Yesterday I went to the ULU gym, and upon leaving couldn't stop grinning because of the way the attractive man I'd talked to at the front desk kept smiling and flirting with me. I strutted down the street, feeling fabulous, feeling on top of my game. I then spotted my reflection in a window. A huge-ass tag was sticking out of my new jacket by my face. I realised he'd been trying not to laugh at me. Fml.
I need to stop thinking I'm the shit. I can't help it sometimes though. If someone's smiling at me I tend to take that as a good sign, and If I'm listening to good music, I'm bound to strut and pretend I'm cool. Getting into the coach today, I was listening to Swedish House Mafia and attempting a sexy walk towards the back. I strategically chose to sit near two guys my age, and, still thinking I was awesome, slinked into my seat. I hit my head hard on the luggage compartment above in the process and they burst out laughing.
Yeah, things need to change.
Monday, September 13, 2010
London re-beginnings
I wrote this a couple days ago, and only got to post it now. It's about time for an update!
And so I'm back in London Town!
The move in was chaos from the beginning. Because the London tube refuses to make all stations luggage or wheelchair friendly, we ended up lugging our bags up and down endless flights of stairs. My mother's smaller suitcase didn't like this too much, exhibited by one of it's wheels falling off, meaning we had to scrape it along the road from the station to my flat. I laughed at us the whole way home.
First impressions:
The 'U' in the 'Bucklebury' sign to our building was missing. Hmm... Ghetto much? Security to the building is pretty good though, I was impressed by that. The next thing I saw upon entering the building were the elevators. I have taken to describing our two elevators as ovens, which is the most apt description I can find considering they are small, entirely metal, with no windows or mirrors. The grossest thing I have found so far on the elevator floor is a well gnawed chicken bone. So yes, not a fan. I do however admittedly prefer a 30 second ride in those things to a five minute heaving and panting trek up the 18 flights of stairs it takes to reach the apartment, which I had to endure yesterday when the lifts were briefly out of function.
But anyway! I love our apartment. It is in no way a luxurious modern flat, but it's a very good size, we have a living room, two toilets and one bath, 5 bedrooms out of which I have taken a medium sized one and which I adored from the beginning, and of course we have a fantastic view over the city. (So good in fact, that for one split second when I saw a tower shaped building in the distance, I thought to myself 'omg, we're so high we can see the Eiffel Tower from here!' ... Yeah, no.)
We have also been left several interesting gifts by previous tenants. These include: Bongos, a few VHS tapes about the Quaran, a speech stand (people buy those?!), a million crappy clothes hangers, and three left footed shoes. Thanx guyz!
So one of the first things I had to do was transport all my junk over from C's house, where I stored half of it, and Connaught Hall, where I stored the rest of it because it couldn't all fit in the taxi. This was part of my supposedly brilliant plan to save money by not paying for a storage company, but which backfired supremely when the taxi fee turned out to be higher than the cost of the storage of one box for the summer. I'm just convincing myself that I still saved money because I would have had to pay for two boxes.
But anyway. LORD that was difficult. The first attempt at retrieving my stuff from C's house failed because after an hour of cramped commuting via bus where our very inappropriate discussions either highly amused or irritated people around us, we got there too late and the porter had left. (Yeah, did I mention she lives in High Street Kensington, Porterville). The next day we succeeded, finally, but only with a total of three more hours of commuting.
Getting my stuff from Connaught was also a serious mission, involving batting my eyelids at a builder in order to get him to help me excavate my storage box from the very back of the storage room, under a horrific ton of other boxes and bags. We managed to do this and pile all my stuff into two suitcases in only twenty minutes, my achievement of the week! Because it apparently costs 25 fucking pounds to get a taxi to drive me and two suitcases 1 km, which I obviously refused because that would have been even more of a fail in terms of saving money, I then slowly but surely lugged it back to the flat. Jesus Christ. Next year I am NOT doing that.
And so life in Bucklebury has begun! And wow has it been lively. In my week there so far, there have been perhaps 7 guests staying over in the spare rooms! I love it, I love having people over, I love being a social flat... I love impressing people with the view from my window. My mother was one of these guests, and she really helped me out with everything, especially in the food and money department! She left for Stockholm yesterday afternoon, before which she famously said: 'there's just one thing that worries me', and then proceeded to list about 10 things she was concerned over. Ah well. Mothers.
And now I'm on a four hour coach ride to Devon to visit my dearest H for a few days. I can't wait to get there!
Quotes of the week:
'I prefer hard, with a small head!' - I, concerning her preference of toothbrush.
