beeteedubz

Did I mention I was going to die this week? Just informing the world, in case.

my eyes itch

There is a guy in my psychology class who has a full handlebar mustache.

Another guy at my creative writing meetings is the spitting image of Robert Pattinson / Edward Cullen, except bathed.

I survived my essay, clearly. I only hope I passed. On the way is a rush of lab assessments, lab write-ups, a data analysis crap worksheet, a fundraising week I have make arts&crafty things for, and exams. 

In other news, Becca and I are slowly making our way through "Doctor Who" season 1 which is pure awesome. Christopher Eccleston is the best doctor of my life. As much as I know I'm going to love Tennant (because I already do), I'll be so sad to see Eccleston go.

This Saturday we've planned a pancake morning. I say we, I mean me. My mom has a recipe for the best pancakes in the world (I'm not biased) and I'm introducing this world of tastiness to my friendsies here.

And now, I nap. Can you tell I need it?

the concept of smiling

I was doing research for my essay and I found a picture of some men at a factory in an office just hanging about. It struck me that not a single one of them was smiling. Then I realized that a lot of people in old pictures don't smile. So, when did the concept of smiling in a picture come to life? 

Because it's a pretty weird concept. When did we start thinking, okay, everybody, we're going to document this moment possibly forever so look as happy as possible. Not, so just keep doing whatever you're doing in the moment because if you stop to smile and stare at the camera, it's not really the moment anymore, is it? That's why I like candid photographs so much more than stop-and-smile ones; the candid ones actually portray the moment as it is, for the most part. I mean, there are some pictures of the stop and smile variety that do too. But I guess I just don't see why a whole line of people has to get together and smile as brightly as possible or else it doesn't look good. 

Why do we smile in pictures? When did it become not okay not to smile? Is it an obsession with being happy that we feel necessary to show the rest of the world? Why are we obsessed with being happy? 

I remember a girl from high school who I would see get her picture taken on several occasions -- the stop-and-smile pictures. Each time, she would smile as the camera flashed and then after the picture was taken, she would put on a much more genuine smile that looked so much better on her. The one in the picture was fake. So, what is even the point?

Also, I'm quickly coming to the realization that my essay is going to be the exact replica of the example of a bad essay our lecturer gave us in class. Woohoo.

putting the pro in procrastination

My mom left yesterday morning and I already miss her. I actually didn't even know if she arrived safely or not until I got an email this afternoonish from her. And now that she's back home, my dad is jetting off to Dubai for three weeks. So it's just my mom and my sister at home by themselves for three weeks. I think that's going to be a bit tough for my mom so I'll keep emailing her from time to time. I really can't wait to go home. 

I found out my exams timetable for second semester. I have exams on 26 May, 1, 3, 4, and 8 June. This is going to be fun. AND to top it all off, my flight has been booked since September for the 17th of June because I didn't know when I'd finish exams. So I have 9 whole days doing nothing in Manchester until I go home. Sigh. At least it'll just be fun to vegetate for that time, yeah?

I still have an essay to do and I have barely started. I promised myself I'd have the first half of the research done today. It really shouldn't even be that difficult. It's just that it's a history essay, which I am not used to now since most of the writing I've done for school is science-y fact oriented. You know, more like a narration of the topic and re-explanation, showing your understanding, etc. Speaking of which, I got another first on my second essay for tutorial, which I am quite happy about. A little annoyed that it's the exact same score as before but whatever, it's a good score. This one was on the science of sleep and dreaming. It's actually really interesting. Both my science essays have been really interesting this year. But this history one just does not thrill me at all: "How has the factory discipline changed the nature of work?"  I don't know and I don't care. But, alas, an essay must be written! If only I had the motivation, dedication, will... 

Oh yes! I forgot to mention .. I went to Oxford again with my mom and she loved it and I loved it again and again and again and I really wish I lived there. And we did go see the Queen musical, "We Will Rock You," which was so so good. I absolutely loved it. It was so much fun and good music and just awesome. 

