I have spent rather a while trying to track down a particular article from a journal. It's not held at SOAS, the Senate house Library only have holdings of that journal since 2000, it's not available on the online archives, I really didn't want to have to go and wrestle with LSE.

So I trudged upstairs and asked one of the professors if he knew where I could find it.

"Sure," came the answer instantly, "It's in my bag, want to Xerox it?"

I just want to reiterate that point. Not on a shelf, not stuck in a drawer, not under a pile of rubbish, oh no: in his bag. And I had just spent a few more hours wrestling with databases trying to get hold of it.

While I was there I got him to print out a couple of his recent articles on globalization for me. I felt I deserved them.

*

Ian came round last night for more Triolet and also put my printer together, hurrah. I have spent a happy evening printing off articles, and pieces of paper for the Michistan exercise next week. I'm on the Socialist Worker's Committee. Bring on the MNCs!

* posted by nat 11:55 PM

Monday, November 28, 2005

Went to the computer shop today, as it was the closest place I could think of to buy computer paper. Wailed at nice little man about Norton.

He said, Go to the support bit of Symantec website and follow instructions.

So I did, and it said "Five possible solutions", so I thought, "Argh," and I tried the first one. It said: "Run LiveUpdate."

So I did. And now everything works again. Hurrah for nice little men!

Other than that had fairly stressful day spent,
1) trying to construct argument about the Cold War being North-South instead of East-West against sexy tutor. Difficult to do when is SO good-looking. Grr.
2) running around between various libraries trying to find books for IR essay. But did find most books. Tomorrow I shall be photocopying a couple of chapters of other books which I can't take out.
3) having an introduction to globalisation lecture that collectively killed the brains of the whole class, due to being delivered at breakneck speed and encompassing about ten million ideas. Apparently globalisation all started in Vietnam. Well, it's different.

Walked out with Thuong, who is from Vietnam, and has finally given in and bought a stripy hat (behold my persuasive powers!). Then I remembered I had lost my hat, so I popped back to library lost and found and behold, there was my stripy hat.

I have my stripy hat back! Whee!

And my printer came this morning. So all I have to do is write this law report so I can try and print it out and see if it works!

* posted by nat 9:08 PM

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Just quickly:

Norton has semi-killed my computer and I have no idea what to do about it. Cannot access my email or my fast stream application or my phone bill. Argh!

Rhubarb and blackberry tea is fabulous.

I won this game called Triolet in a 'competition' in the New Statesman. It is like Scrabble but with numbers, and it is really really good!

This weather is evil. Last 1st Sunday in Advent I was running all over Cappadocia in the snow. This year I can barely mountaineer up the stairs.

There's this boy called Ian and he is great for taking to supermarkets and getting things down from the top shelves...

And a law report to write up, and an essay on IR.

* posted by nat 11:48 PM

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Handed in essay! Go me! A bunch of us went out last night for dinner - it was meant to be drinks but we were all starving, so we had dinner and a bit of wine instead. Then we went to the pub, but more out of a feeling we should be drinking than actually wanting to drink. It was good, anyway.

My computer is being silly and won't load up either gmail or my soas mail, which is excessively annoying as I have a load of reading I emailed to myself. Argh!

Anyway, off to get started on law report.

* posted by nat 8:45 AM

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Essaywatch: 1400 words (out of 2000) and no sign of a coherent argument yet! I've found three more books I need to look up, and by some miracle they're all currently available in the library, so I'll be spending quality time in there tomorrow afternoon.

Ian came round last night bearing After Eights and I got to beat him at backgammon in person! Also did Szechuan stir-fry, a game of Scrabble, demonstration of take-offs and landings using cherry tomatoes, and hugging. Much goodness.

* posted by nat 11:56 PM

Saturday, November 19, 2005

On essay writing...

Gah. After three hours all I have done is found three more books I need to look up in the library on Monday, had a fight with Mustafa, drawn lots of pretty pictures with my red higlighter and eaten a lot of chocolate.

My conclusion thus far is that essay writing is inherently unhealthy.

Right. Am going to have this sorted by four o'clock.

