meaning bunny rabbit

151 drawing life

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:06:17 GMT

Life drawing curtesy of the Visual Arts Society. No spoilers this time. :)

150 RA RA AH-AH-AH RUH-MAH RUH-MA-MAH GA GA OOH LA LA

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:13:02 GMT

Last Friday the LGBT society took over the usual student night and remaned it 'Queer Crush'.

The fact that Lady Gaga was played a total of four times during the night meant that I enjoyed it all that much more. Other amusements came in the form of the 'Mr Miss LSE Drag Pagent', cute girls with short hair in suspenders and Doc Martins dancing the whole night through, something I haven't really done in a long time.

Actually, I usually hate the normal student night that gets put on every Friday because the music is obnoxious and people are generally the same, except in cases where they are creepily leery. Queer Crush was so not like that. Everyone was so nice, even when they were asking me quite directly if I was a lesbian. I was waiting to order drinks when a cute guy and his friend came to lean on the bar next to me.

'Excuse me, you don't happen to know any cute Asian gay guys, would you?' he asked.
'Sorry, all the Asian guys I know are very straight... at least as far as I know.'
'Damn. Oh well, never mind. You're not a lesbian, are you?'
'Oh, you noticed.'
'That's okay. Meet my friend Michael. He's straight... (sort of). You'd love each other.'

Another very cool thing is that this year's first issue of the student union journal, Clare Market Review came out on Monday and the launch party took place that night at The Black Heart pub in Greenland Place. I went for three reasons: first, I actually wrote something for the journal because I've wanted to ever since I fell in ♥ with its creativity and eccentric design last year. Second, the party was organised by Alexandra Kane, one of the coolest people I know, who is so cool I can't talk about her without using her full name. Third, the pub is exactly twenty yards away from my front door, so there was really no excuse.

It was actually kind of funny and mortifying because as far as I know I was actually the only contributor who turned up. Alexandra Kane kept introducing me as 'The Contributor'.

'OMG! Everyone knows who you are! You're famous!' Sasha teased me.
'Yeah, girl, this is your party,' said Paul. 'Anyone who you don't like, we can throw out. Later you can make a speech.'

I'm desperately on the look out for the photos of the night because everyone there was amazingly dressed and I stupidly forgot my camera, but until I find some, you can have a nosey around the online edition of the magazine. It's really phenomenally put together.

149 drawing life

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:45:29 GMT

Life drawing curtesy of the Visual Arts Society. Sharon, you might be spolied for MoMA, but only a little bit. :)

148 she was close, close enough to be your ghost

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:05:29 GMT

Halloween last year was fairly crap. I realise that now when comparing it with this year. I hope I remember all the costume ideas I had this past week for next year. Some of the ones I saw on other people were fantastic.

Generally these days I am too busy. I wanted to get involved with uni a lot more and some of the stuff I'm doing is really fun. I'm writing a family history piece for Clare Makret Review on my mum's memories of the invasion in Cyprus, and I've asking the family about what happened 35 years ago. It's been really exhausting. The piece is actually just a short thing to introduce the interviews, and it's really non-sentimental and pragmatic, but even I cried a couple of times while writing it. Maybe I'll have to stop telling people I have a heart of stone now.

Also, life drawing might be starting tomorrow, which is good (and will actually force me to do some drawing, Sharon, I will do some in MOMA!) and I had my first Japanese lesson this evening. This year's class seems much friendlier than last year's, where everyone came in, studied and then went home. I feel like if I suggested that we all go around the corner to the Japanese take away place for discount sushi this year, at least five people would be up for it. Also, it used to irritate me that last year any mistakes made for embarrassed silences. This year they make for embarrassed giggles. :)

On the down side, I somehow managed to get myself elected as official photograher for this new society calling itself Global soc. Don't ask me what it does, I don't know. It claims to connect up all of LSE's national societies, but so far all it has done is united a lot of people who are a bit pretentious with people who want something to put on their CVs. Oh, and they ask me to do a lot of last minute poster designing. I really want to quit, but the web manager already quit and I'd feel really bad.

[ ate food ]

[ dressed up as a librarian ]

[ chatted with Sarah Palin ]

[ 'I'm Obama's health bill.' ]

[ dressed up as a harlequin romance novel ]

[ went to a Mexcian birthday party ]

[ was visited by a trick or treater ]

[ did some cooking ]

[ went to a 90s music thememed party ]

[ met the spice girls ]

147 paper ♥ v3.0

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:55:10 GMT

v1.0 // v2.0

144 notes on derbyshire

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:16:16 GMT

Some landscape

I got obsessed about collecting certain images, like dead trees, rock formations or the shape of triangles.

Heather was everywhere! I can see why it featured in Wuthering Heights.

Buildings / gardens / towns

When the weather was bad, we visited old houses.

I think this courtyard was used in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, after they meet at Pemberley and he rushes down the steps to stop her leaving in embarrassment.

Imagine carving your initials onto the roof of your house.

... reminded me of this bit in Jane Eyre:

North Lees Hall

The house we were staying in looked liked this:

Found this bit about Charlotte Brontë interesting:

...and because I wasn't allowed to take photos inside the houses, I had to shamelessly scrounge some from postcards and guidebooks.

143 notes on alexandria

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:04:14 GMT

Around the city

Including buildings, people, restaurants, shops... Even though these were the kind of pictures I wanted to take the most, I often felt uncomfortable taking them because whipping out the G10 gained me even more attention than I already got. Some are taken covertly from shady corners or from the back of taxis, which is why they are blurry or discoloured.

St Saba's Church

...where I made friends with the custodian who let me take pictures. I sat in here for about two hours waiting for Scarlett's Arabic class to let out and nobody else ever came in. I think I read that there are now only 1,000 Greeks left in Alex, after shrinking from about 32,000 after the Suez Crisis.

Alexandria National Museum

...was the only place where I saw any noticble amount of foreigners.

The Cavafis Museum

A cute little museum in a backstreet second floor apartment where the dead Greek poet Cavafis lived.

He wrote:

Η Πόλις

Είπες· «Θα πάγω σ' άλλη γή, θα πάγω σ' άλλη θάλασσα,
Μια πόλις άλλη θα βρεθεί καλλίτερη από αυτή.
Κάθε προσπάθεια μου μια καταδίκη είναι γραφτή·
κ' είν' η καρδιά μου -- σαν νεκρός -- θαμένη.
Ο νους μου ως πότε μες στον μαρασμό αυτόν θα μένει.
Οπου το μάτι μου γυρίσω, όπου κι αν δω
ερείπια μαύρα της ζωής μου βλέπω εδώ,
που τόσα χρόνια πέρασα και ρήμαξα και χάλασα».

Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θάβρεις άλλες θάλασσες.
Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς
τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς·
και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ' ασπρίζεις.
Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις. Για τα αλλού -- μη ελπίζεις --
δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό.
Ετσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ
στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ' όλην την γή την χάλασες.

The City

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this one.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eye, wherever I look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
Where I spent so many years and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow grey.
Always you will arrive in this city. As for another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, so you have destroyed it in the whole world.

Some food

...which was always delicious and cheaper than sawdust. Sort of like a cross between Cyrpiot and Lebanese food. Lots of fish, herbs, vegetables, beans and cheese in pastry.

Marina

Scarlett's friends took out to swim and eat in the government compound on the north coast, where middle class Egyptians and wealthy Saudis have houses to escape to from Cairo and Alex. Water sports on the artificial lakes are popular, as well as shisha and shopping. I have never seen water so blue in my life.

&&&

142 Big Love.

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:34:27 GMT

After all the flat hunting I did at the beginning of last month, my parents spoke to their financial person and concluded that the recession means it would be better to wait a few years before buying, seeing as both of them could be unemployed in the near future. :S

Part of me is vaguely annoyed that all the work I did was for nothing (chasing up estate agents is a full-time job and now I get mildly annoyed when I still get property email alerts) but the bigger part of me is relieved that I'll only be renting next year. This means that Alice and I can look for a place that is more about her and me and less about my mum and her architectural hang-ups. Yay.

Every year some family friends of ours host a little crafts and music festival in their house in Surrey. We spent the afternoon wondering around their ancient garden and sitting in the adjoining field listening to teenage boys play Arctic Monkeys covers. The house reminds me of the one the Bennets lived in in Pride and Prejudice. I think five or six generations have lived in it so far.

Some unrelated photos:

Elise, Marina and I walked around Brick Lane and compared fashion styles. They concluded that they would never be able to live in Spitalfields because they would feel like they had to dress up all the time to fit in with the artsy crowd.

'Elli fits in here,' Elise said.

'Yeah, perfectly.' Marina said.

'Excuse me while I dodge that backhanded compliment.'

The weather turned a bit crap, and Nina invited me for a sleepover at her house. She lives in Gants Hill, which is way out in the East of London so it's kind of mission to get there, but so worth it. Nina's house is the type of house that always has random people staying in it, like family friends or couch surfers. Anyone can do some cooking or some washing up, and literally every wall surface is covered in book shelves (mostly the works of socialist thinkers).

Going there is like stepping into an all-encompassing therapy experience. When I get there I make myself a cup of tea, chat to her parents for a bit, say hi to whoever is around, pet the cat... Then Nina and I usually go up to her room, put on some music and lie on her massive bed. She tells me everything that's going on in her life in one big gush, including philosophical comments regarding the relevant events and gossip theories, then she takes a deep breath and says 'Anyway, how are you?' and I do the same straight back.

It's like free therapy, so I usually bring some chocolate truffles or donuts to show my appreciation.

We had a long chat about some big issues that we seem to always get back to, social anxiety, fear of intimacy, shyness, expectations, group psychology... Nina is really one of the few people I can talk completey honestly with. It's kind of a mild shock to realise when it happens and I realise I'm not maintaining any of my defence mechanisms. She's also one of the few people I don't have to prepare myself to touch. She always falls asleep with her face in my neck and when we're cooking and running around the kitchen there's always some spontaneous hugging.

When I was in the bathroom she surreptitiously wrote me a note:

The past few days I've been cooking lots for my extended family who were staying with us. It's nice to have a big audience, since when I was living alone, there wasn't really much point in putting in much effort. The most successful dishes were spaghetti with prawns and sun dried tomatoes, Moroccan fish with cous cous, beetroot salad and scotch pancakes with mango and cream.

& I've been getting ready to go to join Scarlett in Egypt on the 12th, learning all the little cultural considerations, like don't eat with your left hand, don't show anyone the sole of your shoe, cover your shoulders and thighs. I was really nervous, I've never been to the African continent or the Middle East before, but everyone's been telling me to chill out so I just need to remember how terrified I was about going to China and that it turned out fine, better than fine, in fact.

141 paper ♥ v2.0

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:02:33 GMT

v1.0

140 you're a thief with style

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:24:43 GMT

The name of the the cafe is Sausage & Mash in case you were wondering. ^__^

...Aaaaaand it seems like working my arse off this year actually paid off. In the end-of-year exams I got 69, 70, 71, 71, which I hope, hope, hope is a 1st, depending on whether or not coursework marks are counted. It might be a bit more impressive when you consider that tutors at the LSE never give anyone over an 80 on principle, stingy old codgers. I'm actually really happy. I don't know who told me that the first year at university was meant to be a doss, but I want to find them and punch them in the face. If it had turned out that all my efforts had made a 3rd or a fail, I don't know what I would have done because the fact is I can't work any harder next year. Or perhaps it was just the shock?

I saw art on top of bus shelters.

I had existential conversations in diners with Nina.

Scarlett and I bought mango ice cream in an Indian supermarket on brick Lane,

and perused Camden Market for studded belts and black lipstick so she could go to a Nine Inch Nails concert with her boyf.

My dad and I had lunch in Spitalfields and saw some flats around Shorditch.

What we saw kind of mediocre I guess. One was weirdly designed and in a rubbish area, another had disgusting decor and a leaking crack in the ceiling. The best was this tiny cute 1920s apartment off Brick Lane with blue iron railings, flower pots on the balcony and a dingy little bathroom which would have to be stripped out. It was pretty clear that we were shown the ones they were trying to get rid of.

Until last year, I've lived in the same house for my entire life, so this was the first time I've ever dealt with estate agents. I don't know if it's indicative of the whole trade, but the guy who was showing us around these flats was such a nob, and clearly not used to doing any kind of hard work. I'm so glad my intimidating architect dad was with me and could ask about leases and local authorities and wiring and energy efficiency... none of which the guy could tell us anything about.

'Well, he's probably not used to doing so much homework,' my dad said, when I expressed amazment at how little agenting this estate agent was doing. 'Usually people just see a place, decide they like it, and buy it. Then they run into all the problems afterwards. Of course if you know what you're doing and what you're looking for, you never find anywhere.'

So, it's clear that I'm going to have to do some homework myself before the next round of viewings.

I cannot stop eating peanut flavoured crackers.

138 get down on the town

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:49:49 GMT

I have to say, this summer is looking like a grand ol' time. What I should say is that it's making up for the two month period of hellish exam stress. The weather has been awesome, old friends are coming back from uni, I have my trusty Canon, and a part time job to keep me in the moniez. Good times.

