London calling
Hey there. So I haven’t been feeling too great recently. Life getting me down. Feeling like I was having the SAME conversations with my parents every time we poke, and then having the same conversations with my grandparents started making me feel I was in a time loop or something.
And then my phone acting up, cutting me off from people. And I know not everyone has my new number (yes, it’s changed), but at the moment there’s not really much point in me giving it out, cos I still cant receive texts. I went into the shop again yesterday, and was told that it was a network issue, and no my account.
They’re moving what mast the text system uses or something like that, and apparently a load of Samsungs and Motorola are affected… so I could go back to using my old phone…except I’d probably have the same problem, cos it’s a Samsung… Dammit… So, for the time being, e-mails are probably your best bet to get in contact with me.
I’ve been swamped with work. Now, ok, yes, it is me, and this usually happens after we finish a block of lab reports… I end up writing them in bulk… I just find it easier to sit down and dedicate a day or weekend or whatever to writing them, rather than writing them as we go along. And so that eventually leads to a big pile up of work that I have to do. But at least it gives me the motivation to get on and actually write them.
So having to do EXTRA work on top of the work that I knew I had was kinda stressing me out too. And it started affecting me. Last week I think the earliest I got to bed was 2… maybe half 2… and if you think that I’m in 9 or 10 each day, the lack of sleep eventually wears you down… you know… of you’re not Mark or someone…
I went to London at the weekend. Mark had just started half term, and last time we went to London, he as about 2, so he wanted to go down and do some of the tourist-y things that we’d done. The plan was for me to go down on the Sunday and spend the day with them, and go back the Sunday night. But them I pointed out the trains didn’t let me do that, so I met up with them on the Saturday lunchtime. And we planned it amazingly well… I got into Euston about 10 minutes after they got into Kings cross… and then I spent the next 20 minutes going all of one stop on the tube… Ah, so much fun…
So after we met up and had some lunch, caught the tube down to South Kensington, where all the museums are. And we decided to go round the Science museum, cos there was an exhibition on that Mark had read about and was interested in.
Is there something you want to tell us all Mark?!
The exhibition in question was a spy training academy thing. It was MINT! You had to go and solve clues and take part in this investigation of a company and it had brain scans and body scans and everything! I think I scared my mum when I was going over evidence and was like “ah, he used the bleach to wash away the blood from the murder, that’s what the gloves are for. BUT, if you get a UV torch, it’ll show up where he used it…” …I think I’ve been watching too much CSI…
OH, speaking of… Alan Tudyk is in an episode coming up… I think it’s on Tuesday. And I’ve read what character he’s meant to be playing…. And I’m scared! He’s too LOVEABLE for the role… I just know I’ll be sitting there screaming at the TV “That’s not Wash! NO! What are you doing?!”… Apparently I get emotional when it comes to shows… *whistles*
Anyway, back to London. After we went through the spy training, we went up to have a look at the history of medicine exhibition. Because, well, it’s me… and mum’s a dentist… and Mark didn’t seem to mind, so we were going round and I got kinda carried away with that too… But you know I AM doing biology as my degree; it’s a good thing I was getting involved in it… right? RIGHT?!
In this exhibit, there was this cartoon drawing of Sigmund Freud. Me and mum looked at it, and we were in HYSTERICS! Man am I glad that Mark didn’t get what we were laughing about. I would try to explain it, but I seriously couldn’t do it justice. You’ll have to go to see it yourself!
After that, I made it up to Mark by going into a Game On exhibition with him. Imagine all your favourite games on any game consoles. Now put all those in the same room. And you have Game On… I learnt I can button bash better than my brother, cos I totally whopped his ass on the beat-em-ups… but then he got me back where kill was actually involved… Dammit…
Oh, and I broke the Pong game… I could move my guy, but couldn’t fire it… so then they rigged it so I had to press another button or something… And the entire time I had that clip from Youtube running round my head! Um yeah… I was distracted… that’s why I lost… *Nods*
So after playing games for about an hour, we headed out (got kicked out cos the museum was closing…) and found mum who had been going through the Spitfire exhibition, and headed off to the hotel they’d booked.
