Shit Monday

I woke up feeling sick, I can't go to Swing because I feel so sick, meanwhile I'm stressed and overworked, and Tiff's audibly arguing with her ex over the phone while chopping vegetables. This feels like hell. I want to die *$@NV$U@*$ U(

Afghan Hounds & Czech

There's a girl that used to go for Swing Dance, on and off, and I never knew her name. She's stopped going for at least months though. However I could damn well memorise her fact because it unmistakably reminded me of an Afghan Hound's. Anyway I just saw her again at the 4th floor, and pulled up a picture of the Afghan hound to compare and DAMN she really does look like one. I feel all goosebumpy now. Reminds me of how I give people nicknames if I don't know their names/as a tool to remember them.

On another note, a few days ago I found this on my hard drive:-



I was going to write about it (still remembering the details in my mind because it was THAT GOOD), but I realised I already did, years ago when the incident happened. Incidentally it's the only time I've ever written about the Czech Republic in this blog, but then again I'm not sure why I'd write about the Czech Republic, seeing as I've never actually been there.

Meanwhile I'm sitting in the 4th floor, dithering because I don't know how to even start writing my social police essay.

Today I met Shu, Jean, HM, Sye and ZW for breakfast at Holborn McDonald's for breakfast, because it's Shrove Tuesday! So we had McDonald's pancakes to celebrate (they call them hotcakes at home!) and I don't think I've eaten so much so early before in the day in a long time, considering how late I usually wake up. Kept my hashbrown though (69p) because I was too full after. Also bought some apples from the Holborn grocer on my way to school, to undo all the unhealthy shit I've been eating recently.

Mid-Term

As usual when it hits around mid-term (I think it's week 6 now, horrors), I get the mid-term blues. It's the feeling that one gets when one hasn't been able to rest for a while, and yet knowing that the end isn't quite here. As a result you sort of sink into a mode of general meh-ness, where you know you've got lots of work to do, but don't have it in your too feel too bothered until the deadline is absolutely pressing.

So anyway this weekend, in a I-will-fight-this-meh-feeling mood, I went to Oxford with Jia. Met up with Gen and Daryl for lunch, then had dinner with Cheam. Went to of course, to my favourite book place on earth, The Last (opposite Christchurch, as I finally learned). Bought 5 books, all for £10!

Peter Carey - Illywhacker (feel excited and want to start on it!)
Jane Harris - The Observations
Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines
Yoko Ogawa - Hotel Iris
Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man

And as an aside, today I finished reading the Wordsworth edition of Maupassant's Short Stories.

We had lunch at Brown's, where Daryl told us he saw Emma Watson before. Then we had cream tea at The Rose, which was absolutely delightful. Also never knew that English Breakfast/Everyday tea was a blend of different sorts of tea leaves. Not sure why it never occurred to me to question it before. For dinner Cheam brought us to a Spanish tapas place, which was packed (luckily he made reservations). By the time I had gotten back home (at 10:30pm), I was throughly exhausted. Still it was nice actually being out the whole day, and not studying once! Yesterday though, I made up for it by studying in school the entire afternoon with Shu and Sye, after going to church.

Not sure why I didn't mention this in the previous post, but on Wednesday I went with Dexter to the Science Museum, to see the Hidden Heroes exhibition. It was alright, I did enjoy it, but I was surprised at how sparse everything was. The upside was that inside the exhibition though, there were no kids. It must've been half-term or something, because the entire Science Museum was filled with kids. We also went to see the timekeeping bit of the museum, and the Wellcome History of Medicine exhibit. I love how they have bits of an actual old shop inside. But of course reality returned, and I ended up studying at Dexter's house afterwards before going home for dinner.

I will make the effort to go to the gym today, then head to school and study for a bit before Swing Dance.

A quick list of pressing things on my mind:-
1) Ex-landlord issues
2) Dissertation & all related issues
3) Government project (25% of grade!)
4) Columbia application
5) Social policy essay due this week
6) Mini presentation of Napoleonic art/culture

Cawston Apple and Rhubarb

A few weeks ago (in fact I might have blogged about this and forgotten), I was at Waitrose looking at UHT juices when a man who was studying the juice selection next to me suddenly turned and said 'this is very good! You ought to try it!' It was Cawston Apple and Rhubarb. I said that perhaps I would, and after that he walked off to the cereal end of the aisle. I decided there and then to be adventurous. I picked up the juice I had been studying for a while (something with guava and pineapple in it), and the Cawston Apple and Rhubarb. The Cawston juice was good, though I'm a bit mystified as to where the bit about Rhubarb came it. I expected the juice to look pinky too, but it looked like normal cloudy apple juice. Hmm.