One of the first things I did was to spend a lot of time with Alice. I'm always slightly amazed by the kinds of things she tells me. From the general unpleasantness that she still has to go through with regards to her ex-boyfriend (they had to see each other to get back their respective valuables) to her experiences with drinking on antibiotics ('Do you reckon I can takes these with a beer?') I sometimes don't know whether to laugh it off with her, or to cry because such awful things keep happpening to such an amazing person.

Anyway, we had a series of lunches, visisted the Starbucks in Borders so we could read fashion magazines for free, had breakfast in Exmouth Market and then I helped her move all her boxes and suitcases out of her halls and back to her mum's house.

To say thank you she bought me a rose. ^___^

I was wondering around Bond Street the other day when I found this shop:

Inside there were two women sitting on either side of a table drinking tea and showing each other holiday photos. The walls were lined with bags of tea, calligraphy and fans. When I asked the lady who worked there what it was all about she showed the back of one of the bags of tea, where there was a prined postcard. The idea was that you write on the postcard and post the bag of tea to someone. She then pointed to the back room, where a couple more people were milling about. 'That's John, who travels all around Asia and finds tea for us to sell. Truly, we sell the best tea in London.' He waved.

When I went to see the Futurism exhibition at the Tate, but ended us spending a lot more time outside, because it was SUCH a gorgeous sunny day. To get to the gallery I always walk along the south bank of the Thames. It was low tide, and the beaches were out! Even though it was the middle of the week, there were lots of people out and about.

I discovered that there's a theatre behind the Oxo tower with a courtyard strung with lights and coffee shop tables. The names of the nine muses are printed on the side of the biulding in big white letters. I made a point of photographing all of them so I could show my mum, whose full name is Urania.

I know it's huge and over-priced, over-crowded and touristy, but I can't help it. I love the Tate Modern. The building used to be a power station that was built under Margaret Thatcher in the early days of nucear power. Of course, after that went down the crapper it was disused since the 80s until the Tate bought the building.

When you walk into the massive empty hall that used to hold the nuclear turbines, there's always this low humming in the air, like the energy that used to be made here got left over of something.

I didn't really like Futurism. The paintings were mostly too colourful and harsh and big, historical exhibitons like that on a certain '-ism' tend to be shallow and boring. But, I accidentally fell in love with Per Kirkeby the artist who was being featured in the other exhibiton in the rooms across the hall.

On the way home I spotted a kangeroo.

*

PS.
Recently I have become obsessed with photographing things in the sky.

PPS.
This extends to food.

PPPS.
Here are some recent purchases:

Skull ring to replace the one that I lost. T__T I love it because it reminds me of this thing by Damein Hirst:

Etui clutch, Faith shoes, Urban Outfitter hat.

A rabbit fan from Postcard Teas

Harem trousers and grey blazer from Topshop.

My belt has elephants on it. ^__^

PPPPS. I hope the people in the northern hemishere are having a good summer, and the people in the southern hemisphere are having a god winter.

137 clitourps, normandy, france.

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:36:47 GMT

Yes, there were a lot of jokes about the name of the town we were staying in, because we're mature like that.

Basically, Suze invited Rhian, Becky, Georgia, Tom and me to spend four days in her parents' converted barn in Noramndy. We spent them eating croissants with nutella, walking around the local fishing towns, vegging on the beach, cooking with obscene amounts of cheese, playing cardgames sunbathing on the trampoline, and dancing around to 90s pop hits.

For a lot of these activities we were moderately tipsy. :D

Ferry! It was exactly like I remembered when my family used to go to France. :D

The house was so beautiful! It was in the process of being renovated while we were staying there so there were always builders about, making banging noises at 8.15 in the morning, but five of us have been staying in halls with builders outside all year so we barely noticed.

A big theme of the trip was horror stories, because of the way the house was so isolated (only one neighbour, a deaf old man). We discussed who would be the first to die, if anyone would survive and how the photographic evidence in my camera would make its way into police hands.

I've never had so much chocolate for breakfast in my life.

At this point I feel I should explain that Tom wasn't always the only guy who planned to go on this trip. Originally, Suze had invited about five or six guys from our halls to come. In the end though they decided to go to Cornwall instead. It was kind of a mess actually, because they were being really immature about the whole thing, calling Suze's organisation emails patronising and making out that she was forcing them to come to her house on the tube with a TV so they could play Halo or whatever. She had no idea that they were bitching about her, so when they all cancelled, she was left with £100 worth of cancellation fees from the ferry company.

Another thing we spent a lot of time doing was bitching about them to make her feel better and resolving to send loads of angry emails to make them pay up.

Mmm... cheesy salad.

Georgia really likes salad dressing.

Yeah, we played twister on the trampoline.

Some people cheated.

Bit of Hitchcock. Suze had a projector set up in the attic room and we hung a sheet from the roof beams for cinematic effect. :D

Kitties for sale in the local town.

Homaigod the sea was SO cold. Georgia and went in inch by inch, squealing and swearing and threatening to splash each other, and then we kind of... fell in and ran back to shore.

This is the ashtray ater three days.

In the queue for the ferry home we were parked next to Alan Carr's grandfather.

Fun, fun, fun!

In the end I guess I am kind of glad of glad the rest of the people didn't come. It was nice to be just the six of us.

135 false start

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:58:06 GMT

So... exams have been over for a few days and unfortunately in the confusion I managed to leave my digital camera in my room at school while my mum managed to get me to move back to Camden so she could use my presence in the house to ward off unwated house guests. What with Sasha's 50s themed birthday party, a much awaited lunch-and-movie date with Melissa and series of post-exam bar hops, I was forced to buy one of these:

which means that my photographic evidence of all these events is in the process of being developed. How quaint.

Anyway, by end of the exam period, I think that a lot of us were about ready to admit defeat. There was a week between my last exam and the one before it, so by then I found myself really not caring whether I got a decent grade. You need 40% to pass the year, so a lot of people were like, 'Well, I wrote something in that exam so I obviously passed, and now it's over, I don't give a monkey's.' Anthropology 100 was one of the very late exams so almost nobody had another one after that. This meant that once the exam had finished there was an almost unbroken stream of people walking from the exam hall into the union bar. :D

What's interesting though is that that night after the last exam was the night where I met met a lot of classmates who I'd previously never spoken to before. I think this year came as a big shock to most people, especially the level of work involved and the kind of expectations put on us by tutors and stuff like that. A lot of my friends wished that they had made a bit more of an effort to make friends and get involed in university stuff. And I think the sense of lost opportunity was common among others as well. As the night went on, people who my have never spoken to each other before invited each other out for summer parties and made promises to meet up over the summer. I must have made a note of more phone numbers that night than I had for the entire year.

I did some cultural things.

I did some geeky things.

I earned some steady income looking after other people's children.

