki said it was sometimes used to cure STDs.

I don't think he realised exactly what kind of information he was revealing when he showed all those things to me, because he barely speaks English.

In other news, I've been pigging out on Lindt Mild 70% Cocoa.

Skypeskypeskype

Got off skype with my parents a while ago, and something my mum kept saying is bugging me. She said she didn't think I was well enough to do a masters degree, because I'm already so stressed out over doing my bachelor's. Which I have to admit is a pretty good point. And as I dithered about my room half thinking about my GV227 project proposal, I couldn't actually think of a reason why I wanted to do a masters other than the fact that I WANT TO DO A MASTERS.

In other news I'm going out for social dancing again tonight at Wild Times. Looking forward to it.

NATWEST AND WRIGHT'S

So it's been 2 and a half years since I've been living here in this (apparently) Emerald Isle. I just finished my cup of Wright's Bar tea and DAMNIT I WANT MORE, except I'm sure my weak system will die from lactose intolerance and caffeine overload. What the hell do they put in their tea anyway? It's SO GOOD and for just 45p. Seriously. It's way better than all the teas I've had in the world, Moroccan mint tea included. Though I do remember having some sort of caffeine OD-sort of shivers before.

So anyway NATWEST, is a PAIN IN THE ARSE. Because I'm on a basic account I now can't withdraw ANY money from a cashpoint that is not Natwest, RBS or Tesco Cash. WTF. There was one day, I was feeling sick and hungry, and it was raining, and I had to frantically call Dex to come and give me cash because my card wasn't working at ANY cashpoint and I started panicking. As a result I've now taken to using Waitrose's cashback scheme, and drawing more money than usual at cashpoints that I can actually use. Fucking buggers, the lot of them. On another note, for the first time today, the Natwest cashpoint in school gave me two £5 notes. When I first came there were talks to put £5 notes in cashpoints, and how they were planning to do pilots in special machines located at places like Waterloo station. Once when I was taking 1 down to tutor in Bermondsey way back in 2009, I remember seeing one of those machines with a special '£5 NOTES DISPENSED HERE!!!' sign. Now it's London-wide it seems. Meh I feel weird to think of all the time that's passed.

I woke up at 11.11 am today

Some time ago (perhaps last year) my Dad told me that as you get older, time accelerates. Not quite saying I'm that old now, but it sure as hell feels that way as I marvel at the fact that I've been in uni for 2 and a half years. That and I'm still not sure what I've been doing when I think back on the previous term of school. Perhaps that's why I keep a blog, because my memory is like a sieve - attempting to keep some sort of record [any juicy, darker bits are written down in diaries].

Also I just lied, a big proper lie, for the first time in ages to my flatmate. She asked me to help her annoying friend do something. I refused. Haven't I told her enough times that I utterly detest that girl? PFFFFT. I am now playing my music very softly to pretend I'm not home.

A picture of the henna tattoo I had done for 60 dirhams (€6) in Marrakech:


I freak out a little everytime I see it, because I forget it's there.

Maroc + New Year 2012

So as mentioned in my last post, I was away in Morocco 'celebrating' the new year. More like the new year just happened to fall during our holiday. So New Year's was spent in Fes, where everyone (Paul, Cheam, Jia and Yihang) sort of said NO SHOWERING before 0000 hours and I had to shower at 0015 hours instead. I don't know why I remember that fact the most. That and the riad we were staying in, riad verus, very nicely served this super sweet cake to mark the new year. And then the next day, on new year's eve, I fell dog sick for the next few days and said "I want to depart from my body" at least once an hour. SO summary:

Morocco - 29th Dec to 8th Jan
Fes, Meknes, Casablanca, Marrakech
£700 max spent
5.5/10

+ Medinas
+ Food (initially), loved the well cooked tajines at the first restaurant - Sekaya - in Fes
+ Souks: always charming no matter which bit of the world you're in
+ Amusing language barrier (French, Arabic, Berber anyone?)
+ Traveling company
+ The hotel staff were very very friendly
+ Mid-day heat and lovely dark blue skies
+ Hammam: never felt so clean in my life
+ Camel ride: brief, but I liked it
+ Volubilis
+ Seeing cats everywhere, except when they startled me

- FALLING SICK, with flu then stomach flu: at least I think I saved loads of money and lost weight (minus at least 3 points)
- Casablanca: shithole city of the highest order
- Food: lack of variety, even if it was tasty; that and maybe it made me get stomach flu?
- Cold COLD showers at night, Morocco is not built for cold weather
- Taxi drivers always out to scam tourists
- Didn't get to see the desert, but this warrants a 2nd trip
- Getting harassed in Marrakech: first by some really black dude who shoves me right into a store, and then laughs at me when I get upset, getting almost pickpocketed in a souk near the plaza and finally some teenage boys touching/pulling my hair in a crowd for amusement
- Smokers, everywhere
- Feeling crazily dirty and dusty all the time

I bought 2 seasons worth of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD, and they greeted me when I came back. Mmmm. Had a slow day today with a 1 and 1/2 hour nap in the middle, really hope I can get back to my normal working schedule tomorrow.