No-Assignment Weekend

I dubbed it my No Assignment weekend. Sure I still have an assignment due, and an exam looming but really...I had gotten to the point where my brain was over-subscribed and my body over-taxed and with a 2 week lead until said assignment is due, I dubbed the weekend No Assignment weekend. It was an added bonus that my regular group was not to be the group for the last assignment due, so we actually finished before the weekend, which really was the primary contributing factor to having a weekend at all. But I digress.

I just woke up from a 4 hour nap, after waking up at 1pm to start with; after getting home at 4.30am from a night out at Guanabara; after spending the day out with a friend having coffee and laughs; after spending Friday evening like a normal human being at the movies, checking out the new Harry Potter movie. It was a lovely school-free weekend, spent with good friends, good drinks and having good times. Well, with the exception of being doused with beer at the club, first when 2 chicks decided to have a go at it using drinks instead of fists; then when some clown decided to fist pump with the beer bottle in his hand; and finally, even after purposely staying out of the line of fire, or in this case, the line of beer, I still managed to have a bottle of beer tip over all over my boots. I was probably not the person anyone wanted to sit next to on the bus home.  A free review for Guanabara though - great nightspot if you love samba and if you love urban music. I was a happy Trini when the riddim section came on, so reminiscient of the Laventille Rhythm Section. The drums, the Carnival girls - I felt like I was back home. Pig in mud feeling, lemme tell ya.

It was also a cold one. The weather is terrible. Getting off the bus this morning, I almost did a Usain Bolt type sprint down the street to my house. I am wondering if I will even survive the winter. I am not good with cold. Hell, I could barely function in my office with the hostile air conditioning back home. This is a million times worse and if I could hibernate like bears and foxes for the winter and resurface in the spring, that would be okay with me. Sadly, with school, that seems improbable. Two fellow post-grads of the Trini persuasion will be heading home in 2 weeks and my jealousy knows no bounds. The sun, the heat, the food, the private transportation. Oh my God, waiting in the sub zero temps this morning for the bus that took its bloody time to get there was torture. How do people have a social life under these conditions? I had a good chuckle as I watched the female hamsters in their micro mini dresses and not much else, battling with the cold. I mean, is vanity so powerful that you prefer to leave home looking sexy, risking sure death from the cold? Really? It really is something else.

Watching State of Play and snacking on Cadbury dark chocolate fingers. I will be back to student life tomorrow but enjoying the last of human life today.

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How I Have Managed to Survive Grad School

My status on Facebook today read:

If UK food chains like Sainsbury's and Marks and Sparks did not have ready-to-go meals, I think I would be dead.

I told you on Saturday that I went to the store and got some veggies and seasonings, including a great piece of pumpkin and some mushrooms. I managed to find time to finish seasoning the cuts of chicken and shove it all in a pan and into the oven. That's easy. As for the rest...no time allotted. I ended up hitting my neighbourhood Sainsbury's and getting some 2-minute meals to once again, fill the pasta drawer. I also bought stuff like bread and ham for breakfast-on-the-run.
 

The bread never made it into the real world this morning. In my morning "dash for the bus that comes whenever it damn well feels like coming" moment, the most effort I could put into breakfast was shoving a packet of Nescafe mocha mix into my bag. Thank God for Marks and Spencer's at Waterloo, and their cheese sandwiches. I also grabbed a bottle of water and I was reassured that I would not pass out from hunger at school.
 
I came home tonight and had an awesome salad with my chicken and some pasta - the salad being out of a ready-to-go box from Sainsbury's as was the pasta. I have 2 sets of research to do tonight, one for assessment and cooking is not really an option. So you see, despite my best efforts to "turn a pot", I always fall back on M&S, and Sainsbury's and now with the new Tesco's having opened near my final bus stop, well...I am surely the perfect choice for ready meals spokesperson/spokesblogger. Anyone out there willing to pay me to review these meals? 
 
This is probably why I have been unable to effect the same kind of weight loss I managed during my undergrad because with the exception of fast food, ready meals in supermarkets in Jamaica were nasty and few. It was either eat the nasty Grace ready meals, face the microwave and the ramen noodles cupboard or face the stove. In my first semester, I had every flavour of ramen noodles ever made. My mother did not recognise me when I got home that Christmas and her mission was to fatten me up, which she did. Here, I just go to frickin' Sainsbury's and have a decent meal, and worse if they are on special. They are in fact very good and I am really picky and finicky about food so that is saying plenty. I will though make some time for my pumpkin and mushrooms this week before they go bad. The life of a struggling student!!!
 