I took some generic pictures.

...& I am now the proud owner of one of these:

So hopefully now all my subjects won't look like blinded red-eyed rats.

And tomorrow I am off to stay in the French countryside with a group of girls where I was promised a lot of eating, drinking, gossiping and photo opportunities. Yay!

134 Drive-by photoshooting

Wed, 13 May 2009 23:57:12 GMT

At this point I'm just waiting for June 5th, when exams will be over. I don't know what it is about the LSE, but people are going NUTS. They are actually bringing sleeping bags to the library and that is why it is beginning to smell. Anyway, I'm currently in the anxious zone. At some point, this will pass and I will enter a phase of zen, where nothing will bother me. Here's hoping. It just seems as though the institution is doing everything it can to panic us, including sending out mass emails telling us that this year, exams will be harder than ever and we'd better be working hard and looking at past exams papers, P.S. The exam board does not tolerate cheating.

So, here's the last three weeks or so in pictures:

First things first: Suze has a birthday party in cocktil bar on Old Street. We take over the basement room and struggle to scrape together enough change for a margerita. Suddenly, a piece of the wooden banister falls from the ceiliing. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the law students still see an opportunity to expolit the management for free drinks.

Everyone from my old school is back in London from uni for the Easter holidays and looking to have a good time. We meet at Katie's flat in Covent Garden for a drink before migrating to Punk in Soho. It is a long while since Maxim (whose smile looks freakishly like Keira Knightley's) has had haircut. I am recruited to style his hair using wax that Katie keeps on a shelf behind CDs, even though it is the first time we've met.

My mum has to visit some churches she is repairing in Kent, and asks me if I would like to tag along. I am sudeuced by the idea of a day of avoiding work and a free pub lunch. When we arrive, the builders offer me a hard hat and neon jacket so I can climb up the scaffolding on the tower and take pictures.

On Thursday, Miss Imogen and I spend an evening eating chocolate and banana, bopping to electric keyboard tunes and pushing clothes pegs out of the holes of a laundry basket.

I take Jhay to see Shane's band play at Proud Galleries in Camden. Three boys are in the corner making glowstick glasses. The venue's building used to be a set of stables and Silicon Kid have a horse stall reserved for their entourage, which has grown from five people to around forty. The Camden crowd are wankey and distaining of the frontman's outfit, and there are poles in each of the stalls should anyone feel inclined to poledance. The next night, Alice throws Shane a surprise birthday party in their pocal pub.

The next morning, Suze and I have lunch in Spitalfields and miraculously find space on a picnic bench in the 1 o'clock rush. It's sunny, but that doesn't stop us bitching about boys and exams and drama about next year's living arrangements.

OK, now it's back to Japanese. Must pass exam. Have not begun to prepare and it happens to be tomorrow...

132 hello, second home

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:20:27 GMT

Greek Orthodox Easter is this week, instead last week, like everybody else. I think my aunt and uncle (whose house we are staying at) were a bit stressed yesterday on their last day at work. My aunt is a human rights lawyer, my uncle is in insurance and today they've been answering phone calls all day from the rest of the world, which is of course, still working and doesn't understand why Cyprus isn't.

I only got here two days ago but so far I feels like I've visited all my extended family, my grandfather, five elderly great aunts, three of my mother's cousins and their children, my mother's aunt and uncle, my other aunt and uncle... and this doesn't include random people I see down town who stop me and tell me that I am the spitting of Elli Pitsilli, and 'Yes, I am her granddaughter... no, my mother is the middle sister...'

Some people are more fun to visit that others. My grandfather had a lot of sisters, some of whom have already died, some of whom have lost their spouses, others of whom seem to think that being left behind means they have the right to be miserable about being old and anticipate death. Stubborness runs in the family, everyone insists that they can't do anything these days, no one understands, 'ιναμ’ πο’εν να καμουμεν?', 'What can you do?'

animals

my brother swimming in a 10 degree outdoor pool

old photographs

(My brother and me, aged 3 and 6)

It's funny, but you never really think about where photographs of you end up, do you?

130 dance dance dance 'till you're dead

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:20:31 GMT

Remember last post when my neck was feeling lumpy? Well, it turns out I had mumps, (even though I was vaccinated against it. wtf?) I was told in the doctor's office that even vaccinated people have a 5% chace of getting it and apparently there's an epidemic going around the London universities. So I was kicked out of halls and sent back to my parents' house where I was quarantined for a week. Lucky me. On the plus side, I now have immunity for life and the doctor also told me that in this case it was good to be a woman, since mumps is usually very painful for the testicles.

So once I was released into the wild again on Tuesday, I was invited to Sergio's birthday party along with all the first years in halls. Before we left, we all went to Matt's kitchen to have a drink, except I was trying to take it easy because of the whole recovering from a contageious disease thing.

It was probably because I was taking it easy that I could easily watch the developement of my friend's problems.

While Suze was out of the room, Kirsty and Becky were giggling as they poured more vodka into her cranberry juice, and then neglected to tell her what they'd done when she came back. What with drinking games and everything, it worked out that Suze must have drunk about a third of a bottle before we even left, and she is even shorter than me. The glass of ice water I handed her at the bar didn't stop her throwing it all up in the toilets while Kirsty and I tried to take of her. All the time, I was thinking at Kirsty, 'This is your fault, you were the one that tipped that bottle into her glass. That's not right.' I kept waiting for her to offer to take Suze home, but she never did. So that's how I ended up trying to reassure the cab driver that my friend wouldn't be puking in his cab, rummaging in Suze's handbag for her key, trying to persude her to eat some carbs... and back in my room by 11pm.

Discussing it with Nina, (who is back home from Oxford) the next day while we spent gift vouchers on makeup, we came to the conclusion that a lot of first years have an attitude to alcohol that's unnecessary and self destructive. There's a line, right? There's teasing and cajoling, like 'Come on, let's do another shot. Tequilla or sambucca?' and then there's pouring spirits into someone's drink while they're out of the room, or doing what Matt has often done to me, which is press a glass against my mouth and tip so I have no choice but to swallow or spill it down my front.

'God I hate it,' Nina compained. 'The fucking rowers do it all the time. They go out and get totally wasted and play these stupid drinking games. Then they come into college the next day and they're like "Yeah, I got shit-faced last night and got up in time to come to this tutorial and answer essay questions." And I'm like "Great, you're smart, and you're good at destroying your liver. Frankly, that still doesn't validate your existence."'

Wednesday night was also kind of a bust. Long story short short, we got dressed up to go to a party on a boat organised by the halls. We got there and it was all post-grads who wouldn't associate with us. The music was rubbish and drinks were too expensive so we left. As we stood on a street corner trying to decided what to do, lots of other people started leaving in waves and it turned out that the engine of the boat was broken so the whole thing got cancelled anyway. In the end, we got take away kebabs on Commercial Street while Scarlett impressively chatted to the guys in the shop in Arabic and chatted in my kitchen until the wee hours.

