Piecemeal

It seems that I always want to do everything at once: there're just so many things that I would like to/feel I should do.

Which has proven to be a relatively weighty matter when I'm at Williams, where I let obligations and conversations expand and encroach on sleep. I honestly don't know whether to add academics and health to the victim list, because God has been preposterously graceful. I so need to get better at listening to Him about where to delineate time territories, though.

At SOAS so far the stakes have been relatively lower since I'm not committed to extracurriculars, but too often I have found myself in the kitchen trying to boil something in a pot and wash a dish and eat a fruit and read something all at once. It actually kindof works. I shall be careful with the pages of my books, though.

I also need to remember to defrost meat ahead of time. There was this kilo of ground beef in particular -- I'd think about defrosting it right before I fell asleep, and then completely forget the next day till two hours before I wanted to cook. It eventually became red pasta sauce, shepherd's pie, meatballs, and olive oil/celery/onion/garlic/basil pasta sauce, so it wasn't a complete failure.

(This olive oil sauce happened because I couldn't fit any more meatballs on the tray and was impatient, so I smushed them and threw other stuff in.)

(Also, if you put cheese in meatballs and try to bake them, they might each develop little moats of cheese in the oven. For you to know and me to find out.)

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Events log

Tuesday night: Watched The Woman In Black with my cousin. It was sort of an impulse thing -- I've always wanted to buy standby tickets from the legendary Leicester Square booth, and this was the cheapest show that I'd been told was really good. And it was! though it's not a genre that I'd normally watch. The older man did some masterful character switching, and I usually like play-within-a-play deals.Worth the GBP15 that I paid, but don't think it was worth GBP15*(RM/GBP)5.4. And yay for cousins who teman me. :)

Wednesday night: Went for the first night of the Royal Ballet Company's Mayerling with a fellow study-abroad-er. It was superb -- all those people moving in devastatingly beautiful ways that the human body wasn't quite built to move in, the sumptuous costumes, the themes and variations in the movements and music (Liszt!), loaded narration sans words, the crazy intricate logistics of it all. And our amphitheatre tickets were only GBP1 each because a very nice rich lady sponsored the first night for "invited guests", which included random students on the standby mailing list. :)

Thursday night: Reluctantly attended a freshers party since I'd already paid for a ticket (man, I keep talking about money) and wanted to catch up with the friend that I went with. But I ended up enjoying myself an absurd amount. It was possibly the first dance party/clubbing thing where I didn't feel bored at some point. o_O They played a really alternative spread of music that I'd never tune into but which was a blast for dancing.

Tangent: it is annoying that one of the few things that is cheaper here than at home is alcohol. And no, I just had one Malibu/Coke that night, so my enjoyment had nothing to do with intoxication. Even if I were so inclined, I'm too much of a cheapskate* to (a) pay for booze that doesn't taste good, and (b) pay for enough nice-tasting booze to get buzzed.

*At first I typed "I'm too cheap" then realised that it was all too appropriate for the context.

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I'd always thought that when I went abroad (i.e. abroad-abroad; oh dear sudden mental image of the wonderful Zits strip where Jeremy thinks his brother is going to spend the year as "a broad") -- where was I. Yes, I'd always thought I'd join the CF and some sort of dance group.

SOAS is too alternative/left/cool to have ballroom or Latin, but the inter-university union does and I'm sort of torn about whether or not to take beginner classes. Because it'd be fun, but I would probably be awkward coward, and for GBP4 or 5 I might was well watch other people (e.g. the Royal Ballet Society) dance instead of myself. See how lah.

I've gone for a few Christian Union things, though, and I really appreciate the tone of the group so will definitely keep going. Also, sparked by an intense conversation with a CU girl, I put up a poster in my hall downstairs about a Sunday night dorm prayer group. I was also feeling awkward/cowardly about putting my name on it and I have no idea if anyone will turn up tomorrow, so if you're a praying person I would be grateful for your prayers. (Wooo infinite regress.)

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It occurs to me that I haven't mentioned one of the things that I'm most excited about this semester, i.e. classes. So yes, I am in The Economic Development of Southeast Asia, Islamic Law, Public International Law and Arabic. I am also told that I'm in nerdland. But if you're (a) one of my friends and (b) reading a blog, you're probably not in a place to judge. :)