london, london!
The past week has been so amazingly hectic, I don't even know where to start. But there's so much to say, and this is the first time in a week i have legroom! and space to take out my ibook! and there's wireless! and a nice big kitchen! I'm at nick's (my sister's boyfriend) house in tower hill, london, which is by the thames and has the view of the tower of london-cum-the london bridge nearby. and the gherkin (omg!!) in the horizon as well!!! eeeeee. and now i'm all alone in this big spooky house. nick's housemates have all flown home, and he's gone out for dinner after which he's camping out at heathrow to receive my sister. who's coming in a just a few hours! and then my parents in a few days! but first: a proper bout of blogging. replying emails (finally! sorry to everyone who's been waiting for replies), and some reading (obviously that last bit is said with a lot less conviction).
But first!
it all start inauspiciously enough: I wait at the busstop for an hour while seng teck (aww i still love you though) oversleeps and then gets lost. Then we proceed to get lost in the underground: wrong platform, wrong line, forgot to change trains, train service disrupted etc etc, until finally, seng teck: "fuck it we're taking a cab!".
so we get back finally. london really does not treat its students as well as oxford does (and i'm from freakin' teddy hall! that's saying alot coming from me). My suitcase takes up about a quarter of the room. but it's seng teck, and he's neat and clean and giving and smells nice, so i'm just glad to be out of the london smog.
Unfortunately however, the bitchy receptionists employed in canterbury hall do not want us to be happy. They not only charge 1.50 pounds (dear god i couldn't find the pound sign on my keyboard! eee americanisation) a night, but for some reason students can't sign in guests past 11pm at night, even if said guest is standing there with a big suitcase, nowhere to go, and in no way seems inebriated or likely to trash anything.
so this 11pm rule comes to bite us in the arse quite abit. On tuesday after les mis (amazing!! so much better when i watched it in singapore in pri 3. well, i don't remember much from that experience other than thoroughly pissing everyone sitting around us off with my endless questions.), karen john and I come back to the hall, only to be told that we're not allowed in. I manage to sneak in to st's room through the basement, while karen and john head off. On thursday however, I arrive back at the hall at about 1.30am (after walking about 40 minutes from the tube station, hopelessly lost of course), try to sneak in through the basement, get caught, and have to make an emergency call to jo to ask if I can crash at her place. so then it's another 20 minute walk to high holburn.
despite the sneaking around and the bitchy receptionists, the tepid shower, the lack of space, the salsa spills (NOT my fault!), the uncomfortable run-ins with neighbours, the even more uncomfortable walk-in-on-me-changing moment, I was really lucky to have seng teck (aww!) the past week, sharing his space, giving me his bed, and always being so kind, even though he bitched alot in his passive-agressive way (haha!). And it was loads of fun as well - watching will and grace through the night, listening to your paul-inspired beng techno (and my insistence on corrinne may to lull me to sleep, and you playing cher instead just because it's funny), chomping through carrots and salsa, (you spilling said salsa on the armchair and panickedly running out to tesco's to get baking soda, and then complain about the salsa smell over the next few days while giving me the evil eye as if I had anything to do with it!), and just in general hanging out - bitching, giggling..talking about anything and everything.
So thank you for sleeping in a foetal position on the floor for a whole week (no space to stretch out cos of my suitcase), for being so generous, and for putting up with my entitled moments and tantrums. And it's alright that you always got us lost and made us late, and never had the solution - it was good enough that you hadn't changed at all. hee. It was like having my own Will.
I feel like I need to cap this off with a picture. But I haven't take any of the two of us the past week. So here's a very dated picture: a month or so before we both flew: (look at my tropical tan! ah...the sun: a distant memory) young and innocent. before england took our souls:
But first!
it all start inauspiciously enough: I wait at the busstop for an hour while seng teck (aww i still love you though) oversleeps and then gets lost. Then we proceed to get lost in the underground: wrong platform, wrong line, forgot to change trains, train service disrupted etc etc, until finally, seng teck: "fuck it we're taking a cab!".
so we get back finally. london really does not treat its students as well as oxford does (and i'm from freakin' teddy hall! that's saying alot coming from me). My suitcase takes up about a quarter of the room. but it's seng teck, and he's neat and clean and giving and smells nice, so i'm just glad to be out of the london smog.
Unfortunately however, the bitchy receptionists employed in canterbury hall do not want us to be happy. They not only charge 1.50 pounds (dear god i couldn't find the pound sign on my keyboard! eee americanisation) a night, but for some reason students can't sign in guests past 11pm at night, even if said guest is standing there with a big suitcase, nowhere to go, and in no way seems inebriated or likely to trash anything.
so this 11pm rule comes to bite us in the arse quite abit. On tuesday after les mis (amazing!! so much better when i watched it in singapore in pri 3. well, i don't remember much from that experience other than thoroughly pissing everyone sitting around us off with my endless questions.), karen john and I come back to the hall, only to be told that we're not allowed in. I manage to sneak in to st's room through the basement, while karen and john head off. On thursday however, I arrive back at the hall at about 1.30am (after walking about 40 minutes from the tube station, hopelessly lost of course), try to sneak in through the basement, get caught, and have to make an emergency call to jo to ask if I can crash at her place. so then it's another 20 minute walk to high holburn.
despite the sneaking around and the bitchy receptionists, the tepid shower, the lack of space, the salsa spills (NOT my fault!), the uncomfortable run-ins with neighbours, the even more uncomfortable walk-in-on-me-changing moment, I was really lucky to have seng teck (aww!) the past week, sharing his space, giving me his bed, and always being so kind, even though he bitched alot in his passive-agressive way (haha!). And it was loads of fun as well - watching will and grace through the night, listening to your paul-inspired beng techno (and my insistence on corrinne may to lull me to sleep, and you playing cher instead just because it's funny), chomping through carrots and salsa, (you spilling said salsa on the armchair and panickedly running out to tesco's to get baking soda, and then complain about the salsa smell over the next few days while giving me the evil eye as if I had anything to do with it!), and just in general hanging out - bitching, giggling..talking about anything and everything.
So thank you for sleeping in a foetal position on the floor for a whole week (no space to stretch out cos of my suitcase), for being so generous, and for putting up with my entitled moments and tantrums. And it's alright that you always got us lost and made us late, and never had the solution - it was good enough that you hadn't changed at all. hee. It was like having my own Will.
I feel like I need to cap this off with a picture. But I haven't take any of the two of us the past week. So here's a very dated picture: a month or so before we both flew: (look at my tropical tan! ah...the sun: a distant memory) young and innocent. before england took our souls:
