Day Forty-Four: Going home and making friends with wonderful wacky people on the plane!

Hello world. I have left London. I am sitting on the plane – in an aisle seat mind you! – next to an extremely interesting couple whose first words to me were “What’s ted’s [meaning teddy] name?” The lady has written a book called Paradise Proof, and is a self-proclaimed spiritualist. She wears a lovely turquoise cross around her neck and she is fascinating. I asked her what her favourite story from her book was, and though I probably shouldn’t write it here because it’s her story! Anyway, we had a riveting discussion about souls and names and the idea of Heaven! You know, people are amazing. They’re so so different and there are so many conversations to be had! It’s almost impossible to imagine all the things they know!

So, back to the start of today, because I have time now and I need to record life! After going to sleep so late last night, Laurie and I woke up pretty late. It was wonderful: she brought me a cup of tea in bed! We were going to sit and chat, but the new-fangled bed was on wheels, and so you couldn’t actually lean against the wall without the bed rolling forwards! So we had tea in the kitchen! After that, I made a final to-do list, involving all the itty-bitty last-minute shopping things. There was quite a bit still left to do – those random things that you need to go somewhere special to ding. Top of the list were some golf-gloves for Billy. En route to finding them, we visited Harrods, which is massive, imperial, and rather unreal. It doesn’t feel right to be in a building filled with so much money’s worth of goods. I think that my favourite part of Harrods was the bottom floor, replete with seemingly infinite jewels. I particularly like the excessive displays of sparkle! It’s as if the jeweler chose the most shimmery gems he could find, and then cut them so that they shone even brighter, and then put them altogether in the hopes of blinding anyone who happened to look at them. Maybe by blinding people the jeweler intended to blind them to the price!

We took a break in Hyde Park, at the Serpentine Café, where a nosy, obnoxious pigeon pestered us. He landed on our table, eyes riveted to the carrot cake. I tried to shoo him away, after asking him politely to leave. But to no avail. He was as determined to stay as I was to make him leave. It didn’t work so well because I am not very good at chasing stubborn pigeons. If they’re the sort that fly away if I so much as take a step towards them, then I’m fine. But if the wretched pigeon is brusque and unfeeling, I am useless. Anyway, we ate the carrot cake quickly and he moved off when he realised that there was nothing left for him to have. I even made sure that there were no crumbs left on the plate; whether this was because I didn’t want to share with the pigeon, or because I just simply wanted to eat all the cake is a good question. It was a SPLENDIFEROUS carrot cake. The cream cheese icing was incontestable. I would have had another piece, but I think it may have made me feel sick. Also, it was expensive!

So we trekked 6 and a half miles in search of a golf glove and eventually found one! Then we walked speedily back to Laurie’s house and moved my bags downstairs as efficiently and quickly as possible. This was a difficult task considering that the bags weighed 22.9 and 24 kgs respectively, two hand luggages not included. With help from some kind strangers at the various staircases, we made it to the tube station and onto the right tube – the Piccadilly line – reaching Terminal 4 about an hour later. Then we went to check my bags in, and the kind lady let my 24kg bag go without making me pay! After that, we made our way over to the Costa and partook in cappuccino-and-pastry. ‘Twas yummy! Then I thought I better get moving, so we said good bye and I headed through security.

Now for those who may be travelling soon: when you go through security, you are allowed ONE plastic bag of liquids, not two. And “liquids” includes foundation powder. I don’t know quite what they thought I was hiding in my skirt elastic, but apparently I have a metallic waist! This meant that I had to be checked with a strange contraption that looks kind of like a toilet brush, which they wipe(?) around the offending area. It has a piece of material at the end which then goes into what I presume is a drug checker or something. Fortunately, my waist is not illegal, and so it was all fine! I proceeded to the conveyor belt where two of my three trays were waiting for me. But where was the one with my red bag in it? Hah. It had been re-directed to the “poke through me because you’re pedantic” pile.  I had to wait – behind people who were technically behind me but didn’t seem to understand that pushing in front would not make their bag suddenly acquire magical powers that would allow it to emulate them and jump the line. Is it bad that I was quite leased when my bag was picked up (before theirs) and I was able to step in front of them? Anyway, like I said, it turns out that foundation and the last dregs of a tube of toothpaste also need to be put in a plastic bag. Eventually I made it out alive and with enough time to buy some water and get to the gate with time to spare!

The plane ride so far has been pretty uneventful, except for two things. First, I almost went to the airhostess to ask her if I could plug my laptop in because it wasn’t charging. I’d even gone so far as to turn on the little ‘assistance’ light. Fortunately no one came, because as I stood and picked up my laptop, I realised that it wasn’t charging because I hadn’t plugged it in! The second event was when I was in the bathroom and I didn’t know that the toilet flushing thing was automatic. So I let out a semi-squeal when I was busy brushing my teeth and then suddenly the toilet started flushing on its own! And airport toilet flushes are not quiet at all, so it was quite a shock! You’d think I would have learnt, but it happened again when I moved my arm to put my toothbrush away, and I got a fright again!

Oh and we had a yummy chicken curry affair for dinner, but there was coleslaw which was gross – as coleslaw is. The chocolate cheesecake was delicieux! There are about two hours left of the trip, and I don’t really want to sleep. Maybe I’ll sleep on the next flight! 

Day Forty-One: JUST ONE MORE CLASS

We're busy doing some group studying now, and I hope I'll be able to go to bed soon. In about twelve hours I'll be half way through my Photography exam, and then boom. It'll be over. I'll be done! I just have to make sure that I make it on time for the LAST time! I'm pretty proud that I haven't been late to class yet!

Day Forty: ESSAY NEARLY COMPLETE

And once again it's very late and I have not yet made it to the land of Nod. I am sleepy and saturated with every fact that can possibly gleaned from the two books I have out from the library about the Albert Memorial. I am also feeling slightly sick because of the two chocolates I ate about an hour ago, and the yoghurt that went down after them. Oh and the cup of tea. But you know, despite all that, I'm a happy chappy! My essays are basically done, which is fantastic because I can now actually enjoy these last few days without the heavy, dark, and ominous cloud shadowing my every step, and breathing cold and angst-ridden breaths through my window. HAH. 

The sun came out and dried up all the rain and Sarah can go and enjoy mochas again. 

I think that's why I haven't really been able to do much consistent and fruitful essay-writing in Waterstone's: I want to enjoy the experience so much that it just doesn't seem write to be forcing myself to work there. Today was a little bit different because I was on page seven, and I knew what I wanted to talk about for the rest of the paper, so I actually wanted to write! In the end, it turned out that I went up to twelve pages and I actually enjoyed the process. I also changed spots mid-way through my pot of tea, which helped. 

So that's me, essays nearly done and London nearly done and so much to look forward to and so much to wish would never end. Life is strange like that. I'm sure I have heard that somewhere before, or read it, or seen it, that you can't experience the loveliness of the future if you keep looking backwards. That's why I try so hard to live in every moment, and squeeze everything out of every moment. If I didn't live like that, I think I would go mad. I mean, sometimes I think I probably do go mad because I'm so focused on trying to live that the actual living is forgotten! But most moments I do live out my philosophy, and it makes looking to the future a wonderful thing, and remembering the past even better. Colours are a big part of that, I think. And people's faces or clothes too. I like to notice those sorts of things: the golden tea cup, the red teapot, the purple coleslaw salad and the muddy brownies. That man with the wild mustache, and the other man with the mustache that looked like it had run into his beard in a freak accident many years ago, but resolved the situation amicably and decided to settle in where they'd collided. 

