Here Comes the Sun

For some strange reason although it's sunny on and off her in London (I loved sitting in the sunny pew at church today!), it's still chilly. It makes me dream of the lovely weather in Majorca, especially since I FINALLY sent an email to Magali with my photos of her, after weeks of procrastination.

Am currently sitting in Starbucks with Cielo, attempting to work on my dissertation and getting oh-so-distracted. I hate it when I have trouble expressing myself, and I do it best with the written word too (I think). Can't imagine having to give an oral report on it. Thank goodness we don't have to.

I keep seeing people that I know from LSE in Starbucks. Saw Hwa, then Liz, then Iain. I guess it's all LSE students getting hits of caffeine as they do the whole exam studying shindig. Also ran into Aneesh on my way to church today and ended up talking to him at the junction outside Woburn Place, while the lights kept changing colour and people walked around us.

Anyway here's another Majorca picture: of lemons! I like yellow coloured things, for yellow's the colour of happiness (to me at least).

9 Days

It is precisely 9 Days left till my Dissertation and Assessed Essay is due. I am calm yet stressed out at the same time. If it wasn't for my medicine I'd probably just be stressed out though. Not sure which is worse.

As I walked back from the library today (at 11pm I am proud to add!) I couldn't believe that I had watched Eugene Onegin just a week ago. It seems like ages had passed. And I suppose in a way it did. There was the Easter weekend that I wrote about previously, with all those jolly events jam-packed in. Then there was the week from Tuesday to today, which I suppose was largely studying. Yet even so it was quite different. Namely that I was going through a whirlwind of ups and downs cause of A Certain Incognisant Person who did silly things to me, leaving me all sad and dejected at the end. It really wasn't all his fault too I suppose, largely cause I do miss the feeling of having someone intimate to spoil and hang about with, doing nothing in particular. And I suppose I did do that when he was around. BUT THEN AGAIN, there were other things for which I was blameless too. Blargh.

I'm feel quite tired cause of the long time I spent in the library today. Also cause I got about 4 hours of sleep the previous night (more like morning cause I slept at 5am). I was sad and ended up reading horror manga that Chang Hong recommended. Then I got scared and had to finish it, and then had to read someone else cause I felt too goosebumpy. All rather silly.

I'm really, really scared for the future.

Easter Weekend in Review

Friday - 6th April

I'd booked a ticket (£25) for Eugene Onegin, the ballet, ages ago after I watched the Nutcracker during Christmas. I'd enjoyed the Nutcracker so much, that I thought I might try another ballet - one that also appealed to my literary side. The Eifman ballet from St Petersburg was coming for a few nights, so I thought I'd give it a try. In the four or so months in between, I read Eugene Onegin, and enjoyed in (hello Pushkin!). But of course right before dashing out the door, I read the wiki page again to refresh my memory, ahaha.

Also before going to the ballet, I dropped by Seewoo and bought veg and two packs of tofu. So there I was, feeling all posh and shit, carrying Chinese groceries in my tote bag. I laughed inwardly at the thought multiple times. Meanwhile, after taking my seat, I discovered I was surrounded on all sides by Russians. I had a really good seat. Totally worth the £25.

I loved the ballet. Well, I hated Eugene Onegin's costume, but I loved the ballet. I cannot quantify why exactly. It was turns graceful, and at the same time rough. The fight scenes between Eugene and Vladimir were wonderfully choreographed, and I loved the opening and ending scenes when all the dancers came out and performed the ball at St Petersburg. The score too was interesting, a mix of classical music and rock music to illustrate the rural scenes.




My favourite of all however, was the General. HE. WAS. SEXY. Ahaha. Also the 3rd male lead. I loved his character, and I loved his dancing.




Afterwards I through briefly about trying to see the other Eifman ballet, Anna Karenina, but it had been earlier in the week. Still, buoyed by the ballet, I ended up walking back from the London Coliseum back home. The weather was a nice temperature, and lots of people were out enjoying the night. When I came back, I was utterly exhausted.

Sat - 7 April

On Sat I watched a play with Cielo, Moonlight on a Rainbow Shawl. It was at the Cottesloe theatre, which turned out to be a black box theatre. Cielo was late, and before the play started I ended up talking to a random old lady about plays in general. She spoke about all the shakespeare productions she watched, and bits here and there. Said she had a collection of plays at home, and a first edition copy of Moonlight on a Rainbow Shawl for 50p that she bought in the '60s or '70s. Later in the theatre, I saw her sitting in the first row, oho. The play itself was enjoyable, and definitely worth the £12 (Entry Pass!) I paid. The acting was good, the play solidly written and the set well done. Of course then again, I only got interested in it when I heard about how highly rated it was from The Week.

