Just wanted to share this quickly

A news story that made me smile this morning (yeah, yeah, should be studying, but meh not in the mood).

LSE breaks world record in trade speed with linux

I wonder which one exactly they are using, but who cares in the end. Linux 1 - Microsoft -1! Go Linux...

It's not unusual

Today I'm doing something very unusual. I am blogging, but haven't read any of the blogs I'm usually following for about a week. There are exactly 366 unread posts. A crushing number. So tempted to just press the 'mark all as read' button. But I can't. Still want to read them all. Just don't know when.

It's really crazy. Today is Sunday and I feel like I need a weekend. Was doing work for uni all day yesterday and today. I don't see the workload decreasing any time soon. All I want is a day I don't have to think about reading or assignments. To be fair. This week I took on more than I needed too. I want to apply to a publisher for work experience. As my lecturer pointed out time and time again how important it was to talk about some of the publisher's book in the cover letter I ventured out on Friday to find some. One would think this is not a big problem. But I picked a fairly small publisher with only five employees. It took some time but I finally found a book they published. And lucky me it was neither very long, only about 200 pages, nor was it boring. I actually enjoyed it. So it was easy to throw in a sentence about in the cover letter. Hope it makes a difference. After all, this is for an unpaid work experience. I will read through it one last time tomorrow morning and then send it out. Hopefully I will get a positive response!

Otherwise just playing it day by day. The healthy lifestyle is suffering a little bit with all this stress. But I did manage to go running once a week so far. I won't push myself. If it only happens once a week then that is great. Evening meals have also deteriorating a bit. As bf is doing lots of overtime at the moment, neither him nor I are particularly interested in preparing a proper dinner. Had pizza and Chinese delivered this week more than once. At least we're doing something for the British economy.

Anyway, will enjoy my two hours of free time today before falling to bed all exhausted. Hope everyone had a great week! Will try to update more often from now on.

First week survivor

I survived the first week of classes. It was a blast, but let me tell you now I'm exhausted. There are no classes on Friday but I basically spend most of the day reading and catching up. Yes, catching up on the first week. Also preparing for a presentation. Saturday I decided to have my weekend and didn't do anything for uni. But that meant that today I basically spend all day preparing for next week. Wow, I knew I'd be busy but this is really extreme. And I didn't even have all the classes yet. Next week will be just as busy. Have to prepare a presentation with a group and give it, prepare my cv and do all other sorts of fun stuff. Don't even wanna know how much catching up I'll be doing next weekend.

On a fun note I made some apple crumble today. Tasted really good. Offered half to bf but he refused to eat it. Later today when I went back into the kitchen to eat some more I discovered that all the crumble was gone and only the apples left. WTF? Bf said that since I offered him some but he didn't really fancy apples he just eat the dough and picked out what he liked. Just left the rest in there so I could eat it. Thought that was a bit rude,  but he didn't think anything wrong with it. Stupid boys. Honestly sometimes feel like I'm living with a ten year old. Told him to bin the rest. We'll see how long that will stay on the stove.

Better get ready for tomorrow. It's getting really dark outside which makes me sleepy. Could sleep 12 hours each day now. Remains a dream though since somebody keeps jumping up and down the bed at about 6am and it ain't me...

First day of class

Today I had my first day of class. It was actually only one module about the publishing business. Most of it was spent getting to know our lecturer. He seems like a nice guy. Talked the whole time but didn't manage to bore me. And he handed out the power point presentation before class. I love that. Makes note-taking so much easier.

Today was pretty relaxed because we didn't have to prepare anything and he spent most of the time introducing us to the world of the book business with a general overview. I'd say most of it we already knew but he brought everything into context.

Towards the end of the class he was handing out assignments though. We had already been divided into groups of five which we will stay in for the whole term and do all our group work in the same group. First assignment is research a major publishing house and give a 10 minute presentation about its business model and objectives. None of us have ever researched a business so this should be quite interesting. 