The sweetest father-son pair sat down at the green couch today. The little boy was so excited to eat his lemon-drizzle cake and his hot chocolate. I loved his sense of wonder when he sipped the little cup and his dad said that that was his and the big one was the little boy's. He was so excited to have the big cup, and he just couldn't contain his excitement! In fact, he told his dad three times that he'd thought that the little cup was his and that the big one was his dad's! He reminded me of myself a little bit, when I find a connection or a realisation and I just can't keep quiet about it. I think the dad must have been a 9-5 working day dad, and he took his son out sometimes to spend time with him and help him with homework. They were doing fractions, and the posh, officially-suited daddy clung comically tightly to a brightly coloured book titled "How to Help your Child with Maths". The little boy was very sweet, but also apparently very confused about what fractions were, because he would enthusiastically say "that's five tenths" and then his dad would stare intently at the question for quite some while, by which time the little boy had piped up with another, very different, answer! It was a tender spectacle, especially when the pair of them sat with their legs crossed in the same way, leaning on their hands in the same way, mirror images of each other. I wonder if it's a genetic thing, or if the little boy was deliberately copying his dad. Either way, it was so sweet!

Right, to tell the honest truth, I would like to go to sleep now. I did almost everything I needed to today, bar filling in the empty and rather sparse posts for the last two days! I can probably do that on the plane though.

Tomorrow is another day! 

Day Thirty-Nine: More work and Andrew

Why is it that right at the end of a this trip, I have to do things. There's reading and reading responses and class in an actual class, and no trips or excursions, and no dinner parties, and no new coffee shops.

Why is there no time for that.

Why has time suddenly picked up all her luxurious skirts and traded them for block-y slabs of dreary black and white text and too-bright computer screens. Her dress is ugly, cold, glaring, it is no longer hazy and unknown. She does not have time to go adventuring and instead she must sit and be proactive and restrain herself. She does go shopping, once. But not real shopping because she is leaving soon and she does not want to waste. And now it is late and her reading is not done and her skirts are unfinished because she has not finished making them. But she has so much to do and it will all get done.

As you can see, I was a little upset! 

But on the plus side, I got to see my long-lost-but-recently-rediscovered twin today, and we explored London and that was wonderful!

Day Thirty-Eight: Laurie and a picnic in Hyde Park

The seagull squawks above our heads

And soars on and on and on and on.

It calls our frustrations up into the air

And takes them with him on and on and on.

Over the deep white oceans of clouds,

Through the blue-tinted air and the smog

On up to the sun the sea-gull soars,

Chasing it on and on.

Our worries they follow and all fly away,

Burnt up in the sun as it sinks.

And I and the lavender sit by the water,

And slowly, the lavender blinks. 

I spent the day with Laurie today, we had a picnic in Hyde Park, I wrote four pages of my essay, and then I sat by the water and wrote this when the seagull squawked overhead.

Day Thirty-Seven: ELDERBERRY GIN

I started the day a little waif-like. I had lots to do and I didn't feel like doing any of it. I felt restless and unfocused, and so although I did force myself to sit and do my readings, it was really hard! Eventually I couldn't sit still anymore, and so I went to collect a package from an Amazon locker in an eerie car park. The lockers were a gorgeous shade of yellow, warm and sunflowery, and completely out of place in the grey underground car park, with the alarm going off erratically somewhere in the caverns of the dark corners I couldn't see! You have to scan a bar code from an email, and then the locker with your package in springs open and it is so exciting.

I wrote this in the coffee shop I found next to the bookstore on my way back:

I was feeling a little bit down, but then God took me, specifically today, to a strange part of London, an empty parking lot with a locker called Ramiz, and that led to my discovery of another bookstore, whose name I am not sure of, with elderberry gin and coconut and berry cake and earl grey tea. I was feeling down, what with London being nearly gone, and lots of work still to do, and just generally all the last days/exams blues. Now here I am. Beautiful.

The waitress was so helpful and lovely and I got so sit and stare out the window in my own little nook, nestled into the corner of the bright and buzzing coffee shop. Somehow I seemed to notice all the orange books! It certainly lifted my mood. And the Elderberry gin probably helped... It didn't taste much like gin, and I've never tasted elderberries, so I wasn't sure what to expect. 

As you can see, today was mainly spent working. I'm afraid my next posts won't be very eventful, because I have a ten page history to write and more reading to do. I'm so sad that my time in London is almost over! It was my last Saturday today. 

AW

Day Thirty-Six: Laurie and High Tea and ESSAY

I will write nicely tomorrow, but right now it's almost midnight and my photography paper is basically done and I need to go to bed! But today I saw Laurie and went for High Tea with the group (paid for by Yale!) and then wrote my essay. 

Lots of love,

Sarah

UPDATE:
Laurie walked for an hour to see me today! I beat her to Waterstone's, but only because I took the tube, which could be considered cheating, but then I did wake up late. We chatted away for an hour, drinking cappuccinos out of the take-away cups because Laurie doesn't trust the dishwashers! Then i showed her around Waterstone's, all the way up to the third floor! I have done a lot of stair climbing during the lat six weeks: as I just mentioned, Waterstone's is a tall building, and then our teaching room at the Paul Mellon Center is also on the third floor, and that building is narrow as well as tall, and so the stairs are spectacularly steep! Poor Laurie, I took her to the PMC as well. Fortunately everything is in a relatively small radius, and so there wasn't too much walking in between.

By the time I'd finished showing her around the PMC, we were both hungry, and so we went in the direction of the Sainsbury's just down the road. We were distracted by a bright pastel window-display of a shop called Tiger, which we think is a Danish shop! It's funny because it looks like one of those super expensive shops, but it really wasn't. I was roped into signing up for some competition, so listen out for my announcement of my winning a trip for six to somewhere or other. I think it was for a jungle retreat (question mark question mark question mark!) Then we walked past another shop - Cath Kidston - which really is as expensive as it looks! Finally, we reached Sainsbury's, where we capitalized on their "Meal Deal", getting a sandwich, a bottle of water, and a packet of chips. Usually I like to make a packed lunch but due to having to actually be somewhere on time this morning, I forgot and wasn't organised enough. We sat on a bench outside, with a lovely little wood-framed pub, lit up with profusions of bright flower-boxes, as our view across the street.

Eventually, we had to part because I needed to write my photography essay. I had just reached the top of the Paul Mellon Center stairs, almost where I wanted to work, when Nermin called out across the corridor and asked me if I was going to the High Tea or not. High Tea? I knew that our group had decided on a High Tea as our group outing, but I didn't know when we were supposed to be going. It turns out I had just missed the email, and fortunately it wasn't too late! So I climbed all the way back down the stairs, wishing all the while that there was one of those fireman poles down the middle which I could simply slide down!

Here are some pictures from the High Tea, and although I enjoyed it, I think I prefer having one cup of tea, maybe two, and one type of cake. I think that way back when High Tea was more of a real meal, it made sense to have salmon sandwiches and chocolate cake on the same platter, but nowadays, it's quite a few tastes to take in!

After the tea, I returned to the PMC and spent the next three hours working on my essay. I had to leave at five-ish, because that's when they shut. I didn' feel like going home, so I just wandered around the area, going into Boots and back into the Tiger shop, and just generally all over. I even went back to Waterstone's, where I chose the photos I want to print. It was actually a rather dreamy and hazy few hours, because I can't remember exactly what I did. Do you think it was the half-glass of champagne I had at the tea? (Half a glass because somehow I knocked the glass over when I was holding it (?) and spilt it on my jeans and my hair!)

On the tube ride home, I missed my stop because I was engrossed in drawing a person sitting opposite me. She was classically beautiful, and I suppose drawing her was a little bit creepy, but oh well! So I missed my stop, and only realized half-way to the next one. I just jumped out the one train when it stopped and hopped onto the one going back in the direction I'd come from, so it wasn't really a problem. When I got home, I made supper using THREE of the four stove top things, boiled my veggies, cooked my pasta to perfection, and concocted some strange but yummy dish of kidney beans, garlic, onion, and tomato paste. I was a bit over-zealous with the quantities, so guess what I'm having for lunch?