Oh, and, a couple days later on the bus from C's place:
Me (after having laughed at the toothbrush quote, then continuing an earlier conversation about men's body types): Do you want to know what I like?
T: Uh, no, you don't have to tell me.
Me: Why not? Uum, I like O's. His is really good.
T (awkwardly): I don't wanna know
Me: What? Why not? I like yours too actually.
T (mortified): What!?
Me: What?
T: Are you talking about my toothbrush?!
Me: What? NO!!!
*Uncontrollable laughter*
And so I'm back in London Town!
The move in was chaos from the beginning. Because the London tube refuses to make all stations luggage or wheelchair friendly, we ended up lugging our bags up and down endless flights of stairs. My mother's smaller suitcase didn't like this too much, exhibited by one of it's wheels falling off, meaning we had to scrape it along the road from the station to my flat. I laughed at us the whole way home.
First impressions:
The 'U' in the 'Bucklebury' sign to our building was missing. Hmm... Ghetto much? Security to the building is pretty good though, I was impressed by that. The next thing I saw upon entering the building were the elevators. I have taken to describing our two elevators as ovens, which is the most apt description I can find considering they are small, entirely metal, with no windows or mirrors. The grossest thing I have found so far on the elevator floor is a well gnawed chicken bone. So yes, not a fan. I do however admittedly prefer a 30 second ride in those things to a five minute heaving and panting trek up the 18 flights of stairs it takes to reach the apartment, which I had to endure yesterday when the lifts were briefly out of function.
But anyway! I love our apartment. It is in no way a luxurious modern flat, but it's a very good size, we have a living room, two toilets and one bath, 5 bedrooms out of which I have taken a medium sized one and which I adored from the beginning, and of course we have a fantastic view over the city. (So good in fact, that for one split second when I saw a tower shaped building in the distance, I thought to myself 'omg, we're so high we can see the Eiffel Tower from here!' ... Yeah, no.)
We have also been left several interesting gifts by previous tenants. These include: Bongos, a few VHS tapes about the Quaran, a speech stand (people buy those?!), a million crappy clothes hangers, and three left footed shoes. Thanx guyz!
So one of the first things I had to do was transport all my junk over from C's house, where I stored half of it, and Connaught Hall, where I stored the rest of it because it couldn't all fit in the taxi. This was part of my supposedly brilliant plan to save money by not paying for a storage company, but which backfired supremely when the taxi fee turned out to be higher than the cost of the storage of one box for the summer. I'm just convincing myself that I still saved money because I would have had to pay for two boxes.
But anyway. LORD that was difficult. The first attempt at retrieving my stuff from C's house failed because after an hour of cramped commuting via bus where our very inappropriate discussions either highly amused or irritated people around us, we got there too late and the porter had left. (Yeah, did I mention she lives in High Street Kensington, Porterville). The next day we succeeded, finally, but only with a total of three more hours of commuting.
Getting my stuff from Connaught was also a serious mission, involving batting my eyelids at a builder in order to get him to help me excavate my storage box from the very back of the storage room, under a horrific ton of other boxes and bags. We managed to do this and pile all my stuff into two suitcases in only twenty minutes, my achievement of the week! Because it apparently costs 25 fucking pounds to get a taxi to drive me and two suitcases 1 km, which I obviously refused because that would have been even more of a fail in terms of saving money, I then slowly but surely lugged it back to the flat. Jesus Christ. Next year I am NOT doing that.
 |
And now I'm on a four hour coach ride to Devon to visit my dearest H for a few days. I can't wait to get there!
Quotes of the week:
'I prefer hard, with a small head!' - I, concerning her preference of toothbrush.
Oh, and, a couple days later on the bus from C's place:
Me (after having laughed at the toothbrush quote, then continuing an earlier conversation about men's body types): Do you want to know what I like?
T: Uh, no, you don't have to tell me.
Me: Why not? Uum, I like O's. His is really good.
T (awkwardly): I don't wanna know
Me: What? Why not? I like yours too actually.
T (mortified): What!?
Me: What?
T: Are you talking about my toothbrush?!
Me: What? NO!!!
*Uncontrollable laughter*
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Show Me the Money
So the financial repercussions of living in an amazing apartment in the middle of London for 155 pounds a week only recently hit me.
Last night I calculated how much money was left over for the first term once I substracted the cost of the absolute necessities (i.e. rent, bills, food, and tuition) from my student loan. I ended up staring incredulously at the figure on the calculator.
2700 Kronor. 240 pounds.
The fuck? How am I supposed to take the tube? Go to the gym? Pay my phone bill? (Including the 100 pounds I owe from this summer?!) Go out?! Buy a regular stash of tampons?!
