Liverpool — Saturday 7 January to Sunday 8 January

Got up at ungodly-o-clock, before metro runs. Feh.
While I got up ridiculously early, I had banked on the metro running before 06:00.
It doesn't. I weighed my chances of walking to the bus station in time to catch my bus, and decided that they were extremely bad. So I called a taxi and paced in front of the Aldi, checking my phone nervously every couple of minutes seconds. However, the taxi came, and every light we hit was green. It was a miracle. It might have been because it was so stinkin' early, but I saw lots of cars stopped at the lights that we made. Lots here meaning three or four.
I actually would probably have made the bus if I'd waited around for the metro, since it was about ten minutes late, but if I'd tried it, the bus would have left on time exactly, about ten minutes before the metro rolled in.
I slept nearly all the way to Manchester. It was great. I think I was tired enough and it was dark enough for me to ignore the jostling of my head against the window, because I certainly couldn't take it on the way back. But that's for later.
After nearly failing to disembark at Manchester's Sudehill Interchange because I couldn't be asked to wake all the way up, I looked around the bus stop for national express. I ended up looking at my tickets and realising that my (very cheaply booked) coaches were centred at different bus stations. Armed with the sole employee's directions of "towards Arndales, then left at Debenhams, and it'll be just past there, or you can take the tram, but it's just a five minute walk", I set out sleepily.
I didn't actually take any pictures of Manchester. As I was hopelessly lost in my attempts to get from one bus station to another in just twenty minutes, I didn't really feel like I had the time to take pictures.
But not to worry, I found the bus station after going into an information centre and discreetly inquiring the location of Chorlton Street of the bored-looking attendants/salespeople. As it turns out, it's just past the tram stop just past debenhams, and the tram doesn't actually stop at chorlton street at all.
In any case, I made it to my bus on time, and stared out the window eagerly all the way to Liverpool.

If you embiggen this picture, you can see "Biosciences Building" written under "University of Liverpool" on the brownish part of the building. However, it's the windows to which I wish to draw your attention.
They are packed full of enough clutter to give my room at home a run for its money. That is the mark of a quality scientific establishment, let me tell you.

This is George's Hall, I think. I'm really not sure about that. All the writing on the walls was in latin.

There were lots of statues about.

I sat here for a good twenty minutes. My old friend that I was supposed to meet was busy figuring out where her temporary roommate (also from the tri cities, as it turned out; what are the odds?) had got to, and it was admittedly quite early to be up on break.

I found myself thinking "Hey, Sunderland's got an Empire Theatre, too!"
I guess I like this rather boring and dingy city more than I'd like to admit.

Victoria, as I determined from the "Regina" on the base. 

This one had Albert's name on the base; no guesswork needed.

A cool old church, St. Luke's, I believe. If you can tilt your screen, you probably should play with that, just to see if you can see the church tower any better with a different angle. It was dark outside; it's not my fault.

Liverpool strikes me as a place that did its best to fall apart, but was foiled by various attempts a few decades ago to put it back together. Since then, it seems like the whole place kind of dislikes the newer areas, and cool old buildings mix resentfully with shabby old 70s buildings (think the federal building in Richland, just more brick-y and shabby), while vacant, bulldozed lots sport huge piles of brick-infused soil and signs that say things like "rebuilding neighbourhoods!" The outer areas of the city seemed dingy, although that might have been the weather.
I rather liked the city centre, and would have liked to visit the museum and some of the old churches, but,
Unfortunately for my little weekend holiday, I got quite sick. Rather than spending the night hanging out with an old friend, talking about old friends who've grown up away from us, and reliving a bit of middle school (it wasn't all bad), I spent half the night resting my chin on a toilet seat and heaving violently while she googled what to do with a violently ill friend.
I have no idea how much sleep I got; it wasn't enough. I remember spending way too much time shivering violently because her window was open, but I was too sick to get up and close it. I feel like I spent a lot of time in between sleep and awake, which resulted in me being exhausted. Lucky for me, I was alert enough to notice the light coming in the window and dig my phone out of my neatly-folded coat and see that I needed to get up and pack if I wanted to catch my bus.
I have no idea why I thought that leaving at 10 am was a good idea.
I prepared for my walk by drinking a few sips of water (but not too many, lest I invite nausea again) and letting my friend know that I was leaving and that she was a goddess for taking care of me. After that, I set out about forty minutes before my bus was scheduled to leave, just in case.
And it was raining.
However, it was a pretty light rain, so I tucked my scarf more firmly around my neck, tried to ignore the sour smell of my hair, and trudged down the street.
Still, I managed to take a few more pictures of Liverpool. I wasn't leaving that city without something besides a headache and a bad taste in my mouth.