Only to find that, somewhere along the line, the reservation had gotten lost. And it wasn’t just a case of having to then pay the full price of the room and not the discounted price for booking ahead, cos they were out of twin rooms. And double rooms. And mum thought I wouldn’t be fair on Mark to put him in a single room, cos the whole point of booking a twin room was to have… a twin room…
So they had to find a new hotel. Now luckily, the hotel was right next door to another hotel that DID have twin rooms free… at twice the price. But, it was about half 6 on a Saturday night… and the 3 of us are in a strange city, so mum decided to lump it and go next door.
So after they checked in and everything, we headed up and got settled, and decided where we were eating. Sitting down in the Chinese restaurant part of the hotel, and mum and I are chatting on, when she asks what time my train back was. Now I made a slight error when I bought my ticket that morning… I had hit saver single instead of return… so I didn’t HAVE a train back. Slight edit of the truth, I said it was open; I didn’t have a set train back. So she suggested I stay the night with them, and then head back on the Sunday sometime, depending on what they ended up doing. Let me think about this for a second… I could A) be a student, kip on the floor, and spend more time with my family away from work… or B) navigate myself around London’s tube system on my own on a Saturday night at about 10 pm… Hmmm… HARD decision there…
So mum was trying to come up with all these plans on how to get me up to the hotel room without anyone seeing, with Mark helping, and I was like “I’ll just go up with you. THEY don’t know what room you’ve booked. Hell, for all they know, I could have my own room!”
Man was that food gorgeous! Aromatic duck pancakes to start (cos, you know… it’s a CHINESE! What ELSE are we going to have?!) 3 mains: Sweet and sour pork, chicken with ginger and something else curry, and scallops and sugar peas. You should have seen the size of those scallops! (I’m drooling now just thinking about them!) And god were they delicious! I swear, I’m going to have to drag people to London for Mark’s exhibition, and those scallops!
So during the meal, the favourite topics of choice come up. Actually, come to think about it, only 2 of them did… It was just money and placement that came up. And one of the things that has been praying on my mind for a while now is if I even want to do one. Because, to be honest, I don’t think I do. Yeah, it may make my life easier after my degree to get a job in biology… but what if I don’t want to do that? So, I gave a hypothetical situation to my mum… “If, for whatever reason, I don’t get a placement, and go straight to final year, what would that mean?” “Oh, it’d just mean you finish a year early, that’s all. We’d just put your share of the money into your account instead of a saving account.”
It wasn’t until she said that that I realised just how stressed that whole deal had made me. I had this strange irrational thought that she’d be disappointed in me or something. Yes, I know it’s crazy. But that’s how I felt. So knowing that she won’t condone me if I don’t do a placement gives me more hope for when I ask my dad. See, the thing is, my family is full of hypocrites. Neither parent did what they wanted to do at uni for appearances or pleasing people. And neither of them did a placement year. OK, so they weren’t all that common when they were at uni, and you can’t do one in dentistry, I know, but it felt like they were saying that part of my degree was the placement year… but it’s not. It’s an option.
So anyway, after the meal, we all headed back up. Slept. Had an AMAZINGLY CRAZY dream. Completely threw me for a loop. I mean, I know dreams are meant to be your subconscious dealing with events and playing out scenarios etc… but WHAT THE HELL was my subconscious thinking?! *shudders*
So after that dream I didn’t get much sleep. Though the fact that I was on the floor didn’t seem to hinder me in any way. In fact, I’d say it was a hack of a lot more comfortable than the beds Mark and mum had.
So next morning, headed out for some breakfast. There was this really nice tea room just up the road from the hotel. We managed to get there just at the right time, 5 minutes later there would have been no room. Apparently it’s a popular place for breakfast… and with good reason. The 3 of us managed to have a full breakfast, juice, coffee etc for under £20. If you think the breakfast at the hotel was £23 PER HEAD, you’ll get why it was good.
So after breakfast, checked out, and headed out for the river. Had a look at the queue for the London Eye, and decided to head on. We got to the top at about 11.15-20ish. One of the landmarks you can see from the Eye is Buckingham Palace. Oh yeah… we saw the changing of the guard from the top of the London Eye… how’s THAT for timing?!