Thursday night I met Scarlett, her date, Woon (!) and her friend Hana at the big purple Salsa bar in Soho. Once the serious people drifted out and the people like us (who didn't know what they were doing) drifted in, it was fun to be taught salsa by cute Spanish boys. But, by midnight I was so tired that I had to leave early. :(

Thankfully Friday night was so much more fun. Alice and I went to see Shane play at Club de Paris, which was initially really weird because it's usually a dance-y hip-hop-y club, so it was just some indie kids who had turned up to see Silicon Kid, and few gangstas who had come for the support act, a group of rappers called Relentless Crew. After the set, the bands, plus their entourages drifted into the VIP area, where I spent a good hour having my ear talked off by two of Alice's friends from LA.

"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry,' Alice said, when we were outside for a smoke. 'Bloody musicians from LA will just not shut up about themselves.'

Anyway, enough talking, here are some photos:

This is Kirsty, the girl who did not take responsibility for her vodka tipping, and is the reason I look pissed off when she stole my camera and tried to do that myspace self portrait thing.

My dress was channeling Lady Gaga.

Urg. Holdups. Need some. Now.

Here's a cute little girl Nina and I sat next to in a cafe on Regents Street.

And this whole week it has been RIDICULOUSLY sunny! ^__^

... & here is my cat, who always finds the place with sun + bed.

129 some phohtohs

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:22:38 GMT

Right now my neck feels like a bag of oranges. I really hope it gets better before tomorrow night because I desperately want to go back to KOKO for some indie DJ sets by Bloc Party and the Mystery Jets. Pleasepleaseplease...

Highlights from the past two weeks:

+ Anthropology pub quiz reveals that there's nothing funnier than drunk, competitive teachers. Our team came second, and only because we lost on a technicality about the definition of the word 'Puffkin'. Stanley's team won and now there'll be no living with him. AND we finally got to meet Sasha's boyf, who does exist. Also, apparently hippo milk is pink.

+ Walking from one side of Spitalfields to the other is impossible without spotting at least a couple of famous people. Last Tuesday Sasha and I saw that guy who played the Bond villain in Die Another Day and Gavin from Gavin and Stacey who is now in films about lesbian vampires.

+ Have made friends with Suze, who lives in the flat downstairs. Together we made 17 pancakes in 20 minutes and rolled them up around sliced strawberries, cinnamon and toffee sauce. She is nice to explore things with. We text each other when we want to check out a new cafe/ shop/ pub/ clubnight and also when we want to moan about essays or sleep deprivation.

+ On Sunday night, I introduced Scarlett to the amazingness that is the BYOB India Club Restaurant on the Strand. We popped into the supermarket next door to buy Asian beer before sitting down next to some rowdy theatre goers and ordering coconut rice, mango pickle and spicy lamb madras that just about shaved off the inside of our mouths. Yum.

Have a good week, guys. Do something creative, ok? :D

128 It was acceptable in the 80s

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:16:36 GMT

Saw a prospective flat with Scarlett on Wednesday. Maybe it's far too early for us to be snooping around when we'll only be able to move in July at the earliest, but she explained to me that looking at property online is her version of porn, and please don't judge.

Anyway, flat was basically perfect. On the third floor with no lift, but we can deal. Two big bedrooms, bathroom and toilet, kitchen and living area, really big, and best of alll... in Covent Garden, which is not only one of the fabbest areas in the middle of the city, but 5 mins walk away from school.

Downside is that it's a good £50 more than we can afford and probably won't go down anymore. [Sigh.]

Wednesday night @ KOKO

Back in the midst of indie art students. Boys wear check shirts, girls wear granddad glasses. We are the first on the dance floor. Greg tries to shift some tickets. Fails. DJ Zane Lowe is obviously a prick, but the man plays tunes we like, remixed with more tunes we like.

*

Then Meg's birthday dinner and drinks Thursday night at the Globe.

*

...And the all-purpose, common-or-garden student Friday night at the union.

Also, twitter?

125 Phalaenopsis hybrid

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:41:59 GMT

The orchid I had on my window sill was slowly dying, and it made too sad, so I threw it away.

Any suggestions for what I should buy to replace it? My room looks more institutionalised every day.

123 "I got you dancing!"

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:08:22 GMT

Back at school. Anthropology seems to have become even more interesting. This term we have been promised questions such as 'Is there any cultural instance in which men and woman are treated equally?', 'Is death instantaneous?', 'Are humans naturally violent?', 'Why do people give things to each other?' and 'Do the different ways that people think about the senses mean that they experience the world differently?'

But the other thing is that we don't just learnt about culture. Sometimes the best thing is learning about what anthropologists thought when they first encountered this culture. For instance in parts of the amazon, some fathers carry out this birth ritual called the couvade where they pretend to be physically ill after the birth of their children. The first anthropologists to encounter this thought What are you doing, man? Get up! You're an embarrassment to humanity! Later anthropologists thought Well, maybe they're doing this because they believe that the father is giving birth to the baby's spirit... Even later anthropologists decided that It's because of the belief that father and baby share the same life blood and that if the father works then the baby is also working. Besides, look at the important kinship relations that emerge through the performance of the ritual...'

Sometimes it's just very gratifying to watch as people develop from obnoxious, dismissive, colonial wankers to people who are slightly more inquisitive and broad-minded.

Anyone else go through spasms of obsessive organisation?

Assessment essays were all handed in on monday, so everyone decided to party in the 1st week of term. Nadine's birthday was two days after mine and she invited everyone out to one of the student nights at Tiger Tiger.

Samar complained about how LSE has an unfounded reputation for being loserville, I noticed that every other guy was wearing a blue striped shirt and Matt was the second person that day to fall over quite spectacularly around me on the way home.

Samar: 'Now that you've pointed out the shirts, I can see them everywhere!'

*

On Thursday Scarlett, Joy, Sasha and I ventured into one of the posher parts of town to a club called No.5, unimaginatively since it was at 5 Cavendish Square. This place was a restaurant by day, members' club/hotel by night.

What a very hilarious and surreal experience it was. I'd never been anywhere like this before, I'd never even get in anywhere like this before, but Scarlett and Joy wanted to go because there was a rumour that Akon might be turning up that night and Sasha and I tagged along because neither of us had class the next day. That, and we were able to get in free because Scarlett's friend and president of the Afro-Caribbean society put our names on the guest list.

'Well it's free,' Scarlett shrugged as we drank on the cheap in the pub beforehand, 'so if it's rubbish we can leave.'