The Cathedral of Christ the King, also known as the star wars church and the space church. No, I don't know why it was built like that, but it's a fun talking point...

Liverpool has a remarkable amount of street signs, and they're all really cool. And such cool names.

This is a youth hostel. By youth, I mean approximately 18 to 30 years of age. Younger would make me question the parents' sanity in letting their offspring travel alone (or in a group of similarly aged youth), but older just seems kind of creepy. We've discussed this sort of thing in the flat. For comparison, think of a 35-year-old living in a dorm.

We are demanding the sun.
Graffiti I can live with.

I was shocked to see a Kimos, even if it is a cafe and grill, not a sports bar and grill.

I made it to the bus station, feeling slightly weak, but still on time. I dozed all the way to Manchester, where I decided to try food.

A pretty fountain next to the tram stop that isn't Chorlton Street.

Whoever Peel was, he's got a striking, imposing statue with a pigeon on his serious-looking head.
To be fair, the pigeon looked pretty serious, too. 

I had an hour to kill in Manchester, and as I always feel awkward sitting in cafes without ordering, I had nowhere to kill it in. I'd also finished my book in Liverpool. I ended up buying the cheapest bread I could find in a little supermarket and eating a few bites in the bus stop.
I've decided that I prefer National Express to Megabus. For one, their site is much less annoying to use. They also load your luggage for you. And, to top it all off, they are infinitely more organised than Megabus. Their coaches all say the major stops they'll be making, and they pull into stations a good interval apart and have well-informed attendants to direct people who can't read the front of the bus to the proper coach. Sure, it tends to run late, and sometimes their timetables are confused, and their coaches are less than top-of-the-line, but it's a generally pleasant experience, as far as boarding and riding a coach goes.
Megabus, on the other hand, has surly attendants who yell at everyone. Two buses pull into the station at the same time, so the frightening old man yells for everyone who's going to Leeds and Newcastle to go to one bus, but say nothing about Sunderland, York, Middlesborough, London, Birmingham, or Oxford, all of which are intended destinations for the rest of the crowd. In my case, Newcastle is right next to Sunderland, although I've never had a coach go through it. No way a megabus is just going to two destinations, so I decided to queue up and see if it was going to Sunderland, just in case. The angry old man who turned out to be a driver said no, so I ambled over to the "other" bus. It said that it was going to Leeds, via a number of interesting places, like Oxford, Birmingham, Leicester, London, and Coventry, among others. I was informed by the silent attendant that it was going to Sunderland.
Right. After waiting for the Leeds and Newcastle bus to leave, I finally stowed my luggage and claimed a seat at the front of the bus.
Unfortunately, I was unable to really sleep or even doze off all the way. The coach kept lurching and smacking my head against the window, the seat in front was too far away to lean my head against, and the armrest was too skinny to actually rest my arm on. This is not a commentary on the circumference of my arm; my elbow, arguably the boniest part of my body with the least superfluous flesh, kept sliding off the darn thing.
So, I stared at the reflections of the windscreen in the window (which weren't helping my headache) and picked at my petit pain (I have no idea what the translation is there, but it's like a mini-baguette, and it's pretty ubiquitous in England. I've never seen a bakery without them here.) and drank water like I'd found an oasis in the desert for three hours.
When I got home, I didn't feel like the odds of the green-vested men in the metro ticket area not being ticket inspectors were that good, so I walked home. It was almost nice, and I felt much better for having consumed an entire bread thing and bag of cheese-flavoured "potato crisp snacks", so I walked back to clanny without too much ado. After that, it's pretty much a blur; nothing exciting must have happened (surprise!). I did go to sleep at 20:00 (8pm), so it's not really surprising that I don't remember much between about 17:00 (5pm) and then. I probably had some food, and cheese and onion pasty is ringing some bells.

In other news, I've started thinking about light.
It's everywhere. Oh, GOD. 
Hello, irrational claustrophobia. I blame the reflections from the bus windows. Light is insane. Little tiny bits of energy (and also matter? what?) that can't be held or felt by conventional means, but that have a profound effect on everything. They can't actually be stopped, although they can be blocked. However, they still bounce around enough that deep shadows are very, very hard to find during daylight, even if you can't see the sun.
All this means that these little bits of stuff are zooming around this room, bouncing off the walls, my duvet, my computer, my dresser, my roommate, my window, me...
Breathe.