Then I settled down at the dining room table, put my earphones in and forgot to put any music on, and wrote my photography essay. I think it's almost done, which is great, because now I can focus on my history stuff!

So, it was a good, if somewhat blurry, day!

Day Thirty-Five: A Media Museum in the Middle of Nowhere

I am sitting at the dining room table waiting for my coffee to cool down to a non-tongue-annihilating temperature. I face a grand difficulty: because there are so few days left, I want to stay up super late and get the most out of London that I can, and yet I know that I need to go to bed in good time, so that I can enjoy fully conscious the London I am awake for. Ah well. Today we went on an epic train journey, all the way to Bradford. “Bradford?” you ask, wondering if maybe I haven’t got the sleep I just claimed I needed. “What... where is Bradford?” Bradford is a two-and-a-half-hour, two-train journey away. It is an old industrial town (apparently) up in Yorkshire, and it is home to the Bradford Media Museum. It is a surprisingly active and lively museum, considering its middle-of-no-where location!

I woke up at the monumental hour of 0600. I am seriously impressed with myself because I don’t think I have woken up at 6am more than a handful of times since I left Zimbabwe last year! And I’d set my alarm clock for 6:25, so waking up at 6 was all my own doing. I think I must really dislike waking up to an alarm clock, because I’ve found that most days I set an alarm, I wake up just before it goes off. I mean, it could also be that I’m sleeping so deeply that I miss it the first time it goes off and so it goes into automatic snooze and then I rouse myself and I’m ready for it when it goes off five minutes later… I hope that’s not the case, but who knows. I did wake up, though, and I like to believe it was of my own accord. Does anyone else find that a bed grows magically more comfortable early in the morning than it was when you got into it the night before?

I made it on time to the train this time, and settled in for the long haul. I adore train journeys: trains are like moving libraries! I did some work, edited some photos, read a little bit about the Albert Memorial, and watched the beautiful fields out the window. Our professor was there to meet us at the station when we arrived, and while we waited for Min – who had gone to the wrong station – I bought a Mocha. It was not the best, but the experience of buying a drink at a station and drinking it while the trains rolled past was worth it. Eventually, we trekked to the museum. Our professor walks at a running pace, so we were all rather breathless when we arrived! After our experience in Oxford, we knew we had to stick close to him, so that we don’t get lost, a mentality which entailed us sprinting through the broad streets Bradford. The museum was fascinating, but after being cooped up stationary in a train for such a long time, I struggled to stay still after the first hour. In fact, I did a little twirl moving from one of the photos to the next in line - and my professor asked me if I was alright, and if I needed to sit down. NO! I need to move dear sir, but thank you for your considerate query.

The trip back was pretty much exactly the same as the trip there, just backwards. Except, no, actually, it was the same for me because I sat facing the other way this time, so actually I saw things in the same order I saw them on the way there, just a mirror image. I liked to think that I couldn't sit facing the other way, because I would get sick or something, (as the slight hypochondriac I think I am), but I discovered about ten minutes into the ride that I was indeed facing the other way, and it had made absolutely no difference to my well-being.

I got home and made supper straight away – an interesting egg-broccoli-onion-mushroom-baby-spinach-leaf dish, with cashews on top. It was scrumdiddlyumptious (I love the fact that the dictionary on my laptop doesn’t highlight ‘scrumdiddlyumptious’ as a misspelling! Go Roald Dahl!) Tomorrow, I need to write my essay and see Laurie! 