And now, a good ol' dose of gloriously wasting time:

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions:
Put an x next to the ones you've read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (x)
4 Harry Potter series - J K Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (partly?)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (x)
8 1984 - George Orwell (x) 
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ( ) 
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x) 
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (x)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (plan to)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (okay, not the COMPLETE works...)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (x)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ( )
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (x) 
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ( )
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ( )
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ( )
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (want to)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ( )
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x) 
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (want to)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ( )
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (plan to)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ( )
34 Emma - Jane Austen (will do)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (will do) 
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (it's sitting on my bedside table)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (plan to)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquer ( )
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (it's on my shelf)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (xxxxx)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ( ) 
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood  ( )
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (x)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ( )
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (plan to)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (plan to)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (plan to)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (plan to)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (plan to)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ( )
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ( )
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker ( )
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (plan to)
76 The Inferno - Dante  ( )
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ( )
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ( )
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White ( )
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ( )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x one or two)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ( )
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x in french too!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ( )
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas  ( )
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (partly?)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ( )

34. Well, I'm more well-read than the average BBC-er but that's a horribly low number. I don't have time to read anymore. I can't wait for summer. Reading, painting, music-ing, sitting outside, 21 Choices. That's all I plan on doing.

I think I should keep tabs on the books I've read and plan to read. That what Goodreads' for but I can't be arsed with that right now. So, since Bell Jar, I'm still on The Savage Detectives because I barely ever read. I think it's going way over my head but I'm still enjoying that. In between, I read Atonement which I think I've discussed here already. I have The Kite Runner sitting on my bedside table which I think I might start tonight because I've heard it's a pretty gripping read so I should finish it quickly. Then on my to-read shelf, which I brought from home, I have to re-read A Separate Peace because I read it when I was maybe 12 and I think it needs a re-read. I plan on re-reading a lot of books from high school in the coming years. Then there's To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf that I won at the Student Writing Soc launch, Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD, aaaand Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Dang my schooling getting in the way of my education!

Okay, I think I've avoided it long enough now.

happy easter!

I would simply like to wish all y'all a happy easter! And to inform you that I am having a lovely time with my mom here -- yesterday she cooked a delicious dinner for me and my friends and we all had a fun time cooking in our little kitchen. My birthday was great -- I love my friends and family and I got some super sweet presents!

As for the rest of my mom's stay, we're hoping to see the musical based on Queen (as in, the rock legends) tomorrow night and then we're off to Oxford on Tuesday! My mom's never been to Oxford and she knows how much it means to me so she figured she might as well see it while she's close. Other than that, we're just having a fun roam around town.

And lastly, I would like to tell you a little story. When Sorina and I came back from our concerting extravaganza, we began looking up (read: stalking) the various members of the bands we had just seen. One of whom was, of course, my cellist. She found their facebook page and a couple tagged pictures and after much fangirling between us two, she bursts into my room to tell me she has now friended the cellist. After we have just had a very obvious discussion including him and his band members in reference to them being our husbands. On our walls. Well, now there's no way I'm going to friend him, facebook etiquette and all. So she goes ahead and tags me in photos and tags him in photos ... and tags us in a photo together. At this point, I'm thinking, hey, if we're destined, he'll friend me, psh. A fortnight later, and still no luck. My future was slipping slowly away at the cruel hands of a facebook add, or lack thereof. Yesterday, Sorina tagged him in my albums, thinking this'll prompt him.

It did. I signed on today to see 2 requests, the first being the cellist of Two Spot Gobi. I think the realization went a little like this:

Me: *sees requests* Who the hell is Rob Lewiii--OMGHIAJHGKSFHKSFHGJKSFG SORINAAAA SORINAAAAAA!asdfd!!dssgdfdhdslif! 

I believe our wedding should follow in the coming months. 

I just remembered I don't actually know who the second request was from. Nor do I care. Toodles!

19

Happy birthday, self! Welcome to the beginning of your twentieth year. eep.

(19, to the minute!)

the student union's sink

I would simply like to inform you, dear people of the world, that our Student Union has the utmost coolest sink in the entire world in the public toilets. 