We also got an email with the assignment for next Monday for our law module. This is what most people are scared of most since it's law and we have an exam in that module in January. I don't mind so much. Just have to prepare a couple of chapters and write some definitions of law terms (ok, I do mind the later one).

Gonna start studying now. Boo on that. At least I can do it from the comfort of my own home. Gotta love that. But first, lunch!

Day 15 *cough*

I don't think I'll be getting away with calling this blog entry Day 15 as I have skipped about three weeks in between. I was doing so well, posted every day for two weeks and then all of a sudden my mojo was gone. Thrown out the window. Now, I know why at first I didn't post. I simply forgot. Bf was supposed to leave for three weeks on Monday so that weekend we spend as much time together as possible and being on the computer was not part of it. After he left I just simply didn't feel like posting anything.

I guess that means I have some catching up to do. Luckily, not that much was going on. The first couple of weeks I mainly studied and hung out. Got some reading in and finished watching Gilmore Girls. Though I'm missing season 7 but it's £30 at the moment. Gonna wait till that goes to half price. 

The exciting stuff started to happen last week. I met up with some people from my class for a quick drink on Saturday. Everyone seemed really nice and I was glad that I got to know some of them before the big day. And I learnt about ten names. It felt really good to come into our first induction session on Monday and be able to call people by their name. Monday was pretty exhausting. We started at ten and didn't finish till 4pm. Did all sorts of introduction games, talked about the coming weeks, timetables yadda, yadda, yadda. But by the end of the day I did remember over 20 names out of the 28 people in my class.  Headed out for quick drinks and made it home at a reasonable hour.

Tuesday we met up in front of the uni to go on a literary walk through the City of London. Unfortunately on the way there our lecturer tripped and injured her ankle. Not very bad, but she couldn't walk comfortably any more. She did manage to walk us over to our first sight and left instructions on how to proceed, but it really was a shame since I think we missed out on a lot of good descriptions and explanations. We managed to see a lot anyway. The first stop was Temple Hall where on that day the new barristers had their welcoming feast. It's quite impressive. The main hall is narrow and long with a tall ceiling almost like a church. Everything is wood and the walls are plastered with the knights' badges. 

Next stop was the Temple Church (yes, that's the one where part of the Da Vinci Code was filmed). We had a short talk on its history before being let loose. They have some pretty impressive windows. Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out good. On the main site they are all colorful and old and on one of the other sides the daughter of the original window-maker designed some commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Knights of the Templar being at that location. Pretty cool stuff.

We managed to drag ourselves away and head over to Fleet Street. The main attraction here was a Starbucks. There used to be a publishing house in one of the buildings. Since our lecturer wasn't there we weren't quite sure which one exactly but we took it in as a historical site (not that everything around us was historical) and got us some nice coffee. Since we were so many we kinda went in in shifts and while waiting outside with some girls we were standing next to a jewellery store. Did some ring spotting and holy moly we saw some engagement rings for £16,000 and more. Christ. The girls around me told me it's normal to spend 1-3 months of salary on a ring. But honestly, who is so dump to spend that much money on a ring?! You could buy a car for that, you could have the most amazing honeymoon ever, you could save towards a house. But I guess, then again, if you earn that much in a month (how, oh how, I think I'm looking to go into the wrong profession) it really doesn't matter.

Ok, gone a bit off topic there. Coffee made us all feel stronger so we continued walking around different sites and headed up to Bloomsbury Square. Grabbed some lunch on the way, walked some more and eventually ended up at the British Library. Again, a massive building. We were exhausted by this time and just managed to walk around a bit before we headed to a little café just around King's Cross Station. And by café I mean bar. Had a couple of drinks before heading home.

