tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24935794910510840222024-03-19T12:56:01.286+00:00Soggy TwigletsHannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-75186892620202692892013-08-05T23:09:00.001+01:002013-08-05T23:19:27.722+01:00Hannah's Guide to Travelling Alone on a Budget in Eastern Europe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Plan travel and accommodation a couple of months in advance. This saves you money on flights and guarantees safety in moving from country to country. Whatever you do don't leave it to two weeks before to book flights in and out of previously unknown Polish city and decide to fill in the 16 day gap as you go along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. Couchsurfing is a great option for single female travellers. The idea is simple, you trust a stranger you met over the internet with your life, and in return they trust you with their house keys. I was <strike> incredibly lucky </strike> not at all surprised to find that my hosts were muchos craic. It helps when couchsurfing to choose a time when your hosts are in the process of moving apartment - you're not getting in the way, you're an extra pair of hands to unpack Russian books on photography and confuse the poor cat even more. If it's your first time couchsurfing just act naturally when you find yourself eating spicy mushrooms at 6am or trying to match a Russian in vodka drinking (fun fact! it's Russian custom to drink an odd number of shots - 2 or 4 or 6 just won't cut it).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. Avoid men. When you arrive rather late to a Polish town that's supposed to have buses to the border and doesn't, don't entertainthe 26 year old guy who's angling to stay with you in the terrible hotel down the road before your bus to Ukraine the next morning. It's far wiser to follow an Italian speaking woman into the back of a white van with (presumeably) her large Polish husband, 6 year old child and random Ukrainian man. It's wiser still to cross the border of foot with the random Ukrainian man (try speaking your limited french to him, you may find it's the language you both have in common!) who now has a name </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">(Mr. Sergei, and you're now Анна to him). The time after crossing is a good one in which to realise you've accidentally crossed two time zones and have just missed the last legit bus to the Ukrainian city in which your patient friend is waiting. As Sergei changes money and you worry yourself about trying to find an ATM, go with the flow when he puts your rucksack in another random van tells you to follow it and when asked about an ATM replies "apres, apres!" (apres ca exactly, you may ask yourself at this point). Whilst on your dying mobile phone to your father as he communicates with your friend via your facebook account ("oui ca va Sergei!") realise that you've completely disregarded step 3 and are hitchhiking with two Ukrainian men late at night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">4. Travel light so that you can afford to fit loads of dirt cheap clothes from Polish charity shops into your rucksack! The more hideous the better. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">5. Make sure you catch a cold in Krakow so that your Ukrainian friend's parents dote on you incessantly and you get to drink copious amounts of gluhwein and eat your weight in meringue cake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">6. Keep a travel diary so that you have some quality memories to look back on. An excerpt from mine, for example, reads "in airport 9 hours early at least for now i can focus on lukin rad in this terrible dress & trying to sing midnight by yazoo without everyone noticing midniiiiiiight it's raining outside yeaaaaah U MUST BE SOAKING WET am sticking out tongue as i write must be effort of this cool new handwriting my feet smell like shit dunno where spare socks went granny bitch on my right is gonna get taken down when boarding announced unless she paid for priority which i feel defeats the purpose of a ryanair flight y do i always consider a packet of prince biscuits a viable meal option?the self loathing afterwards is always the same"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">7. Be in the city your plane departs from. For example, if your plane departs from Wroclaw on Thursday morning, it's not a good idea to be in Warsaw after the last night bus to Wroclaw has left on the Wednesday night. Your parents are going to require a lot of humble pie to be consumed. (hi mum & dad thanks woo blog mention)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">8. Stay with locals. You learn a lot. For example, thanks to Kuba, I now know that Wroclaw is not pronounced Rock-law, but rather Vrottzlov. Obviously. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">9. Know when and where humour is appropriate. Don't pretend to be from Derry when you can't keep up the accent for more than a sentence without fluffing up "tart au citron", don't joke at Ukrainian customs; "WODKA?" demands a firm "no", not a "haha I wish" which will earn you half an hour's questioning in a language unfamiliar to both parties. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">10. Follow advice from fellow travellers: nuggets of wisdom I received include "Don't touch dead animals" and "Don't bungee jump in Mexico".</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06328299531323917498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-55673936055888605192013-07-09T22:56:00.000+01:002013-07-09T22:56:05.121+01:00The Love of My Life (and other furry animals)<span style="font-size: large;">This evening marks the four week anniversary to the day of my arrival to this wondrous land. Some of you may think it rather poignant that I have chosen today to write this post, those amongst you who know any better are aware that I've been too busy trying to achieve<a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzltg6PuHS1qkomroo1_500.gif"> this</a>. And failing miserably. Interestingly enough, that link is one of only 4 bookmarks on my Google Chrome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here is an assortment of things I have done (roughly) chronologically pre and post repatriation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Morgan, Jason and I did something no man shall ever again achieve without incurring a high risk of heart disease and ate our way through realistically six times the average serving of Korean Barbeque. Though the last mango and sticky rice made the shine leave Morgan's eyes despite the recommended mint ice-cream palate cleanser, plans are in the pipeline for a plaque to be erected on Nathan Rd. where we crawled, dribbling, onto a bus bound for Lee On.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. Glenda took me to see Hong Kong. Two years late, but I did appreciate it. There was plenty of food involved in that too. Sticky photos made me a little overexcited.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. I went to the absolute back arse of an tSín. Like, Tajikistan way. 33 train tickets and a motley crew of Dilene, Halfdan, Adam and I left Hong Kong and returned sans tickets and Halfdan. We saw some yaks, ate our weight in lamb fat (excluding Dilly; she's a vegan with her own hemp footwear range), were almost always (in my eyes) excruciatingly late for trains (so much so that once when myself and Dilene were happily smug in our carriage whilst the rest bought noodles at the pace of a latino - surprisingly with only one present in the form of Pao - I almost wanted them to miss it for schadenfreude-y purposes), flew a beautiful kite called Mr./Mrs. Happy (depending on your take on gender constructs), sang a horrific rendition of Óró Sé Do Bheatha Bhaile in a strange Tibetan hostel 3000m above sea level amidst drunken Tibetan chanting, got ripped off by a baller in a yellow shirt with a popped collar and a smoking rate of 4 a minute, played Counter Strike in a smoke filled cavern of death, coconut juice, bitchslayers and G.Daddy Halfi's, wound up in the dodgiest amusement park the world has ever known (the one that sometimes comes to Gowran is like Oakwood in comparison), became the face of Urumqi Vogue following an impromptu photoshoot in the park and almost bought a burqa for Parker. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">4. Had Anna come to visit. Despite woe-filled tales of rain and depression, we actually had an incredibly pleasant time, much to the disappointment of my love of self (and country)-deprecation. There was drinking on the 'nal, cartoned white wine to Fergie's Glamorous on the beach, and a visit to the <strike>Natural History Museum</strike> Dead Zoo where we found a melodramatic bat and a couple of sloths. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">5. Went to Body and Soul avec le Morg. Interacted on a personal level with (read: groped/waved deliriously at) Wallis Bird, SOLANGE (that's only a few strands of DNA from Queen B and upping the cool stakes), Nick Cave, and the love of my life, David Kitt whom I got to sign a ratty napkin with "KITTSER MY CAMERA WAS STOLEN WILL YOU SHIFT ME?" written on it. He gave me the greatest hug and signed it with "big shifts, kittser xxx" so I reckon I have a massively decent chance when he comes to Kilkenny. Also met Longford's self-proclaimed greatest Nick Cave fan who was a bit Paolo Nutini-esque, enjoyed saying "unreal" and accidentally got me drunk on something out of a plastic bottle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">6. Became opinionated on the abortion bill. <strike>Sorry but</strike> if a woman can't get urgent medical treatment that might affect her fetus because both of their lives are worth the same then surely it's worse if two lives are lost as opposed to just one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">7. Rediscovered the rabbits. Some say they will outlast even cockroaches in the event of a nuclear fallout. All I know is that I think we've had them since I was in fifth class. Cookie (much to her disgust) has become my replacement for human contact, though it's a matter of days before she retaliates fiercely to my insistent whispering of "WHO'S MY BESTEST BUD NOW".</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">8. Became the proud owner of a debit card. This shall be my demise. Purchases so far include Polish bus tickets and a beanbag shaped like a wombat (the second part's a lie, but the internet <i>is</i> such a fabulous place).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">9. Abandoned blog writing in favour of tea.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06328299531323917498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-68613146811513516572013-05-23T00:38:00.000+01:002013-05-23T00:55:26.620+01:00Disorientation Week: take 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I said this to someone recently, that I wasn't sure whether I was going home or leaving home, and was heartily reassured that that disorientation would affect me from now onwards. On the morn of my graduation, and second last night in school (provided I'm able to leave at all considering the fact that my clearance form has gone walkabouts), here's me summing up not just positives and negatives but the lifestyle of this 70's prison we call a school and a home, in comparison to what I remember of the home I'll be back to in two weeks.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Leaving home means no more</span></b><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Hui Lau Shan </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Forked lighning</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Cockroaches in the sink </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Interdorming</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Mosquito bites </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Free hair cuts</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Block 3 pizza/cha siu fan</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Wearing only leggings</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Internet ban </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Glenda sneezes </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Pressure in the third shower </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Kowloon Dairy </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Stairs </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Boones </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Signing in and out </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Jubes </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Check in </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Ants in the 4th toilet</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Walking on the grey tiles in the rain</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">IB </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Ordering in broken canto</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">MTR </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Skyscrapers </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Effective public transport</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Free airport wifi</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Humidity </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">MOS apple pies </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Living opposite a mountain </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Swimming with no swimcap </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Waterfall </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">HK City Hall Library days</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Wellcome </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Baozi </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Typhoons </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Fro Yo </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Chocolate powder ice-cream sauce </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Red taxis </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sneaking out </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Gatings </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Canteen parties </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Trams </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Dragon boat </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Cheap postage </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">YMCA roof </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Mee & Gee atrocities</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Pretending to be a tourist</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Lung cancer </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Brunch </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Expats </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Custard buns </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Service planning </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Thai curry for lunch</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Drinking in the street</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">People who can dance</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Latinas </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Paisanos </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sad nights in the library</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Broken curtain rails</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Student kitchen produce</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Chungking Mansions</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Linda e-mails (plz god)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Air con</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">681, A41p, k807, 299, 1A </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Phytoplankton </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">BOB</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Brown line</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Design labs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">La Bodega</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Rush at Mong Kok</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Worrying about Steve/Trevor/Brian being in the gym</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Lee On McDonalds</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Smirnoff Slushees</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Bubble Tea</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Annoying birds</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Managebac</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Grand dictations</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Condensed milk toast</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">GIFs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Travelling with Maddie</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">In my country...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Broken bikes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Pacific Place toilets</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Egg waffles</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Concrete</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Hot rain</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Arrogant Frog</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Lino floor</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Angry cicadas</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Trevor whiteboard</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Mass e-mails</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Block 2 bench</span></li>
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<td align="justify" valign="top" width="300"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">Going home means more</span></b><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Baths</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Stocked fridges</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Come Dine With Me</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Town</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Reese's peanut butter cups</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Real milk</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Penney's</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">The nal</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sessions</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Cycling</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Breathable air</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Dore's</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Rabbits</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">BBC radio 4</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Putting on the dishwasher</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Texting</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Doing Clob's hair</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Tea (!)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Bulmers</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Green</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Stir frys</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Getting lifts</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sheep</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sleep</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Weeding</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Body & Soul</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Rain</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Mint Crisp days</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Billy Byrnes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">The Rocco's/Larkin's debate</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Of Clody's elbow's in my tea</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Calling dinner tea</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Saying rubbers, plasters, rubbish bins, pavements</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">America's Next Top Model</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Castle park</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Curry chips</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Dip dabs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Shifting, less making out</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Arts Festival</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Langers and lickdipses</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Eating bread rolls whilst going round Supervalu</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Tracy's treehouse</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Shops closing at 6</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sitting in a car</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Darkness at night</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Museli</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Leprechauns</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Talking in tea rooms</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">God awful attempts at customising clothes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Ditto going to the gym</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Dressing gowns</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Camping</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">It being hotter inside than outside</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Muller corners</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Privacy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Records</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Chapattis</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Scacraicbant</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Badedas</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Stars</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Jenkinstown</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Picnics outta Dunnes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">New socks</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Boredom</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sitting by the old pool eating Dominos' meateor</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Downloading films</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Sue Ryder shop</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Poulanassy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Loud music</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Bedroom dancing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Jaffa cakes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">G.O.L.D.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Flash animation</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Hoovering</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Parents</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">BBQ Hula Hoops</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Beat the bomb</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Change in jellies</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Regularly washed clothes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Time for Soggy Twiglets?</span></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06328299531323917498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-32923223084640386972013-05-19T17:27:00.000+01:002013-05-20T00:10:27.800+01:00Exams: A Webcam Diary<span style="font-size: large;">During exam time, many of us have our vices. 9gag, stalking pre-pubescent Eli Moist, Sonic Dash-ing, learning the lyrics to Wu Tang's C.R.E.A.M., wearing only the one pair of shorts for weeks on end, mastering aquarobics, eating. All the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My vice has got to be the very exemplar of culinary expertise, the modest Jube. A jube is a jelly cube suspended in a choice of juices. My particular weakness? Lychee. They have the consistency of human flesh. Here are some snapz after Jason bit the immovable lid off with his bottle opener adapted teeth. One day it got particularly bad (the pre maths nd chinese Thursday), resulting in this confession on Morgan's wall</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">09/05/2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Process of the Degradation of Sanity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today Hannah was observed to have purchased two jars of
Joobs in Lychee brine, for the purpose of a more nourished study of the Chinese
language. Having breathed in the first jar in under a minute (in a rather
enraged manner) she hurriedly reached for the other, and proceeded to open it
using the Jason Method of forcing the lid off on a nearby solid substance. She
attempted this manoeuvre haphazardly and accidentally smashed off the top 2cm
of Joob jar, leaving a rather rugged edge. This did not seem to phase the
subject, and she lifted the jar to her mouth and began to chug the cubes of
strange consistency. Midway into her angry chugging, she noticed that she was
crunching on glass, and (from her reaction) it can be assumed that she was
reminded of the cocaine addicts one learns about in Transition Year, whose
nostrils become raw from snorting the drug which has been mixed with ground
glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV-LK-8cY4kPXJL8eKmEr_RIGxN7ng6He8dL6py3B4lFsWWIf0iCwn2NLagKS6-cZxpNoP8FW0zhUxmHVRz7Qq103m_YpkJqIUKyhfc8Sd_WTSzUgKjv3F3GzIwvugA1DvXIwmXHxW8vw/s1600/TPhoto_00006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV-LK-8cY4kPXJL8eKmEr_RIGxN7ng6He8dL6py3B4lFsWWIf0iCwn2NLagKS6-cZxpNoP8FW0zhUxmHVRz7Qq103m_YpkJqIUKyhfc8Sd_WTSzUgKjv3F3GzIwvugA1DvXIwmXHxW8vw/s400/TPhoto_00006.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another coping mechanism was dressing up like a puritan rockstar and working in the geography room with Lerler. Sometimes we ate raw carrots. Raw. Rawr. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3yqF87mwtoAU92mwSvJObMxkhQ549vqZW33NWrduEhLmJPDSljVsIzFQ9WGvUAOVMhfPXWSYS09t3Jc6t0X4KQhWcUqHMfh6wpliYn0mwn9QmrSQzhKuLs9VNb44PjK8K_dVEJka1Rs/s1600/TPhoto_00016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3yqF87mwtoAU92mwSvJObMxkhQ549vqZW33NWrduEhLmJPDSljVsIzFQ9WGvUAOVMhfPXWSYS09t3Jc6t0X4KQhWcUqHMfh6wpliYn0mwn9QmrSQzhKuLs9VNb44PjK8K_dVEJka1Rs/s400/TPhoto_00016.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Most of them went quite well, Physics paper 3 felt laughable, I managed to cough up a chinese essay of 200 characters on my favourite fanguanr. I threw in a 因此。。。因为, and only mentioned 包子three times so that's a guaranteed 6 right there. Maths, on the other hand was a trainwreck with an asymptote at infinity. Glenda had a different reaction (insert vague racial slur). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Exams concluded on Friday the 17th. I ran very far away (Mong Kok) and purchased a €2 camouflage t-shirt and a lipstick called "Lavender Whip" amongst other things. On the way back to campus, I took the liberty in waiting for the first MOS train to leave from Tai Wai in favour of getting a seat on the second. The freedom radiates through everything I do. Alcohol was consumed in the presence of a fire consisting of Chinese mock papers and the complete works of Carol Ann Duffy and Dave McCracken's prized envi handouts. I went to the beach (didn't get burned!), then went out with Jason and Morgan to the infamous Korean BBQ buffet place above the Burger King off exit B2 in TST (valuable info). The plan was to eat until movement was hindered. There came a point when our stomachs were shocked by the volume of food it'd been subjected to. So we each had another mango sticky rice pudding (my seventh). Jason's food baby was more than impressive, and the MTR was beyond our capabilities as immobile bags of kimchi. We found a bus in the depths of Nathan Road and created a sitcom inspired by Jason's awful hair and loosely based on his experiences as a carpet dealer in a forgotten Scottish town inhabited by characters with personalities of our 同学s. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today I woke up at the other side of 7am (10:20!!!), began to pack the rather talking mounds of shite that's been festering in my corner for the past two years and on a bit of a whim decided to follow that mad eejit Maxim "Mad Eejit" Moshnyakov up Ma On Shan peak (his second time in the day). Despite being attacked by masses of red ants, the camouflage t-shirt and refilled cream soda bottle were integral to the success of the trip. That and following Pao's tramp stamped bootay. My granny sports bra clad body made an appearance but that shit is PG13. Following a much needed dip in the waterfall where we were joined by the non hiking 农民s, I find myself eating pizza in the dayroom with Jason and Pao, and no reason to wake up tomorrow.</span></div>
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Ps. Thanks to Maxim for some of the photos!</div>
Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-4562114829015491022013-04-25T10:39:00.000+01:002013-04-25T10:42:48.670+01:00I'm Bringing Sexy Yak<span style="font-size: large;">So because last week I did a post on things I abhor, I thought it may be nice to follow it up with some things that I like. Aye, I am indeed supposed to be studying for my final exams which start in approximately a single week, but I have my 45 minutes of leisure time now before dinner in which I can blow some minds through the written word.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or at the very least update the outside world on the (many) things I do not abhor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yaks</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yaks are truly excellent. The best environmental doomsayer we've had in school this year (and we have many) was the guy talking about how cool yaks are. In fact (and I quote) "Yaks are sexy in their own way". This baseball capped <a href="http://www.cers.org.hk/index.php/en/protecting-nature/wild-yak">yak-enthusiast</a> has inspired myself and Halfdan to kidnap Dilene and take her the long way around the Tibetan plateau on multiple trains averaging 36 hours each (the maximum is 52 hours - card game suggestions are welcome). Dilene was keen on a beach holiday, so I thought it would be considerate of me to make a stop at the most inland city in the entire world, Urumqi, whose local beach is 2,500 kilometres away in southern Pakistan. We're gonna bum all over until we get to Kashgar and then head on back - such is the plan but considering the fact that it is I who will have the most proficient mandarin means that a lot has been left to chance. Regardless, Uyghurs, yaks, lamb skewers and deserted cities from 1BC means that despite announcing that I would be home around June 10th, it is more likely to be never, as I prance around with yak in the wilds of Xinjiang.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.marcfoggin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wild-yak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://www.marcfoggin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wild-yak.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://people.cs.pitt.edu/~mehmud/gallery/sites/images/Turpan2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://people.cs.pitt.edu/~mehmud/gallery/sites/images/Turpan2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Spoons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">During a prolonged study period, my mind was degraded to the point where I google searched how to play the spoons, and spent 11 minutes watching this terrifying man. Summer plan complete (to be surprisingly proficient at spoon-playing by late August) I set about discovering the talents of the spooning world. <a href="http://ahealthykindofvanity.blogspot.ie/">Ruth</a> kindly directed me to the one and only<a href="https://www.facebook.com/SimonSpoons?fref=ts"> Simon Spoons</a> facebook page which she had set up for him following an excellent performance of Poker Face. Insomnia is one of the greatest cultural offerings of our time. </span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/POvLaziUsTo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And thus ends the list of things that make me happy. Yaks and spoons lads, yaks and spoons.</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-20643069842403093292013-04-18T15:52:00.001+01:002013-04-18T16:35:36.264+01:00Marley and Me Spoilers<span style="font-size: large;">Being as sick as a small hospital for the beginning of my study leave meant that I was in a darned good position to reflect on all the things I found adverse to my being in this world (aside from earaches and influenza symptoms). Please note that I am speaking from an impassioned viewpoint.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>0.5 bowls of cereal</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Luckily I can evade this here because we are subject to communal dumps of cereal but at home when I lift up the packet of Raisin Wheat I can quite often tell if there is not the recommended 35g serving left. I would so much rather Mr. Penultimate Cereal Manbeast went the whole hog and had 52.5g of cereal for breakfast than raised my hopes only to dash them to the ground.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/content/dam/workarea/assetpushqueue/images/web-raw-approved/eng%20UK/38/50/prod_img-253850.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.319.319.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/content/dam/workarea/assetpushqueue/images/web-raw-approved/eng%20UK/38/50/prod_img-253850.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.319.319.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Your iTunes</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If it looks like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Red Hot Chili Pepper</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Red Hot Chilli Peppers</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Red Hot Chilly Peppers</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">RHCP</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">RHCPeppers</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Please do not get me started on the various uses of "&", "and" and even (god forbid) "+". Drake and Jay-Z should not collaborate so often if it turns your iTunes into the wreck I so often see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also if you skip songs. This irks me so much that even on my own iPod if I must skip I will first phase out the song I am currently listening to in order to play the next one. Besides, aside from that Pulled Apart By Horses album (which I regret deeply) all the other music on my iPod is quality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>>8 people at a canteen table</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the morning, the canteen ladies put the chairs around the tables in a nice four sided arrangement. Let me tell you 9, 10 and 11 are not multiples of four. 8 is. 8 is the optimal number of chairs around tables to ensure that you can eat your dinner without being compromised. I am trying valiantly to teach everyone this practice before I have to return to my sister (she of large elbows), whereby I know that no matter if it was just me at the table and her in the same room I would still have to eat from my lap.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sraith Pictúirz</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I haven't even been exposed to the latest attempt by the Ministry of education to get people to appreciate their cultural heritage effectively but I'm already bréan bailithe of it. It seems to me that thing that's getting increased is not love of the Irish language but entropy, as hundreds of leaving certs burn and eat theirs with fiery passion. Wouldn't it be excellent if after 14 years we could understand more than a third of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNFfDirBE6w">this gem</a>.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Owen Wilson </span>(Americans)</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Marley and Me was doomed to fail before my discerning eye regardless (lo and behold his stomach is upside down) but Owen Wilson rose spectacularly to the challenge. Though there are many things I can't stand about him (nose nose nose - his face is a caricature of itself for chrissakes), he says "dawwwg" one too many times in this film. I brought this hatred upon myself, I know, I shouldn't have watched a film about Owen Wilson and a dawg. Morgan has told me that this irrational hatred of Mr. Wilson comes from an inner dislike for Americans. I don't want to elaborate. Too many truths will come. American spelling, and how all internet sites have fallen into the pit of despair that is inappropriate Zs, comes under this category.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Women complaining about the toilet seat being left up</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps a little misogynistic of me but why is down the right way? Men should stand up for themselves and complain about it being left down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Shop Etiquette</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In an ideal world (read: ideal shop) I enter, am greeted with a friendly but passive "Hello" - one must remember that this greeting does not insinuate the beginning of a friendship, but merely lays out certain customer-salesperson formalities. Following this, I proceed to browse at leisure. If, perchance, I have a query about a certain product, I expect that after a sharp glance upward and a pause of approximately 2 seconds, eye contact with aforementioned salesperson will be made, I shall proceed with my query and get an unobtrusive answer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Black books sums it up well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Other interesting pet hates I have come across when researching for this blog were: green pens, rimless glasses, people squirting toothpaste incorrectly, people bragging about being on diets and not losing weight, iTV, and when people upload bad res photos of their skype conversations.</span><br />
<br />Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-54579154145310230882013-04-13T05:51:00.001+01:002013-04-13T10:05:00.442+01:00Digressing through Cows<span style="font-size: large;">For some reason (most likely the alignment of the stars) I have had many run ins with cows lately. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To start with, in the boglands of Hong Kong where I currently reside, cows roam free, <strike>terrorising neighbourhoods</strike> derping around. I bumped into one the other day milling about in Sai Kung around a BBQ site licking a disgruntled dog. Warned as ever by the adverts on the 299 bus from Sha Tin to Sai Kung not to interfere, I was unable to have as interesting an interaction as the dog was having but merely enjoyed the presence of such an ethereal beast. To say they reminded me of home (or at least every second journey down the Grovine East road) would be a lie as they're not fresian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My second incident occured one night in the common room as the motley crew of myself, Shira, Morgan, Sam tried and failed to load School Of Rock and were treated instead to Shira's very own personal youtube favourites. This has snuck into my top 10 at least, following two camels in a tiny car (best use of 17 seconds of one's life).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The third was at the art exhibition last week when Jayla made all this funky art with cows like turning Jason into a cow and stuff. I'm not any good at reworking candidate statements but the theme was totes deep and made me appreciate Hong Kong cows on a more contemplative level. I bought a 1x2m Andy Warhol-y wallpaper on foam for 100HKD before worrying about how to transport it home or how to utilise it at home. Arnett outbid me the maggot. O wel it was cool (and deep ofc).</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">dis is another one of jayla lai's (credits: Fernanda)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Three bovine incidents may be too few to justify naming a blog post after but alas I can think of no more. I might talk about more important matters at hand, like the fact that I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL EVER AGAIN. An incredibly pleasant thought rest assured. Sentiments summed up in this here </span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/hannah-cant-read/no-school-buahahahhaha" style="font-size: x-large;">sound clip</a>, <span style="font-size: large;">which some of you may recognize from the infamous Potter Puppet Pals meets Eragon MS Paint Youtube series.. Only one more hump to get over now before I properly graduate but we shan't dwell on that to much. At least I succeeded in getting Dilene to wear a pink dress. #trololol #shaniwewin</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Without making this too much of a Quan Cai reflection</span> (though that's not to say that I won't just copy paste this whole thing to Managebac)<span style="font-size: large;"> I may just spam part of this blog with appreciation for this thing. It's a form of stress relief for some, physical exertion for others but I recks I just get a kick out of being in a grey and stormy Tolo Harbour on a Tuesday afternoon murmering the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack in my head (dundundundun dundundundun dundun dundudn dundundun). Tis probs the one thing I will genuinely miss next year (plastic plates can go die) and with only 2 sessions left I'm already feeling the pangs. Hong shook my hand today it was tha bestest. ps <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiVYd-BWJcE&feature=youtu.be">this is us paddling</a> lol pps we have a competition <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnHGFAMOJHaJdDRxdW1qUFJfd19Eb0lDbTVmSk9DMEE#gid=0">plz come</a> 2 repulse bay on sunday kthnxbai. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On another note, this week (following a harsh telling off by Morgan for whining too much and plenty of exposure to her whining about people whining) I am making the most of my clothes swap returns (namely gwen stefani crop top, inoffensive jumper and lime green bag of death) for solely my own enjoyment. Today I rather enjoyed channeling my inner 1970s Belfast punk look (think stabbing my ear and a dusty khaki parka with safety pins at 7am) after Morgan and myself became unintentionally enamoured with the trailer for Good Vibrations. Now at a critical stage of emotional attachment, Stiff Little Fingers have become the epitome of all things great and cultured. The hunt for a place to illegally download the film continues.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">gwen stefani c. 2002 crop topsucking in so hard y'all cant comprehend</span></td></tr>
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Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-87885489966318216542013-04-05T14:35:00.001+01:002013-04-06T03:17:08.566+01:00u hav not been blocked lol<span style="font-size: large;">yeah i disabled my bookface. cause i was refreshing permanently in order to recieve a candy crush invitation from xyz and their mother. whilst i do miss uploading old Bluetones songs (LOSING A LOVERRR//GAINING A FRIEND) for little recognition but the likes of a couple of people i did a summer camp with 4 years ago and checking out how hawt i am in recently uploaded photos and wondering if the nipple-piercing cat as my cover photo needs replacing (or reinstating for that matter) here are some things i have been up to as y'all worried about why i didnt like you anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1) leaving fb has given me more time to google things such as "pattern for a mint green faux fur cape", "how to wash silk" and "bad prom outfits"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2) clodagh (my dearest darlingest sister) made me get kik so now i send her ugly selfies of me in awkward clothes and spam her with things about my life and she sits around being embarrassed. normality restoring itself</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3) i have been dropping my ipod in the canteen toilets. luckily the apple store peeps threw a brand new shiny one my way for a nominal fee after i withdrew it from my portable bag of rice failsafe</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">4) finishing high school AW YISS PENULTIMATE FRIDAY IS OVER one week of school left ever in the whole history of ever. to prove it here is my yearbook square</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjkYFkQ_DU6fmjuytvlNhKGbvgF5J5Lmk5bF5F9EpW7AYCJtJy1p5HC2hN9BYCNGIwpovKkG485LNRU1TgVpO6OSDGyutEd0Dy9KVm74NzU6__D4IwoQPHhmv4K2jnOmQtNTr3dyIVu0/s1600/hannahgradsquare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjkYFkQ_DU6fmjuytvlNhKGbvgF5J5Lmk5bF5F9EpW7AYCJtJy1p5HC2hN9BYCNGIwpovKkG485LNRU1TgVpO6OSDGyutEd0Dy9KVm74NzU6__D4IwoQPHhmv4K2jnOmQtNTr3dyIVu0/s400/hannahgradsquare.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">5) tidying my room and studying at my desk. that happened once. there are no photos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">so all of you sad peeps with nada to do you can catch me on le skype (hannahcantread) or kik (lol i'm so hip i cant even remember my username) or bum a letter my way cause that would be nice tho in fairness by the time it comes i will have probably returned to facebook in order to post this to boost pageviews.</span><br />