Anyway, only two weeks until I'm back in the states. I'm not sure if I'm excited, nervous, or bummed about this.
I'm excited to get my own room.
I'm not excited to have to pay rent.
I'm excited to be back at whitworth with sane professors and my whitworth friends.
I'm not excited to not be around my friends from here (although, I wouldn't be around them if I stayed. Conor and Adam will be in America and Josie will be in Leicester.)
I'm excited to see my parents.
I'm not excited to pack, in England or America.
I'm excited to fly back home.
I'm not excited to fly away from England.

A Walk In The Park, And Also Food — Sunday 18 December to Wednesday 21 December

Before I get into the post, I have a blog post from a kindred spirit, at least as regards my crepe stand plan. I can't find the post where I detailed my plans to open a crepe stand if the whole scientist thing falls through, but I think it was pretty detailed. If anyone has information on where I talked about that, please let me know. It's bugging me.
Sunday, I went back to Barnes Park. I think I've mentioned it to at least one person who reads this, but I'm not sure. I didn't have my camera the first time I went here, so I kind of had to go back.

This is the big grassy area before the park. Good for dogs, kites, frisbee games, and football games.
The lensflare/glory rays were completely accidental. I wasn't even looking at the screen at the time, due to the sun being really bright. 

Some of the toys, which were all at the front of the park.

This was to show off the snow behind the gate. I don't know what the big, flat depressions are. They have stairs, so they might be for sports... It was also really icy; this walk in the park was no walk in the park.

That turned out to be something called a "stumpery", for the purpose of growing ferns like the victorians did. I think this whole park has been restored to something resembling its presumably victorian glory days.

The lake has a set of stairs leading down from it. I don't know why.

Frozen lake. I tossed a rock, and it bounced.

Ducks!

Okay, this tree bothers me. I see them around, but I don't know what they are or why people like them. They resemble pines from a distance, but up close...

It looks like something that should have been extinct for a really long time.

Do not like.

I was going to walk by the gazebo, but I think I would have ended up with a broken something, or maybe some more bruised cartilage.

Up there is the large grassy area from the beginning of the post. It goes very up, and this part of the park also goes a little down.

I brightened up the picture to make the cool bridge in the middle less invisible, but I might be able to see it just because I know it's there.

I love this funky little structure. If I'd had more battery, I'd have taken more pictures. Alas... 

Prettiness! In Sunderland, even!

I had planned to go further, but with the battery issue and the fact that it was really friggin' cold, I decided to go hunt down the cafe that I'd seen signs for at the park entrance and see what they had in the way of hot drinks. What I found was more of a small kitchen behind a candy-and-crisps counter. Fortunately, the kitchen contained a coffee pot, a hot water pot, possibly a microwave, and a friendly local. It had been a while since anyone commented on my accent, and I soon found myself chatting with a stranger (not for the last time) about my Christmas plans. I got a cup of hot chocolate with a generous portion of whipped cream on top, and it was pretty good, even if it did get grainy at the bottom and didn't do much for my hands freezing off. It was tiny, but cheaper and rather better than anything I'd get at starbucks, and also whipped cream.
That night, after my hands thawed out, I made plans to get up early and Do Things on monday. My christmas plans took form, from an abstract list to a firm idea of what I needed.