We (my weirdo friends and I) really feel they are Harry Potter-esque and are constantly standing around them waiting for snakes to emerge from the taps. Actually, that's a lie, we don't really spend all our time doing that. Just partly. Jay kay jay kay. But we do actually drag our friends inside to introduce them to the grand phenomena that this sink presents to us. It's pure awesome.

easter break

Gabs is ridiculously lonely right now. There's practically no one here. My neighbour Sorina is here which is good. As is Krupa down a few doors. Otherwise, this place is dead. I've entertained myself by renting films and doing laundry and cleaning my room and reading fmylife.com (this, facebook and failblog.org are going to be the reason I am destined to fail my degree) and avoiding this essay (see?). Oh and befriending more bands.

Sorina and I went to a Jason Mraz concert, opened by the ever adorable Marit Larsen and the excellent Two Spot Gobi, whose cellist I'm going to marry. He doesn't know it yet but baby steps, okay? Jason Mraz was wonderful. 

He came out personally to introduce all his opening bands. Isn't that sweet?

Marit Larsen from Oslo, Norway who is made of adorable.

Two Spot Gobi from Brighton, England.

Cellist aka husband.

Mraaaaaaz!

I did not ask for this I promise. Not out loud, at least.

Now I'm pretty much just sitting around, vegetating, not doing work, which is going to bite me in the ass soon enough because ...

... my mom is coming to visit! AJKFGHSDJGHSJKFGHJKFHKFHK!!!! I CANNOT WAIT. She's arriving tomorrow morning and staying for a week. And this Saturday is my birthday! I just can't wait. I already have a small pile of presents on my bedside table that is urging me to peek into it but I refuse, until the day itself. Ahhh, I'm excited!

Well, now. Aamna's just shown up back in Manc to do a bit of work so I'm going to go distract her, buy some foody things and make myself some stir fry. Toodles.

Oh, and the video as promised:

londontown

I have some relatives, if you recall, down in London, whom (who?) my father is always pushing me to go visit. I figured the beginning of spring break would be the perfect time since it would give me ample time to visit the fam and see London. So I emailed my ... aunt? cousin? I'll stick with cousin. (She's my dad's dad's cousin's daughter. So her dad is my dad's second cousin, making her his third cousin, making her my fourth cousin and her kids my fifth cousins. Phew.) She said she'd love to have me so I bought my tickets and counted down the days. 

In between the days, I realized I actually had a handful of friends who lived in London so we all decided to meet up one day. Saphia even drew a map for our grand adventure, which was pretty awesome (both the map and the adventure). 

Come Friday, the 27th of March, I set off on the 147 (the "free" bus for which I paid 50p to travel on) to Manchester Piccadilly train station. The ride was about 2 hours and as I was getting off at London Euston, I noticed a familiar face. Turns out a guy from my course was on the same train in the same coach, going home for break. We walked of the platform together and had a lovely little chat, during which I discovered he was spending his break skiing in France. Psshhh. We split when he went off to the Tube and I stood around trying to figure out where the hell I was going.

I came armed with a tube map and a four-year-old copy of the Lonely Planet's London book. I went up to the information kiosk to get some help and they kindly directed me to take the Victoria Line (light blue) down to Victoria and switch to the westbound District Line (dark green) to either Richmond or Ealing Broadway, not Wimbledon. Sounds good. I knew I had to get off at West Kensington since my cousin said that was the closest station to her house down in Hammersmith. I had consulted Google Maps to tell me just how close it was and it seemed easy enough to get to her flat. Turns out it was easier than I thought it would be. I made it quite quickly to her apartment block which was in a very very pretty area of town. 

So I made it all fine and dandy and was let in to the gorgeous flat, welcomed by the smiling face of my cousin and the shy smiles of her two kids. She showed me the little guest room / office with its own little bathroom (!!!!!) that was all mine for the next few days. I set down my stuff and went into the kitchen for an early dinner. Ahh, homecooked food! Glory. 

