Day In The Life

Ah. Have just had a productive discussion with Nick and cooked some kick-ass honey and mustard chicken. I might have two tutorials to do for tomorrow, and feel guilty about the fact that I’m going to be watching West Wing tonight, but right now I still feel gooooood.

I didn’t get to talking about yesterday in my earlier post. Yesterday was well spent (as was about £20 on the various things I got up to) apart from the fact that I really really meant to go for my property seminar, for which I’d been labouring over reservation of title clauses, but only woke up just as it was finishing. Sigh.

One of the reasons I keep this blog is simply to remind myself of what I do with my life, which is why I sometimes tend to be quite detailed about how I’ve spent my day. I can’t be bothered to do that right now for Wednesday, but here’s a somewhat uncrafted account of things.

Got out of bed at almost 1 pm. Cursed a lot. Russ came over. Got lectured a little (and deservedly so) on getting enough sleep and waking up on time. Tried to decide about renewing my mobile phone contract (which network? which tarif? which phone? which minion of hell dreamed up these damn contraptions and then got me dependent on them?). Failed. Left to go watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the Curzon in Soho. Went to Impulse first to return CDs. Got slightly dirty looks from the staff because I was returning £40 worth. Well, I did buy £80 worth, so I don’t have a guilty conscience. Bought tickets. Sandwich lunch in Neal’s Yard or whatever that little shopping centre’s called.

Watched the movie. Michelle Yeoh’s Mandarin was bad. The dialogue and Moments were as stilted and cliched as it always is in Chinese films. The plot had the usual chinks. We agreed that it had various flaws but at the end of it all it’s always nice watching something where you remember dreaming you can fly.

Returned the Craig Armstrong CD to HMV, bought a Kranky Records “kompilation”. Dinner in Wagamama. Met Karen at Leicester Square to go lindy-hopping at the Notre Dame. Lindy-hopping’s always fun. Got home. Read the papers. Blissed out over Amon Tobin’s Bricolage. Went to bed.

That’s what I did. Yeah.

Surprised By Lack Of Debating Burnout

I have to go man the UCL Debating Society stall in the Clubs and Societies Fair after my lecture today, and go do efficient things with Nick afterwards for the UCL tournament we’re in charge of organizing for next weekend.

It just occurred to me that I thought I’d be well and truly sick of debating after coming back from the Worlds, but I’ve been surprised to find myself reasonably happy to be forced back into it.

Monday was our weekly public debate, where I spoke in proposition of This House Would Legalize Prostitution. The debate probably epitomized all that is good and bad about our Monday night debates, the bad being the chronic dearth of good argument, and the good being the boisterous but still good-natured atmosphere. As is usually the case, I was the only girl speaking from the table, and decided, for the fun of it, to be filthier than all the male speakers. So I told the opposition they were pleasuring themselves under the table instead of listening to the debate, having sex with their mothers, and were generally sexually unappealing and inadequate, they then made reference to my “methods” of procuring financial support for my university education, and after the debate we all hugged and went to the Union bar arm in arm.

I’m not sure if I should be troubled by the fact a newcomer to Monday nights later described me to one of the regulars as “that Oriental girl who ripped all the guys to shreds and isn’t offended by anything”. It’s a question I wonder about from time to time – whether I should act in a more conventionally feminine way i.e. less swearing, less innuendo-packed comments, less I-won’t-take-any-shit-from-stupid-people aura, less confident, less assertive, less interesting…

Tuesday was our weekly competitive training, where the motion was This House Believes That The US Should Get Out, and the first proposition team defined the debate as being about NATO withdrawing from the Balkans. With Nick feeling less than healthy, I partnered Josh, a new exchange student from Georgetown, who hadn’t done British Parliamentary debating before. He did very well for a first time speaker, probably due to his other debating experience back in the US. I’m generally surprised I managed to enjoy a debate about a subject that I find less than thrilling after going through the burnout-inducing pressure of Worlds. Guess I really do love it.

Room Time

I have reached a strange sort of equilibrium between frustration with myself for being unable to keep to an orthodox sleep pattern and frustration with myself for being unable to commit enough time and discipline to studying.

This weekend, such an equilibrium involved me spending most of Saturday and Sunday daytimes asleep, and most of Saturday and Sunday nights doing work. Although I didn’t quite plan any of this, in hindsight it avoids the multiple distractions of the day and has me wide awake at times where there’s nothing much more to do than study.