Afterwards Cielo and I walked about Southbank for a bit, before taking a bus to Russell Square. We went to Waitrose to buy groceries (she bought a jar of jam which is still sitting on my desk). Back at home, as I was doing last minute cleaning up, Gen came and I sent Cielo to pick him up. Then she managed to lock herself out of the house (with my keys), and when she finally got in she got herself stuck on the glue from the mouse trap. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

We hung out a bit at my flat first. I cut up a dodgy looking mango and the three of us (ZW, Gen and I) shared the slivers. Cielo refused to eat any bit of it. Then around 8:15-ish we met Mong and walked down to Convent Garden to eat at somewhere called Mishkin's (?), to meet Cheryl, which sells kosher food. I had a nice chicken, tarragon and leek knish there, and a good gimlet. After that we ended up at a Tapas bar near Cambridge Circus/Seven Dials. Then when the bar closed we ended up in Soho, looking for another place. Soho, was rocking. Also saw a topless guy with bunny ears and a bob tail brief dancing on tables inside a bar. Oho. We ended up at a real dive-y sort of place called Lupo, where we were the youngest people. It was entertaining. I kept stacking stools at the side cause I kept crashing into them.

After the music started to get all techno-ey, we left. Gen, Cielo and I walked back to Russell Square, and Cielo missed her bus by a bit, and after flipping a coin and getting a text from Cielo, Gen and I headed back to stay with her. Ended up having interesting encounters with the people at the bus stop, a group of Italians with two singing guys (who sang pretty damn well) and another groups of boys who came from the O2. I'm not sure if the latter group were performing there? But they were nicely underdressed and shivering in the cold. They complained that they stuff we were talking about was too morbid. Cielo's bus came, and we sent her off. Gen and I ended up sleeping around 5am cause of everything. Nyeh.

Sun - 8 April

Needless to say, I missed going to church. I woke up exactly at 11am, and then went back to sleep shortly after. When I finally did wake up around 1pm I think, Gen was already up. I got ready and wanted to take a walk about the area with him, but then it started to rain and we ended up ducking into Cafe 49, just metres away from my house. Then, I saw Skoob books was open and we went in. I walked out with John O'Farrell's Things Can Only Get Better and Gen walked out with Dominic Lieven's Russia Against Napoleon (which I recommended!), and joking that he ought to summarise the book for me. I ended up doing a bit of work, then marinating the chicken with Gen/preparing the food for dinner.

Around 7:30pm, ZW, Gen and I walked over to Flat 8 with all the food ready. We had the grand sounding Emperor Spices Chicken, sambal prawn and veg, plus tofu with minced pork. And a fruit tart Cielo bought earlier in the week that was clogging up freezer space. Dinner was a success. The chicken was nicely done (thank you A1 spices, aha) and everything was good. Except the fruit tart which was really bad. We picked out the fruits.

After getting back, I did a bit more work, and watched the old X-Men cartoons with Gen until we felt tired. I was still not quite able to sleep though, and ended up finishing Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman. It was enjoyable enough a read.

Mon - 9 April

Had a lazy morning with Gen. I cooked up the remaining prata and heated up the curry, made some oatmeal for myself. Then we ended up rushing out of the house cause I needed to meet Eugene at Chinatown. I bade goodbye to Gen at Holborn Station, and ended up reaching the dim sum place (next to Seewoo is all I remember) something like a minute before Eugene. We had a rushed lunch, cause I booked a ticket for the 2:30pm screening of Le Havre at the Barbican. Le Havre was enjoyable enough, but not quite something I'd watch again. After I got back, I ended up napping. I think ZW and I ate dinner around 9:30pm or something, oho.

-----

Today is Jean's birthday. We're going to go to TGI Friday's in the evening to celebrate. Never been to TGI Friday's before, so hmm.

FB

Looking at FB, and seeing good looking (okok, the correct word is hot) guys in my friends' lives makes me feel a strange sort of emptiness... like WHO ARE THESE GORGEOUS MEN AND WHY DON'T I KNOW THEM/HAVE ONE?

It's all very weird. The more I think about it, the more ok I am with being alone. As in everyday life, and even (now) traveling. I enjoyed my solo trip to Majorca so much I booked another, to see South Spain for a week after my exams (so excited! I've had a crush on Andalucia since last year). Hell I booked a whole swathe of things to do alone here in London, since it's always so troublesome trying to get people to coordinate. Then there's the thought of sharing a bed, and how sleep quality drops like mad as a result. Sharing a bed with Ianthe for three days in our Scotland trip reminded me of that. And all sorts of pains with having to compromise with people when all I want to do is get my own damn way. You'd think this'd all mean that I ought to not want a man in my life, and in a way I kind of don't. I don't want to share my awesome time with anyone, hell the time I have is barely enough even for me. Yet in a way, I WANT A MAN. Want to fall in love and be swept off my feet.

