Firstly, forgive my capitalisation. I'm on a very sluggish computer and feel lazy.
So I went to bath, with the intention of taking a jane austen walking tour. Unfortunately, I didn't plan out my tube trip to Paddington (I'm at king's cross, if you feel like looking it up on a map), and the line that would have taken me there in about twenty minutes was down (I took the wrong line anyway, and only discovered the faster way after I realised that my connection wasn't), so it took me an hour to get there. Just in time for the train that was an hour later! Unfortunately, I'm bad at timetables (obviously), but fortunately, the conductor didn't kick me off at the first stop (it was Reading, pronounced redding, which threw off the asians in front of me).
Bath, once achieved, was pretty nice. I soundly missed the tour, but decided to have a look around, find the jane austen centre, and get my flip phone unlocked.
It has not been a good week to be my technological crutches. Computer: stolen. Earbuds: one little rubber cushion thing lost (kind of defeats the noise-cancelling effect that I love when my roommates are noisy; I have to use an earplug to even begin to block out the noisy french people, the snoring guy next to me, and the coughing guy in the bunk below me), my SD chip is quite full, and, to top it all off, my cruddy little brick pay-as-you-go phone decided to die last night. I tried putting it on the charger, thinking that it might have used up all the battery in the two hours since I'd checked the time, but to no effect. I tried switching my sim cards, since both phones are samsungs, but my t-mobile phone was locked and angrily informed me that I was using the wrong sim. Since I needed a clock, I put the US sim back in, making sure it was on airplane mode. While we have t-mobile over here, I doubt the US network would smile upon me, and I wanted to avoid the roaming charges.
So I was on the hunt one of the many little, slightly unofficial phone stores that advertise repairs and unlocking, resolving to do whichever was cheaper. In the end, it was £10 (the exact amount of cash I had) to unlock the US phone, which promises to come in handy anyway. Besides, I've really missed that keypad. I hate the one on my brick.
I digress. After leaving my phone with the capable-looking store lady, I went in search of a cheaper SD chip. I couldn't roam bath, with its wealth of "roman stuff", without memory space. Luckily, I found a 4GB chip for just £8, a vast improvment over the £13 for a 2GB that was in the phone repair shop.
After collecting my phone, which works beautifully with the new sim, other than all my UK contacts are gone, I went in search of the Jane Austen Centre.
I finally found it, and it was pretty well worth the £6 I paid to get in. The presentation was informative, and the exhibition was nifty. It was a better deal than the sherlock holmes museum, actually. Of course, Jane Austen was a real person... I even got a picture of one of the places where she actually lived, just up the street from the centre. I think they went for the house they have because number 25 is a denstist office now, and that's probably quite different from in the early 1800s.
I also got another badge for my bag; it says "I [heart] Darcy"
Fact.
I caught the proper train and resolved to search for the twinings store, and also one of the older pubs in london, as per the Big Bus Tour (on the same street, if memory served), mostly to see where they were and if I could access them Sunday. I found twinings AND the pub (Ye Golden Cock or something -- Ah, Ye Olde Cock, and funny story about the Ye thing: older versions of english had a character for the "th" sound, sort of like greek with the "ch", I guess, and it looked sort of like a Y. When printing came around, they just used the Y instead of making a new letter block for the TH thing. Hence "Ye Olde Everything", now pronounced with as yee, but properly pronounced as the. The more you know...)
I found them both and took pictures just in case; I will go back to twinings, but the pub is less certain. I'd like to eat there, but it's not vital.
If you're an arachonophobe, you will want to skip this paragraph. If you weren't, you probably won't be after this.
I've been shooing a determined spider away from my computer area for about half an hour now. I don't feel like going and getting a big enough piece of paper to squash it, and no one else feels threatened by it (cough jessi cough), so I just make sure that the little crawlings on my neck are from my hair in the draft rather than a smallish arachnid. He's really not that big.
Sorry to the arachnophobes in my readership.
NO MORE SPIDER TALK NOW. IT'S SAFE.
So, tomorrow I'll be frequenting a few churches (a service at st paul's by myself, then a service at westminster with Megan and Gina and the rest of that trip), and dragging megan and gina to yarn and tea stores.
I'll probably post tomorrow night, but after that, I think I'll have to pay for my internet.
Because I'll be in airports!
Laters.
Oh, ps. I just realised that my computer was stolen on a thursday. I hate thursdays.