So after the Eye, mum decided to head to the Tower of London, see the Crown Jewels. “It’s only a couple of stops on the Tube; we can wander down along the river. It’s a nice day and isn't too far”… Of course mum seemed to have reshaped London in her brain… a couple of stops turned out to be 8… and not far turned out to be about 4 miles… Ah well, never mind, the walk did us good. Plus it meant we could walk over the Millennium Bridge… and back… so we could walk over Tower Bridge.
So went round Tower of London. Saw the Crown Jewels. FECKING big diamond… and then stopped off for some lunch.
After lunch, back on the Tube to South Kensington once again, this time for the Natural History Museum. Went round the dinosaur exhibit, and then, because I was there, and well, why not, went round the Biology exhibit. (Are you sensing a theme here?)
After that, had to go, cos time had caught up on us. Mum had to get back to the hotel to pick up the case she’d left there in the cloakroom before getting up to Kings cross for 7. And I had to get to Euston for a time when a train to Birmingham left. See, this is why I like having open tickets; it lets you wonder up and jump on the first train that heads in the right direction.
So my day trip turned out to be a weekend trip, and just what I needed. I’m feeling so much calmer now. It’s a nice feeling. We did our debate, and had a good hash out with that, which was good.
I sorta flunked a test today. And whereas last week I would have been all stressed out about it, today I’m like “well, it could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse. And I probably did better than what I think.”
“Friendship isn’t a big thing. It’s a million little things”- Unknown.
I feel like I’ve been slipping on a friendship side. And I don’t want to feel like I’m losing my friends. I'm back home for Easter 22nd/23rd March. Anyone else going to be around at that time? Could have a proper meet up/catch up session. Cos I haven't seen some people who read this since GOD knows when… Easter? Summer? LONG time. So yeah, want to have a meet up.
Oh, and I was thinking, maybe going back down to London in the summer? Dunno if anyone’s up for that though. Just a thought.
Anyone given anything up for lent? I know I have. Again. But we shall see how well it goes… I have a feeling it has already been broken… lol.
Right. I think I’ve rambled on enough now. And see… it’s up before the weekend! :D
And then my phone acting up, cutting me off from people. And I know not everyone has my new number (yes, it’s changed), but at the moment there’s not really much point in me giving it out, cos I still cant receive texts. I went into the shop again yesterday, and was told that it was a network issue, and no my account.
They’re moving what mast the text system uses or something like that, and apparently a load of Samsungs and Motorola are affected… so I could go back to using my old phone…except I’d probably have the same problem, cos it’s a Samsung… Dammit… So, for the time being, e-mails are probably your best bet to get in contact with me.
I’ve been swamped with work. Now, ok, yes, it is me, and this usually happens after we finish a block of lab reports… I end up writing them in bulk… I just find it easier to sit down and dedicate a day or weekend or whatever to writing them, rather than writing them as we go along. And so that eventually leads to a big pile up of work that I have to do. But at least it gives me the motivation to get on and actually write them.
So having to do EXTRA work on top of the work that I knew I had was kinda stressing me out too. And it started affecting me. Last week I think the earliest I got to bed was 2… maybe half 2… and if you think that I’m in 9 or 10 each day, the lack of sleep eventually wears you down… you know… of you’re not Mark or someone…
I went to London at the weekend. Mark had just started half term, and last time we went to London, he as about 2, so he wanted to go down and do some of the tourist-y things that we’d done. The plan was for me to go down on the Sunday and spend the day with them, and go back the Sunday night. But them I pointed out the trains didn’t let me do that, so I met up with them on the Saturday lunchtime. And we planned it amazingly well… I got into Euston about 10 minutes after they got into Kings cross… and then I spent the next 20 minutes going all of one stop on the tube… Ah, so much fun…
So after we met up and had some lunch, caught the tube down to South Kensington, where all the museums are. And we decided to go round the Science museum, cos there was an exhibition on that Mark had read about and was interested in.
Is there something you want to tell us all Mark?!