Celebrated Tiff's birthday on Tuesday (coincidentally also Valentine's Day). She booked a room at Grange St Paul's for the night. We went to a real shit pub for dinner (we all thought it was a restaurant, that's what you get when you don't research a place I guess) and ate kevlar-grade chicken breast. What saved the night however was us walking to Tinseltown after, and HM and I shared a yummy ferrero rocher shake. We also got the birthday surprise of Tiff, and she was really embarrassed. How lovely. The MTVs were played a mix of retro songs (Spandau Ballet's True anyone?) and we sang along. Lots of Whitney Houston too. Then on the way back to the hotel Tiff booked for the night, HM and I sang the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge. Come to think of it, I think Moulin Rouge's my most favourite romance movie. ZW, Tiff and I ended up sleeping around 2:15am, after we watched Burlesque, which was exceptionally inane. We stuffed ZW in the middle of the king size bed and slept on either side.

Amazingly I managed to wake up on time for my 9am workshop, and spent all of 12 minutes walking to LSE, stopping by at Wright's Bar to get a tea, and I was still early for my workshop. It was a nice walk, on a nice cheery morning, in the city of London. Sometimes I'm too caught up in day-to-day life to stop and remember where I really am.

Time Warps and Pear, Pork and White Fungus Soup

I don't know if this has ever happened to me before (for I find I am quickly losing my ability to recall things at a snap of a finger), but I find that I am often astounded to find that things that I thought happened ages ago happened mere days ago. It is all very queer. For instance I thought the Taylor Wessing ticket stub's been in my wallet for a quite some time, then I recalled that I went there with Shu just last Friday, on the same day that I was at Victoria Tower doing work. Similarly I find it almost hard to believe that yesterday morning, I had dim sum lunch with my friends. And meeting Mong, Cheryl and Cielo at Liverpool Street to munch at Breakfast Club for the whole of last Sunday's afternoon. And seeing Jia and Yihang just on Thursday when Jia came over to cook. Sometimes I don't know if it's me, or the medicine anymore. That and getting confused at the strangest of things, like misplacing passports and all. Hmm.

Yesterday I made Pear, Pork and White Fungus Soup. I left it to sort of boil overnight, mainly because there's no place to put it in the fridge. Today the soup tastes almost completely different, and the white fungus seems to have totally disappeared. It is all very, very strange.

Watched My Idiot Brother and Waitress this week. They both proved to be highly enjoyable.

Victoria Tower

That feeling when you open up a book of archived documents, and the document has been typed out rather than hand written!

Lord Curzon's handwriting stumped both me and the archivist at the help desk. Shall pretend those documents are irrelevant. Meanwhile I do note that everyone here, except the policemen/security personnel here at the Parliamentary Archives, suffers from a dismal lack of social skills, i.e. able to make small, pleasant talk.

Dye or Dirt?

Today I finally washed a pouch that I bought from Sapa, Vietnam. I had previously been using it to carry around my diary and a pen, and other small things. Today as I hand washed it, copious amounts of blue dye came out (come to think of it, maybe it's the local natural dye they use for colouring their own clothes dark blue), colouring the soapy water blue. Now hours later, after it's dried, I realised the fecking thing has actually changed colour: it's now several shades lighter, sort of like a turquoise kind of colour from dark blue. Amazing. Of course now I'm left to wonder whether it was dirt that made the pouch so dark coloured, or whether it was simply layers and layers of caked dirt because those villagers weren't exactly known for their high state of cleanliness.

I'm back to being super frustrated and dissatisfied with everything that my life entails again. Nothing new really, it's sort of like my 2nd default setting (1st being satisfied at merely coasting along life). But I'm more frustrated this time because of this one person I know, who's been depressed for quite sometime, is still depressed and in my view, refusing to help herself. She refuses to go for counselling, refuses to take medication, flat out refuses to do anything that might alleviate the problem. And it's affecting my friends, her flatmates. Am I being harsh on her? Yes, totally. Considering that I fight with depression all the time, it might seem rich coming from me, but on the other hand if I'm not hard on myself to fight my depression I'd just let it win all the time - and spend my whole life looking on from my bed. Depression can only be solved within oneself, and if you're refusing to address it even after such a prolonged period (anything more than 6 months), then well you're just letting it win, so in a way I think it is kind of fair to say that you're just wallowing in yourself and not doing anything.

Of course being the coward I am, I'd never say it to her.

I'm sick of all of this.