The little girl (aged 6) had a friend from school over so they were giggling and telling stories to each other as little girls do. They both warmed up to me quite quickly, which was nice. I miss my little cousins. The boy (aged 4) sat quietly, almost brooding, at the head of the table. He refused to speak to me though he found no qualms with blatantly staring at me whenever I walked into a room. When I stared back and smiled, he would turn away like my presence disappointed him. Once, I walked into his room and sat down to play with him and he clammed up. He went silent, stopped playing with his little toys, put them away and walked out. To tell his mom that I was sitting in his room. For real? Oh yeah, and did I mention they both had strong English accents? Best thing of my life. 

That's fine. I'll play with the little girl. She's better tempered anyways. Within a couple hours, she was already sitting in my lap, grabbing my hand, showing me stuff in her room, playing with my bracelets, like we were best friends. She's adorable. 

After the kiddies had gone to bed, my cousin and I sat around chit chatting, drinking tea and reading. Her family's moving to Qatar in the summer so her husband's already gone ahead to settle down there and I think she's been feeling the lack of company, so I wanted to be as much help as possible. 

The next day, we all went to the Science Museum for a little bit, which was pretty awesome -- I love museums, particularly science-oriented ones. Then we went off to a little Japanese restaurant which was delightful because I absolutely love Japanese food. I tried fish eggs for the first time. They were toxic orange and felt like teeny tiny bubble wrap in my mouth. It was the strangest texture of my life. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. The kids were eating it by the spoonful. Then we drove to a Tesco so the mum could pick up some stuff for her guests coming over for tea that afternoon. I sat in the car with the kiddies and entertained myself by tormenting the little boy by playing with his window controls. I think I enjoyed myself a little too much. Hush, you. Then we went back home and prepared for tea time with scones and tea cakes and other yummy things. Her parents came over and some other family members from the dad's side, I believe. 

After everyone had gone and I'd explored my little room some more, I picked up Atonement off the shelf and started to read it. It turned out to be better than I expected. I finished it the night before I left London so when I got back to Manchester, I decided I'd rent the movie to see if it was any good. I thought the first half of the book was really good but the second half was meh and overall, the whole movie was just meh. If you cared to know.

Late that night I got a text off one of my friends from Manchester who lives in London asking if I was up for going out that night. I responded that 10pm was a bit late to be going out but I'd be up for tomorrow night if we could work something out. He said sure, we'd confirm plans in the morning. I got super excited because I was going to have a little night out in London, woohoo!

The next morning I double-checked with cousin and she was just fine with me going out, as far as I could tell. So off we went to this little country club that she's part of, letting the kids roam in the playground outside for a few hours, while we sat inside and read. Then we went back home and just chilled. Eventually it was time for me to depart. I got all ready to go and went to say bye. I could tell my cousin was just the slightest bit on edge letting me out on my own to meet some friends in the grand city of London. I tried to make it as easy as possible for her, considering she's only ever had to deal with kids aged 6 and under. This whole teenage deal was uneasy for her, I could tell. I laughed it off and told her I'd be fine in response to all her "are you sure?"s. I asked her if she wanted me to call her at any point or anything and she said no, no, that's okay. But just as I was about to walk out, she called me back and said she'd feel better if I called her at 10.30 to let her know I was okay. Ah, the joys of learning to parent a young adult. She gave me a key to the house and let me go.

I was practically euphoric as I made my way to the station, got on the eastbound District Line to Tower Hill where I was meeting my friend. Tower Hill is the stop right below the Tower of London. You know, where Mary Queen of Scots was kept under Queen Elizabeth I's reign. And where Queen Liz herself was kept under her half-sister Mary's (Bloody Mary) reign. God, I love Tudor history. And here I was, standing at the foot of it all, a giant stone castle plopped in the middle of London. It was so incredibly COOL. 

We also walked onto Tower Bridge, that grand old bridge that's famous and that Fergie has in her "London Bridge" video which isn't actually London Bridge. London Bridge is just a concrete bridge. Anyways.