Day Thirty-Four | Imperial War Museum, and papal Carrot Cakes

We visited the Imperial War Museum today, and I felt like a complete and utter child staring up at the ancient Spitfire that takes up about an eighth of the central space of the building. The building has an eclectic mix of architecture: on the outside, it is extremely imperial with long imposing columns and two huge guns poised on the lawn. But on the inside, a quirky central space rises up in the middle of five floors of exhibits, filled with hanging aeroplanes and bombs and other strangely satisfying contraptions. I'm not quite sure why the Spitfire should have had such an effect on me, because I hate war, and I hate the idea that it was a vessel of death, basically. I've had to watch through many a History Channel "Dogfights" program because Billy enjoyed learning about that stuff, and so it's not as if I have a naive perspective of the concept of air warfare. But for some reason, that Spitfire captivated me. I dislike the feeling of being indoctrinated, as does everyone - you know when you're being told something, and you're not sure that you're being given the whole picture? That's what I felt like, a little bit, in that museum. I genuinely felt, then and there, that Britain was all the things that traditional, glamorous Britain makes Britain out to be. I would have wanted to fly that spitfire if I'd been given the chance way back in World War One. And I don't like the fact that that's exactly the reaction that the curators wanted to elicit when they positioned the plane at that precise angle, waiting to impress its immensity upon you as you walk in. But regardless of whether I wanted to feel like that or not, that was how I felt. That machine, though battered and dull, is a thing of great beauty. Imagine all the thought and creativity that went into designing it, and building it, and flying it. I suppose if you can take the human empathy and the tragedy out of war, it becomes something that can be as strategically beautiful as a game of chess, say. But I don't want to think like that! 

After the museum wanderings were complete, we separated and I made my way back along the route to the station - without my map! MAPS OVER APPS! My new slogan. I had seen a few cafes (two) on my way from the station, so my plan was to settle down in one for a while and work on my history essay. I walked down the opposite side of the road so that I could see as much of little old Lambeth as I could, and I was, probably irrationally, happy because it was raining and I was able to use my umbrella! I don't know what the poor people walking past me must have thought, but I did talk to it a little bit because it is rather frail and needs some encouragement every now and again to help it to stand up to the wind and the rain, which are determined to make the poor brolly scrunch up like a leggy spider when you blow on it. Eventually Brolly, Big Heavy Bag, and I spotted the coffee shop I'd had in mind and went in.

Pleasant people make all the difference in a coffee shop; I never thought I'd say this, but the quality of the food or the coffee should, I think, come second to the quality of the staff. Beaded earrings dangled from the lady behind the counter's ears, and though I didn't particularly like them (they were square beads, and I have never liked them: if you look in my bead box back home, you'll find lots of square beads left over - not because I wanted to keep them because they were special, like some of the sparkly ones, but because I couldn't find a place to put them, and I didn't like them) I thought they looked lovely on her! I was just going to treat myself to a cappuccino, but then I saw it. Or, rather, it saw me.

A ginormous carrot cake on a plate twice the size of my head gazed imperiously out onto the world. If carrot cakes lived in a carrot cake kingdom, this one would have been God. Even in this world, I would place this carrot cake, and the authority it commands, on the same level as the Pope. I have been able to say no to may things I really didn't want to say no to before, but not to this carrot cake. I was transfixed. It had me in its clutches. I felt as if I was staring a reincarnation of Queen Victoria. I tried to resist for a while, and, honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if a voice had boomed out from the center of the plate - or the cloudy heavens - and said, "Sarah. Stop fooling around. We are not amused." So I caved. I obeyed orders and bought a slice of carrot cake. Right to the end, it had the upper hand: I couldn't finish it. I had to pack the last eighth into my sandwich container and take it home. I still think that the carrot cake back at Cafe Nush is the best carrot cake ever, but no carrot cake has ever treated me in such a manner before, so superior!

I searched some catalogues for research books for my history paper, and then I set off towards the station, intending to go to the Paul Mellon Center and do some more work. When I was almost at the station, I remembered that there was something I'd wanted to buy in the museum shop, which I'd forgotten to do. So I turned around and went back and bought it, and emerged, once again, excited, because I needed to use my umbrella! From there, I used my eyes and my brain and the delightfully ubiquitous, helpful London Underground signs to navigate my way all the way to the Paul Mellon Center. Not once did I have recourse to my phone! I sat in the library there for a blissful hour, paging through books about monuments. There were four other people there, one of whom looked like a classic academic: his skin was leathery and lined, in what could be a projection of all the old books he's read, and all the ones he's written. Do you think if you read the same sort of looking books for long enough, you might start to look like them?