Monday, I got up before 9 AM and Did Things. I walked down Pallion, the startling street behind Clanny, and found cash, chestnuts, and a sweet shop in the style of Badger Canyon Herbs and Tea. I got some weird candy, in lieu of candy canes, my main objective. I realised that, although I'd planned to get fruit and soup makings monday, it would be a week before I'd end up using them. So, I ended up getting candy and nuts. I also went to the area outside the Bridges (mall just down the road from the university) and hunted for a tacky Christmas sweater, but they didn't have anything. I mean, there was plenty of tacky, but no Christmas.
I was disappointed, but I headed for the bookstore across the bridge. I'd seen it, but couldn't remember the name. I could, however, remember that it is on the road that the bridge is on, so I walked across the bridge with some chips from a fish and chip place outside the bridges.
I cursed myself for forgetting my camera as I walked across the Wearmouth bridge, which I've been wanting to photograph, and also saw the gorgeous-looking park thing underneath the bridge (I've made plans to go back, initially on tuesday, although that got scrapped when I woke up sick, but more on that later).
The store was closed. I almost got killed by cars three times trying to get to it, and it was closed.
Unbelievable.
Well. Maybe it was just closed for lunch... I began my hunt for the St. Peter's campus, a place I'd been exactly twice, and one of those was on a bus. The other time was when we skipped the treasure hunt during orientation and got lost on our way there before coming at it from the kind of opposite direction (almost exactly four months ago; it doesn't seem like that long ago that I didn't know some of my favourite people). I ended up getting slightly lost in a residential area, but kept following the sidewalk in hopes that I wouldn't have to turn around and go all the way back.  Luck was with me, and the sidewalk dumped me out by a sign that said University.
St. Peter's is a lot prettier than City Campus. The libraries aren't much different, although the view is better from St Peter's. I looked up the "Bridge Books and Music" store, which doesn't have a proper website, and decided to try again after the lunch hour, as it's supposedly open all weekdays.
However, unless the lunch hour is really long, Bridge Books and Music is closed for the holidays, so I'll give it another shot after new years, probably. I'm a little sad that I can't find any second-hand bookstores, and the only bookstores I can find are large chains, which are invariably expensive.
I walked home, which entailed the following: almost dying three times in roundabouts, checking the charity shop for a sweater, and getting a library card to check out Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.
The library on Kayll Road (it collides with Pallion, the street of the fruiterer and three pizza places within twenty meters of each other, and I don't know why the changed the names, but whatever) is pretty limited, but they do have Terry Pratchett. It was here that I had my second discussion with a stranger over my Christmas plans; the librarian was quite friendly.

Tuesday, I woke up sick. I blame the fact that I walked, quite literally, all over Sunderland in the rain and cold. The bus wasn't there when I was, okay? Don't judge. I slept in until... late... and then dragged my sorry behind out of bed only to go downstairs and see that there was nothing I wanted to eat. I put a load of laundry in, after forgetting my detergent, and went to the supermarket that seems the least sketchy for crepe mix. I wasn't really up to making the (admittedly not labour-intensive) batter on my own.
Conclusion: I like mine better, but it was fun making the batter in a bottle.
I spent the rest of tuesday sleeping through movies, getting bored with them when I was awake, planning Christmas, and craving soup.
I drifted downstairs sometime in the evening and decided to make soup happen. Micha left gobs of pasta, and we have a bunch of leftover vegetable bouillon from various and sundry theme nights, and Josie left lots of frozen vegetables...
It was pretty good. While chicken noodle soup was kind of out of the equation, vegetable noodle soup was pretty darn good. I think it was the noodles in hot broth thing that did it for me.
Today, Jessi redeemed herself for every time she was a horrible, insensitive, ranting b-word. She was nice to me when I was sick, and that makes up for every argument I've had to lose to preserve the lack of hostility in my room. She's lent me quite a bit of money over the course of Ireland and me not having change for laundry a few times, too. I was in a good enough mood, also triumphant after making soup, to play go fish and lose at egyptian rat race twice (blasted sandwich rule; I cursed it even when I remembered it). Jessi's not a very good winner or loser, but she was very nice when I was sick...