Showing posts with label I hate Thursdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I hate Thursdays. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Christmas; Joy and Sadness — Tuesday 13 December to Saturday 17 December
So, on Tuesday I found out that I had my history exam a month earlier than expected, and most of my day was consumed by revising (studying) for that off the back of the how-to-revise lecture (luckily, I had already procured and wrapped my secret santa present). It was a two-question essay exam, so I needed to look up some basics on three or four topics and the details on some primary sources (historical documents we've looked at in class) so that I would be prepared for anything the exam threw at me. For a study break, I made crepes in a wok that I bought against the possibility that all the good skillets would be gone. I felt pretty good about the wok: it only cost £2, doesn't burn the crepes, and only tilts a little bit when empty (unlike the other skillets that I got for £2, which tip over when empty because the pan is lighter than the handle). I accidentally stayed up late, but I managed to wake up on time to make the 10 AM exam time on Wednesday.
My professor, however, missed her metro and was 10 minutes late, which sent me into a pre-exam panic. I always have these panics, but this one was forestalled by the fact that I didn't know about it until the day before. The main topics that my brain freaks out about are:
1. Is it really today?
2. Am I in the right room?
3. Was it really scheduled for this time?
4. Oh, God, I should have checked my email before I came!
Usually, my freakouts are ended by the presence of the other students and/or the proctor of the exam being in the room at the time that I show up. This time, I was the only student in the room, and the proctor wasn't there.
PANIC!
Fortunately, she showed up and I sat the exam with no panicky blank stare moments.
After this, I prepared for Christmas night. I snuck my present downstairs, and waited around for Adam to come and take Josie and I shopping for food.
He took a while.
We finally got to Asda and had a great time navigating the awkward store set-up with crazed christmas shoppers filling the aisles.
When we got home with £70 of loot, Josie hurriedly put the 3 kg (~6 lb) pork roast with a thick layer of crackling fat into the oven, since it was going to take 3 hours to cook and it was almost 17:00. Bad Adam. Then we all kind of had to knock around for a few hours until the squash, yams/sweet potatoes, and potatoes were ready to go in, and I had to wait until 10 minutes before everything was done to heat up the quorn lamb things that I got for Felicity and myself.
Before Felicity came over, we had the gift exchange. Here's a picture of all the presents looking very nice around the £5 tree:
Josie got the redeem code for the X-Factor winner's single on iTunes from Conor, Conor got a Daft Punk CD from Flo, I got a book and a "Tea Deck" of cards with info about tea from Jessi, Adam got a bunch of CDs that Josie thought he would like as well the Coldplay album with his new favourite song on it, Jessi got a bright, fluffy scarf and irish coffee from me, and Flo got an "insult-a-day" calendar from Adam. I'd call the presents a success. I was impressed that Jessi and I managed to draw each other and then keep it a secret.
Here's the Christmas decorations that we put a ton of money into (nothing cost more than £5):
That was the Joy part of the post.
Thursday, I slept in until 2 because my lectures were cancelled, then went and hung around Sunderland with Freya, who is slightly devastated by the fact that I'm leaving in a month. I'm impressed, since I'm a terrible conversationalist...
When I got back in, I knocked around the flat a little, then went to have another boring night of trying to update the blog and watching movies until the wee hours.
I got a text at 19:30 that Grandpa had passed on two hours before, and I spent the rest of the night trying to come to grips with the situation. It's really weird for me, being over here. I don't have the close connection with family that facilitates mourning, and I'm not really one to sob and scream when I'm upset. So I watched sad movies that would let me cry and wondered why I felt so disconnected. I didn't really tell anyone, unless they brought it up, since I don't know how to broach the subject. It's not much of a conversation-starter, and I'm not looking for people to tell me how sorry they are that a man they never knew isn't there anymore, even if I do appreciate the sentiment. I know that I'm sorry on behalf of others when people close to them that I never knew pass on, but I always feel awkward when that comes up. I think this is part of the disconnect.
I thought about canceling with Freya for Friday, since she wanted to hang out again and do "stuff" but decided against it. I needed to get out of the flat. I did have a good time; had some good pizza, saw some cute rabbits and a cute puppy, laughed... I felt a little like a traitor to Grandpa's memory, but I made up for it by looking up the stages of grief and analysing my feelings later that night. And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not going to let this ruin the whole trip, I promise. I'm not going to just bury my feelings (NOT healthy, I know, I've tried it before), but I'm going to let myself have a good time when the opportunities present themselves and have some sad times when I need them.
