I am feeling pretty good-and-lively, for which I thank the Celebrex, and have been rushing around all over SOAS for the past couple of days wailing at other students: "Have you done the reading? Do you know what courses you're going to take? Do you want to take about ten of them too?!" (I still haven't found anyone else who admits to having done any reading. And I thought I was only a semi-Hermione. I have not, however, admitted to taking notes on all the books I'm reading. But that's only because my memory is evil.)

After a while we ganged up and found some professors to wail at. They just laughed at us. But in a nice way. I personally blame the introduction to economics, which began, "Now we approach economics in a sensible manner - with fear and loathing -" (they were all a bit like that). I'm sure I'll come to my senses and not take economics, however. Law I am still tearing my hair out about in an agony of indecision. We shall see. I'm going to everything next week anyway.

Outside the centre it gets even worse, because Gov and Pol of Turkey is running, which I didn't think it was, and it's also at 9am on Friday morning, so I shall probably continue to pretend that it isn't. However, I am allowed to go and audit advanced Turkish (all the language and none of the exams. Hurrah!) It turns out that everyone else down for advanced Turkish is in crisis and reckons they should be in intermediate. Although probably the rest of them are just bluffing. Wah.

* posted by nat 10:41 PM

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

I am now an MA student. Here is what you have to do to become a MA student:

1) Put money in photo booth. Photo booth eats money. Spend 15 minutes on the phone trying to get a refund.
2) Get comforted by LU staff.
3) Get lost in a building even though you've been there before.
4) Try and chat up Cute Thai Guy while filling in a form. Elide half the letters when spelling your name. It's the in thing.
5) Wave BA degree certificate at someone in return for many yellow forms.
6) Go to another room and part with cheque for a large sum of money in return for signature on said yellow forms.
7) A man appears out of nowhere and gives you an academic year diary. Wonder if it is because you look suspiciously disorganised.
8) Profess you have no idea what courses you're going to be taking due to inability to carry amount of bumf that seems to be coming your way. Receive course outline for one course (about 25 pages long) along with reading list for said single course for weeks 2-5 (about 100 pages long - that's a list of the books, not extracts).
9) Sit down on the stairs and wonder if it is too late to ask for your cheque back.
10)Walk to another building and exchange a yellow form for an NUS card (10% Topshop discount v. important)
11)Go and sit in queue for library card.
12)While sitting in queue for library card, fill out about three dozen forms, learn a new language, grow a new hairstyle.
13)Eventually exchange several forms in return for having horrific blurry sub-human photo taken for library card.
14)Go to library.
15)Get sidetracked by LUNCH.
16)Attempt to log onto computers.
17)Attempt several more times.
18)Pootle off to the IT helpdesk.
19)Abandon computers and go up to the language department.
20)Two floors later, find the right door.
21)Confuse the Turkish professor by ability to i)speak Turkish and ii)know what her name means.
22)Get self invited to MA Turkish meeting, as well as Advanced Translation class (!!!)
23)Fall down the stairs (best to get these things out of the way on day 1)
24)Join the National Film Theatre by way of light relief.
25)Hang out on the steps outside SOAS. Meet at least 5 people you know already. Consume crisps, chocolate and drink that come free when joining the NFT. Who knew?
26)Hang out on the steps a bit longer, just for the hell of it. This is SOAS.
27)Get ULU card while there is no queue. Hurrah!
28)Segue off to bank and change account back to student account. Roll on overdraft!
29)Go back to library. Work out how to use the database by trial and error.
30)Borrow books. Yay!
31)Spend 15 minutes chatting to the men in the postroom, just because.
32)Go home. Log onto SOAS network remotely. Fiddle with email account.
33)Realise desk is covered in paper.
34)Throw away a lot of pieces of paper.
35)Go through bin in order to find library card.
36)Reckon that's quite enough for one day. Play lots of games of spider.

Yesterday was a tad busy, as you can see. More mayhem to come on Thursday.
Today I have achieved much reading. Go me!

* posted by nat 2:11 PM

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Today I have eaten: a bowl of banana and yofu (v.g.); a few pieces of chocolate ginger (ok as ginger is healthy) a packet of salt and vinegar crisps (slipping); half a pot of Dublin Mudslide (bad, but ok as did not eat anything else much, hence not total calorie overload); an apple (in desperate attempt to redeem self).

And, in a complete fit of over-excitement, I unpacked a few boxes and reorganised the kitchen cupboards. My mother had already attempted this, however as per usual she had neglected to ask me where I might want things - needless to say, not where she had put them. Honestly, I have been planning the cupboards for a while now!

But then much of the past week has gone like this:

Mother: Nobody round here communicates! *stomps off*
Father: (ten minutes later) Where's she gone now?
Mother: *reappearing* Ph3r me, for I have done this, and this, and this other thing which I think is really cool. You may worship me now.
Me & Father: But we didn't want any of that done like that.
Mother: Nobody round here communicates! *stomps off*

However, everyhing is now sorted out and I have a spice rack (I'm soooo grown up!), arranged alphabetically (I'm soooo sad!) which has an abundance of ground fenugreek due to an inability to remember if I had ground fenugreek or fenugreek seeds.

Recipes containing vast amounts of fenugreek gratefully received.

* posted by nat 11:32 PM

Friday, September 23, 2005

In the last week I have determined that Ikea is Legoland for grown-ups.

Today I went for lunch with Kat at Fresh & Wild. I shall have to go back with a cool bag to acquire the mass varieties of non-dairy ice-cream that I have not seen anywhere else! I spent the rest of the afternoon dodging rain and buying up Holland and Barretts (vast amounts of mineral supplements and the Omega 3-6-9s and plain chocolate coated ginger) and going through the time-honoured september ritual of acquiring passport photos of horror. Then I met up with Annabelle for a quick drink. Life is good!