And speaking of my cheese sandwich, the Brits have some really odd names for towns here. It has now become a pasttime of mine to listen out for new place names while waiting for trains, and have a laugh. Today I got on a train heading to Sandwich. I kid you not...the place is called SANDWICH. Can you imagine sending a letter to someone living in Sandwich, United Kingdom? Hilarious. I also sometimes get on a train heading to Battle. That one is worse...
 
Oh where are you going?
I'm off to Battle.
 
Gotta love the Brits. Gotta love 'em.

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Sexual Heeling...

I needed a sanity break today. I have spent 90% of my weekend on this bed, with these books and after a gnarly morning with the assignment, I decided to take a walk. My walk took me to the bus stop, and onto the bus and to the mall. I did not buy anything terribly exciting - needed some lotion desperately so went into Boots where they had a reduction on my body butter so I was able to buy 2. Also got some baby oil...never know when you will need it. You neverrrrrr know. I browsed through some eyeshadows but unless it's M.A.C., it's whack. lol. Actually that's not true. Revlon and L'Oreal are awesome as well. I then browsed the shops. I always shudder when I enter a Primark. The clothes are ghastly - cheap but ghastly. And not only that, but for my Trinis, it's like buying a blouse in Catwalk or Micles. Everyone else has it. And worse, everyone knows where you bought it. The stylista in me saw a very cute sweater, but I remembered seeing 3 women on the train in the same distinctive sweater. If it were a plain sweater that you could personalise with accessories, then great. But this one was very out there and screamed "assembly line"!!!

I wanted to get my eyebrows threaded but there were about 12 women in a queue waiting to do the same thing and I did not feel I wanted to stand in the middle of a mall floor with a bunch of bushy browed women, so I instead, walked into the closest shoe store. Oh God. The  lust. The longing. The depression. Heels. I tried a few pairs and saw myself floating around in 'em and then remembered the funny scene last week in Waterloo station:

Lovely young woman, with a dashing not so young man. She was dressed to the nines, and in some pretty funky heels. But she could barely walk and it seemed like they had been walking quite a while because she was in obvious agony and was being propped up by the gentleman. I was in my flat, comfy boots and I knew, right at that moment, as I stood there in my un-glam jeans and un-glam boots, that she hated my flat shoe wearing guts and oh so wanted to be me.

That's when I put the people dem shoes back on the shelf and walked out the store. As nice as it would be to be able to glam myself up one of these days in a pair of heels, the reality is, I used to slip my heels off to walk from the carpark to my office, and that was maybe a 5minute walk, if so much. Can you imagine me walking and running to the bus stop, the train station and the Underground in heels??? It's the reason I left them all at home. But, when my dad called tonight I asked him if he could arrange for his friend to bring me a care package. I have already alerted my mum as to what has to go in it

- Proper cereal
- A couple pairs of pants I would really like to have here with me
- Muffy...a must-have with the temperature dropping rapidly*
- And a pair of heels...

...if only to look at. Especially since I understand I am to potentially going to see and experience my first snow next week. Snow and slush + Heels = Bedlam. By the way, I am not one of those people who dreams of a white Christmas. I am not excited about the snow thing but I am mentally trying to prepare myself for it.

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*Or I can just get one of the microwaveable stuffed dogs in the shops. Putting a dog, albeit a toy dog, in a microwave is just barbaric by the way. lol.

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Falling Deeper Into the Hole...

Another Saturday night spent in bed, with my laptop and smelly books borrowed from the uni library. Oh the sexy! My life is an academic black hole. lol.

I left the house twice today - first this morning to go get some fresh seasoning. My cousin does not cook so there is never an onion or a garlic clove in the house. I walked to the Afro-Caribbean shop - the one run by Pakistanis - and got some chive, some garlic, onions, ginger. And then my eyes landed on a gorgeous piece of pumpkin so I got a piece of that. Then I saw mushrooms again so I got a packet of those. Then I got home and asked myself, what am I going to do with this pumpkin and these mushrooms? lol. Any suggestions? I will try supercook.com in a minute but what would you do with these?

