Hall Chronicles: Publican Priest

When your priest, while doing a stint behind the hall bar, mimes the plonking of huge pendulous breasts on the bar counter and asks wot you’ll ‘ave, luv, a la East Enders, you suddenly realize that you are no longer thirsty. In fact, you may never drink again. Ever.

Early New Year’s Resolutions

Based on the events of the past few days:

  • I will stop going for tutorials a week late.
  • I will stop going for aforesaid tutorials unprepared, although I realize this is ultimately of no consequence given that I am a week late.
  • I will bother to set my alarm clock(s) for Wednesday mornings, when I have to meet the priests to choose hymns for Sunday. I feel exceptionally rude keeping the clergy waiting and then turning up in pyjamas.
  • I will buy gloves I like instead of going gloveless and freezing due to reluctance to wear my murderer ones.
  • I will never buy Tesco’s vile soya milk again in attempts at health. Self-induced nausea cannot be healthy.
  • I will find music to listen to while studying that is neither so catchy that I end up singing along and bouncing off the walls (Dismemberment Plan) nor so soothing that it lulls me to sleep (Galaxie 500). Unfortunately I think this then means Matchbox 20 but they do say suffering is good for the soul.
  • I will teach myself to like healthy snacks like wheatgerm instead of guzzling Kettle Chips (salsa and mesquite flavour).
  • I will uninstall Dope Wars from my computer. I will also stop publicly discussing cocaine prices and the strategic necessity of procuring assault weapons for use against the police.
  • I will stop getting wound up about things that are ridiculously unimportant in the larger scheme of world hunger etc. as well as pretty damn trivial compared to the problems of some of the people around me.
  • I will spend less time writing lists of resolutions and more time actually carrying them out.

Jurisprudence / Vile Magnetic Poetry / Ice Disco

The jurisprudence essay that was due on Thursday is finally finished (yes, I’m aware that today is Tuesday), which means I can finally come into the computer room with a conscience slightly less muddied than usual. I say only “slightly” because the past few days have been classic chronicles of Michellian essay avoidance mechanisms, and I’m not terribly proud of myself right now.

Friday started off normally enough with me snoozing my way through a company law seminar, wandering into Waterstones on a textbook hunt and leaving with the necessary textbooks but also with Birthday Letters (£1.99!) and A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (£2.99!), which I then obviously spent considerably more time reading over the weekend than Hart’s The Concept Of Law.

Much of Friday night was spent crouched in front of a fridge laughing hysterically over magnetic poetry at a housewarming party. Justyn’s magnum opus was:

I dream of a goddess
with peach-like breasts
whom I can fall in love with

These somewhat romantic sentiments got unfortunately abandoned later on when the poem was modified to:

I dream of a goddess
with peach-like breasts
who can fiddle with
my boiling meat apparatus.

Our collective muse inspired this, which we’re all rather proud of:

luscious sordid butt puppy
raw finger love smear
screaming frantic chocolate lather
heaving sausage, lust juice.

After a lengthy and satisfying girl talk session with Avril, at 2.30 a.m. I was ready to either sleep or attempt some reading, but was foiled by Russ, who dropped in for quality time and sprawling conversation till the Tube started running again at 5.

* * *

Not content with setting a plastic chopping board on fire and leaving the gas on in the kitchen, Mark decided to continue his mission of chaos on Saturday night by persuading me to go ice-skating. More specifically, ice discoing.

And so it was that instead of a quiet night in with Ronald Dworkin and my laptop, I found myself attempting to get my groove on to the Wu Tang Clan amidst daredevil twelve-year-olds and strobe lighting while flailing around on badly fitting ice skates.

Stranger things have happened, but not by much.

* * *

Sunday involved dejection after an absolutely dreadful choir performance in morning mass, elation after an incredibly beautiful choir performance in evening mass, and ultimately, a very worn out and stressed me after having to play the organ for both masses and the choir practice sessions before them. Having said that, sitting at a piano flanked by a charming Gibraltan improvising jazz and a mad composer dude improvising Pavement (I kid you not) proved to be a bit too much of an antidote, and I ended up returning to my neglected textbooks far too late to do anything worthwhile.

* * *

As a result of all the weekend indiscipline, I expected Monday’s attempts to finally write the bloody essay to be excruciating, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. It certainly involved prolonged mental agony and intellectual self-scourging, but somehow the pain was vaguely pleasurable. This jurisprudence thing might just work out. Fingers crossed.

Live And Learn

Note to self: When very stressed at night grappling with the uncertainties of criminal law and the need to pack up room junk by Thursday morning or face the wrath of housekeeper nun, do not search for answers in vodka jelly.

Hallamak!

I just found out that I didn’t get back into UCL-run halls for next year, which means it’s either the streets or an armless, legless, kidneyless existence in exorbitantly priced London housing.

Zen calm. Zen calm. Zen fucking calm…

The Purpose Of The Bathrobe

I’ve just come up from mooching about downstairs in my hall’s common area, having taken something like 3 hours over dinner because of various distractions. The more I realize the strangeness of the people I live with, the more I like this place. :)

Conversation snippet from downstairs: (Necessary information: Joseph has a knack of saying ridiculous things in a completely deadpan manner, and was walking around in a bathrobe.)

Me: Joseph, why are you walking around in a bathrobe?
Joseph: Well, I enjoy walking around the hall before I go to sleep, in order to get myself relaxed, and I feel relaxed in my bathrobe.
Me: Just promise me you’re not going to try getting any more relaxed.
Joseph: Well, if I were walking around exposing myself, then other people wouldn’t be relaxed. And then there wouldn’t be a relaxing atmosphere, which would defeat the purpose of the bathrobe.
Samer: I’m beginning to feel just a bit tense…
Joseph: Time for me to move on, good night.