<br />Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-76885858664023477272013-04-01T04:39:00.001+01:002013-04-01T07:02:48.348+01:00Explaining the Last 8 Photos on my Ipod<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Heather and Jason came for a visit. I happened to have Morgan's tartan corset skirt and fab bathrobe handy so they made the most of that. I think they went to Wellcome dressed as such later though I'm not entirely sure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I made purple lipstick out of eyeshadow and vaseline and thought I was the shit. Enough so to take a selfie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We went on a dive and I wore my reindeer beanie. In March. O wel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I went to the 10,000 buddhas monastery with me Granny/Mum's friend Sheila who was in Hong Kong for a few days. C'est le pagoda ici. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This guy was one of these 10,000 Buddhas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Leila and I are attempting to learn how to do maths. It's not working very well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I went to Lamma Island to visit Anna on me Easter break and this was it in the morning. I'm not entirely sure whether we'd slept or not by this stage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I went to Pao's house after Anna's to get me some r&r and ended up being rudely awakened 3 hours after settling in for me comfy sleep and kicked out of the house. I escaped the gaggle and got the night bus back from causeway...to Nick Drake.</span></div>
<br />Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-89595069403394669402013-03-19T10:10:00.000+00:002013-03-19T10:19:51.718+00:00They call it stormy Monday (but Tuesday's just as bad)<span style="font-size: large;">A thundery day and no dragon boat means that I feel obliged to provide you all with a nugget of my life as of late.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saturday got off to a bad start. 6 hours of extended coral monitoring service planning with Linda congealed-coffee-n-toast-in-the-bottom-of-a-stainless-steel-industrial-sink-breath was enough to have me despairing. Luckily Paolina had asked me over to dinner at her house so there was at least something worth living for. I set off a few hours early to central to give myself time to bum around and get lost somewhere, which I did very well, after tramming from Wanchai to the Sheung Wan side of Central I ended up a few hours later in a small park behind a rehabilitation hospital watching french kids on a climbing frame and gorging myself on mangosteens that I'd found someone selling in one of those alleyway fruit stalls. The sun was setting and there feck tons of bauhinia around and it was just generally nice. I took photos but because I'm a blatant non-conformist I will have to get them developed at a later date rather than zap them online when required. I then had to run back to central in my slightly too small boots and borrow someone's phone. Fairly hard to do, but after nervously asking my 5th older-white-woman-mother-type (nabbed outside Baby Gap) I was handed one of those Samsung tablet things which I had to hold with two hands. Eventually I met Pao and Ana in the bus terminus and we headed all the way out and played too much Dance Dance Revolution (Ana and I won) and ate muchos deliciouso Brazilian food. At 9ish I pulled a Cinderella to go back to campus for an epic St Paddy's celebration and ended up being 40 minutes late to my own party but bearing a bottle of Guinness and 6 cans of Breda (all of which cost less than the Guinness...) to make up for it. Greened out and occupying Laura's double bed we listened to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31e0FE48OWo">Wallis</a> until Dilene's superior music taste won over (hem hem). Shortly before the laptop was taken there were some excellent selfies taken. A few hours of acting the maggot on campus later and all of us ending up on the road outside block four, we bid each other adieu and got some kip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sunday started off slowly, and was consequently interspersed with apathy, attempts at study, disgusting chicken pies, painstaking journeys to Wellcome to feed Colombians grapefruit, and an existential debate on Wu Kai Sha beach with Heather - not forgetting the existential selfies and existential chocolate milk to go along with it. Following beach time was an angry dinner - surprised by lack of fries I had about 2 forkfuls of a dreadful carbonara before hosting Voice Jeopardy with Campbell. Less dreadful than imagined and Chris (that sweet nonthreatening passive Canadian kid) was there and squirming about not being a coral monitor so that was enjoyable to watch. Tar éis é sin I collected a few vagabonds to film the promo video for the 80s café this weekend. Kids in America, Take On Me, Physical + the greatest selection of mine and Morgan's fabulous clothes led to this piece of cinematic genius. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monday I woke up feeling miserable, went to class feeling miserable, wore miserable clothes, had a miserable rage n' Nirvana filled free block, had poisonous classes and generally felt miserable. In such instances I often turn to the pool for comfort, and ended up staying for 2 hours bombing up and down. Only 5 seconds off my pb in 50 free and hoping to reach it again before summer. Service planning was painful, Steve's quan cai leadership workshop was enough to make me top myself, and then peer support was fairly nice in Michele's flat with choccy biccies. After check in I had unmiserablefying cake with Glenda 'cause she's an angel and then did some Chinese oral stuff with Mia "Zhongguo" Thayer following which we both plonked ourselves in blk 4 dayroom for a bit. Parker was overexcited about it becoming the place to be again so maybe we should crush those hopes. I went back to my room and got reading Ulysses on the Kindle (ta daddy), though I'm at a Stephan Dedalus consciousness part and that is no where near as fun as when it's Bloom's consciousness (#bloom4lyf).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday began slightly better, perhaps because I forwent my angsty get up of sweatpants and an ugly jumper and wore a 2pac headband (as well as clothes). My practice chinese oral went fairly well despite me dwindling down to "我的...eh...房间...是红色...ehhh...因此....我.....我...喜欢看书?" at one point. Watching Food Inc. in Geography meant that I was unable to eat anything in the canteen that may have been meat, corn or homogenised. I had a glass of water. And eventually gave in to some mashed potato. Got a parcel after school, had a guilt free entire easter egg (guilt free because of the promise of intense dragon boat training) and then set off to dragon boat. Once all 7 (!) of us had arrived at the beach the thunder and lightening started and so we were turned away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And so I chilled out to The National and Jape and the T-Bone Walker song which lends its name to this blog title and ate Creme Eggs and drank out of my new Shamrock mug and read the Sunday Times Style magazine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And I wrote this</span><span style="font-size: large;">. Huzzah.</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-22123306556229144922013-03-12T13:06:00.001+00:002013-03-12T13:43:38.872+00:00Portrait of a Tuesday<span style="font-size: large;">Woke up at 6:40 to the sound of Farai tripping over the scales.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Fell asleep again and woke up at 8:30.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Got up and revelled in triple morning free delight.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Having run out of knickers and put on a pair of bikini bottoms I figured it was time to do my laundry so I lugged the basket to block 3, used the tablets mo dhaidí had sent in his last parcel and shuffled back to my room in my fuschia pj bumbums and oversized Nirvana t-shirt.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Cleaned the atrocity of a corner that I call home, did the recommended 40 minutes of chemistry homework, listened to too much Jape (no such thing) and that song by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc0SXW1fd6U">Gist</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Headed to chemistry with Morgan's glasses on (in my room from exciting block 1 adventures the night previous) and my black boots. Trevor wasn't there so I stole some of Dilene's answers and all her gossip.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Then I had geo and got back my mock paper it was acceptable and I said nothing wrong about Africa.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">After school I didn't have much lunch but the apple was like a pink lady apple. I painted a mural with Laurita. <i>Ella se ve muy guapa recientemente.</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Dragon boat was at 3:30. Only Sam and I showed up, Michi a bit later. A shame, it was a nice day. Hong put us in kayaks and sent us into Tolo Harbour. He's the greatest man, if only for his skill in knowing exactly what time it is by looking at the sky. .</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">After dragon boat I had a good long shower and put on a crop top cause I felt good about myself and I lay on my bed feeling good about myself. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Oliver sent out a basketball e-mail. FREE FOR ALL. It was fun for a time. I was on the Loreto A team in first year after all.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Left and ranted </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">idontneednomanbutitwouldbeniceifonceinawhileimetonewhowasnotamisogynisticfuck</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Someone's listening to One Direction and I'm going to study maths soon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">My copy of Ulysses is on a bus in Bangkok somewhere and I miss it. That's why I'm writing funny. I was going to get mango from Morgan if I finished it by mid March and I was almost there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Farai and a cockroach. Farai.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-63272732726508468282013-02-28T01:31:00.001+00:002013-02-28T01:31:57.708+00:00Vomming Up Chocolate Rabbits<span style="font-size: large;">Washed my hands of mocks with the passing of maths paper two (which, thanks to a reclaimed yoga-come-geography room and a shoeless co-year went better than expected) on Wednesday at 10:33am. Roughly. Though having intended to run away to central as soon as permissible, I decided to charge my iPod and wait for free lunch first. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then I ran away to Mong Kok, and bought 4 shirts, each more garish than the last, a pair of boots that were slightly too small and made for a petite Italian man but totes fab nonetheless and a skirt or two. Boots aside, all that was about a fiver (yoyos wise). All to that "<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Various+Artists/Mojo+presents...+Beloved">Mojo presents...Beloved</a>" compilation CD dad got free a few years ago. Got a black and white film (cause I'm really hip) from SimCity, that great 5 story eclectic emporium of camera shops and sex shops. And an egg waffle. Bumming around MK was much overdue, though the humidity is picking up and I got dripped on a fair few times by those mirthless aircons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I got back to school fairly early (about 4ish) then went on a friend hunt, sequentially by room of course: Paloma, Lau, Beata, Dilly - until finally I had to settle for Hetzy, comatose on her bed. We made it to Ma On Shan, I had another of those heavenly HK$8 apple pies. And mango sago. Went to the promenade, were mega deep then walked back to school. I picked up a parcel from the general office with seconds to go before uploading the Nigerian CD it contained and devouring the contents (namely a chocolate bunny wabwab) over an erratic putlocker Juno. If you, as I, have not seen it since bebo was still a thing then go watch it. Morgan interrupted halfway through to deal with the realisation that she is becoming slowly more and more bitter. We listened to the soundtrack and moaned together. I lent her the Bart Simpson jumper to cheer her up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After check in (with 15 minutes of Juno to go) I went to the gym where all of the post-mocks chub second years were de-chubbing with varying success. No lie there were about 15 people in there. Unfortunately after 20 odd minutes of girly cardio, I went to get a glass of water downstairs and vommed up a chocolate wabbit. Pleasant. I decided to call it a day and mooched back to ma chambre, until I decided that I had not quite satisfied my moaning quota for the day and called up Morgan to go whinge some more. Got back to my corner at midnight, and was just settling down for a nice as-many-hours-as-I-wanted kip, when I remembered that I'd only done gone promised Parker that I'd go swimming with him at 6 in the sea. I valiantly set my alarm for 05:45.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thankfully (?) I had a broken sleep so it was fairly easy to get up. Starfish was less foreboding than last time, and the inky blackness was less so - though the phytoplankton were mysteriously not present. Nothing like a good dose of e.coli before breakfast anyway. Planning to skim the layers of clothing off my floor and get Heather to cut my hair today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">ps. I made a <a href="http://sketchyshell.blogspot.com/">photography blog</a> for my totes trendy piccies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">pps. I'm going to Thailand on Saturday isn't that odd and worth noting. Mocks have destroyed my ability to contemplate the future. Let's just hope that this time I don't lose the will to live whilst there.</span></div>
Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-3937651842584062542013-02-23T15:42:00.001+00:002013-02-23T15:50:32.323+00:00Readiculous<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The can't in my Hannah Can't Read has gone. I have my reasons. My 15 year old sister (though perpetually the cooler of the Reads I hasten to assure you) recently changed her facebook name to Clodagh Readiculous. Being a mature 18 year old who buys expensive cheese as a manic act of opulence on the mid mock weekend, the can't was already on its last legs. Upon the incidence of the family bad pun integrated facebook name spot becoming taken, well, it was a tough goodbye but not quite equatable to the Bridget Jones emotion spectrum.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Opulence and project hot breakings (I have two MOS apple pies and mindless yoghurt popping bubba fro-yo to hold accountable for that plural) aside, this weekend has been glorious. Heather taught me the intricacies of her culture (lol poi) and took photos of the awful faces I pull when I'm concentrating. It was lots of fun and I did no maths at all and she did no Chinese and we cut up a bikini we found in the art room to make me a set. I accidentally took a video of us and though its a 7 minute gem of Heather burning her hands on molten nylon and me aimlessly twirling a single poi yoke around happy as Larry to the Arctic Monkeys' <i>Favourite Worst Nightmare,</i> it would probably be perceived by those who do not have 7 minutes spare to watch a poor quality video of a humdrum wad of nothing as a right hape of shite. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It being a very sunny day and I bumming around with hetzy and then making good aul wholesome food with dilly and laurita made me do all my summer daydreaming. The kind of February ERMAHGERDSUMMERRR will be da bestest bring on july 2kaii13 lad kinda feels. I'm buzzin to get back to Bulmers and baths and Bulmers in the bath and drinking MILK from the carton like the bogger I truly am. These dreams of Centra own brand low fat two litre bottles have to be accompanied by some kind of choons and mar sin I have been enjoying the birthday <a href="http://8tracks.com/tetrisgirl/tracy-s-adventures">playlist</a> I made for the most reverend queen of eyebrows traytray-d and also a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WX8jMmSMoI">Jape</a>//<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrqbMQvMj4I">David Kitt</a> binge the past few days. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Pure claaaaaaaaass.</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-70552682909483743442013-02-21T12:48:00.001+00:002013-02-21T12:54:48.949+00:00Study Time with Hannah and Glenda!<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A week into mocks, I feel qualified to share with you the observations I have made on how to study most effectively. The undisputed powerhouse of the boy's floor of block two, room 2/307 teaches you how to prepare for (the rest of) your mocks with their tried and tested 5-point-plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">1. Be hot. Motivational posters and roomie gym sessions are in order.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">2. Drop one of your sciences to standard, for more effective cramming!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">3. Stay nourished. Have a Singapore-visiting first year roomie to provide chocolate 24/7</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">4. We have found that by groaning about the sheer volume of work left to battle through, one absorbs all the information!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">5. It's all about set-up: Study horizontally and sporadically, in a tidy and fresh working zone to maximize productivity! We have found beds to be ideal working spaces.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Happy studying!</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-7287467148817505742013-02-19T05:53:00.002+00:002013-02-19T10:54:18.043+00:00desert island discs<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of posts ago, I mentioned how my 47 year old self was big into BBC Radio 4, where youth goes to die. Now every Sunday morning there's a programme called Desert Island Discs, where "castaways" have to choose 8 records they'd like to take with them to this hypothetical island. In preparation for when I'm a has-been celebrity (so that'd be shortly before appearing on Strictly Come Dancing) I've got my own 8-track playlist at the ready. It's fairly tough to whittle down to 8, and at the tender age of 18 it's probably subject to a lot of future changes, but this is it in its glory ag an am seo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1.<i> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGx7f73j6oY">Seven Days in the Sun</a></i> - Feeder</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">First exposed to this song in the summer of '01 as an impressionable 6 year old, on the Smash Hits Summer 2001 album, it has remained a firm favourite. I had the opportunity to see Feeder last summer, where they played anything but this <strike>no one wants to hear your new album i was 6 when you were big</strike>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIRb31nvfE8">Sit Right Down</a></i> - Toots and the Maytals</span><br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhQQcPF7tbkipPe5Cf5d2K0H2s8G0LSrfOIimnU6dptkktKSNHkA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhQQcPF7tbkipPe5Cf5d2K0H2s8G0LSrfOIimnU6dptkktKSNHkA" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The first of the "I like this cause Daddy does" tracks. Strange that a Jamaican Reggae band from the 60s should remind me of home, but this whacks of the kitchen on any given Wednesday evening (only if played at maximum volume and sung along to).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OyytKqYjkE">Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground</a></i> - The White Stripes</span><br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSYSR6PjvipZCcf0hZ8ahJ1gXybg6ZRMmKOwHWvk9TKeQ6zkr4V" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSYSR6PjvipZCcf0hZ8ahJ1gXybg6ZRMmKOwHWvk9TKeQ6zkr4V" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think at some point in the early stages of my development I was brainwashed into loving Jack and Meg unconditionally. For the life of me I cannot think of a better band. Though all are masterpieces in their own right, I like this one cause it's ballsy, and has the best ever recorded reverb after the "every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me" bit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">4. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvsMGU-8Ss">All Night Long</a></i> - David Kitt</span><br />
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<a href="http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/7/0/0/0/700035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/7/0/0/0/700035.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even though the "Small Moments" CD in our house is dedicated to baby Clodagh and not ratty toddler Hannah, I got the David Kitt bug. Saw him in Thomastown a few years ago but it was only over the summer when I found the CDs to complete the collection in the library that I became a proper Kittphile. Got my own copy of this in the post today, and "All Night Long" gets under my skin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">5. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0PjECSyJ7w">Going Up the Country</a></i> - Canned Heat</span><br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBB-ejTtxDOLQhU98FyH6J3eVhYqF3Yv0767tL4tAw_qwNrLBV" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBB-ejTtxDOLQhU98FyH6J3eVhYqF3Yv0767tL4tAw_qwNrLBV" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Songs that accompany adventures are always the best. I'm a sucker for basslines too, and this one's just so...MEATY.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">6. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4dWtnjvDKI">That Old Pair of Jeans</a></i> - Fatboy Slim</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKh6nty9cllm02dlO1YFNfzS9KfaAZIZkUzkoGbM9sfgou-x6BdBO-kn1-Yoa9FUauW3DMD1voyPeqQToLB0_SJJMMHQpslgp3ajRYbvSk3NcPIhhsLGwQE59ub_f1U9rmRTKenXgymo/s1600/fbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKh6nty9cllm02dlO1YFNfzS9KfaAZIZkUzkoGbM9sfgou-x6BdBO-kn1-Yoa9FUauW3DMD1voyPeqQToLB0_SJJMMHQpslgp3ajRYbvSk3NcPIhhsLGwQE59ub_f1U9rmRTKenXgymo/s320/fbs.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saw Norman Cook once too, but that was when he was going into Langtons so it's not quite the same. Regardless, I love this one not only for the bass (that always helps) but for the wobtwangywobwob bit near the end and the lurks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">7. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b5HHRT8xvw">Hope There's Someone</a></i> - Antony and the Johnsons</span><br />
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<a href="http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/a/antony-and-the-johnsons/album-i-am-a-bird-now.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/a/antony-and-the-johnsons/album-i-am-a-bird-now.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dad played <i>Hope There's Someone</i> from the office when I was about 12, and I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever had to endure. I seem to remember trying to be positive about the bit with the angry piano chords. When Dad had two tickets to go see A&tJ in Belfast but no friends, the tough choice came down to me or mum, and I won the eenie-meenie-miney. A few years of processing and now look at where this has ended up in my esteem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">8. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiVDzTT4CbE">Wild is the Wind</a> </i>- Nina Simone</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCCe00zYHwZz4UD9T-ych0RhmqvDOfmXSNt38OAf0DFnN_cZPCGGBNXvWkBehh9wbmrwWYAfJqT6qUSN0h9IRSZF7H_hzNRSp8ZDdx3_4KOE61LO-CZOnT08EZ_NOLJnYe5HHUv0fVOoi/s1600/0602498887011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCCe00zYHwZz4UD9T-ych0RhmqvDOfmXSNt38OAf0DFnN_cZPCGGBNXvWkBehh9wbmrwWYAfJqT6qUSN0h9IRSZF7H_hzNRSp8ZDdx3_4KOE61LO-CZOnT08EZ_NOLJnYe5HHUv0fVOoi/s320/0602498887011.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I first heard this on the Kinky Boots sountrack, as the bit where he gets in the car and it's all love me love me looouuuvvv meeeeee. Incredible voice is a shameful description. dis mah favourite.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">In convention with Desert Island Discs, I am allowed to choose one
book and one luxury item. The book will have to be Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy cause I'm hip lyk dat, and the luxury item is Reese's peanut cups cause they
have both fast release and slow release energy, making for a pleasant and
wholesome dining experience. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUedijmyYmHJAq4eqgtH76PhWYEfISsAgE7l3E6C4AQGacgTzYpg_eG_W5efDuUuc0-G4EmZY4RNCs7r5tl6HlSCybUoWUaHEDuOOW9WWETIVvr9lRoXm-nRrse9W1-FsyM9BVAD6AsXM/s1600/TPhoto_00005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUedijmyYmHJAq4eqgtH76PhWYEfISsAgE7l3E6C4AQGacgTzYpg_eG_W5efDuUuc0-G4EmZY4RNCs7r5tl6HlSCybUoWUaHEDuOOW9WWETIVvr9lRoXm-nRrse9W1-FsyM9BVAD6AsXM/s320/TPhoto_00005.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Songs that were narrowly cut include: <i>Tainted Love</i> - Soft Cell,<i> Going On</i> - Gnarls Barkley, <i>Poor Howard </i>- Leadbelly, <i>Trampoline</i> - Bellx1, <i>Bigmouth Strikes Again</i> - The Smiths, <i>Ballrooms of Mars</i> - T. Rex, <i>Freak Off </i>- Orchestra Harlow, <i>You Only Live Once</i> - The Strokes, <i>XXXO </i>- M.I.A., <i>The Only One - </i>The Black Keys, <i>Laundry Room</i> - Nirvana and <i>Heard that you Were Dead </i>- The Bluetones.</span><br />
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Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-2515615566205467212013-02-17T05:53:00.001+00:002013-02-17T06:58:39.072+00:00Ode to Sophia<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This Christmas I was bumming around South East Asia with Madison
Melton: romantic sap extraordinaire and Dorte Oretega Neumeister: college essay
procrastinator extraordinaire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not too sure
how this came about, but I was in great demand for Christmas trips across the
board and this one with it's small righteous American and cooler-than-me
Ecuadorian covering 6 countries in 3 weeks was the most appealing, and so I
ended up in Dorte's room about a month before trawling trip advisor with an
excitable Maddie throwing her credit card deets at every cockroach ridden
hostel we could find (hi maddie you will be caricatured throughout for humour
value kthnxbai).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Christmas was soon
upon us and straight after school on the 14th of December we packed our bags
with clean knickers, plasters and even Maddie brought a towel. Marching out of
school and onward to adventure, we - oh wait Hannah forgot her camera. We
eventually wound up on the east rail line, the concentration of mainlanders and
noise increasing as we drew closer towards Lo Wu. Still relatively clean at
this point we managed to get through the border to Shenzhen with little
difficulty and a good few stamps. Backpacks in tow we had our first beef noodle
soup from a small shop across the road from the bus station before trekking
back and forth between various bus stations late at night with the wrong kind
of <span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun;">票</span> (or so Maddie said - I am doubtful ever since the pork bun china
week incident). I was freaking out at the prospect of things failing miserably
on day one, Dorte was radiating Ecuadorian peace vibes and Maddie was ecstatic
that her masterplan to get us stuck in China was being realised. We did
eventually make it onto our sleeper bus, sharing our one bottle of water, some
gum and our first packet of oreos. That was the most comfortable night's sleep
I had the entire holiday and I woke up bouncing along the road to Nanning in
time to write Clody a letter and read some of Jonathan Raban's Driving
Home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The next day we
pulled into Nanning, bought some dirt cheap buns, made some insanely excited
friends on the bus we took to get to the train station and then sat in Dico's
(rip off KFC China style) for about 5 hours. This was interspersed with trips
to the toilet, purchases of kilos and kilos of mandarins and furry lychees, pot
noodles and photoshoots with starstruck Chinese. As well as a 40minute long Uno battle to the grave. The train, though in the end
one of our most luxurious modes of transportation, was at first glance a rather
tight squeeze. We played big 2 and Maddie kept winning. Maddie and I drank our
pot noodle soup and Dorte avoided the inevitable carcinogens of doing so. The
train was headed from Nanning to Hanoi which meant that there was going to be a
late night border crossing. We were rudely awaken by a skeletal man in a
foreboding uniform banging on our compartment which we shared with a chinese
man and woman yelling PASSPORT. So naturally we handed over our passports for
fear of our lives. I managed to nod off again before there was another knock
and we were ushered (or rudely forced) off the train to sit in a cold room with
a load of disgruntled strangers. I nearly shat myself when I realised I'd left
my passport on the train and would have to walk past the heartless zombie
guards to reclaim it. Maddie and Dorte can vouch for that. That border crossing
over, we had a few more hours of disturbed sleep on the train (not for Maddie,
the log child) before pulling into Hanoi at roughly 5 in the morning with only
Dorte’s well remembered 100RMB changed into Vietnamese dong. This unfortunately
was not enough to make it the few kilometres to our hostel by taxi so we paired
up with an Indonesian and had an “issue” upon arriving at our hostel at 5:30
without the means to pay for the taxi. After trying the atms over and over and
cursing the uselessness of Hong Kong dollars we threw some RMB at him and ran
away, tripping over some stray dogs on the way. Ringing the bell of the hostel
with a certain degree of trepidation warranted a sleepy looking face appearing
from behind the rising metal shutter and shooing us from the Friendly
Backpacker’s Hostel to the Elizabeth Hotel across the road. We brushed our
teeth and washed our faces for the first time in what was an unhygienic amount
of time (the first of many) and shared computer time between myself and Dorte;
Maddie passed out peacefully on the only couch in the lobby aside from the one
the concierge was drooling on. At 7 we were promised free breakfast and I
flipped, pulling the IT’S ALL A TRAP THEY WANT OUR MONEY disgruntled white
tourist card. Turns out they were actually being incredibly hospitable and in
the end I had two delicious fried egg baguettes and a hape of dragon fruit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We bummed around the lobby of the Friendly Backpacker’s hostel for
a while until we could check in then bounded up the stairs and had showers.