The exhibition in question was a spy training academy thing. It was MINT! You had to go and solve clues and take part in this investigation of a company and it had brain scans and body scans and everything! I think I scared my mum when I was going over evidence and was like “ah, he used the bleach to wash away the blood from the murder, that’s what the gloves are for. BUT, if you get a UV torch, it’ll show up where he used it…” …I think I’ve been watching too much CSI…
OH, speaking of… Alan Tudyk is in an episode coming up… I think it’s on Tuesday. And I’ve read what character he’s meant to be playing…. And I’m scared! He’s too LOVEABLE for the role… I just know I’ll be sitting there screaming at the TV “That’s not Wash! NO! What are you doing?!”… Apparently I get emotional when it comes to shows… *whistles*
Anyway, back to London. After we went through the spy training, we went up to have a look at the history of medicine exhibition. Because, well, it’s me… and mum’s a dentist… and Mark didn’t seem to mind, so we were going round and I got kinda carried away with that too… But you know I AM doing biology as my degree; it’s a good thing I was getting involved in it… right? RIGHT?!
In this exhibit, there was this cartoon drawing of Sigmund Freud. Me and mum looked at it, and we were in HYSTERICS! Man am I glad that Mark didn’t get what we were laughing about. I would try to explain it, but I seriously couldn’t do it justice. You’ll have to go to see it yourself!
After that, I made it up to Mark by going into a Game On exhibition with him. Imagine all your favourite games on any game consoles. Now put all those in the same room. And you have Game On… I learnt I can button bash better than my brother, cos I totally whopped his ass on the beat-em-ups… but then he got me back where kill was actually involved… Dammit…
Oh, and I broke the Pong game… I could move my guy, but couldn’t fire it… so then they rigged it so I had to press another button or something… And the entire time I had that clip from Youtube running round my head! Um yeah… I was distracted… that’s why I lost… *Nods*
So after playing games for about an hour, we headed out (got kicked out cos the museum was closing…) and found mum who had been going through the Spitfire exhibition, and headed off to the hotel they’d booked.
Only to find that, somewhere along the line, the reservation had gotten lost. And it wasn’t just a case of having to then pay the full price of the room and not the discounted price for booking ahead, cos they were out of twin rooms. And double rooms. And mum thought I wouldn’t be fair on Mark to put him in a single room, cos the whole point of booking a twin room was to have… a twin room…
So they had to find a new hotel. Now luckily, the hotel was right next door to another hotel that DID have twin rooms free… at twice the price. But, it was about half 6 on a Saturday night… and the 3 of us are in a strange city, so mum decided to lump it and go next door.
So after they checked in and everything, we headed up and got settled, and decided where we were eating. Sitting down in the Chinese restaurant part of the hotel, and mum and I are chatting on, when she asks what time my train back was. Now I made a slight error when I bought my ticket that morning… I had hit saver single instead of return… so I didn’t HAVE a train back. Slight edit of the truth, I said it was open; I didn’t have a set train back. So she suggested I stay the night with them, and then head back on the Sunday sometime, depending on what they ended up doing. Let me think about this for a second… I could A) be a student, kip on the floor, and spend more time with my family away from work… or B) navigate myself around London’s tube system on my own on a Saturday night at about 10 pm… Hmmm… HARD decision there…
So mum was trying to come up with all these plans on how to get me up to the hotel room without anyone seeing, with Mark helping, and I was like “I’ll just go up with you. THEY don’t know what room you’ve booked. Hell, for all they know, I could have my own room!”
Man was that food gorgeous! Aromatic duck pancakes to start (cos, you know… it’s a CHINESE! What ELSE are we going to have?!) 3 mains: Sweet and sour pork, chicken with ginger and something else curry, and scallops and sugar peas. You should have seen the size of those scallops! (I’m drooling now just thinking about them!) And god were they delicious! I swear, I’m going to have to drag people to London for Mark’s exhibition, and those scallops!
So during the meal, the favourite topics of choice come up. Actually, come to think about it, only 2 of them did… It was just money and placement that came up. And one of the things that has been praying on my mind for a while now is if I even want to do one. Because, to be honest, I don’t think I do. Yeah, it may make my life easier after my degree to get a job in biology… but what if I don’t want to do that? So, I gave a hypothetical situation to my mum… “If, for whatever reason, I don’t get a placement, and go straight to final year, what would that mean?” “Oh, it’d just mean you finish a year early, that’s all. We’d just put your share of the money into your account instead of a saving account.”