Talk about being totally irrational. It's like a remnant of my more primal side, like when my ancestors were hanging about in trees. Like this female need to settle down with a male, nevermind that it makes no damn practical sense at all. BAH. I wish I was a robot, and able to think only rational thoughts.

Adventure Time

I have class at 9am tomorrow, but don't feel like sleeping. Instead I'm watching episodes of Adventure Time with Finn and Jake online. Not that amused by it too, but somehow I just feel like watching more episodes.

After my Napoleon class today I stayed in the 4th floor to work on my dissertation till 9pm. Shu and Eduardo were there when I came, but all left halfway. Soon, the 4th floor restaurant emptied too and when I left I was the only one. I am completely frustrated at my inability to write out my thoughts for my dissertation smoothly. Instead everything sounds trite and annoying. Ahgahbarghhhh. Besides writing my dissertation, I was also waiting for Tomiko, to pass her some party tickets that Shu left for me. When Tomiko finally came, she brought a friend called James with her. His lips were blue in colour, and looked mighty odd, apparently because he'd been helping himself to loads of red wine during dinner. Which seems a bit counter-intuitive, come to think of it, because shouldn't red wine make your lips redder rather than a I-am-dead sort of shade of blue? I pointed that out, but they ignored me.

Ended up talking a bit about my dissertation to them as we walked down and out of LSE, since James is apparently a 'fanatic' of genocides. Sort of like me I suppose. He asked me what I was writing about, and I found it a bit hard to sum up. I will however, be eternally thankful to Tomiko who managed to sum it up in her usual deadpan manner: "It's about how Britain fucked up in dealing with Armenia". I feel like somehow now, my dissertation is easier to think about. Like it's less intimidating. Ahaha.

On my way back, I cut past Ye Olde White Horse. A man in a suit, out of a group of many men in many suits, shouted 'Girl!' at me as I walked past. Feeling sort of bold (and partly caught up thinking about my dissertation), I turned to them as I was walked and said 'Hi'. The lot of them then burst out cheering, and one shouted 'Ni Hao!' I didn't turn back to look at them though, and continued walking. Must say though, the experience makes me smile because it is oh-so-silly.

After I got back, I started to make a second dinner for myself (after watching some Adventure Time). No one was home and I had the flat to myself. I wanted to make a garlic, chili and olive oil base pasta. I ended up dumping in too much chili flakes, and my mouth went numb and my insides shuddered as I ate it. It was tasty though. After eating the pasta, I watched a bit of Criminal Minds before deciding to draw myself a bath. Then as I soaked in it, I started to read Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama. For a while I suddenly thought to myself, 'hmm, is this what solitary grown-up life feels like? Get home late from work to an empty flat, cook dinner, watch a bit of tv, shower, sleep?' Oh well.

Last night I watched The Ring and Team America with Dex, Jou and Jade. The Ring wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be, because the pivotal scary scene had been parodied and referenced so much in pop culture. Team America was nice though, because I FINALLY WATCHED IT. It's one of those kept-meaning-to-but-never-did sort of things. Yesterday was Japanese day too, cause I had lunch at Koya with Jou and Dex, followed by Atariya with Evelyn, Cielo and Jia. Then of course I watched The Ring, the original Japanese version.

Going to Scotland on Sat to meet Ianthe.

More fruitseller stories

Today I woke up to a bright a chilly day, feeling much better. I finally set out to run long pressing errands, like sending postcards which I dated 12 Feb (the actual date I wrote them) off. And of course I walked by the fruitseller. Since about 1 and a half months ago, I noticed he obtained a new set of outwear, mainly some strange red tartan fleece thing. I guess it's a nice contrast to his other faded dark blue hoodie. But somehow, because I got so used to seeing him in that blue hoodie, the red fleece looks outright jarring on him.

Anyway since it was chilly, I asked him if I could get him anything, like perhaps tea? After all, no one drinks the mint tea we have in the house. Not to mention, no one really knows how it got into our cupboards in the first place, since no one recalls actually buying it. Anyway he said he didn't want tea, but wanted hot water, and handed me his flask instead. As I was about to walk away, he did the normal 'wait wait!' thing and started grabbing random fruits to give to me, and as usual I protested. Mainly because no one eats all the fruits he gives us anyway, and they often rot in some corner of our kitchen. This time however, he said 'nono, you are my sister!'. I was greatly amused. When I told my flatmates, they all went 'awwww'.

Ahaha.

Going to go swing dance later, can't wait!

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.

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.