Wednesday, I would have stayed in bed forever, but we were supposed to have a fire alarm test, which means the incredibly loud alarm going off for three to six seconds over five to fifty second intervals for one hour. It's the most miserable time to be trying to be lazy. I decided to do my mall shopping: I got a santa hat to make up for my lack of a sweater, some mince pies that I'm hiding from Jessi until after christmas, at which point she can finish them, some fancy cheese, crackers/biscuits, lentils, sparkling white grape and peach juice (non-alcoholic; I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find any non-alcoholic cider, so I went with the first sparkling thing that reminds me of christmas that I could find), a whole lot of tomatoes, and a strange melon that I've never attempted to eat, to my knowledge.
I should explain the tomatoes. I've taken to reading food blogs; not sure how that happened. I think I was looking for a spiced cider recipe when we planned out Christmas Night, and ran across Accidental Hedonist, who had a guest writer a while ago who writes a blog called Tomato Kumato.
As I read through Tomato Kumato's archives, I find myself resonating with Emily, who's lived all over the world. No, I've never lived in or even been to New York, Toronto, or Paris, but I do know how it is to have so many "homes" that it gets a bit confusing. I know how it is to wish that you could stay in your new home, with your new friends, new cultural norms, and new habits. I know how it is to want to make your own place in a big world. I've been forcing myself to stop looking eagerly at "to let" signs that pepper Sunderland.
Of course, Tomato Kumato is a food blog. Emily posts a lot of recipes (including one for garlicky tomato soup), and I'm almost quivering with anticipation for cooking my Christmas food. Then I got sick, and felt like a master chef when I managed to scrape together tuesday night's soup. I decided that I could make a garlicky tomato soup from scratch, especially after reading about someone who's been cooking with fresh vegetables. I've always been one to jump on a bandwagon, so two pounds of tomatoes came home with me.
Unfortunately, I have no food processors at all. Josie took her potato masher with her when she moved out, and we certainly don't have any kind of blender. Of course, I was far too excited to bother with this, figuring that I don't mind a few chunks of tomato or some tomato skins in my soup.
I'll just skip to the end... It wasn't the texture that got me, it was the salt. I think I got my salt requirements for the week out of that soup, even though I tried putting potatoes in it. It was okay if I dipped some bread in it.
So, note to self: Don't try roasting tomatoes for soup until you have food processing equipment. Also, the garlic would have been garlickier if you hadn't roasted it. Since the point of the dish was to clear your distressingly clogged sinuses with a blast of garlic...
In any case, I don't feel sicker. Actually, I think I'm doing a lot better. I'm on quite a culinary trip. I made latkes while waiting for the soup, something I've wanted to try since I read the story "Latkes for Dixie" in Highlights (Dixie was the family dog, a collie, if the illustrations were to be believed). I finally pulled it off, although I have no idea if they tasted right, never having had any before. In any case, they were the success that the soup was not, and I enjoyed them with leftover apple sauce from Christmas Night.

Oh, Christmas plans... I wouldn't normally share the details beyond "watching some christmas movies and generally relaxing while my roommate's off with her family, and I'll be skyping with the family sometime and eating delicious food" except I'm getting really excited about this, in spite of the fact that I can't find candy canes anywhere.
Friday the 23rd, I'll be reading Hogfather and then judging the movie.
Christmas Eve, I'll be watching Polar Express before midnight and trying not to finish the whole bottle of sparkling grape juice. I'm torn between ordering chinese and just eating some cheese (I have a lot of cheese), bread, and apples. I'll have mince pies and cookies, in any case.
Christmas morning, I'm making the berry strudel that's been in my freezer drawer for a few months for breakfast before heading to St Gabriel's (Anglican church just down Kayll Road) for the 10:30 service.
Lunchtime will be leftover strudel and the cheese combination. I'll probably watch more Christmas movies, and I will put on my hat.
At some point in the day, I'll be skyping with my family.
Dinner will be a grand soup. I'm getting so excited about this soup. It will have everything. Lentils, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, hopefully courgettes (british for zucchini; I kind of wish Americans had picked up on the french version instead of the italian one), mushrooms, garlic... And more!
And bread. I just need to find some and hope that the place I get it from is open the day before Christmas eve. I'm thinking I'll get some not-all-the-way-cooked baguettes from aldi Thursday, just in case. I'll eat it eventually, I'm sure.
Then... I haven't planned. The great soup might be before the skyping; it might be after. For all that I've laid this all out, I'm not sure what goes in the middle of the things I'm doing.

I've got batteries, so I'll be putting up more Christmas pictures soon. And, with any luck, I'll be feeling like I can go outside without needed to wear all my clothes even though it's not that cold out (so much for all that "worst winter on record" stuff, unless "worst" is actually defined as "most disappointing").

The Sick Week — Monday 10 October to Thursday 13 October

So I spent the whole weekend inside because I had a cold. I drank about thirty cups of tea and watched way too much TV. I still have a bit of a cold, but I think it's getting better.