The people in the bakgrounds of these photos might show what kind of scene it was. The kind of scene where mixers were £10, tables were £600 and a bottle of champagne was £22,000. In the corner there was a birthday party where about seven girls were ordering bowls of olives and doing coke lines off the backs of their hands. Ours were probably the only only eight breasts in the place that had not been knifed. Half the guys had diamonds in their ears and the other half were fat and Russian.

Sasha: Who was that guy from Star Wars?

Joy: Jabba the Hutt!

That being said, the music was ace.

16/01/09

♪ If you like it then you shuda put a ring on it...

It was weird because I would have thought I'd feel so uncomfortable somewhere like that, where all the guys were there expecting that they would get off with women and the other women were there to nab themselves a rich husband, but it was kind of obvious that we were so not part of the that scene so no one was aggressive or threatening or anything. It was pretty obvious from Scarlett's black and gold pointed, business-like Louboutins and Sasha's flat, lace-up combat boots (so different from the other delicate, pastel-coloured, Dior diamonte kitten heels in the place) that anyone who tried anything would have got punched.

Plus, all the other girls were flicking their hair and adjusting their clevage and taking themselves so seriously while we danced clapping, stamping and acting out the lyrics. So... good times. :D

*

Annais and I went to the first Union General Meeting where the motion was to condemn Israel's military action in Gaza and send humanitarian aid. The motion was passed. I found it really unnerving and kind of inspiring that everybody had to show their student IDs as they went in and again before they voted. Apparently outside randomers actively try and infiltrate our UGMs when they vote on things like this because the LSE is so internationally well known and its actions so influential.

Before the debate, the union had to get some admin business out of the way, including the vote for the new Chair. The first candidate stood up and made the following speech:

'I am especially excited for the inauguration taking place on the 20th, because it shows that if America can vote for a black man, then maybe the LSE can vote for an American!'

After a large round of laughter and applause, he was voted in.

122 "What, like a reverse mid-life crisis?"

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:00:24 GMT

No longer a teenager am I. :O

The beginning of this holiday was filled with lots of fun things like watching Sasha's Christmas panto with Anna and Alice, okonomiyaki and period dramas with Ayako, shopping and baking with Nina and Ingrid Bergman and Indian food with Annie. Then I got flu until Christmas, which was a great excuse to go home to my parents' house and laze about in bed having soup brought to me and watching Christmas television.

Christmas day was very productively spent helping my parents cook. We made the whole shebang. Turkey and potatos and stuffing and parsnips and carrots and sprouts and little sausages wrapped in bacon with gravy and two kinds of sauce. Ironically, everything was delicious except the Turkey. :S

Then it hit me that I have 7,500 words of essay to write.

...& probably it hit quite a lot of other people too. From the general tenor of facebook and text messages and the atmosphere in halls, many people have left it all until after New Year's. The fact that we have three assessed essays due by 4:00pm on Monday the 12th is clearly making people a wee bit insane. Alice texted me on the 3rd of January for lunch and moral support in the library.

'OMG! I just ran into this girl who recognised me from our course and spent like twenty minutes grilling me on how much I have done. It was terrifying! She was all "How many words have you written? I haven't written anything at all! But I have done the intro and conclusions and read about eight books for each..." I was like, Get the fuck away from me right now.'

So, while Alice and I were industriously typing away that afternoon in the ground floor of the library and dismaying that all the good books had been taken out, I was similarly accosted by a boy from our course.

'Are you doing AN100? Which one are you doing? The unilineal history and racial divisions one? I'm doing that one too! Except I haven't really started. How did you start? What did you write? What was your argument? Can you just quickly explain Evolutionism?'

After he left, Alice and I looked at each other like, Or, you could write your own bloody essay...

There's a line, okay? Alice and I sitting in the library together asking each other things like 'Can you read this and tell me if it makes sense?' or Sasha ringing me to ask 'Do you think I should use Ireland or Israel as an example for this?'... that flies. Asking someone for their basic essay structure and the finer points of their explanation... that's just not kosher.

My mum made the cake. :D

I guess it was a meh birthday. At one point there were 10 people saying that they would come and drink sangria and eat tapas with me while I turned 20. As the week before Saturday progressed, this got chipped down to 8. Rachel got a very bad cough and Melissa had too much schoolwork. Oh well, 8 is still a very decent turnout. Then, in the single hour before 9 when we were supposed to meet, 4 people cancelled. First was Alice, who fell down the stairs and crippled herself while moving boxes from her boyfriend's house to her halls. This was a good excuse so I was nice and sympathetic when she rang.

The excuses got steadily lamer.

Anna texted to say her neighbour had got taken into hospital and she and she had to babysit the kids. Fair enough. Steph texted to say she wasn't feeling very well. Fine, but you could have made some effort. Twenty minutes before 9, Nina called to say: 'Hi, I've got really bad news. Basically, my dad has decided that he's got to work tomorrow afternoon, so if he's going to take me back to Oxford, it has to be by 11 and... I haven't really packed yet.'

By this time, my phone manner had gone down the crapper. It was obvious she felt really terrible about not being able to come, but I was too pissed to be gracious.

'Yeah... I see... What a shame... Okay, BYE!'

Whatever. On some level it was nice to only have 4 people. That way Sasha wasn't overwhelmed by all my old school mates (only meeting Katie and Elise, who are chatty and lovely) and we could acually all participate in one conversation.

Maybe today should have been my substitute birthday, or my birthday additive or something. Elise, Ceilidh and I met for coffee, and went to see Twilight. The we hit that last day of the January sales (where I picked up a few DIY birthday presents) and had very tasty gyoza, prawns, pak choi and noodle soup for dinner.

When I got back to LK halls, Scarlett texted to say that she was back from Dubai and that we should head on up to Nadine's party on the 5th floor. We sat on the floor and drank batteryacid beer while discussing the technicalities of combing out your dreads, skinny snakeskin leather trousers and how much jujitsu is too much jujitsu?

For my birthday, my parents got me:

& I got:

I'd like to be semi-serious for a second and say thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! You can't know how special the messages made me feel. It felt good that, even as my table reservation was emptying, my inbox was filling. :D

120 "whatever made you think you could keep up with a 6'2 Irish man?"

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:56:26 GMT

I lurve the Killer's new album.

& I luuurve my degree subject. Social Anthropology is ACE. Every time I stumble out of an AN100 class, I can feel my brain broadening. Who knew that when you have children in Madagscar, you're no longer known by your own name, but by the name of your child? Who knew that there are tribes in Egypt who believe that you have the same blood and are therefore the same person as your father? Who knew that most people are born ambidextrous but automatically favour one hand because religion says one hand represents good and one represents evil? Who knew that teenagers in Tehran go to parties, drink, take drugs and have sex under Sharia law just like teenagers in London do under democracy?

My outside option, or minor, is International History of the Twentieth Century, which is basically a run down of how Britain screwed up the world, (also very good and interesting.)

copy room &hearts

(1)
dresses

American Apparel: a staple brand in any student's wardrobe.

(2)
e numbers

My room is so full of junk food it is a joke. My mum and I went to Ikea and when I saw those Daim bar things I was like, 'OMG it's 1995 again!' and bought about 5 packets.

(3)
jacket

Mmmm... furry. I would have never thought polyester could be so soft. My dad saw it and asked if the fibres were shot in the wild or if they were farmed. (Harhar.)

(4)
phalaenopsis hybrid

... has brightened up my room. ^__^

(5)
studded clutch

Opens in three different ways:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(6)
haircut

upgrade / downgrade?

A little known fact about the London Shcool of Economics is that every day, come rain or shine, at exactly 1 o'clock, the Hare Krishna come and give out free vegetarian curry.

As you can see, the line usually runs all the way down Houghton Street. :D

119 Hopelessly we meet

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:21:26 GMT

I forgot what a pain it is to try and organise people sometimes. Last Saturday the plan was to introduce some of my new friends to the cheesy goodness that is Club De Fromage. Initially, there were seven people who tentatively said they would be coming, but one by one, they all ended up cancelling on me. Every single one!

Three of them had other social events that night and decided that they couldn't fit in two appointments, two ended up falling ill with the strange stomach bug that's making its way around campus these days, one got into a fight with her family and didn't want to rock the boat by going out, and the last one decided that she wouldn't risk going out without ID since her passport is being held by the Home Office while they process her student visa.

The thing is that individually, they all have good excuses, so I can't really be legitimately pissed off at anyone, but... seven people in one night? Un-fricken'-believable.

I ended up going out with Daphne to meet her friends. We went to Ed's Diner, which is as far as know the only place in London that makes Oreo milkshakes. Then we went to the Arcade in Piccadilly where we played lots of air hockey and watched entranced as these two boys wearing Nike trainers and baseball caps beat the highest level of Dance Dance Revolution in perfect sync.

Alice turns 22 on Monday. Her boyf, Shane (drummer for Silicon Kid) plays the Dublin Castle on Saturday.

*

I've noticed that it's very easy to get stressed in a place like the LSE, especially when you're a political scientist surrounded by economists. I always thought that subjects that people often think of a soft, like English or History or Sociology actually take a lot more time to understand and do well at than mathematical subjects like maths or physics. Last week was the second time I found myself writing a 2,000 word essay about a subject I know absolutely nothing about, which means I have to spend 4-5 hours reading and making notes before actually going through the painstaking task of actually writing the thing. When you're so new to the subject, I often find that the words don't come as easily and you find yourself second-guessing everything you writing. It's kind of like a type one word; backspace two situation.

Sometimes it feels like most of what we talk about is how much work we haven't done. Like 'I still haven't written that essay' or 'I still haven't done the reading for this next class.' So much so that it's weird when you're actually on top of things. You can say 'Actually, I am prepared. I have things I could be doing, but they're not urgent.'

That's why it's always really nice to have lunch with Melissa, who never seems to get stressed about things. Also, I imagine that in Maths and Economics it's pretty clear what you have to do, and therefore easy to figure out how to go about it. (Maybe it's the subjectivity of Political Science that freaks people out?) Anyway, we mostly talk about random things, family, anime... and FOOD, one of my all time favourite hobbies. We almost never talk about work, and when we do it's in passing. 'How's work?' 'It's all right. How is it for you?'

But last week we talked about how people's work ethics can differ. I was telling her about how Alice went in the kitchen in her halls of residence after a rough night out to get some breakfast. One of her economist flatmates took one look at her exhausted face and said, 'Oh wow. Late night?'

'Yeah, how obvious is it?' Alice said with a rueful smile.

'Tell me about,' her flatmate replied. 'Midterm is always hell.'

Alice was left open mouthed. 'I can't believe she thought I was tired because I'd been up all night studying! I was hungover for Christ's sake!' she told us the next day.

This is a difference that I've noticed between the political scientists and the economists. The economists don't really talk about work, except when they're holding group study sessions or helping each other out with equations. This is why Melissa and I never talk about it. Political scientists on the other hand, regularly use the amount of work they've done (or not done) as a talking point. In some ways they seem almost proud to say they've left an assignment until the last minute. 'Omg, I've done absolutely no work this weekend. Can you imagine?' It's a sure way of making the other person feel better about themselves, a way of endearing yourself to them. 'Omg, I'm so disorganised and stupid. You've got no reason at all to resent me.'

Again, the political scientists are an anomalie in the fiercely competitive world of the LSE. While the economists are all trying to one-up each other and start scrambling to secure their summer internships in autumn, the political scientists make friends by putting themsleves down. 'Omg, I'm two weeks behind on the reading. I might catch up this weekend... if I don't get totally trashed lol.'

I'm not saying one way or the other is a better way to go about things. It just annoys me that people on my course routinely make out that they're failing and that they don't understand anything, when really, they're doing okay. Of course it's hard to know in a subject as well... subjctive as anthropology, and just 'doing okay' may not be enough for you if it was your childhood dream to go to the LSE, but it should be pretty clear if you're behind or not.

I can't lie. At first I tired it. I downplayed the amount of work I did in order not to seem pretentious or a suck up. But now it's annoying me. From now on, if someone asks me how much reading I've done, I'm going to be honest. If I haven't done the work, I haven't done it. If I have, I have.

So, on Wednesday I gave a presentation and handed in an essay all in the same morning. Here was my reward:

The place was Misato, where contrary to most Japanese restaurants, the portions are huge. Melissa likes to eat there because it's where all the cool Hong Kong kids go. As far as I can tell, she likes to eavesdrop on them and laugh.

*

Anais and I went to watch the Union General Meeting on Thursday, mainly because a motion was being proposed by the LGBT Society, but partly because Howard Davies, the school's director was subjected to insightful questions such as 'What do you have to say about yesterday's protest?', 'Why don't we have a reading week?' and 'Sir, did you actually cause the Credit Crunch?'

117 extrurcuricullur

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:46:05 GMT

Life drawing curtesy of the Visual Arts Society.

114 "I have met her. She does exist."

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:17:16 GMT

I have no scanner, no camera cable and the rich text tab has disappeared in firefox, but I will post today if it’s last thing I do, damn it!

It was exactly one week go that I moved into my new room in Lilian Knowles House.