Saturday, Josie moved to Leicester (pronounced "Lester"), which was like the end of freshman year at whitworth on a more permanent level. I sat around making little sad puppy noises, like the weird little alien from Star Trek (2009) makes when Scotty and Kirk beam onto the enterprise. Josie's kind of the fun one in the group, but I guess I'll be visiting her in Leicester (I cannot write that without pronouncing all the parts: Lie-sest-er) in January, maybe for new years, maybe later. But still... It's like the end of things. Also, the flat will be pretty empty during break. Conor is in Germany, Adam's going to be home for most of it, Josie's in Bedford (where James' home is), Micha's going home on Tuesday, Thomas is probably in Ireland, Florian's in Germany, and Jessi's going to be staying with her parents when they come to visit. Okay, that last part makes me happy, but everyone else being gone is kind of sad.
In other news, I didn't get dressed today. By the time I woke up, it was going to be dark in two hours anyway, and the library trip can wait for tomorrow. I did get up, eat breakfast, go outside, drink three or four cups of tea, and I'm going to eat proper dinner, but my purple plaid flannel pyjama pants and tank top are perfectly decent for knocking around the flat on a saturday.
My professor, however, missed her metro and was 10 minutes late, which sent me into a pre-exam panic. I always have these panics, but this one was forestalled by the fact that I didn't know about it until the day before. The main topics that my brain freaks out about are:
1. Is it really today?
2. Am I in the right room?
3. Was it really scheduled for this time?
4. Oh, God, I should have checked my email before I came!
Usually, my freakouts are ended by the presence of the other students and/or the proctor of the exam being in the room at the time that I show up. This time, I was the only student in the room, and the proctor wasn't there.
PANIC!
Fortunately, she showed up and I sat the exam with no panicky blank stare moments.
After this, I prepared for Christmas night. I snuck my present downstairs, and waited around for Adam to come and take Josie and I shopping for food.
He took a while.
We finally got to Asda and had a great time navigating the awkward store set-up with crazed christmas shoppers filling the aisles.
When we got home with £70 of loot, Josie hurriedly put the 3 kg (~6 lb) pork roast with a thick layer of crackling fat into the oven, since it was going to take 3 hours to cook and it was almost 17:00. Bad Adam. Then we all kind of had to knock around for a few hours until the squash, yams/sweet potatoes, and potatoes were ready to go in, and I had to wait until 10 minutes before everything was done to heat up the quorn lamb things that I got for Felicity and myself.
Before Felicity came over, we had the gift exchange. Here's a picture of all the presents looking very nice around the £5 tree:
Josie got the redeem code for the X-Factor winner's single on iTunes from Conor, Conor got a Daft Punk CD from Flo, I got a book and a "Tea Deck" of cards with info about tea from Jessi, Adam got a bunch of CDs that Josie thought he would like as well the Coldplay album with his new favourite song on it, Jessi got a bright, fluffy scarf and irish coffee from me, and Flo got an "insult-a-day" calendar from Adam. I'd call the presents a success. I was impressed that Jessi and I managed to draw each other and then keep it a secret.
Here's the Christmas decorations that we put a ton of money into (nothing cost more than £5):
 |
| The rest of the tree. It has lights, but the batteries went out. |
 |
| The tinsel garland looks cooler from this angle, trust me. |
 |
| This was supposed to be another garland, but instead it's an awkward little tree that sits in the back of the kitchen. |
 |
| Fairy lights around the board, and the tree. |
 |
| Three things in this photo... Let it snow!, the Christmas moose that faces the window. and fairy lights held up with sticky tac. And the tail end of Merry Christmas on the other window. |
 |
| One of the stars that Jessi's mom sent. |
 |
| Jessi's advent calendar. The bags have dates on them and candies inside them. |
 |
| The other star is in the window. We get some cool shadows from that. |
That was the Joy part of the post.
Thursday, I slept in until 2 because my lectures were cancelled, then went and hung around Sunderland with Freya, who is slightly devastated by the fact that I'm leaving in a month. I'm impressed, since I'm a terrible conversationalist...
When I got back in, I knocked around the flat a little, then went to have another boring night of trying to update the blog and watching movies until the wee hours.
