random postings

this is the closing thing to crazy
i have ever been
feeling twenty-two
acting seventeen

- "closest thing to crazy"_katie melua

one of the most beautiful songs i've ever heard.

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i'm going to watch the cambridge v oxford match @ twickenham with ah-vette later!
this may be the closest i'll ever get to watching a proper rugby match at twickenham, haha.

am gonna end up skipping a lecture to go for it. really bad of me, i know!
will make up for it though.

the december holidays will be spent
- travelling (liverpool -unconfirmed, perpignan, and maybe i'll visit my roommate in derby)
- revising (marx, landmines and hydropolitics, help!)
- working (as in, earning money): am gonna hand in my CV (if you can call it a CV) to a few places that have openings for p/t xmas period sales assistants

one term has passed so damn quickly. 1/9 of my uni life, this is ridiculous. stop wasting time and go do all the stuff you want to do, before it's too late.
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i posted off a whole bunch of xmas cards yesterday. cost me a fortune. nevermind arriving at their destinations on time - as long as they arrive i'll be thanking my lucky stars. the british postal system is in a major rut at the moment, apparently first-class mail takes almost as long as second-class mail to arrive. and lots of lost mail as well (did you know they lose about 20 million items a year? that's just scary).

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christmas shopping is a big deal here. when i was in cardiff almost everyone walking along the shopping streets were carrying 'da4 bao1 xiao3 bao1' (loosely translated as big and small packages). according to bbc tv just now, christmas sales are estimated at 10 billion pounds. that's more than some of the poorest countries' GDPs obviously (Zimbabwe's GDP is around US$7.4 billion).


someone should count the amount of $$$ circulated during cny in the form of hongbaos. that would be fun.

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mlle young, i've received your e-mail and am as envious as ever of your go-getter proactive humanist activist spirit. am a bit tied up with work at the moment, promise to reply your e-mail satisfactorily asap! :)

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quick guide to current brit slang

well: synonym of 'very' (e.g. "that's well funny!")

quality: it's like saying 'excellent' or 'very good' (e.g. "the football match last night was great wasn't it?" "yeah, quality"; or, "how was your weekend trip to the lake district?" "quality, the scenery was beautiful.")

knackered: tired

sick: (adverb) vomit after excessive alcohol intake (e.g. "she's being sick in the bathroom"); (noun) vomit (e.g. "watch out, there's sick in the corridor")

sod off/bugger off/piss off: get lost

cheers: thanks

different ways of saying 'hi':
you alright(?)
how's it going


putting it all together:

"hey mate, you alright? did you see that pile of sick at the door? sally was well sick last night; we went to that party, it was quality. i'm actually really knackered now... yeah thanks for taking my dog out for a walk this morning mate, cheers."

as you may (or may not) know, the younger generation of british people can be quite (make that extremely) foul in their language. try this real example i overheard a few months ago:

(this girl was talking on her phone and complaining loudly about a long queue in front of the ticket counter at a tube station)
"there's a f***ing queue, it's f***ing long!!! there's a whole lot of f***ing people in front of me" (and she went on and on in the same vein)


i don't really care, you can say whatever you want as long as you're not directing your filthy words at me.

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before i forget, here's another local quirk for you:
some of the british (or at least the students) eat oranges by peeling off the skin and then breaking the orange into slices, instead of cutting them up into sixths.

and there's more... they don't call potato chips 'chips', but '< b>crisps'.

oh and i love the supermarkets to bits. so many yummy things.

btw i've discovered pannini - italian-style baguettish thing. mouth-wateringly crunchily tasty bread. yum.

here's some of the junk i cram myself with (what a disgusting image.. oh well)
Fox's Golden Cream Crunch (crunchy butter biscuit sandwich with vanilla cream filling)
McVities Plain Chocolate-covered Digestives
Maple & Pecan Danish
Strawberry jam & butter toast
The aforementioned pannini (ham & cheese, mmm)
Hot Chocolate

i could either spend all 3 years here on a stricter diet and maintain/lose weight.

or i could eat as i please and exercise more so that i don't bloat.

the choice is obvious!

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the tube workers may be going on strike on new year's eve.
not good - the streets are going to be super crowded.