These showers were somewhat ethereal; in the water stained mirror one could
watch the dirt peel away until one had changed colour. Magic. We talked for a
short while with the a dirty Londonese motorbike enthusiast and a Russian girl
who clinged to his every word and was on her way to buy a motorbike before
heading out to Hanoi for a walk. The few days we spent in Hanoi were some of
the best; drinking mango shakes on plastic stools in a church square, walking
around the lake and the old quarter trying to find the cheapest backpack,
eating pho and drinking tiger beer. And laughing at Maddie as her impoverished children facial infection grew. Maddie and I went to visit Uncle Ho but he was
off getting a facial in Russia so we just saw the mausoleum instead. Maddie got
scammed by a friendly banana seller and spent about $10 on bananas which I didn’t
eat because I was too busy laughing. Everyday was a game of real life Frogger,
death defying experiences with every motorbike at every turn for every quest
for every cheap kebab. We went to Ha Long Bay on the cheapest day trip we could
find, made friends with an American girl over our disgust for the halfway stops
to marble statue workshops where a packet of m&ms would set you back as
much as we’d paid for the bus journey itself. Ha Long was, of course, stunning,
and the seafood on the boat wasn’t bad either. We bumped into the Indonesian we’d
shared a taxi with and the Chinese lady who’d been on our train whilst kayaking
through caves we refused to pay for. The massive cave we stopped at was lit
like a Filipino club but that made the experience all the better, if lacking in
some Cher. The tiny minibus seemed to take years to make the torturous journey
back to Hanoi but we held out on the gold plated m&ms with the promise of a
kebab and a good old can of Tiger on our valiant return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We took an overnight train to Danang to get to Hoi An from Hanoi,
which arrived at 5am. Or 6am. Or shit why aren’t we there yet it’s 8am. Hey Mr,
DANANG? IS THIS DANANG? HAVE WE MISSED IT? No miss, no miss, keep waiting. Hey
guys I think we’ve missed it. It’s 11am. We’ll just skip Hoi An and go straight
to Ho Chi Minh. …Oh wait Maddie read the schedule wrong. We get in at 1. So we
got in at 1, where we were accosted by a pretentious English guy trying to find
someone to share his mini bus with. Dorte was convinced that we would get
trafficked, but Maddie “Students Against Slavery” Melton and Hannah “Common
Sense” Read persuaded her otherwise and we got a darn good deal, whizzing past
the abandoned resorts lining the coast to Hoi An. We were only in Hoi An for a
night, staying at the Loc Phat homestay. The minibus driver was a friend of the
woman who owned the house and got her helper to collect us from the end of the dirty
lane where we walked to the lime house and she offered us sacrificial guavas
from the shrine in the living room. We borrowed bikes and cycled the 15 minutes
to the waterfront where we drank overpriced coconuts and Dorte bought a dress.
We headed back so that Dorte could have her “about to kill us nap”, showered
and got ready to head back out for dinner. It was pouring with rain but I
persisted that we cycle to the waterfront again where I could relive my garlic
fried fish of two years previous. Soaked to the bone we ate, and even had a
dessert of banana pancakes. We managed to get back albeit bedraggled, had an
excellent sleep and woke up the next morning to go and get breakfast again on
bikes. Dorte headed back to be a common app slave whilst Maddie and I temple
hopped and stocked up on nutritious supplies for the forthcoming journey to Ho
Chi Minh. 3 packets of Ritz crackers, and two of Oreos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This next 17 hour train journey was fraught with obnoxiously loud
milk adverts, one of which used a digitalised version of “If you’re happy and
you know it”. By 3am I could have destroyed that television but was held back
only by the distraction at the end of our carriage of a fist fight going on
between someone who wanted their seat pushed back and someone who didn’t. With strangers’
hands and feet peeking through all and any gaps between the seats I was
surprised that not everyone was going beserk at each other. From the train
station in Ho Chi Minh we got motorbikes to our hostel, Dorte falling asleep
with boredom and Maddie squealing with delight at every roundabout. Here was
another early morning hostel crash, and we lay on the floor of the lobby with
another three displaced travellers until 8 waiting for a free room. I read my
book against the vending machine, Maddie again lucked out with the couch and
the fan. The room wasn’t ready by the time our stomachs were digesting
themselves and they weren’t prepared to offer us free breakfast down south so
we headed out round the corner to a market where we had strange whole shrimp
pancake omelette salad things which we pretended to like for each other but
didn’t in retrospect. There were these skinned live zombie frogs with no faces for
sale which were easily the best creatures I’ve ever seen. In Ho Chi Minh we
went to the war museum, didn’t make it into the church on time, couldn’t afford
the Reunification Palace, used the posh toilets in a department store, as well
as visited a few generic touristy markets where we may well have been in the
Ladies Market in Mong Kok. The war museum was a fairly shocking experience, in
the Agent Orange section there was a foetus in a glass case which as you can
probably imagine was a fairly hard hitting installation so to speak. Paying our entry in also meant that we had to budget fairly hard and share a single small bag of chips and rely of a two litre of 7up to sustain ourselves (ok just me). The next
day we visited the post office and I sent letters to the fam before we headed
to the Ho Chi Minh museum which was quite closed. From here we strode to the
army surplus market, where I battled for a naff Buddhist flashing wall light
for Dad’s Christmas present along the way. The army surplus was a mass of
corrugated iron and dusty uniforms with fake veteran Zippos and old black and
white photos in heaps for rows on end. Easily the best part of Ho Chi Minh, it
was pretty surreal. It certainly beat watching the scottish guy in our room with 3 girls’ names
tattooed on him groan with a 3 day long hangover or the fat guy in our hostel taking
prostitutes up to his room. Madison “Stella and Dave groupie numero uno” Melton
wrote a strongly worded indignant letter to him. And kept it to herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> We got a coach to Cambodia for our third border crossing. I may well have drawn a Cambodian visa on my passport with a green Crayola
pencil than gone to the effort of securing an e-visa but either way the
crossing was uneventful – the highlight being the mass produced Korean OAP tourists
with perms and pink velour waistcoats. After driving through the insanely flat
plains of Cambodia for a few hours we arrived in the mish mash that is Phnom
Penh where we fought off the tuktuk drivers only to realise we needed one to
get to Amanda’s sex basement (under the guise of a movie house). In the words of mo Dhaidí, "Dutch Movie House Yoga Place sounds like a poor euphemism for brothel".</span><span style="font-size: large;"> We arrived at
the Flicks where Amanda made us the infamous Phnom Penh hotdog – we recreated
her iconic photo – and we watched Trading Places and The Nightmare Before
Christmas. It was so nice to dance around in socks to Christmas songs and Ramon
was an unreal host (despite our concerns for Amanda’s sexual safety). We went
to the Russian market the next day and I had the most excellentestly beautiful
fried noodles of my life and yet another mango shake whilst the other three
drowned in an endless sea of iced coffee. Following this was a trip to the
genocide museum, which was more impressive for the setting – an ex-school which
had been turned into a prison – than anything else. Photos showing people dead
on the beds which were right in front of you and a room full of skulls, some
with bullet holes, was enough to keep us morbid up until our next visit to the
Killing Fields. This is one of many sites in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge had
murdered hundreds if not thousands of people and buried them in mass graves.
The ground at the killing fields was cratered where the bodies below had decomposed.
There was a huge monument built in the middle where skulls of the victims had
been stacked in a tower. Whilst in there one fell from maybe 20 metres and
scraped my nose before smashing at my feet. Permit me some profanities. Poor
Dorte had to deal with a hysteric me whilst she was listening to a recollection
of how the babies had been murdered. Bear in mind that this was Christmas Eve.
That said, there were celebrations to be getting on with and so we returned
back to the flicks, helped Manda with les customers and headed out for dinner
where we had 3$ juicy fillet steaks and piles of morning glory with unlimited
beer. Ramon joined us halfway through and had his own steak before taking us
out to a cocktail bar on the Waterfront. We headed back and sat around in the
living room, drinking beers from the cinema fridge and getting slowly drunk
before we realised it was 2am on Christmas morning, each of us reading or
common app-ing. I woke up on Christmas morning with Maddie in the duvet-less
double bed beside me and chuckled a bit before sharing out the last of the
rationed Quality Streets and beginning to pack up my stuff. We went out with
Manda Panda to the bakery and stocked up for our next journey, a bus ride
across Cambodia to Siem Reap. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The journey took 9 hours longer than it really
should have done, due to a distinct lack of roads. We pulled into the town and
got collected by a tuktuk with our name (okay actually Amanda’s name) on it
which took us to our hostel. We had dinner and I skyped les parents from
underneath a table in the lobby to wish them a Happy Christmas before heading
upstairs to our rooms to crash out in anticipation of getting woken up at 4:30 to go see
Angkor Wat in all its glory. Angkor Wat in all its glory was really something
quite spectacular, but Dorte pulled a Clodagh and refused to acknowledge that
anything was worth waking up before sunrise for until a few weeks later. Even
Maddie’s chipper was dim. We played real life Temple Run for a while and hunted
down the cheapest 2L bottle of water like it was our mission before heading
back into Siem Reap on the tuktuk where we got fish pedicures – it was gross,
like hundreds of little cats wiping their sandpapery tongues on you – had more
mango stuff and got a delicious meal for 75c of a huge plate of morning glory.
Getting back to the hostel I passed out fully clothed and thus forgot to remind
Dorte to wake up and do her college apps.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Our next journey was into the hellish land that is Thailand on a
budget. Our bus was (naturally) late but we made it to the world’s most
notorious human trafficking border without too much conundrum. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Dorte made friends with a Mexican on the way and I made the most of this opportunity to borrow her iPod to fulfill my Gwen Stefani needs (YOU’RE STILL A SUPER HOT FEMALE). </span><span style="font-size: large;">But then
disaster struck. <strike>Maddie was trafficked</strike> We had queued for hours in scolding heat
in no-man’s land with no food or water waiting to cross into Thailand and when
I reached the front I ran through, skipping merrily into the promised holy land
of mango sticky rice and hermaphrodites and waited for Dorte and Maddie. But
they never came. Whilst I was chilling on my rucksack in the DO NOT LINGER HERE
zone, watching drug deals, reading my book and rationing the last of the Oreos,
Dorte was being frogmarched back to Cambodia for trying to double passport the
border, Maddie “Portable Peer Supporter” Melton on hand. Eventually after
threatening deportation to Phnom Penh, Dorte’s woe stricken face made it
through by police escort. We didn’t even have to pay for the privilege which
must be a bit of an achievement. We waited around at this hellish border for a
while more until we managed to get a mini bus that was going to take us to
Bangkok with some angry white people. The bus unloaded us a good bit away from
our hostel and fairly late at night so we had to get a taxi there. The taxi
driver drove us there, saw the state of it and pleaded and begged us to stay elsewhere.