I got a text at 19:30 that Grandpa had passed on two hours before, and I spent the rest of the night trying to come to grips with the situation. It's really weird for me, being over here. I don't have the close connection with family that facilitates mourning, and I'm not really one to sob and scream when I'm upset. So I watched sad movies that would let me cry and wondered why I felt so disconnected. I didn't really tell anyone, unless they brought it up, since I don't know how to broach the subject. It's not much of a conversation-starter, and I'm not looking for people to tell me how sorry they are that a man they never knew isn't there anymore, even if I do appreciate the sentiment. I know that I'm sorry on behalf of others when people close to them that I never knew pass on, but I always feel awkward when that comes up. I think this is part of the disconnect.
I thought about canceling with Freya for Friday, since she wanted to hang out again and do "stuff" but decided against it. I needed to get out of the flat. I did have a good time; had some good pizza, saw some cute rabbits and a cute puppy, laughed... I felt a little like a traitor to Grandpa's memory, but I made up for it by looking up the stages of grief and analysing my feelings later that night. And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not going to let this ruin the whole trip, I promise. I'm not going to just bury my feelings (NOT healthy, I know, I've tried it before), but I'm going to let myself have a good time when the opportunities present themselves and have some sad times when I need them.
Saturday, Josie moved to Leicester (pronounced "Lester"), which was like the end of freshman year at whitworth on a more permanent level. I sat around making little sad puppy noises, like the weird little alien from Star Trek (2009) makes when Scotty and Kirk beam onto the enterprise. Josie's kind of the fun one in the group, but I guess I'll be visiting her in Leicester (I cannot write that without pronouncing all the parts: Lie-sest-er) in January, maybe for new years, maybe later. But still... It's like the end of things. Also, the flat will be pretty empty during break. Conor is in Germany, Adam's going to be home for most of it, Josie's in Bedford (where James' home is), Micha's going home on Tuesday, Thomas is probably in Ireland, Florian's in Germany, and Jessi's going to be staying with her parents when they come to visit. Okay, that last part makes me happy, but everyone else being gone is kind of sad.
In other news, I didn't get dressed today. By the time I woke up, it was going to be dark in two hours anyway, and the library trip can wait for tomorrow. I did get up, eat breakfast, go outside, drink three or four cups of tea, and I'm going to eat proper dinner, but my purple plaid flannel pyjama pants and tank top are perfectly decent for knocking around the flat on a saturday.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Miscellany — Last week of November, first week of December
Before I get into the week, I'd like to share this link to help explain my ochem veteran views on the natural food craze: Organic Water
It kind of revives my faith in humanity, or at least in people that aren't chemists by trade who still take the time to look up some definitions. It also reminded me of the chemical free salt from ochem last year.
My days are pretty boring. Since I don't have class before noon until wednesday, I stay up late and sleep in a lot. I have 8 AM water aerobics MWF in a couple of months, so I'll need to change that habit, but it's really hard to get up when there's nothing to do. There's no weekly homework, hardly any reading to do (and only for one class, to be honest; my lit prof doesn't really expect us to read beforehand, which is just as well because I don't like any of the assigned works and we read them out loud in class anyway), and no regularity to my schedule. Last spring was very structured. MWF, I ate in saga with my fellow ochem students, went to ochem, sat in the same seat next to the same every day, ate a piece of gum, spat it into the same garbage can on the same route to german, sat in the same seat every day next to the same people, went up the stairs to writing, sat in as close to the same seat as possible, next to pretty much the same people, had another piece of gum to keep myself awake, then went and got a cheese and tomato six-inch sub on italian herbed bread with olives and mayo in the cafe-thing, then kind of knocked around and did homework and stuff for the rest of the day, sometimes eating dinner in saga, with karate in the evening. TTh, I had a raspberry scone and a small white chocolate mocha for breakfast before arthurian lit, then went either to work or to lab, ate lunch (usually the sandwich described above), did homework, and probably ate dinner in saga. Weekends I went to church and winco and/or walmart. It's a testament to how regular my life was that I can remember exact details seven months later.
Now, I have to write down details of my day to remember what I did. I wake up as late as possible, and haven't gone to bed before 1 AM since time immemorial. When people ask what I did over the weekend, I have to think about it for a really long time.
I'm looking forward to getting a new routine, because eternal vacation isn't all it's cracked up to be.
On monday and tuesday, I didn't do anything of note. On wednesday, however, TWO things happened. First, the university and possibly public transportation had a strike, so I didn't have my history seminar. I'm a little bitter that they went and picked 30 november for the strike. 1 December is just as good of a day to strike. Plus, it would have got me out of my 9-5 class day... Actually, general consensus in the flat was that striking for pensions is kind of a stupid move right now, give the economic state of... everywhere. Would you rather have a pension or a job? This surprised me, frankly, since my flatmates all seem to be more liberal than me. Perhaps as a break from politics, we had english night. Josie made shepherd's pie, which I didn't eat because its base is "mince" (ground beef), and Adam masterminded 'bangers and mash' which is british for sausages and mashed potatoes. We also had peas. Felicity and I had vegetarian, um, 'bangers'. I keep forgetting that I'm not the only vegetarian at our communal dinners now, but I'll get used to it just in time to go live in a house of carnivores. Yay!