Monday I explored the Murray Library (the city campus library, and the main library for the university) and discovered that it employs the most irritating, convoluted, and confusing organisational system known to man. It has three levels- ground, upper, and lower- with mostly informational kiosks and short-term loan (three hour) books on the ground floor. The subject I wanted was on the upper floor, but the book from that subject that I ended up with was actually on the lower floor. It took me about an hour to find it, and my search included three different catalogue searches and a total of three trips up and down both flights of stairs.
I didn't even like the book.
Today also marked the first time I've seen the metro inspectors, who were up to this point something of a mythical threat to encourage people to buy tickets. There's a £20 fee for riding without valid fare, which costs £1.50 for the average trip.
A lot of students buy the £40 year pass for our zone, which is worthwhile if you take the metro more than 27 times. Probably more students just kind of ride without fare, for reasons like a lack of change or time to pay or simply an unwillingness to pay.
English Literature 1700-1789 was as boring as last time. We discussed a rather dry not-a-novel (it would seem that we're entering the age of the novel, but Journal of the Plague Year is really not very novel-y. It's more like a fictional autobiography, a category that drives me slightly up the wall. I'm not a huge fan of Daniel Defoe, but I guess he's not too bad. I did enjoy what I read of Journal, and Robinson Crusoe wouldn't be so popular if there was nothing good about it— I just remembered Twilight. Never mind.
Thomas was actually there this time, and so available to defend me against serial killers and rapists that could have been lurking in the shadows as I walked to the bus stop. He did just get off crutches from knee surgery, so he was less useful than he might have been, but I feel that the fact that he's at least 2 metres (over 6 feet) tall and fairly athletic should deter all but the most intrepid serial killer. Also, I haven't heard of any serial killers or rapists lurking about the main campus of the University of Sunderland, so Mom, Dad, it's okay.

Tuesday involved my really cute pair of red wedge heels and not much else. I did walk to the rowland's (down the road from Clanny House) to get cough drops (pastilles, which are squishy and last about an hour, and lozenges which are hard and last about five minutes — I looked up the definitions to find the pronunciations, which have long eluded me). It turns out that Throaties are the best thing ever, although it took me a bit to get over the licorice taste.

Pastilles all seem to come in these little bubble packages.

Lozenges just come in bags. These taste like menthol-y blackcurrant (tastes kind of like purple fruit, sort of like blackberry; is a huge deal here, like grape, cherry, and orange in candy; strawberry in jams and jellies; and apple, cranberry, and grape in juice) candy.

They clear out my nose and throat so well that it's worth it. I think I drank lots of tea as well. Not much happened tuesday, really.

Wednesday, I discovered that my pastilles are basically cough medicine mixed with old-fashioned candy... and beeswax. I don't let it get to me; they're still really awesome. I can get them for way cheaper at green's than at rowland's, but green's doesn't have cheap nighttime cold medicine, so I'm out of cash and can't get Throaties. It's time to make a move on the cash machine in the library, which is swamped with people as I write this during my lunch break thursday.
I decided to take the evening off, so I snuggled up in my bed with Gulliver's Travels for my lit class, my computer, my Throaties, and some menthol-infused kleenexes that Jessi gave me.
Gulliver's Travels is the most blatantly political book that's ever been labeled a children's book. It's so transparent. I ended up getting a lot done on the blog because I couldn't keep reading. Oh, my. Apparently, Swift is mocking Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, with his odd attention to detail. I didn't really find Defoe's detail obsession irritating in Journal of the Plague Year, but Swift drove me crazy. Do not like. I eased my mind by blogging, and then by reading hyperbole and a half for about an hour after I looked up the "clean all the things" picture for the Clanny House post.

Thursday started out pretty well. I woke up on time, remembered my wallet, caught the bus, and made it to class early. This was an improvement over last week, when I woke up early but forgot my wallet, missed the bus, and only just made it to class on time by speed-walking all the way to campus in about ten minutes. So this week, I started my day tired, sick, and grumpy but not exhausted, overheated, and soaking wet.
Then we got into real science instead of quality control crap. It was a little irritating because the lecturer was the lady who talks like we're in kindergarten again, but I still like her better than the impossible little frenchman.
I was overjoyed when we started using equations. We derived a bit of a monster, but I'd seen the variables before and it was strictly algebraic. I can't imagine what this group would do if faced with calculus.
There I was, sitting in a stuff lecture theatre with a bunch of tittering morons trying to figure out "where k2 went" (it was there all along, didn't they see the bit where Vmax = k2[E0]? The equals sign means that they're the same thing, guys...), and all I could think of was how beautiful the derivation and equation were. I was actually in awe of it. I'm still kind of in awe half an hour later, to be honest. It's incredible, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and people think it could have happened just by chance.
**Also, Andrew, brother mine, mathematical adept: When did you learn to expand bracketed expressions? I can't remember the exact phrase that I learned the concept under, but it means that A(B+C) = AB + AC. I feel certain that I'd learned it by 9th grade (geometry for me), but I can't remember exactly because it's so idiotically simple that I feel like I've always known it. So please try to remember when you learned it and let me know in comments or by texting my google voice number. Comments might be more efficient. Mom and Dad have my number, and it might also be on the blog or on facebook in one of my posts. If you don't answer this within the week, I'll post this question on your facebook wall, possibly to the point of spamming you, and then I'll start bombarding your mobile with texts about it.
I'm wondering about when I learned that A(B+C) = AB + AC because the algebraic morons in my class (oh, yes, they've been upgraded from idiots to morons) could not for the life of them figure that out. Luckily, the kid sitting next to me, who I believe is british (unrelatedly, he has a neckbeard that could rival that of George Whitworth), was as in awe of their inability to get this fairly simple concept as I was. There is hope for the british educational system, maybe!
Also, I drew a picture of a pastille.