I can't, that's how.
So here are a few things I am going to have to do in order to deal with this unfortunate situation.
There will of course be the general scouting for free events, from carnivals to cheese tasting (oh please God let that exist), which will be part of my 'Do Something New Every Week' challenge. Although I am still in Stockholm, I managed to get a head start. This week I went to a talk by Hans Rosling on Global Health, and was absolutely blown away by his intelligence, passion, and the actual content of his presentation. I will possibly write more about him and my aspirations another time, but I will at least reiterate one thing he mentioned:
Put more visually, I find myself on the tip of the second hump on this graph of his. Even set to a logarithmic scale, it is staggeringly obvious how fortunate I am relative to the large majority of this world's population. Which evokes a pang of guilt for all the times I've moaned about being poor. I truly am thankful for my life and all its possibilities. I'm a lucky lucky girl!
But I am, mind you, still keeping an eye out for a sugar daddy.
Last night I calculated how much money was left over for the first term once I substracted the cost of the absolute necessities (i.e. rent, bills, food, and tuition) from my student loan. I ended up staring incredulously at the figure on the calculator.
2700 Kronor. 240 pounds.
The fuck? How am I supposed to take the tube? Go to the gym? Pay my phone bill? (Including the 100 pounds I owe from this summer?!) Go out?! Buy a regular stash of tampons?!
I can't, that's how.
So here are a few things I am going to have to do in order to deal with this unfortunate situation.
- Hare Krishna
This is just too obvious. Free food! Every day at SOAS, Hare Krishna gives out free curry for lunch (to those willing to stand in line for eternity). I do not entirely understand the motive to this, and can only assume that they pity the poor souls of skint students such as myself.
- Stop partying
Hah, no. As if. I can however, chose to take part in more of the Ladies Night extravaganzas (free for ladies, 50 pound entry for men!), go to clubs early to skip the entry fee (hmmm), frequent house parties, and especially: continue to favour Moonies, UCL's favourite club! I'll save money via the mere 1 pound entry fee, and in the long term will lower my electricity bills! There is after all no point in charging my ipod for the five days following a night at Moonies seeing that the place always makes me deaf. - Skip the cloak room fee
On the clubbing note: Why keep spending 2 pounds per jacket upon entry to a club? Just be wise and either a) strategically hide your coat under sofas, signs,large people, tables etc b) get a man to hold it for you, or c) go out without one, even if the line is an hour long, even if the temperature is 5 degrees Celsius. True story. - Not drink
That's not a joke. I very very rarely drink on nights out, and intend to keep it that way. Even spending 15 pounds on drinks twice a week for a whole term adds up to about 450 pounds. And some people blow 50 pounds a night. Yeah as if I am going to drink my money away in such a manner. Only to barf it up again by 3am. - Buy in Bulk
Cereal, shampoo, rice, washing detergent... This is a boring one to mention but important! Living as a five actually makes this one feasible! Otherwise... - The 99p Store
This hardly needs a description. The 99p shop has everything from banana chips (my one true love from the dried fruit department) to six year old shampoo (Hey it's 99p for a reason). - Shower less at home
No this doesn't mean I'm going to stink up the flat. Just that I'll spend less time forking out money for my water bill and more time showering at the gym where water is part of the package. I'm Swedish: I don't mind constantly showering with other women! - Walk
I am a big fan of natural forms of transport. This incidentally can also be interpreted as someone else doing the walking for me, i.e. forcing a friend to carry me home, as often happens on the way back from nights out when my feet have become unconscious. - Be a gold digger
No explanation needed. - Go anorexic
Because chowing down 4 servings of Dal bhat for lunch, as I regretfully did today, really does not do good things for the wallet. Or thighs. - Get a job
Oh right. That.
There will of course be the general scouting for free events, from carnivals to cheese tasting (oh please God let that exist), which will be part of my 'Do Something New Every Week' challenge. Although I am still in Stockholm, I managed to get a head start. This week I went to a talk by Hans Rosling on Global Health, and was absolutely blown away by his intelligence, passion, and the actual content of his presentation. I will possibly write more about him and my aspirations another time, but I will at least reiterate one thing he mentioned:
Poverty: living on less than a dollar a day.
Study-loan standard of living: 30 dollars a day.
Put more visually, I find myself on the tip of the second hump on this graph of his. Even set to a logarithmic scale, it is staggeringly obvious how fortunate I am relative to the large majority of this world's population. Which evokes a pang of guilt for all the times I've moaned about being poor. I truly am thankful for my life and all its possibilities. I'm a lucky lucky girl!
But I am, mind you, still keeping an eye out for a sugar daddy.
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