Thursday turned out better than I expected, other than accidentally sleeping very late because I couldn't fall asleep until very early. This may be due to my erratic sleep cycle. Sleeping in until after noon the day before was not my best idea. After miraculously finishing the practical lab work very quickly because I was unusually on top of things (I'm never on top of things in lab), we ended up analysing the GC data from last week, which took forever, but the software was incredibly similar to the software that whitworth uses for NMR spectra, which I used almost once a week last year, yay ochem. I think I may have restored some good will between the impossible little frenchman and myself by totally pwning everyone else in that area. Much to my surprise, I'm becoming rather good at the computer aspect of chemistry. Too bad they kept making us do hand graphs for everything else, and this practical isn't even assessed. Grumble.
Friday I made three trips to the post office to mail a package. I ended up mailing two, because one kept being too heavy and potentially costing three times as much as a package weighing 100 grams less. I also went to see Dream House with Freya (my pakistani-british friend from biochem), which I spoiled for myself before going because I really am not that big a fan of movies that bill themselves as "suspense/thriller". It was very good, though, and I didn't really need to spoil it.
Saturday was paintball! Jessi's friend who is now also my friend Keri organised a trip to newcastle's Delta Force paintball course. It was really great, and I had a really good time other than the bit at the end where my team decided that moving forward was not the best option and ended up lurking behind bunkers for the whole ten minutes while the other team stormed our castle in about five minutes and I was a sore loser. I recovered and still recall the whole experience very fondly; just don't put me on a team with a group of people including someone who looks like kim jong il. Yeah, blame the eastern asians. It's funny how much the non-oriental aisans dislike the ones further east, and I've had to amend my definition of "asian" from "formerly called oriental, before that wasn't politically correct" to "everyone who's from the continent of asia" and this causes some paradigm problems. Say "asian" and I think china, and not much west of that. I've got a pakistani friend who describes herself as asian, and I'm sitting there thinking of oriental instead of vaguely arabic. Anyway. I made friends with more internationals: Ramin (Azerbaijan), Hazma (Turkey/Germany), Vincent (France), Jenna (Germany, possibly Turkey), and Ricky (India). Again, my knowledge of everywhere except the western hemisphere plus a small amount of european history and eastern asian cuisine types (I can generally identify the american versions of generic chinese (I don't do regions), japanese, korean, thai, indian, and possibly vietnamese foods) was highlighted. What's the official language of azerbaijan, anyway? At least I've heard of the country, and kind of almost know where it is, so I guess it could have been worse.
I've got some annoying little bruises on my left hand and wrist, my merrills will take some tlc and a lot of water to recover from the mud, and I slept for almost five hours after getting back. In the grand scheme of things, I consider this a success.
Oh, and on monday 5 december I successfully made white sauce without any measuring spoons or cups and had a fairly delicious dinner of spaghetti, garlicky white sauce, and broccoli. For the win!
It kind of revives my faith in humanity, or at least in people that aren't chemists by trade who still take the time to look up some definitions. It also reminded me of the chemical free salt from ochem last year.
My days are pretty boring. Since I don't have class before noon until wednesday, I stay up late and sleep in a lot. I have 8 AM water aerobics MWF in a couple of months, so I'll need to change that habit, but it's really hard to get up when there's nothing to do. There's no weekly homework, hardly any reading to do (and only for one class, to be honest; my lit prof doesn't really expect us to read beforehand, which is just as well because I don't like any of the assigned works and we read them out loud in class anyway), and no regularity to my schedule. Last spring was very structured. MWF, I ate in saga with my fellow ochem students, went to ochem, sat in the same seat next to the same every day, ate a piece of gum, spat it into the same garbage can on the same route to german, sat in the same seat every day next to the same people, went up the stairs to writing, sat in as close to the same seat as possible, next to pretty much the same people, had another piece of gum to keep myself awake, then went and got a cheese and tomato six-inch sub on italian herbed bread with olives and mayo in the cafe-thing, then kind of knocked around and did homework and stuff for the rest of the day, sometimes eating dinner in saga, with karate in the evening. TTh, I had a raspberry scone and a small white chocolate mocha for breakfast before arthurian lit, then went either to work or to lab, ate lunch (usually the sandwich described above), did homework, and probably ate dinner in saga. Weekends I went to church and winco and/or walmart. It's a testament to how regular my life was that I can remember exact details seven months later.