& for the first few days it weirdly felt as though I was living in two places at once. I made the mistake of looking at my room at home the week before I left and thinking, Okay! This is my chance to live without all this crap! I will leave two thirds of my stuff behind and live a clean and minimalist existence at uni. Who really needs all these shoes, magazines and DVDs anyway?

So my parents drove me to Lilian Knowles, brought my two little suitcases up the stairs and left me to it. I unpacked in about fifteen minutes and looked around. My room was basically bare. I realised I actually felt lonely without all my clutter. The next day I went back to Camden and filled three bags full of all the stuff I had left behind and brought it down to fill up my space. Every couple of days, another couple of bags migrate down. My shelves and notice board are gradually cluttering up.

I feel a lot better.

Lilian Knowles is divided into four blocks, A-D with a courtyard in the middle. Each block has about six floors and each floor has two flats on it with seven or eight rooms and a communal kitchen area. You might think that each flat would be really close and homey and that people would make friends with their flatmates really easily, but because the walls are so thick, and because everybody moves in at different times of the day, it’s actually really hard to meet people. During the first couple of days, every time I ventured into the kitchen to make tea, it was deserted. I was constantly thinking, Where is everybody?

But Sasha (whom I later met at the Social Anthropology induction) agrees, which makes me think that a lot of people are in the same boat.

“I know exactly what you mean and I hate it! Every time I hear someone come into the flat, I wrench open my door like ‘HI!’”

On Sunday night I met the girl who lives opposite me in room no. 2. Her name is Detoun (Sociology), originally from Nigeria. I think we bonded quite quickly due to a mixture of mutual anxiety about being in unfamiliar surroundings and loneliness. We went food shopping together and made pasta on Monday night. She’s perfectly nice and chatty, but I also quickly learnt that she’s a bit of a flake. Text messages and calls go unanswered, and I really hate to text someone twice in a row without an answer. It makes me feel clingy and desperate, even if I may only be showing a vague interest in someone’s welfare. Both times that we’ve made plans to go out to student club nights, I’ve bought her tickets, only to have her cancel on me at the last minute.

The first time we were going to go to Latitude at the Underground, and I had been texting her all day asking where to meet her and it was just by complete chance that I met her coming out of Lilian Knowles when I was coming back from the pharmacy.

Turns out that her phone wasn’t working and she had to go to her cousin’s birthday party.

I kind of got the feeling that she kind of knew she was standing me up because her cousin was there with her and it was obvious that she had asked her cousin to defend her. “It’s just that she has to come because our parents are expecting her.”

Which would have been fine because she paid for her ticket when I asked her to, but left me with no one to go to Latitude with.

On the way to my room I was resigning myself to the fact that I would have to call Poorna, an old acquaintance from school who was also going and see if I could tag along with her. She lived in the High Holborn halls though, which would mean I would have had to walk back to Lilian Knowles alone through East London when I’d only lived in the area for three days and that was enough to convince me it was definitely rougher even than Camden.

But, on opening the door to the flat, I bumped into Ty (no. 6, Accounting and Finance, Baltimore) and Adam (no. 1, Economics, New York) having a conversation about how they were going to Latitude. Of course, after they dutifully asked me if I was going and I explained that I had a spare ticket and no one to go with. What do you know? One of Ty’s friend needed a ticket and I was quite welcome to come to dinner with them and walk home with Ty.

“We’re leaving in abut fifteen minutes. Is that okay?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, and then got dressed, made up and sorted out all my IDs, keycards and purse contents in fifteen minutes. This is so far the greatest achievement of my university career.

So, the night was fun. We met three American girls who were all on the General Course, spending their junior year in London. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant were the food was ace and I spent the whole conversation marvelling at the fact that I could go out with four people I had met that very same day.

I think these are two things a lot of people learn very quickly at uni: How to make shallow small talk while giving the illusion of being a genuine, thoughtful and deep person, and how to use people without falling victim to a guilty conscience. Every time I meet a new flatmate or classmate, the same points of conversation usually come up: degree course, halls of residence, country or city of origin, confusion about timetables, lack of money, plans for the night… Detoun and I used each other to go shopping with and share big containers of salt and butter and washing up liquid, I used Ty because I would rather go out with strangers than an old schoolmate whom I haven’t spoken to for a year. He used me for my spare ticket. I spent about three seconds feeling guilty about gate crashing his party and then thought, Ah, screw it, it’s a win-win situation.

So… I don’t know. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed up until Thursday I think. It’s odd because before now I would never have described myself as a very social person. Even though I have met so many people this week, added so many people on facebook and put so many numbers into my phone, I didn’t feel like I made a real connection with anyone and it made me… not lonely but kind of uneasy.

Anyway, on Thursday I met all my classmates at the Anthropology induction lecture and they all seemed really friendly. What’s more the conversation eventually got round to the fact that everyone was kind of in the same boat as me. A lot of people felt isolated and bored and overwhelmed, so it was nice to commiserate.

After that, things started getting busy and plans were getting made. Sasha and I put together her chicken and my leftover Indian rice on Thursday nice and made dinner in her kitchen. I met all her weird and wonderful flatmates, including a Russian girl who eats nothing but raspberries and lettuce and an OCD boy who cannot leave anything unwashed for more than thirty seconds. I feel really happy to have moved out, as if my excitement about it was completely justified. Sasha and I made dinner last night and it felt really good once we had cooked, eaten, washed up, and were sitting with hot chocolate and Oreos, chatting until one in the morning.

Today Nina is moving to Oxford so on Friday night, she, Melissa, Melissa’s friend Caroline and I went to Fresh.

After having dinner, we got there at about 11:00pm and the queue was around the block. There wasn’t even a queue; it was just a rowdy crowd of people around the doors and angry-looking bouncers yelling through megaphones that there would be a forty-five minute wait. We all looked at each other like 0__o but were optimistic and joined the end of the queue.

In the end, we only waited for twenty minutes while chatting to these hilarious people from Ghana. Once we got inside, the music was fantastic. Even Nina, who won’t dance to anything that’s not hip hop, couldn’t complain when the remixed Dizzee Rascal and Robin S.

While waiting for ciders at the bar it was cool to look around at the crowd. Fresh is the main LSE club night that all the first years go to every Friday, which is why there was such a queue to get in and why it so crowded on the dance floor. It seemed like every single first year was there.

“The LSE demographic is exactly what I expected,” I said to Nina.

“Yeah, actually,” she agreed. “You’ve got your high-caste Indians, your high-achieving Asians, your over-monied Americans, your stripy-shirted Sloanes…”

“…And everyone else got rejected from Cambridge.”

I must take pictures of my walk to school because it is beautiful.
I must go one of the student movie nights because they play really amazing foreign films.
I must buy some paper to write on before my first lecture which is tomorrow.