We walked around waiting for his brother to come pick us up so we could go down to Edgware Road, Arab central. It turned into a bit of a chase trying to get to the car because his brother was slightly lost having never driven in London before. So that was fun. On our way to Edgware Road, we took the long way through Westminster so I could see, in the dark, the general vicinity where Buckingham Palace was supposed to be, and, in the distance, Parliament and Big Ben, and Hyde Park and an arch and other such landmarks. (Ah, how appropriate, "London Calling" by the Clash just started playing on shuffle.)

When we got to our destination, we walked up and down the long road, looking for a cheap shisha (hookah) place. Eventually we found one and I sat and ate some leaves (grape leaves, stuffed with rice and meat, silly.) while Adil and his brother shisha'd it up. We just had a lovely night sitting about and talking and laughing and making friends with homeless folk and trying to figure out the Arabic word for coal and concrifying (yes, it's a word) my absolutely failness as an Arab. Whatevs. A little past 11 (yes, I did remember to call my cousin at half 10) it was time to head off so I took the tube back to West Ken and went home. 

The next morning was ADVENTURE DAY! Right before I left, I asked if my cousin needed me to call in every couple of hours but she laughed and said no. Yayyy trust. I met up with Saphia at Embankment 

and we wandered down the bank to another tube station from which we shipped off to Buckingham Palace! We saw the changing of the guards, or bits of it, and a massive crowd of people. And a big procession-y thing that had horses in it. Innnnit, though? 

Buckingham Palace gates, yo!

Then we went around the street, met some people who work in the Palace, got my picture taken with them because Saphia is a weirdo. She actually called out, "Excuse me! Can we have a picture with you?" then turns to me and says, "Go on, Noor. Oh, she's American, bless her." To which I facepalmed and responded, "Shutup."

We walked around EVERYWHERE. We went through the West End, London's Broadway, and to Trafalgar Square where I almost died trying to climb one of those stupid lions, and then into the National Gallery where I got yelled at for trying to take a picture (and I saw Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers!') and then to Pizza Express where they have carpet on the wall and Saphia got yelled at for not indicating that she intended to pay now by either putting out a card or some cash. 

Then off we went to Piccadilly Circus, where we met up with Adil, and then to Leicester Square, where big movie premieres occur, and then to Oxford Street which is basically the shopping centre of London. 

We walked up and down all these busy busy streets on our way to the greatest place of my life: Hamley's toy store. It is glory. The store is seven floors of toys. Toys that we even played with when we were kids and new toys that all the cool kids play with now. And everywhere, they had little counters where they demonstrated the toys and magic markers (which delighted us to no end) and a super cool nailpolish set. I ended up buying two little race cars for my boy cousin and some bracelets for my girl cousin, which they both loved. The boy even attempted to talk to me. Mainly, he'd go, Mummy, tell Noor this and this .. and only when Mummy suggested that he could do so himself did he turn to talk to me directly. Anyways. 

Then we went to Selfridges which is a hyooooj department store, much like Macy's or Nordstrom but better. Because it's British, duh. Then Saphia had to rush to King's Cross to go home and so while she went off to catch her train, I went searching for Platform 9 and ¾, as you do. And after a bit of aimless roaming, I found it. I was practically giggling with delight.

Then I went home. On the way I bought a bouquet of flowers to give to my cousin since I didn't come with a previous gift. I met her mom when I arrived at home and we sat down and had a chat. She's the sweetest lady ever and am amazing cook. She told me stories about how she used to be such good friends with my grandparents and how she used to take my dad to tea whenever he came to visit. This gave her a wonderful idea -- why didn't she take me to tea at Fortnum & Mason, just like old times? Sounds excellent. So we planned the next day to meet and go to afternoon tea.

So Tuesday morning, I took the time to look for the Photographer's Gallery near Chinatown and Soho. In my efforts to find it -- I was going by a four-year-old tourist map, remember -- I roamed Chinatown and Soho and eventually Covent Garden. Then I found out that the gallery had in fact moved not to Romilly St, or Covent Garden, but rather Ramielles St (or the like) down by Oxford Road, which was ages away. 