Buut it was better than the hellish rat infested alleyway hole we’d imagined so
we valiantly walked into a total bumhole. Within two minutes of sitting down
and handing over our money to a whacked out dreadlocked French guy to the
amusement of the people at the bar and under the nervy stares of the lost Chinese
people in the corner, a miserably dressed woman lurched downstairs yelling
incoherent accusations and throwing bottles which skimmed past our
disinterested feet. I was about to write “we went to bed and fell asleep” but
to do so would be a disservice to beds everywhere. I went to plyboard plank on
distorted elevated metal frame and forced myself into a state of less than
conscious before waking up at three am (ish) thinking hmm, I feel a little bit
shite and then realising that BLEURGH all over the door of our 12 metal frame
dorm, and, pushing past that BLEURGH all over the corridor outside. Luckily for
me, the Overstay is the kind of place one can find abandoned t-shirts and boxes
labelled “free clothing” with which to perform a methodical cleaning up,
disposing of the rags in the “toilet’s” “bin”. The next morning (after what
seemed like years of staring out the window to a Thai life insurance billboard),
I managed to grunt at the others that there was no way in hell (Thailand) that
I was going to make any effort to move, so for the morning it was me, my “pillow”,the
garish graffiti (okay 1 in 4 pieces was impressive) and the lifeless junkies “sleeping”
in the “beds” below. By late afternoon I was coerced into leaving by the other
two and I managed a jelly fruit pouch from 7/11. We went to the internet café
where I mooched around on bookface and the common app slaves slaved on their
common apps. That evening we went to Khaosan road, nearly got Maddie a fake ID,
got me some braids to tame the fuzz that was the increasingly bird’s nesty
blonde lump at the front of my face, and bumped into the Cambodian border
Mexican. We sorted out a train and bus to Phuket the next day and it all seemed
so very very easy. We tried to find some fabled fireworks and instead found
Maddie some cheap plaid shirts, before heading back to the cesspool of why not
to do too many drugs kids. The next day we had huge plans to visit all the
temples Bangkok had to offer but instead we couldn’t afford them. We did go to
the longest reclining Buddha in the world and filled our water bottles from the
water fountain at the end though which made the experience well worth the
100baht we paid in. We had strayed slightly from the beaten track on the way
there, finding a somewhat haphazard market where I bought a camera case and
nearly a novelty landline phone. We went back to Khaosan via a park and a
market where I got blueberry Fanta which turned my insides turquoise, and tried
to find a t-shirt for Dorte’s brother. Considering the fact the Khaosan Road
might as well be called T-shirt Road this was harder than expected. From there
we got a taxi to where the train would leave, and Maddie and I took the
opportunity to kickstart our international singing careers by butchering Living
on a Prayer. The train was fairly grim with hard seats and no way of getting
comfortable but whilst Dorte was doing her thang and befriending the Spanish
speakers, I did manage to have a listen to Humbug which sent me dozing a
little. The American couple sitting opposite Maddie and myself looked on the
brink of tears but little did we know how close we would soon be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I woke up the next day (can you wake up without sleeping?) to find
that the train had been delayed about 3 hours, which meant that we’d missed our
bus. Getting off at our stop we were assured that this didn’t matter and that
we’d just catch the next bus direct to Phuket. So we got on a bus which had an
interior like a 70s Dr Who rocketship and which took us all of 5km to a food
stop where we wasted money on some nutrition and lamented the crumbling of our
holiday. We complained a bit but there were too many Russians and Australians
and not enough Americans to make a difference. Eventually we were carted in the
back of a pick up truck with 10 too many people another 5km to yet another food
stop. Where we stayed for hours. And hours. And hours. Of course, all the while
watching other people buy into their messed up business idea of stranding white
people on the side of the road with overpriced sandwiches until they give in.
We didn’t give in, we just yelled a lot and I nearly hitchhiked to Phuket.
Maddie and I lacked angry assertive fathers and Dorte was just killing people
with her death ray eyes, whilst everyone else ordered private cars or sat mute.
By the time the bus came about 5 hours after we should have arrived in Phuket
we weren’t even mildly happy, just emotionless. We reached a travel agency
after dark where a quite amiable but condescending transvestite laughed at our
plight and Maddie’s indignant snapping. We got a taxi to our hostel which was
conveniently situated in the middle of nowhere and left Dorte for dead on the
bed whilst Maddie and I ate ready meals from the 7/11 petrol station down the road. The next morning
we left for the beach, borrowing the hostel’s towels and fashioning bikini-less
Maddie a bikini out of Amanda’s bra that I had. We got a car there and set up
shop, hoping to run in Jimmy B, Sarah, Mai and Ana at some point. We didn’t,
but it was okay cause we spent a day in the waves, not being able to afford a
sun lounger with shade, bought our first proper meal in Thailand (well mine
anyway), made me a sumo wrestler and a
turtle and got hideously hideously burnt. The sunburn was unlike any other but
we managed to steal some internet from the Scandinavian hotel of choice and get
in touch with James who we planned to meet in Patong for NYE. No one would take
us there in a tuktuk because of the traffic but eventually we managed to beg
and plead with one woman who agreed to take us halfway there and let us walk
the rest for a generous fee. We had to comply, and made it to Patong where a French
couple were in a tuktuk heading towards the main beach. We joined them and
agreed to split the cost and when dropped off the 500 metres later and paying
the agreed price that tuktuk driver flipped and was shouting at us for not
paying extra per person. He chased after Dorte and grabbed her bag until we
managed to get lost in the crowd and some other tourists shouted back at him.
We went down Bangla Road with its mass produced scenes of debauchery and found
James and his sister and friend. After one beer each Maddie and Dorte had both
thrown up from the effects of not eating properly for a few days and sunstroke.
By the time midnight and the new year rolled around we were destroyed wrecks of
past human beings,I carrying Maddie around and all of us slathering aloe vera
on each other (which I later found I was allergic to) and trying valiantly to
smile amidst the ping pong shows and silly string. Though the (ingenious) plan
had been to stay out all night, not book a hostel and then head back to the
hostel we had stayed at the night before to get a bus to the train station to
escape the god awful country in the morning, we had to give in and admit that
we really needed to sleep. We had no other option than to get a tuktuk back to
the hostel we had stayed at, Maddie lying comatose on one side covered in her
ratty white towel, Dorte and I sore and silent. We reached the hostel and snuck
in the back, finding refuge in a single toilet cubicle, and sat in the puddle
by the little hose on my shoes only in my underwear cause clothes were too
painful to wear, Dorte on the toilet seat and Maddie shivering in the other
corner. After a few minutes Dorte rightfully pulled a “fuck this shit” and
left, leaving the two of us in anticipation of the other’s inevitable panic
attack. We heard voices talking about someone being found and Maddie flipped
out about being caught for trespassing and taken to the Thai police and so
being on the lookout for Dorte we snuck out of the hostel (this is about 2:30am)
and walked to the 7/11 where we took turns trying to sleep on the benches
outside, powering through a packet of chewing gum and being hassled by stray
dogs. I couldn’t sleep at all and I was in agony, Maddie throwing up black bile
in the squat toilet round the back. Every so often I’d check the time on the
credit card machine in the petrol station; 2:45, 3:42, 5:17, until 6:45 when we
walked back petrified to the hostel to find Dorte, who had spent the night in a
slightly more spacious toilet downstairs. The hostel woman was raging because
we’d lost her towels, I had a personal crisis because I was a good-for-nothing
towel stealer until we paid her off in return for a few minutes of internet to
let Sophia know we were planning to arrive into Kuala Lumpur the next morning.
We went out to the end of the lane to wait for the mini bus to take us to the
train station. We had a mightily important train to catch in order not to be
homeless and totally broke and, worst of all, in Thailand. 15 minutes, half an
hour, an hour ticked past, marking the gradual loss of all resolve and faith in
humanity. The bus came eventually, and we begged them to take us to Hat Yai in
time for our train. The driver looked fairly incredulous, most likely because
he was only going to drop us off at the travel agency. We were ignored as bus
after bus went off from the shop until we finally got on another only to be dropped
off down the road, picked up again and promised over again that we’d make our
train, and picked up one last time. We stopped for lunch at about 1, where
the driver said “Okay now here for 20
minutes then it takes us 3 hours to get to Hat Yai ok?”. Which was really not
very okay because our train left at 4. Maddie: PLEASE WE NEED TO BE THERE AT
3:30! Driver: Yes, we get there in three hours! I cried a little under my scarf
and didn’t speak, Maddie pleading NO 3 THIRTY. YOU SAID 3 THIRTY. PLEASE.
PLEASE. Until Dorte whipped out the Cambodia-Thailand border crossing puppy dog
face and the driver looked at an angle to the sky, thought and then time
stopped as he wrote 3:40 down on the paper. My heart was in my throat for the next 2 and a
half hours. He drove like god knows what, drifting on the corners of paddy
field lanes when the traffic was too much on the main road, zigzagging at
140km/h along the dual carriageway. We made it into a gridlocked Hat Yai at 3:41. Following signs for the bus station we
cringed; nonononononononononotraintrainpleasepleasepleasetraintraintrain. At
3:45 we spotted a train track and he pulled into the carpark. The first helpful
person in Thailand had just probably just saved our lives. I shook his hand
like I ent never shaken anyone’s hand before and we legged it to the station with
our rucksacks, our sunburnt backs getting rubbed raw. Sitting on the train at
3:50 it still doesn’t quite seem real. We made it to the Thai Malaysian border
in a state of shock. People were lovely to us, even the border control people
smiled and we floated back onto the train on a pink fluffy cloud bound for the
heaven that is Kuala Lumpur. That night Maddie and Dorte passed out but I seriously
must have been fairly shell shocked or sunburnt or cold under the air con that
I stayed conscious until we pulled into Kuala Lumpur main station in the early
hours of the morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><no photos remain of the worst new year of our lives></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We had no ringgit at all to get the light rail to Sophia’s side of
town or to get any food – we hadn’t exactly eaten the day before save some
cheap fake Oreos – so we fell asleep outside the KFC in the station until we
managed to get a little money out to get onto the train, I completely toasted
and unable to walk or see straight from 2 hours of no sleep and 5 days of
Thailand. We reached there at about 9,
found a payphone and some fried rice and sat down on some cardboard, watching
Maddie wake Sophia up on the phone with a voice trying to be light hearted and
carefree. Sophia turned up a short while later and had to deal with the most
unreal smell (we hadn’t showered since the first night in Phuket and had been
in the sea in the meanwhile) and the very sight of us was probably enough to
make one’s stomach turn. Regardless, she took us to her house and we showered
and recuperated, before we ate. Roti and fried rice and lamb curry and fried
chicken and banana roti and sugar roti and cheese roti and mango lassies and
orange cake and Hershey’s peanut butter cups and biryani and yoghurt salad and
chutney and mangosteens and durian and macaroons and Taiwanese dessert and
Froyo and sushi and…probably more food in that one day than I ate in 5 days in
Thailand. I had the most delicious sleep and the next day we went to get nasi
lemak and iced milo and then met Mustapha in the KLCC shopping mall before
heading to the zoo which we couldn’t afford so instead we went on a free monkey
safari through the suburbs which was infinitely better. Kuala Lumpur then
dissolves into a magical culinary journey complete with running through thunderstorms
in pursuit of shaved ice, walks in parks, photos by fountains, kebabs, Turkish ice-cream
magicians, snow globe exploits and free birthday donuts and beer for Dorte. Our
final leg meant getting up at 3:45 to catch a taxi to the airport. Of course
being the cheap eejits we were (the entire trip) we went with AirAsia which
meant that they used the cheap terminal and not the one we got the taxi to, so
in the end we got a lift with a shady character pretending to be a taxi driver
for money but by this stage my “avoid scams to make Daddy proud” resolve was
wearing thin. We blew our last bits of money on more donuts and broke plenty of
handbaggage rules before boarding our first and last flight of the journey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(This blog post was 5,600 odd words long which is about the amount