Now, I have to write down details of my day to remember what I did. I wake up as late as possible, and haven't gone to bed before 1 AM since time immemorial. When people ask what I did over the weekend, I have to think about it for a really long time.
I'm looking forward to getting a new routine, because eternal vacation isn't all it's cracked up to be.
On monday and tuesday, I didn't do anything of note. On wednesday, however, TWO things happened. First, the university and possibly public transportation had a strike, so I didn't have my history seminar. I'm a little bitter that they went and picked 30 november for the strike. 1 December is just as good of a day to strike. Plus, it would have got me out of my 9-5 class day... Actually, general consensus in the flat was that striking for pensions is kind of a stupid move right now, give the economic state of... everywhere. Would you rather have a pension or a job? This surprised me, frankly, since my flatmates all seem to be more liberal than me. Perhaps as a break from politics, we had english night. Josie made shepherd's pie, which I didn't eat because its base is "mince" (ground beef), and Adam masterminded 'bangers and mash' which is british for sausages and mashed potatoes. We also had peas. Felicity and I had vegetarian, um, 'bangers'. I keep forgetting that I'm not the only vegetarian at our communal dinners now, but I'll get used to it just in time to go live in a house of carnivores. Yay!
Thursday turned out better than I expected, other than accidentally sleeping very late because I couldn't fall asleep until very early. This may be due to my erratic sleep cycle. Sleeping in until after noon the day before was not my best idea. After miraculously finishing the practical lab work very quickly because I was unusually on top of things (I'm never on top of things in lab), we ended up analysing the GC data from last week, which took forever, but the software was incredibly similar to the software that whitworth uses for NMR spectra, which I used almost once a week last year, yay ochem. I think I may have restored some good will between the impossible little frenchman and myself by totally pwning everyone else in that area. Much to my surprise, I'm becoming rather good at the computer aspect of chemistry. Too bad they kept making us do hand graphs for everything else, and this practical isn't even assessed. Grumble.
Friday I made three trips to the post office to mail a package. I ended up mailing two, because one kept being too heavy and potentially costing three times as much as a package weighing 100 grams less. I also went to see Dream House with Freya (my pakistani-british friend from biochem), which I spoiled for myself before going because I really am not that big a fan of movies that bill themselves as "suspense/thriller". It was very good, though, and I didn't really need to spoil it.
Saturday was paintball! Jessi's friend who is now also my friend Keri organised a trip to newcastle's Delta Force paintball course. It was really great, and I had a really good time other than the bit at the end where my team decided that moving forward was not the best option and ended up lurking behind bunkers for the whole ten minutes while the other team stormed our castle in about five minutes and I was a sore loser. I recovered and still recall the whole experience very fondly; just don't put me on a team with a group of people including someone who looks like kim jong il. Yeah, blame the eastern asians. It's funny how much the non-oriental aisans dislike the ones further east, and I've had to amend my definition of "asian" from "formerly called oriental, before that wasn't politically correct" to "everyone who's from the continent of asia" and this causes some paradigm problems. Say "asian" and I think china, and not much west of that. I've got a pakistani friend who describes herself as asian, and I'm sitting there thinking of oriental instead of vaguely arabic. Anyway. I made friends with more internationals: Ramin (Azerbaijan), Hazma (Turkey/Germany), Vincent (France), Jenna (Germany, possibly Turkey), and Ricky (India). Again, my knowledge of everywhere except the western hemisphere plus a small amount of european history and eastern asian cuisine types (I can generally identify the american versions of generic chinese (I don't do regions), japanese, korean, thai, indian, and possibly vietnamese foods) was highlighted. What's the official language of azerbaijan, anyway? At least I've heard of the country, and kind of almost know where it is, so I guess it could have been worse.
I've got some annoying little bruises on my left hand and wrist, my merrills will take some tlc and a lot of water to recover from the mud, and I slept for almost five hours after getting back. In the grand scheme of things, I consider this a success.
Oh, and on monday 5 december I successfully made white sauce without any measuring spoons or cups and had a fairly delicious dinner of spaghetti, garlicky white sauce, and broccoli. For the win!
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