Wednesday was started near St. Paul's Cathedral at Stationer's Hall. Apparently this is where the print and publishing industry meets for their get-togethers. The whole building smelled like smoked bacon. And some of their rooms where painted in a really faint pink. So, so strange. I think this is also where you need to register if you wanna be a publisher in Britain. But I might be wrong. At this point all the information got a bit mingled. We spent some more time on Fleet Street. This time with our lecturer and got some more information about various buildings. Then we headed up towards Chancery Lane, through various sidestreets near Farringdon back towards our uni. Stopped at a street market to pick up some food and ate at a park. The weather had been beautiful for those couple of days. Spend about an hour in the park. Got just the slightest bit of sunburn and then headed back to uni for our afternoon induction. Which ended up being very technical. I have no idea why people already need to know how exactly to write their dissertation, but meh. I will find out next year me thinks. Drinks couldn't come fast enough!

Thursday started out all nice and sunny. However, when I stepped out of Green Park station the rain started pouring down. Yuck. We hurried over to John Murray Publisher (which turned out were the ones in the Starbucks building on Fleet Street). Had a lovely introduction by the wife of John Murray the 6th (might have been the 7th). Creepy building with all kinds of stuff from Lord Byron in it. The pillow he died on, his hair collection. Weird dude!

Met up with a former student working for an agency now. Most people left to head back to uni to sign up for free language classes. About six of us stayed and had a really good talk. Then we wandered over to Hatchard's. A really old bookstore that specialises in hardbacks and signed copies. Managed not to buy anything before heading back to uni for our library induction. Might as well have skipped that. Don't remember any of it and libraries pretty much work the same everywhere. But we all ended all together in one place and headed out for another drink. Only had one. I think most of us were exhausted. Must be the walking and fresh air all day. I headed home and was so grateful to sleep in on Friday.

Met up with a friend and had a lovely time around Camden Town that day. The weather was a bit shit otherwise I think we could have gone on a lovely walk through Regent Park. Maybe next time?

And on Saturday finally bf came home in the afternoon. I had cleaned the house prior to his arrival. Was so nice to have him back. He's still jetlagged though and doesn't let me sleep. We got up at seven on Sunday headed over to his work so he could hand in his receipt from the trip. Then had a lovely breakfast and did a little bit of shopping. The rest of the day was spend  being lazy. I went to bed at 10.30pm, but he was not sleepy and stayed up a bit longer. But then he got up at five, went for a walk, came back, got ready for work and left at like 7. Crazy. I have to meet my lecturer this morning for a general talk. We see how that goes. Didn't mean to write that much. Really need to go now. Don't wanna make her wait. Not a very good impression.

Day 14

Had a funny phone call today. Guy on the phone was asking for someone (neither me nor my bf). Told him he got the wrong number. So he was asking whether this number wasn't such&such company. Obviously it wasn't so he hung up. Nothing too strange about that. Now, the weird thing was that the company he asked about is the one my bf works at. I remembered the name the guy asked for and wrote bf an email relaying what happened and whether he recognised the name. Promptly my phone rang again and it was bf. He was a bit weirded out because he looked up in his company directory and don't you know it the name was in it. So the person does work there. That's just so strange. He also looked up the phone number and it is not similar to our number. It uses the same digits but in a completely different order and number. If that guy mis-dialled then he got it completely wrong. Now bf thinks someone gave out our number. LOL. I doubt it. Was just the strangest thing.

Otherwise everything is fine. Was a little bit lazy today and only did half of my study things. Keeping the rest for tomorrow as I hadn't planned anything. I finished the book about how to get a job in publishing. Kinda glad because whenever I read it I got a stomach ache and felt a bit sick. I get really nervous when it comes to applications and anything related to that. So even reading about it gave me this sick, horrible feeling. Uh, don't even know how I'm gonna deal with it again next year when I'll be available on the job market. I just hate, hate, hate applying for jobs and 'advertising' myself to people/companies.

Eating is still going good too. I think I even trained my body to eat less. Not as hungry anymore and get full easier. That just might have to do with me being a lazy ass (I did go grocery shopping today though). Uh, I made sweet potato fries today. They turned out really well! All soft on the inside and a bit crunchy on the outside. Yummy! Wish I had mayonnaise with that, but none in the house.