I left the house for the second time at 7pm to go to the store to get some bread, and I ended up getting bread and doughnuts. Are doughnuts without the hole really considered doughnuts? These weren't the best doughnuts either. They seemed a bit raw to me. Not impressed at all.

I am working on what must be the millionth assignment. My God! When does it end? This assignment is really annoying too because the word count is inadequate for the level of detail required. I have given up! Eff it. It is going out as is. I cannot find another word that deserves the onslaught of the DELETE button.

I have so much work to do still it's unreal. Thank God for the little break last night when a friend asked me out to dinner. Now after last week's all day assignment bonanza when I ended up going to dinner in a hoodie and sneakers because I had no time to go home to change, I made a conscious effort to not let fatigue and annoyance with life get the better of me and looking presentable. So when the dude sent a text after 7 last evening to say he wanted to take me to dinner, despite the fact that I was in the frickin' library with books and my laptop, I still was looking restaurant appropriate. The lesson here is girls - never take for granted a little bit of mascara and a nice sweater.

Of course I did a little refresherising on the train and hoped the bags and books would be suitable distractions for the diminished stunnability. But in the end, we had a lovely dinner. He met my train, took the books and fed my hungry ass. The perfect end to a long day.

It's been a long day today as well and not in a good way either. The work is never ending, sleep and tv are luxuries. I am way behind on my streams of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, not to mention that I just had a doughnut for dinner. Yet I am smiling.

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Super Stylin'

I have some housekeeping to do. I have been so busy that I have not blogged and forgot about this but...BOOM!!!

I got this award from a fellow blogger last week and just have not had time to celebrate my award. I also want to say she is the sweetest thing and say to her, thank you for the kind words and empathy. Yes, the London weather is atrocious and I know this is just the tip of the iceberg but you are too sweet. Thanks for the award and I know I should pay it forward but gosh...it's finding the time. Just to let you all know though, I had my mummy talk and mummy talks are great and what is even better is NEPHEW talks. I just skyped with my mum and my sis-in-law and the baby. Of course he just looked at me but at least he know his auntie loves him. So I have enough Skype mojo to last me to the end of the week now.

The award means I have to tag 7 other bloggers, but wooo...may leave that til after my assignment is complete. But I also have to tell you 7 interesting things about me. Hmmm...dunno how interesting I am these days but I can share 7 random things

1. I don't like soda and only drink it by diluting it with water or club soda. Soda is the ultimate "fat" drink!
2. My favourite place to sing is behind the wheel of the car and it makes me so happy. No wonder I am so grumpy here in London. I take the train everywhere.
3. I only eat egg whites. I bought a sandwich last week, not knowing it had hard boiled eggs in it, including the yolks. I bit into it and blech....dustbin. I would eat whole scrambled eggs but not very often.
4. I love buying heels but don't always love wearing them. They aren't the most comfortable things and I can admit that, but they look so good.
5. I did not bring a single pair of heels with me to London and this is so disturbing it hurts. I feel like a vagrant. But practicality won out over vanity.
6. On paper, I am bi-lingual having studied French for 7 years. In reality I am a hot French speaking mess. My fluency hit the toilet during hard core studying during my undergrad years. Now I am trying to rekindle it.
7. This one is a bit of a laugh and especially coming from someone with my hips, but..I don't like fat men. And I mean, obese - beer gut, moobs, double chins. There is something about a man letting himself go that really bothers me. Women have babies, stretchmarks, swollen legs and cramps and PMS to deal with so hey...give us weight gain. Men...you have nothing, so the least you can do is endure the pain to look good.

I also miss shopping and I am looking forward to seeing what "Black Friday" deals will be available on Amazon next week so I can make a purchase and feel somehow renewed as a woman!!! I used said credit card earlier this week to buy some Hilton points so I would not for a second time, lose the thousands of points I have racked up as a loyal Hilton customer. I am thinking of treating myself to a Hilton birthday treat - something to look forward to I guess. But we will see how that goes especially since I have...wait for it...another assignment due the Monday after (my birthday is the Saturday before), and an exam on the Thursday. Oh, how fate is conspiring against my social life!!! Again I say I am paying for this massacre of my social life!!! But I have to do something special for my birthday, right?

I just added some rum to my orange juice which I had with dinner to keep the cold out of my Trini bones. It worked for a while but these cold temps are relentless. I am now engaged to the heater...till death do I part. Now back to the assignment and hopefully some progress.

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