ETA: 4pm. Well... 500 words is a start, right? Actually I have written far more, but most of it was dross. I have also done laundry, vacuumed the entire house, semi-cleaned the bathroom, and helped Jon nail the gate at the bottom of the garden together as someone decided to open it two nights ago and have a go through the garage (not that there's anything in the garage they are not welcome to take...

* posted by nat 12:43 PM

Thursday, November 17, 2005

We were all going to go down to Horsham last weekend and see Kat, however I wasn't well and Kat was worse so she has been spirited back to Worcester and I am still here. I spent Sunday reading up for my multilateralism essay instead, which seems to be coming along. I've been working on it all today as well.

Tuesday evening I managed to get Jon to drive me round to Gatwick to pick Katka up. Her plane was due in at 22.50, when we got there, and she was already out in the arrivals hall! Anyway she has bought me tatranky^ooh, and the DVD of Pelisky, as well as half a rucksackful of syr and klobasa for Ondra, who is doing some kind of biological research at King's and needs his Czech food. We giggled in the car all the way back, much to Jon's disgust, then spent a couple of hours giggling before we got to bed, and didn't really even stop then.

Wednesday we formed the stripy hat brigade, of course! We went up to town and it was lovely and sunny so we went to see the pelicans in St James' Park.



Then we met Ondra halfway across London Bridge (I remember Ondra as a gawky 16 year old so it was amusing to see him all grown up and not shy any more.) After that I had to rush off to lectures on NGOs but we are meeting up on Friday again.

In the evening I met Dean, who I was at school with, and who I haven't seen for getting on for five years. So I am caught up on school gossip; it appears everyone is getting married and moving to the country, buying SUVs and having babies. Truly frightening stuff. So we moved swiftly on and talked about Japan a lot and I got to drink Fruli Strawberry beer, which sounds as if has no right to be nice - but is.

*

I have just been joined in my bedroom by a drunk brother, who is telling me how last night he got drunk and decided to walk home from Hither Green. As you do.

Anyway now I have to get him off my bed before he starts snoring.

^Ooh: I also have lots of Torunske piernik in my cupboards, after an amusing evening out with El and Fran up in Stoke Newington, in which we all disgraced ourselves utterly in a Thai restaurant (I'm surprised we didn't clear the place). On Sunday we went round and scared Ella, who having learnt to walk three months ago, is now learning to crawl. So we know which family she belongs to then...

* posted by nat 11:27 PM

Monday, November 14, 2005

Dear insomnia,

Wah.

No love,

me.

PS. I would try to blame you for the fact I'm also happily bleeding all over the bed, but that was the result of me peeling the top of my finger off with a potato peeler earlier. I'm that clever.

* posted by nat 4:18 AM

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Oh dear, you are Bookish, aren't you? You are a highly intelligent and witty bluestocking, whose beauty is hidden behind spectacles. Your dress sense is eccentric and a little unfashionable, and you consider yourself plain. You have very little use for men, who find your knowledge of Shakespeare, interest in politics and forthright speech formidable. You are undoubtedly well-off. The only reason for your presence in a novel of this kind (which, I might add, you would not dream of reading, although you have occasionally enjoyed the works of Miss Austen), is your mother, who is absolutely determined that you will make a good marriage. Rather than defying her directly, you are quietly subversive, dancing with anyone who asks you, but making no attempt to hide your intellectual interests. The only person who can get past your facade is the man who is witty enough to spar with you, and be amused at your blatant attempts to scare your suitors away. While you will, no doubt, subject him to a gruelling cross-examination to find out whether his respect for your intelligence is real or mere flattery, you may be sure that he is your match, and that you, he AND your mother will all live happily ever after.


The Regency Romance Quiz: What kind of Romance Heroine are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, my mother will be relived to find out it's all because I'm actually just a character in a romance novel... or maybe not!

* posted by nat 1:49 PM

Friday, November 11, 2005

My Friday so far: vaguely listened to a lecture on global governance (podcasts are great). Felt like it ought to make more sense than it did. My brain is not parsing stuff. Got up and had shower, am now so utterly exhausted from that I am back in bed with a couple of international relations books that are making also less than no sense and are very heavy to hold up.

Ugh. Am considering if can get downstairs or not. I rather think not.