No more evil cats in the yard, but I have an eye out for them. Can't sneak past me. The weather still holds sunny and beautiful with a slight chill in the air. Perfect autumn weather (though I guess it's not autumn yet).

Day 13

Sorry to bore you all again with an uneventful day. Went for my run. Had yummy foods and did a shit-load of studying. I do enjoy the studying, but I get a bit bored from being in the house all the time. Today I actually grabbed my camera and shot some pictures out the window. I noticed a cat in our neighbours' garden who kept looking over into my window. I kept thinking it's Muta from 'The cat returns'. I just saw the film a couple of days ago. That cat kept freaking me out.

Original Muta

Scary cat sitting in neighbours' garden

Both mean-looking, both, well, not the most skinny cats. But I'll bet Muta is much friendlier. This Muta impostor had a real strong 'I hate every human being' vibe going on there.

Yup, pathetic, I know. Have all this free time and I use it to study and spy on cats. Maybe I'll do something more interesting next week. Not likely. But uni will commence eventually which means I will leave the house on a regular basis. So look forward to that. Gonna enjoy the short rest of a sunny day now.

Day 12

Really sad that the long weekend is over. Have no motivation whatsoever. I did all the studying I was supposed to be doing today (which was a lot). But didn't manage to get my ass out the door and go running. Which was a shame as the weather is really lovely. It's sunny and cold. Really cold. But it smells and feels like autumn. I like autumn. Hopefully will get a full blown golden September. Figured I will go running tomorrow. When it's probably raining cats and dogs. Oh well, will deal with that tomorrow.

Otherwise all is well. Healthy eating still growing strong. Had nice cereal for breakfast, mushroom soup for lunch, then some fruit and smoothie. Waiting for bf to come home as I'm starving and want to have dinner. Apparently he needs to stay for at least another hour. Might have to fix dinner and eat by myself. Drinking some smoothie to carry me over, but I really want food. Can't think of anything else but food. Probably because I finished studying, now am bored and too lazy to find something else to do. I might dig out another movie. Hopefully more to say tomorrow.

Day 11

Had a relaxing day today. Went grocery shopping in the morning. Was all nice and sunny though kinda cool. The leaves are starting to turn. Fall is approaching fast over here.

When we got back I had a yummy muesli muffin and watched 'My neighbour Totoro'. What a cute movie! I thought the end was a little bit open and sad, but I loved Totoro. Wanna grow my own magic trees now. I was still in a movie mood after that, so put in 'Lost in Translation'. I love that movie. Really don't know why, but it makes me feel really good. Had some nice tea with that.

Another good thing today. Putting out 2666 in front of my eyes actually made me wanna read it. So I started today. The beginning was a little bit boring, and as I was just about to put it away something interesting started to happen. I was sniffing a love triangle coming up. Now I already read the first 40 pages (which is not a lot, 800 more to go, it's a big book). Really enjoying it. The first pages were all about literary theory this and authors doing that. Boring. But as soon as the first female character was introduced drama is coming up! Yay. Very excited about where this will take me. We shall see...

Day 10

Day started out really good. Had a nice cinnamon and raising bagel. Went out for a run. That makes it three runs in a week. One more than I have too. Maybe I can get the momentum going next week. Though I have to say I didn't particularly enjoy this third one. Maybe I cut down to two, just to keep the enjoyment up and hopefully be able to carry this through to the winter.

Otherwise haven't left the apartment. Just watched a movie. Might pop in another one in a second. Really nothing going on. Enjoying the lazy life. We might go out for tea tomorrow. Let's see how that turns out. The weather is just changing like crazy back and forth. One minute it's sunny, then it pours. Maybe we'll find a nice rain-free time tomorrow to hop to the café, sit through the rain and then come back after the next shower. These things want to be planned. Anyway, one more day of weekend bliss.