So I gave up looking for it and went to look for Harrod's, the famous (infamous?) grand store of London. It's massive. I went in only for a bit but I wish I'd had time to go through the toy store part. Oh well, another reason to go back and visit. 

Harrods is that grand orangey-red building in the distance.

Then I went and sat in Hyde Park to read Atonement and take pretty pictures of the nature.

After that, I rushed home to get picked up and off we went to Fortnum & Mason, which is a super high class tea place that also sells things like ... well, things that fancy people use. Candles and address books and expensive things, etc. Apparently, the Royal Family all used to have their tea here. How posh. We went to the top floor where the special tea room was and sat down to have the fanciest cuppa I have ever (and probably will ever) have. 

There was even one of those tiered plate shelves with the desserts on top and scones on the other and little sandwiches and smoked salmon on the last. 

I felt so incredibly out of place, it was almost laughable. I had me some Jasmine tea just to try it out and it was actually really good ... for the first cup. It got crappier and crappier with each cup, which was swell, especially since, with each sip, I struggled harder and harder to pretend like it was the best thing I'd ever tasted. The whole experience was very self-conscious, particularly when a very good-looking guy came to give us our choice of desserts and he had the thickest poshest accent I have ever heard in my life and I couldn't even look him in the eye for fear I would burst out laughing or do something especially stupid. I am prone to these things. Everything was just fancy. Fancy pants. The first thing I thought when I walked in was, "Thank God I didn't wear jeans and a t-shirt today." 

When we got back home, it was babysitting time! A couple days before, while my cousin was going on about how she hasn't been out in ages and it's so hard with two little kids in school and her husband far away, I perked up and suggested to babysit for her one night. She was ecstatic. She called up a good friend and planned a dinner night with her. I could tell she was really excited, I think she told my parents about it when they called to say hi. So off she went after putting the kiddies to bed and I sat around reading and eating. Woo.

The next day I dedicated to doing everything I hadn't yet done. I got a text saying a bunch of my occupation friends were meeting up before they went off to the G20 protests. Turns out their meeting point was near the Tate Modern, an art exhibit where I was headed, so I figured I'd meet up with them for a bit too. I basically just popped over to say hello and walked with them on their way to wherever they were going. Then I went on my merry little way to the Tate Modern, walked around the southbank of London, saw the rebuilt Shakespeare's Globe, the Millenium Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral from across the Thames, and then walked allllllll the way to London Bridge to see what the fuss was about. There was nothing to fuss about. 

So I walked to the London Eye (that giant ferris wheel) and past all the buskers and to the London Aquarium which Aamna told me to go see or else (it wasn't too great ... probably because I've been to the Long Beach Aquarium and Seaworld. Really, nothing compares). Then I walked across to Parliament and Big Ben 

and Westminster Abbey and saw Queen Elizabeth I's tomb and Queen Mary's tomb and Mary, Queen of Scots' tomb and other tombs and Charles Darwin's grave and the grave of the unknown soldier and other such random points of interest. 

Then I walked allllll the way to Victoria Station and hopped on to Oxford Circus to see if I could find those darned Photographers Gallery, which I did and was very happy I did so because they had a really good exhibit up. Then I made my way down to the Tate Britain for a bit which was also really good. And then I went home, had dinner, helped put the kids to bed, said my goodbyes, and shipped off back to Manchester. Whew.

I had such an amazing time in London. I love that city so much. It's seriously one of those places that just feels like home whenever I'm there. I want to live there. I love it so so so so much. Come live with me there, please. It's beautiful. And the London Underground is the best thing in existence. I became bffs with it in my time there. It makes it so easy to get around the city, it makes everything feel so familiar and accessible. Ahh, I want to go back! And my family there is just the absolutely sweetest and coolest and most welcoming and I love them too. It was just the best feeling to be there, with them, like I lived in London. Sigh. Seriously, perfection. Can't wait to go back.