After sleeping at 5 am on Saturday morning, I then woke up at 3 in the afternoon, which rather shocked me, but then forced myself to work from 10 pm to around 4 am, after which I did some website fiddling till breakfast at 9. I went to bed at noon, after mass, not to awaken till 9 pm. After dinner I came back up here and managed a reasonable amount of work again.

There are, however, problems to living this way. First of all, it’s decidedly antisocial, given that while the rest of the world is out and about I’m semi-comatose in my room. Today at around 1 pm I blearily opened the door to a knock from John, asking if I wanted to join everyone for soccer and picnicking in the park. I had to say no.

The second problem is that removing myself from the distractions of the world still doesn’t tackle the myriad distractions in my little room. While ploughing through the Roman law principles surrounding mixing of property, I decided that it was all getting a bit too masochistic and put on Daydream Nation. This usually means that for the first four tracks at the very least I am incapable of doing anything other than lying down with my eyes closed and experiencing intense aural bliss. This incapacitation continued in varying degrees over the next couple of hours, when I decided to revisit some of my old favourites just so they’d know they’re still loved even with my recent CD sprees.

Some random thoughts, which are not meant to be profound musical commentaries, because it’s 5 in the morning:

On Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth): ‘Cross The Breeze is such a trip. I regularly attempt to decide what my favourite Sonic Youth song is, and I regularly fail, but this often features prominently in the pointlessness. Love the song, love the album, love the band.

On Dog Man Star (Suede): It’s probably not particularly hip to like Suede these days, and I’m not really sure if it ever was, and I know this album has been criticized for being ridiculously overdramatic, and I know lots of Real Suede Fans prefer their first, and even more Real Suede Fans say the B-sides are the best, but I’ve listened to all the albums and most of the B-sides, and I still like this one best. I like every song on it except The Wild Ones and This Hollywood Life. LOVE Heroine, The Asphalt World and Still Life. So there.

On In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel): I’d actually forgotten about this one for a while, because Marten lent me On Avery Island and I’ve been listening to that, but after Jeremy raved about it the other day, I started hearing the songs in my head and made a mental note to give it another spin. Sounds even better in real life than in my head. Maybe I’ll dream about two headed boys and kings of carrot flowers tonight. :)

Okay. It’s 5.04 am. Think I’ll put my last choice for the night on, switch the lights off and snuggle in. Hmmm. Blue Lines, or an Ella compilation?

Drunk Blatherings

(Originally written Saturday 13 Jan, 4.51 AM)

I really do wonder why I keep deluding myself about staying in and doing work when it’s so patently obvious that this just isn’t meant to happen on Friday nights. I started off well, deciding to pass up watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Russ in favour of going for choir practice and a Singaporean Catholic prayer meeting type thingy, thinking I’d better show up for the first sessions of the year because I know I’ll skip enough of them later on. On the way into the hall, Lauren, Michael and Stephanie were on their way out to see the same film and asked me if I wanted to go along. Again, I held firm, said no, and marched resolutely into choir practice. After that, I found that there was no meeting thingy this week, so I went down to the dining room and had dinner.

At this point the cosmos, not content with its failed attempts to shove Russ, Lauren, Michael and Stephanie between me and mastery of concurrent civil liability, sent Matt as well on the same mission, asking if I wanted to go to University of London Union (ULU) for a drink.

This is how I ended up at ULU with Matt, Dave, Mary and Ruth till 1 am. On coming home, we joined Chris, Alec, Michael, Joseph, Emma, and Avril in the dining room, and after we’d helped them finish the two bottles of whiskey they were working steadily through, I went upstairs to get my litre bottle of Jack Daniels…

So this is how I’m writing this now, after four hours of drunkenly absurd conversation, which included topics like Matt’s grandfather’s cock, sheep versus goats, Irish pride (this involved very loud singing of Irish drinking songs, led by the very Irish James, who tottered in completely drunk somewhere along the way) and unorthodox erogenous zones.