We were kicked out at five, so I just came home and made supper and then made a time plan for this evening. My vlog is done, and is uploading, and now this is almost done too, and then it's reading, then bed! We have to be up early tomorrow because we're booked on an early train to Bradford, where the Bradford Media Museum (I think it's called) is.

Day Thirty-Three: thankfulness, and why I talk so much

Today I didn't do a lot, simply because it wasn't the sort of day to do something. When the sky is both blue and granite and not even she can decide what to do, I often feel it is safer for me to sit tight and wait out the sunny storm than to venture into the palpable uncertainty of the day. So I hunkered down in Waterstone's, and whiled away the time reading, drawing, people-watching, and day-dreaming. Sabrina joined me later on in the afternoon, and we chatted away for a dimly outlined hour.

Actually, I think I did most of the talking. That seems to happen whenever I meet up with Sabrina: it's not that she doesn't like to talk, it's just that she is such a wonderful listener that she lets me keep talking! As anyone who vaguely knows me will inform you, I will talk from dusk til dawn about everything from dusk to dawn and all the sun witnesses in between. I am grateful to her for letting me gabble on and on! I do try to regulate my conversation, and sometimes I force myself to shush because I am sure people get tired of hearing my opinion, but at other times it's just impossible! There are so many thoughts that are flailing their hands in the air in my mind, trying to grab my attention and begging to be let out! I'm quite fond of them, so often they get their way. Apologies to all who have borne (and all who will in the future have to bear) the brunt of my ebullient tongue. (Isn't ebullient a beautiful word? It's my new favourite.) I'm excited to be someone's eccentric aunt: that stereotypical aunt who is notorious in the family for latching onto unfortunate young teenage nephews and nieces and keeping them by her side the whole night for extensive conversation about anything and everything.

The only other eventful things that happened today were the addition of chopped almonds to my stir-fry salad, and the purchase of bread. To be fair, these seemingly mediocre events inspired much happiness in my soul, but I'm not sure if they can really be classified as blog-post worthy. I suppose I have viewed similar events as cause to celebrate in previous blogs, so I shouldn't start dismissing them now, should I? Ah the joys of blog ethics.

The other thing I wanted to note in this blog was a short list of what I'm thankful for right in this moment. Obviously, the list is infinite. If every moment is a blessing then there is no moment in this lifetime, or my soul's lifetime (one which I believe extends on into eternity), which I should not be thankful for. Right now, though, there are a few things I am especially grateful for:
- my flowers, trying valiantly to stay beautiful in the face of certain death. I don't know if I will have the heart to throw them away. It's such a violent act, throwing away flowers. Just because they are no longer as beautiful as they once were, we get rid of them. They were dead the minute we ripped them from their plant, and so we can't argue that we're discarding them because they're dead. Poor souls. I will keep them until they start to smell, and then I will release their souls from the stench they are trapped in, and all will be well.
- Toby. He is still standing by me, 18 years from when he first arrived! Do you think that the teddies we form the strongest bonds with are the ones that chose us? Maybe some of us are lucky enough to be found by our soul-teddy. Is there such a thing as a soul-teddy? Not a soul-mate, but a soul-teddy. I believe that Toby found me, and though fate brought him to me, I think that my soul must have been searching for him in order for fate to find me and give him in particular to me.
- WhatsApp. It may seem as if life without the internet would be blissful, but I am so grateful for the quick messages I can send to family back home, and to friends all over the world. Times have changed and the media needs to change with them, though I think the struggle is and will be ensuring that the core values that accompany our lives remain constant as the times and media evolve.
- my notebooks and paper and my new black pen (which will probably be finished quite soon because I use it so much!)

- LIFE!