Sorry about the blurriness. There's an arrow pointing to the roundish blob inside the splashy squiggle, and the words underneath are "unadulterated awesomeness". The roundish thing is a pastille. 

A real pastille to show you what it actually looks like. That's a terrible picture.

Now I'm sitting in the library, which just kicked me off its reading list page when I was trying to print the list of books I need to read for my presentation in history. These hour-long breaks are kind of annoying- not really enough time to go home, too much time to sit around without a long book or a computer. However, I think that having to lug my computer around is a fair price to pay to make thursdays less sucky.
Lab turned out to be pretty good. I've joined up with a group of people who may or may not be drunk and/or high at any given point, but they don't giggle and they didn't reject me when I was forcibly placed with them. This makes me seem like I have really low self esteem, which is not necessarily true, but it kind of is when I'm trying to join a group. I still get nervous when I'm with close friends; imagine total strangers! My first impressions of my lab group were less than favourable, but they're nice enough, and not just to the slightly awkward american, that I'm becoming rather attached to them as a lab group. I rather doubt that I'll spend any time with them outside of lab, but this is a good start for me.
Mike looks like Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers (with messier hair than in that wikipedia picture), and Adam (not the fount of all knowledge from my flat, although he's pretty good a biochem lab procedures) resembles Wade, the TA from Plant Bio. Joe is lab partners and, apparently, good friends with Mike, "Jedward", whose real name I learned last week and promptly forgot (it might be Edward, but it might also be Richard), partners with Adam, and Robyn, who is slightly intimidating but good natured enough to forgive my head cold-induced deafness, was partners with me. Last week, we were all kind of a large globby group who stole each others results because Adam and Robyn got in late.
After lab, I barely caught the bus and got off at Green's, where I triumphantly purchased two packages of Throaties (blackcurrant and original- we'll see how the blackcurrant compares to the awesomeness that is the original) before heading home.

I believe this bag is from the pharmacy suppliers, also known as chemists. It tickles me to be told to go to the chemist's, although the signs are all for "pharmacy"

*Cue angelic choir*

I ended up exploring. There's a huge methodist church across the street from the catholic church on the street that runs by the hospital, and there's practically nothing further down the street that Clanny's on. There is, however, plenty down the street just after Clanny. I didn't have the time or money to act on my explorations, but I did buy a personal pizza to justify wandering aimlessly around a grocery store.
Update- I burnt my pizza by forgetting about it. But it was still really delicious.
Then, I did, like, all the dishes. Because I'm awesome.
I suspect that my blog for today will keep being more and more hyperbolic (in the literary sense, not the geometric sense).
Also, I figured out why today was less awful than last week: I wore rainbow socks.

The source of my power. Awesome socks, awesome day.
Also, terrible shot of my leg. It's just perspective making my calf look bigger than my shoe.

The day ended with Jessi and I taking in Bob Diddyfish, the goldfishfish that we're technically not allowed to keep in the flat and who belongs to Josie, the australian girl. She's going to London to take her brother sightseeing for a few days, and then going to germany to see her mom and family for most of a week, so we're fish-sitting Bob for a week until Conor, the guy who lives on the same floor as Josie and who took care of Bob last time she was away, gets back. 

The post didn't get more hyperbolic, I just noticed. Sorry. I picked it back up after four or five hours, and look what happened.

After settling Bob in on my dresser, Jessi and I talked for about two hours. We also fixed the heater.

Because we're AWESOME.