The breakup of the party began when a comment about Jaco Pastorius led to a discussion about fretted versus fretless basses, and which Pastorius album was his best. This bored everyone else at the table except me, Matt, James and James’ friend, so they eventually drifted off, leaving us to indulge in more drunken arguments about which Metallica album was the best, which led to an argument about musical elitism and the fashionable practice of exalting some obscure limited edition EP just for the sake of oneupmanship over people who haven’t heard it, which led to an argument about whether music can be objectively judged or whether it is purely subjective, which led to an argument about…

I can’t quite remember when I left, but given that I now find myself here writing this, I must have left at some point. Hmm. Sleep looks good. Good night.

God Is Glove II

I am confounded. Either the Lord giveth, taketh away and then…returneth, or there are some weird glove-abducting aliens about.

Shortly after Christmas Eve I lost a glove after midnight mass somewhere between Westminster Cathedral and Newman House, and then, through a happy coincidence, discovered that the remaining glove matched another odd glove I had remaining after I lost the other side of my previous pair, the two pairs of gloves being identical.

This morning, my lost glove came back. I was tottering down the stairs for breakfast in my usual morning subhuman fashion, and there it was. Lying on the second floor landing, looking for all the world like it’d been discarded only minutes before, when I knew the truth – that it had been missing nearly three weeks.

I snatched it up and scrutinized it. Black PVC, bulkyish, Thinsulate inside, altogether not too fashionable…it certainly looked and fitted like mine, so I figured it was. Either that, or there’s a murderer with rather small hands for the profession walking around with one icy hand, which is, I suppose appropriate in terms of dramatic effect.

The Lazarus glove. The prodigal glove. I am overflowing with biblical allusions. God, if you’re behind this, perhaps you could also get my scarf back here from Glasgow? Or just make me less of a scatterbrain, I suppose…

Happy! Productive!

I am not a happy bunny, but this is because I am not a bunny.

I am, however, happy.

This sudden but perhaps cryptically expressed happiness was born out of yesterday’s disgust with myself for exemplifying that modern maxim about the amount of work you can do expanding to fill up the available time you have. I took the entire day to do a reasonably simple essay, just because I kept taking very long breaks to do very irrelevant things. After handing my essay in with one minute to go, I resolved that this could not go on and something had to be done.

That something was…another visit to Impulse, and more CDs bought. :P
Olivia Tremor Control: Dusk At Cubist Castle (£4.99)
Wagon Christ: Tally Ho (£5.99)
Major Force West: 93-97 (£6.99) – this one was for Russ, not me. I’m not particularly into them.
E: Broken Toy Box (£3.99)

Having done that, I then zipped through Budgens, had a frugal and rather uninspired dinner of instant noodles (Bachelor’s, on special offer, bacon flavoured. What the hell was I thinking…) and sweet corn (Green Giant! Green Giant!), and then went to the library, where I printed off cases and did photocopying. I admit that all of this activity was pretty much as mindless as my earlier compulsive Minesweeping, but at least it was relevantly and productively mindless.

The real breakthrough came when I got back. I sat down. Looked through my file. There was a tutorial, to be done for Thursday. I did it.

I think I really need to emphasize just how groundbreaking that is for me. I’m talking tickertape parades, honorary doctorates, and vast numbers of intelligentattractiveemotionallyaccessiblebutstillmanlyandit
wouldreallybegreatiftheylovedSonicYouthtoo men lining up offering their love, lives and sexual favours.

I got to bed at 2, but couldn’t sleep till 4 because of the general confusion of my much beleaguered body clock, and the hacking cough that’s embarassing during the day and downright annoying whenever I lie down. And woke up this morning in time for breakfast! I got to the bank and paid my credit card bill before going for my property law seminar. While I’m in there waiting for it to start (yup, I got there with time to spare), Esther walks in, so it’s okay, hi Esther. And then who walks in behind her but Jeremy, who’s usually in Philadelphia! So, “what the hell are you doing here??!”, and I find out he’s on stopover en route back to Philly, and the next thing he says is that he’s got some CDs for me and he takes out Xen Cuts, Solesides Greatest Bumps, and Modest Mouse’s The Moon And Antarctica. A Kid Koala too, which was just on loan, but I’m not complaining. So Jeremy, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You are a benefactor and then some.

I have to get out of the computer room to go find useful things to do so I can maintain this happy streak.

Squandered Saturday

I really did mean to get something done today. I intended to get an early morning start on outlining my essay (due on Tuesday) in the library, and then meet Russ for lunch later. And I intended to make a definite start on the essay by today. That was, at least, the plan.