It wasn’t until she said that that I realised just how stressed that whole deal had made me. I had this strange irrational thought that she’d be disappointed in me or something. Yes, I know it’s crazy. But that’s how I felt. So knowing that she won’t condone me if I don’t do a placement gives me more hope for when I ask my dad. See, the thing is, my family is full of hypocrites. Neither parent did what they wanted to do at uni for appearances or pleasing people. And neither of them did a placement year. OK, so they weren’t all that common when they were at uni, and you can’t do one in dentistry, I know, but it felt like they were saying that part of my degree was the placement year… but it’s not. It’s an option.
So anyway, after the meal, we all headed back up. Slept. Had an AMAZINGLY CRAZY dream. Completely threw me for a loop. I mean, I know dreams are meant to be your subconscious dealing with events and playing out scenarios etc… but WHAT THE HELL was my subconscious thinking?! *shudders*
So after that dream I didn’t get much sleep. Though the fact that I was on the floor didn’t seem to hinder me in any way. In fact, I’d say it was a hack of a lot more comfortable than the beds Mark and mum had.
So next morning, headed out for some breakfast. There was this really nice tea room just up the road from the hotel. We managed to get there just at the right time, 5 minutes later there would have been no room. Apparently it’s a popular place for breakfast… and with good reason. The 3 of us managed to have a full breakfast, juice, coffee etc for under £20. If you think the breakfast at the hotel was £23 PER HEAD, you’ll get why it was good.
So after breakfast, checked out, and headed out for the river. Had a look at the queue for the London Eye, and decided to head on. We got to the top at about 11.15-20ish. One of the landmarks you can see from the Eye is Buckingham Palace. Oh yeah… we saw the changing of the guard from the top of the London Eye… how’s THAT for timing?!
So after the Eye, mum decided to head to the Tower of London, see the Crown Jewels. “It’s only a couple of stops on the Tube; we can wander down along the river. It’s a nice day and isn't too far”… Of course mum seemed to have reshaped London in her brain… a couple of stops turned out to be 8… and not far turned out to be about 4 miles… Ah well, never mind, the walk did us good. Plus it meant we could walk over the Millennium Bridge… and back… so we could walk over Tower Bridge.
So went round Tower of London. Saw the Crown Jewels. FECKING big diamond… and then stopped off for some lunch.
After lunch, back on the Tube to South Kensington once again, this time for the Natural History Museum. Went round the dinosaur exhibit, and then, because I was there, and well, why not, went round the Biology exhibit. (Are you sensing a theme here?)
After that, had to go, cos time had caught up on us. Mum had to get back to the hotel to pick up the case she’d left there in the cloakroom before getting up to Kings cross for 7. And I had to get to Euston for a time when a train to Birmingham left. See, this is why I like having open tickets; it lets you wonder up and jump on the first train that heads in the right direction.
So my day trip turned out to be a weekend trip, and just what I needed. I’m feeling so much calmer now. It’s a nice feeling. We did our debate, and had a good hash out with that, which was good.
I sorta flunked a test today. And whereas last week I would have been all stressed out about it, today I’m like “well, it could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse. And I probably did better than what I think.”
“Friendship isn’t a big thing. It’s a million little things”- Unknown.
I feel like I’ve been slipping on a friendship side. And I don’t want to feel like I’m losing my friends. I'm back home for Easter 22nd/23rd March. Anyone else going to be around at that time? Could have a proper meet up/catch up session. Cos I haven't seen some people who read this since GOD knows when… Easter? Summer? LONG time. So yeah, want to have a meet up.
Oh, and I was thinking, maybe going back down to London in the summer? Dunno if anyone’s up for that though. Just a thought.
Anyone given anything up for lent? I know I have. Again. But we shall see how well it goes… I have a feeling it has already been broken… lol.
Right. I think I’ve rambled on enough now. And see… it’s up before the weekend! :D
posted by Chibi at
3:53 pm
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