I wonder what I did with my small kettle...

* posted by nat 11:44 AM

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

STUPID BLOODY MEN GRR ARGH.

I'm going out to spend money.

Edit: Success! Spent about £75 on books (course books, could have been more exciting but no...) and then went to see the matinee of Guys and Dolls. Ewan Macgregor. Delicious.

* posted by nat 10:49 AM

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

I have finally started to achieve: chose a Diplomacy essay question and made a few mind maps (Mr Lee trained me so well!); read through the judgement of Belgium v Congo, which is what I'm writing my Law Case Commentary on; edited some pieces for Roots (SOAS paper); and ordered a printer online. Also cooked curry and played a few too many games of Spider, and am currently bonding with Ayesha over the phone (have been stressing over the diplomacy essay for the past hour, woo).

Ordering the printer was the most fun as the connection went down in the middle, but it seemed to go through all right. I liked the order confirmation part at the end "We suggest you print this page out for your records." Yeah, I'll do that as soon as you deliver the printer!

* posted by nat 7:27 PM

Monday, November 07, 2005

Cold, sometimes wet, and everywhere piles of orange-brown leaves swirled around by the wind. It must be November. My energy levels are dropping, my joints are seizing up, the brain fog is starting, and I'm just reading and reading and dragging my way through.

I overdid it, again. Out on Thursday to Greenwich and not quite wrapped up enough against the cold, although we went into the observatory and the telescopes were fabulous! Warmed up with pizza and gingerbread latte (Starbucks gingerbead latte is the kind of thing that shouldn't be good, but is). Up late on Friday and just got to my 3pm lecture on time; four of us spilled over into the JCR afterwards and carried on arguing about Özal until seven. Then random marxist lecture until half past eight (Eyup tells me I slept through half of it) then up to Angel to meet Vanessa and spend more time in Starbucks - I needed chai before going into a club, thank you! Danced until half-past two, found some space near the front so could dance without being squashed and panicky, had two G&Ts and sang too loudly. Back to Vanessa's on the night bus with a fifteen minute walk at the end of it - very cold and definitely not wearing anything like enough layers! Spent Saturday on the sofa with jasmine tea and Scrabble (Vanessa won, despite opening up triple word scores for me) and then Kat and Joanne came around and Vanessa left me in charge of a saucepan of toffee, which boiled over. Whoops. So I was thrown out of the kitchen to drink more jasmine tea while Vanessa got dinner ready, which was delicious as ever, despite getting into an entirely too-annoying debate about why friends don't let friends get driven to Greenwich by random boys. Sigh.

We had bus argh and so got to Blackheath just in time for the end of the fireworks, met up with the others and wandered over Blackheath common (Christian and I got into a debate about globalisation, everyone else steered clear). We waved some sparklers around and then walked down into Greenwich and had a drink sitting on the market stalls.

Funnily enough come Sunday I could hardly move.

Jon has had people staying over for the weekend, needless to say he did nothing to clear up the hellhole that is the back room. I said to them, "I apologise for my brother's inability to - " "Do anything?" finished Ben. Jon did however buy me a huge frog from the Rainforest Cafe, so hurrah! Spent the rest of the day dozing and also rowing with Mustafa, who continues to fall into the unhelpful school of "When you feel ill I get upset, and by the way you look terrible today." This was all bearable when he used to bring me food, flowers or pebbles and tell me silly stories, but is entirely useless over MSN.

Today I made stir-fry and discovered my sense of taste has gone. Here we go...

* posted by nat 6:09 PM

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Phrase of the day goes to sueddeutsche.de : "Der Rückzug von SPD-Chef Franz Müntefering bringt die Architektur der geplanten Großen Koalition ins Wanken."

Sometimes you just have to love the German language.

* posted by nat 2:59 PM

Last night Jon came to pick me up at the station and when we came back to the house we discovered he'd left the front door open. I sulked in the hallway and made him go round the house and check all the rooms. Not a trick-or-treater in sight.

Amazingly, he has emptied the dishwasher and put another load on (yes, the kitchen was that bad). Frighteningly, he seems to have wiped down one of the sides as well. I suppose one is better than none. Training, training...

* posted by nat 9:01 AM