Instead, I’ve just got home from sitting in the Borders (Charing Cross Road) cafe till closing time, riveted to Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, of all books. It all began when I went to the library only to find that it only starts opening on Saturdays next week, so I went to the computer room instead till Russ had finished working out or doing whatever it is that exercisey people do. We’d intended to give Soupworks a try, but its prices proved to be too exorbitant for us to be willing to buy more than a small soup each. It was nice soup, but not worth £2.60 for a tiny cup. After that we walked around Covent Garden a bit, with me on a frivolous but ultimately unsuccessful mission to find myself a pair of what Nick calls whore boots.

Just as we’d decided to go to Belgo’s for the fiver lunch, I remembered that I should see if Ken was at home so I could collect the stuff I’d begged my parents to send back here with him when he returned after spending Christmas back home. He was around, so we got a peek at his flat and his room, which was very him, and full of books I’d love to borrow, except for the fact that I have no credibility left after keeping his Fiona Apple album for the past two years.

So after a late lunch at Belgo’s, with Ken coming along for a drink, we finally hit Borders. And the rest, as they say…

“Gratitude”

It’s Michelle again. And cries of joy resound through the ether.

Yeah, right. Like anyone actually reads this.

Anyway, thanks go out to Russ for his invaluable tech support on the night before I had to leave for Glasgow. As a mark of my gratitude I won’t comment on his grammar or writing style except to say that no one reading it would “mistake these words as those of Michelle”… :P

Russ Invades

One would mistake these words as those of Michelle, but alas I am not who you think I am. No. For I am Russ, the name that Michelle spatters across her blog like a 4 year old kid with a new paint set.

"What is this before my eyes?(!)" I hear your cry. Is this some form of black magick that has invaded Michelle’s World? No. There is no magick involved, this is not a trick. For She has given me the honour of sending a message on her behalf to inform you of her brief absence.

Where has She gone? She has gone to compete amongst the best of the Best at the World Debating Championships in Glasgow (sponsored by Accenture, formerly known as Andersen Consulting). Wish her and her partner luck by sending her your sentiments. She will be back in London on Thursday 4th January 2001.

Happy holidays.

First Christmas Away From Home

Okay. This is something like the fourth night in a row I’ve slept after 6 am, and given that I have to go to Glasgow on Wednesday and radically adjust my sleep cycle to something more compatible with a gruelling debating tournament, I’m getting a little worried. And also a little concerned about the image I’m presenting to my hall priest, who tends to come out to pick up his paper at exactly the right time to meet me tottering in. With regard to Glasgow, my lack of research and the three weeks’ worth of virginal Economists lying unsullied in my room (please note the capitalization, I do mean the current affairs periodical) are also compounding my worries right now.

And you know what? In typical Michellian fashion, instead of trying to do something about any of this, I’m sitting here in Russ’s room typing this at 6 in the morning. I’d also be reading Josh’s blog if I could but I ordinarily access it from my bookmarks, and I can’t remember his URL. (There’s no point snooping in Russ’s bookmarks to see if it’s there, because Russ has crap taste in music.)

That was a joke. He doesn’t have crap taste in music. It’s just not as good as mine.

But enough of insulting Russ. First of all, it’s not exactly a practice that’s a novelty to me. :P Secondly, I’ve had great food and a great Christmassy feeling today with his family in his home, and I really do appreciate that.

All in all, my first Christmas away from home has gone fine. Dinner with the UCL Singaporeans on Christmas Eve, midnight mass at Westminster Cathedral, and Christmas Day with one of my best friends and his family.

My only dissatisfaction with this happy little Christmas collage would probably be the loss of one of my gloves, somewhere during the walk between Westminster Cathedral and Newman House. After a twenty minute search of my room and the staircase from the front door proved futile, I decided to accept it philosophically and go back to Bell Street to join the UCL Singaporeans and our good friend Jack Daniels, muttering “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” under my breath every time my fingers threatened to drop off.

Come to think of it, even this dissatisfaction fades away because this morning I discovered a truly fortuitous circumstance which renders me fully gloved. My current pair of gloves is the same pattern and cut as my earlier pair of gloves, and I bought my current pair of gloves because I’d lost one of the earlier pair somewhere in Camden. This morning, I rooted around a bit for that earlier unlost glove, and found that it’s a perfect match for the glove I lost yesterday!

And there you have it. All’s right with my world this Christmas. :)