Also, I should start linking to the odd thing like this: Tales from the Expat Harem. There was also a piece in the Turkish Daily News today, but you have to log in for that (it's in Features, if you feel the need). Allegedly it's been sighted in Remzi already - I've still got to wait a bit to get hold of my copies.

I feel thoroughly weird about the whole thing. It's over a year since I wrote the original piece for the book (which was almost totally modified, naturally, through editing but that was almost all done in Turkey) and it's taken longer to come out than expected because it moved to a bigger publisher - in fact, to one of the biggest publishers in Turkey. Now I'm back in London it feels like something so long-ago and left-behind; I start my MA next week at SOAS and I ought to be moving away from all the wistful and pretentious little things that I write.

But on the other hand I have so many more stories to tell (says she, wistfully and pretentiously!)

* posted by nat 10:12 PM

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

I made a huge long post and Blogger ate it. Woe. Now you will never know all about my travails at Ikea and new carpets and discovery of Tutku biscuits down in Crook Log and washing curtains and garden produce and...

Hmm. Perhaps you have had a lucky escape!

* posted by nat 11:45 PM

Sunday, September 18, 2005

There are few things in life that lift the spirits more than the sight of Mr. Darcy in a wet shirt.

Yum.

* posted by nat 9:21 PM

Friday, September 16, 2005

Family. Food shopping. Hmm.

(on the phone)

Mother: OMG I am in Waitrose in Wolverhampton and it is huge and it has everything and squee I've never had such a good Thursday!
Me: Hi?
Mother: They have moong beans, what are they and do you want any?
Me: Free food? Let me think...
Mother: Phone me back and I will list everything they have on this aisle!!!

(Suddenly 350 minutes starts to seem like a very low tariff.)

**

Brother: Argh.
Me: Argh.
Brother: Food shopping time! Tesco or Sainsburys?
Me: Sainsburys.
Brother: Ok. *drives to Tesco*

Still at least that means I have Timtams.

* posted by nat 11:00 PM

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Yesterday I went up to Rheumatology and was poked, prodded and historied by the doctor, who then looked through my nice thick file of notes and said "So what is your diagnosis anyway?"

To which I replied, "There's something wrong with me."

Which we can all agree with. The question of what exactly appears to be the problem. Anyhow we are tackling the problem by feeding me more pills long term, and short-term, taking half my blood out of my veins, then irradiating me into oblivion, and I am going to be going to see the nerve specialist whenever they're free. I'm supposed to go back to the rheumatologist in 2 months, however the first free appointment was in 6 months' time. Got to love the NHS. I'll be on the phone for half of November, then.

Anyhow, after spending the morning hiking round hospital departments, I met El for coffee and then we met Fran and Ella at Hamley's and had a good time playing with the toys - or at least the adults did. Ella just wanted to walk everywhere and point and things. She is a good child. Afterwards we went to the hairdressers and she played with gravel, and then we went to Waggamamas and she played with noodles. And so did the rest of us.

The other day we hired a van and have moved Stuff down to London - many books, much rubbish, and also stole furniture (sofa, bed, tables, cupboards) and ended up with many plants. I'm getting there.

Today it rained all day and the slugs have been racing each other across the concrete outside the back door. I stir-fried runner beans and ginger. It works!

* posted by nat 8:56 PM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

First post from my shiny happy new computer which has, somewhat unimaginatively, been named Freddie, since it was mid-afternoon when I started setting him up, and these computers these days demand naming first-off. So I just looked up at the television, and Freddie he became.

At the moment he is acting like a spoilt child - he keeps dropping the connection at irregular intervals and then trying to pretend he hasn't done anything wrong. Still, I am refusing to rise to it, and he is improving.

Whee happy installation time!

* posted by nat 11:12 PM

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

I got all the way to Stockholm one day last week, which involved trying to operate cards that go beep while still half asleep. Nevertheless, apparently I paid. For my sins I got relatively lost (got distracted by shops, you know how it is) and scared into the Parliament building. Honestly.

Me: *meanders down street*
Tall looming man: *thinks* rather short: must be tourist: I will stick a sticker on her.
Me: Oooh, a sticker! Oooh, a door! Er, hang on...

Anyhow the old entrance staircase has marble pillars which have beetles carved into them. Therefore it was worth it. And they were rewiring the voting boards in the actual chamber. Also there was a good view over the city from the top.

Then I found the coin museum. People ask me: how do you find these things? To which I reply, I walked down this street and there it was. It even had a big sign outside it saying COIN MUSEUM FREE ENTRY. So it's not too hard to decide to poke your nose inside. I worked out lots of Swedish words about coinage but forgot them as fast as I learnt them. There was an enormous amount of coins to nose at, anyway. Delicious.

After that I went back to the serious business of shopping and rhubarb ice-cream.

Never had a sauna once in the entire week! (Standards are slipping!) Thus have to go back for sauna, not to mention trip to Finland, Fazer, Finland.

*

I am actually praying for five, or at the very least three, days of rain to come along, because as horrendous as this would be, and as much as it would deny me the pleasure of drooling over watching many men in white hugging playing cricket, I doubt my nerves could take another close call of a match.

However this afternoon is lovely and sunny, and I have done laundry, attempted to keep the kitchen under control, and gone on a house-wide hunt for tweezers. I did not find the tweezers, but I did find forty pounds hidden in my jewellery box (along with 500,000TL, 1 zloty, and a 1973 50p piece). So whee, money! I can therefore buy tweezers and still have plenty left over to spend frivolously in Greenwich this evening with Vanessa.

* posted by nat 4:36 PM