of kilometres we travelled. Hurhur)</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-30596339760718595812013-02-16T15:50:00.001+00:002013-02-16T15:52:45.135+00:00Living the high life: Selfies in bed<span style="font-size: large;">I have not posted since September 4th. This does not mean that I have spent 5 months doing nothing of note, but that I have been busy crawling through the thick slime of physics, chemistry and unmentionable acronyms associated with the IB. I'm not exactly through it yet, but because I have mocks in two days and have already tidied my corner, played as much Blokia solitare as one can handle, listened to too much Missy Elliott (which for me is quite impressive, I can go for days on "Work It"), I figured that the only reasonable form of procrastination would be to slink sheepishly back here.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Also Ruth made me guilty with the return of <a href="http://ahealthykindofvanity.blogspot.ie/">A Healthy Kind Of Vanity</a> and Áine and Verity will be happy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">5 months is a lot of material to prioritise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My hair was blonde and I went to see Azealia with wondrous bagel-making Apoorva. My hair was ginger for a day and I wore Chris' hat for a day. My hair was brown and I took selfies in bed.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKef_ogjMKjhglIcoEwhO9w4httD7daDFXUW2fTQ3ZJVOxA4GTzs5LayP072Yaa5mjJ32k82slPE0aY6Rwy1WcmIw6bZrdhHEKET8ujCBCrbdXBiaYo7jrWvVdWbJME-Z3BPA7pXJhDWI/s1600/TPhoto_00003+(7).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKef_ogjMKjhglIcoEwhO9w4httD7daDFXUW2fTQ3ZJVOxA4GTzs5LayP072Yaa5mjJ32k82slPE0aY6Rwy1WcmIw6bZrdhHEKET8ujCBCrbdXBiaYo7jrWvVdWbJME-Z3BPA7pXJhDWI/s320/TPhoto_00003+(7).jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I developed a passion for internet petitions and have saved <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HKSharkFoundation">sharks</a>, <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/">Ecuador</a> and <a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savecardiffridingschool/">Cardiff Riding School</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I went to Taiwan with Maddie for a week, where we moaned about the single life, went for bike rides, drank so much bubble tea that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a helluva lot of bubbles still left in my system, went to the most incredible natural hot springs in the middle of a deserted gorge (save for Zi, whom we had to shake off by pretending to be on our years anniversary holiday), and made friends with the mongolian chain smokers in our strange bedsit excuse for a hostel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I went travelling for 3 weeks by land across South East Asia from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur (and will probably write a whole 'nother post about that) with my fellow raggle taggle gypsies Maddie and Dorte.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I bought embarrassing amounts of hideous clothing and became a sumo wrestler for a night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I adopted some children and made Dilene's life a living hell.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> I raised my first year to like Hui Lau Shan H1 large and she raised me to better music taste and clothing badassery. (Cue Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I turned <strike>47</strike> 18 and now listen to ridiculous amounts of BBC radio 4 and occaisionally go to the gym. This is in accordance with PROJECT HOT ROOM 2/307 and THE COLLARBONES SHOWDOWN JASON V. HANNAH. I went swimming with Bara in Starfish Bay before Trevor's morning block and the only light was from the phytoplankton which made our arms and legs fluorescent blue. That has made my "best Thursday 6am in my whole life ever" slot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Paula valiantly tried to teach me how to move my hips, but I have found that my talent lies in dragon boating and amateur photoshopping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">James is really hot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am sorry for neglecting this little corner of the interwebs for so long, and during these next two weeks of moderately important exams I promise you I will update far too regularly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">h</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-47744379150545922022012-09-04T06:10:00.002+01:002012-09-05T01:22:05.074+01:00 "What's a typical weekend like?"<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Hola.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Coh moh est ass.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Due to popular demand (and a Bosnian fan) I am back. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I got back to xiang gong on the 19th of Aout. I'd like to say it was an uneventful flight but unfortunately not. After leaving mo dhaidi in the airport and saying my last goodbyes with my stinky ass Pepperami breath I hobbled to my gate aran sweater in tow. I say hobbled, because I had a liquid nitrogen induced blister the size of Jupiter's fourth biggest moon on my left big toe. This did mean that after my flight to Laandaaan I got to hobble to the Passenger Services desk and get a golf buggy with an old kiwi farmer who fit the "can totally walk but gets the buggy for the hell of it" category. I felt so wonderfully obnoxious. It goes slow enough for people to stare longingly at you as you go past which is an added bonus. On the flight I got my foot run over by the food trolley and watched the Lorax and about 10 episodes of New Girl. I were met by a wheelchair after getting off the plane and had a painstaking conversation with the poor woman pushing me because neither of us quite understood the other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Despite being saghas neirbhíseach about going back to school, it was crazy normal to be back. Sat eating dinner in the canteen with Jamés, avoiding packing and napping instead with Glenda, doing a tour of public hospitals on my first day back (Prince Of Wales had a 7 hour waiting time for A&E patients and a 4 hour 43 minute waiting time for those with heart attack symptoms) and having Monica and the hospital nurse pin me down and attack my toe to the sounds of an old man die in the corridor. All was as should be.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.govarch.commerce.nsw.gov.au/files/Water_Savings_Prince_Of_Wales_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://www.govarch.commerce.nsw.gov.au/files/Water_Savings_Prince_Of_Wales_LR.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It didn't really feel like we did much in the way of class, save a physics lab and maybe a chinese e-mail or two. Did my theory of knowledge presentation on the ethical implications of Death Note. Switching down to standard chemistry has made my life full of rainbows and sunshine and love. And free blocks. So many free blocks. Afternoons were spent unpacking and getting my fix of bubble tea and Hui Lau Shan mango sago after a summer of desolation. My curtain rail broke under the weight of all my clothes and fell out of the ceiling. Maintenance have been notified. We went out for buffet Korean BBQ with tutor group one night. I have rarely eaten that much MEAT. I met up with a fellow Kilkennyian at the classiest karaoke bar in HK. Madonna's Like a Prayer was no challenge for my magnificent voice. I cut Jason's hair and gave him a bald patch. I nearly got my lip pierced to boost my street cred for when the first years came. Unforch (or perhaps luckily, it depends on your own view) the piercer was on holidays, so I went back to school, skyped daddy and said hahahahahahalippiercinghahahah to which he was like lol no and then I bitched out. Goodbye street cred but at least Wendy still loves me. I went to Mong Kok with Paloma and bought ugly clothes and sushi. I found a fedora in my room. I've started to get into the Foster the People album. A riveting two weeks I assure you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And then the first years came.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I like to use the analogy that we are the spiders in the equation. More scared of them than they are of us. The canteen is suddenly mobbed; the cheese goes, the yoghurt goes, <strike>my will to live goes</strike>. On the Saturday I went diving with coral monitoring - which was nice to escape the madness. I couldn't dive cause of my toe but I did make the most of the nutella sangwitch opportunities. A good crowd of us went to Sai Kung for honeymoon dessert and pizza. Mouthfuls of mango red bean gunk meant that we didn't have to interect much. At about 10pm when I was about to head back, Mia asked if I wanted to do a 2km open water swim race in Repulse Bay cause Dilzy had pulled out. The next morning. At 6am. So I said yeah sure. Having still not properly met my roommates I left at 6am with Mia, got collected by a total stranger, went to Repulse Bay, ate half a packet of digestive cookies and swam 2km as Dilene Mugenzi. Longest race of my life and I nearly crashed into Ocean Park but still got a silver medal. And beat Mia. Was back in school before lunchtime, in an attempt to prove that asking "What's a typical weekend like?" is the most redundant question ever, considering I went with a hideous skirt n' sparkly boob tube-clad Jason to the airport to collect Morgan that afternoon. The people of Ma On Shan are highly judgemental. We played dodgeball on sunday night too. That was one hell of an initiation. Remembering my first week I feel terrible for them - I was the kid too scared to go brush my teeth. So far though they seem unnervingly settled. I'm looking forward to loving them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Or at least cohabiting.</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-2803522555210079212012-05-13T16:56:00.000+01:002012-05-13T16:56:50.482+01:00Eating Kebabs Like There's No (exam) Tomorrow<span style="font-size: large;">Sooooo....after English on Wednesday morning (during which I wrote the longest English essay I've ever written) I totally did loads of Chinese. On Memrise. For hours and hours. And hours dans ma chambre. I got a parcel from mo dhaidí, popped in to Jason in the art room who was busy studying Skins, and went back to my hovel. Upon examining the contents of the package, I decided that I was in the mood for Skittles. After devouring the aforementioned delicacies, I realised that I had, in fact, totally misjudged my craving and was actually in the mood for chocolate. So I ate the strawberry poppets. Then discovered my need for more chocolate. And so ate the entire packet of Cadbury's fingers. Later on that evening I gave myself a "study break", watched the episodes of the Savage Eye that had been in the parcel and polished off three DipDabs. Twas Bellington's birthday too, so I wrote many a seranading wall post. Still don't feel quite right not being le mo Ginge but such is life as a deportee. We're quare good together though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thursday I again unintentionally woke up early, got brekkie and a shower and studied Chinese. Proper like. This went on for the majority of the day as I sat, secluded in the Block 2 computer room, writing mundane sentences such as "This is my 57th cup of tea today" and "I do not speak Arabic at the hospital". I went to tutoring at 5:30, back at 7, and then more studying though a little more half-heartedly with JKwok zai block er computer fangjian, until 1am ish, after a particularly intense powernap left me looking horrendously drained.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Friday morning was more of the same, until I reached the kind of hour or so beforehand period where you take one of two approaches (both of which have the same outcome). There's the FECK IT I'M FECKED ANYWAY TRALALALALA approach, or the convincing-yourself-that-you-do-know-your-stuff approach. I like to think I sauntered into the exam ooozing pretentious self-assurance. I came out alive which is all that matters. I went for a quick swim, then back to my room before peer support at 4:30, which turned out to be actually at 4. Meh. No shkin off my back. At 7 we had muchos pizza in the spiritual centre then I popped back to my room, still with a horrible guilty cantstudyhaveexams feeling. I lazed about on my laptop, doing lots of nothing, when Áine persuaded me to get up and out. Had an uneventful evening but I needed it to shnap out of my monotonous exam mode.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sa'urday I woke up at 7:06, inwardly screamed at myself NO YOU ARE GOING TO LIE IN, and then did so until 9:30 and 10:50 respectively. Once up, it was shopping time. After a huge fiasco involving lost moneys, I mean, even the mass e-mail brigade was engaged, I found me moolah in a clever place I'd found to hide it then totally forgotten about. I headed out happy as larry to Mong Kok first, where I picked up a denim waistcoat yoke and a dress in Me & G, and some MEGA HEELS and a top from H&M. Also some earrings that I fell in love with before realising that I didn't have my ears pierced anymore. I may do something about that. I got the MTR to Causeway Bay to go to Forever 21 and accidentally left through the wrong exit of the station, leading me lost for a mere few seconds before miraculously I glimpsed the monstrosity of a well packaged mass produced clothing warehouse. This offered up another top agus maxi dress. I went back to school, azzoluthely drained after the ridiculously long journey home then had me a shower and got dressed ter go out again. We left at 9:20ish much to Jason's dismay the poor divil. I'd decided to trial the day's reapings and all went miraculously well. I didn't cop out of wearing me heels, which, though mere wedges and not quite killer pavement stabbing mechanisms, kept me on my toes all night (chortle). Me faux-glamorous image may have been ruined when I had to eat that kebab over a wheelie-bin (bearing in mind that I had not once during my time consumed any other recreational substance - save a Galaxy bar), but there is genuinely no other way to eat those kebabs, let alone whilst retaining dignity. Got a taxi back with Alisher & Palpal and went to bed after grabbing those 20 precious minutes of internet. Feet did be grand too might I add, though the lingering taste of kebab was ever prominent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sunday got up at 8 and the world tasted like kebab. I went tutoring, got paid, came back, had brunch, then got ready for feeeetbol (world still tastes of kebab 3x teethbrushing and 10x chewing gum later). I was the only loser who bothered to turn up at the bus at 11:20 but soon enough we were all on our way to Happy Valley for our 6 hour tournament. Das pitch was wonderbar, the park being all surrounded by sooopah tall skyscrapers and that. After drawing our first match 1-1, I started reading the second Hunger Games book that had also been in me parcel and ate my weight in bananas (after applying my weight in suncream). Second match we won 2-0, earning us notre place dans le final. Khetkat streaked across the pitch completely naked at this point, and had to be tackled into modesty by the Chinese Naked Police.Top two out of six was prolly one of our better achievements of the year, especially as we were no longer playing butch teenage girls but now butch women with adoring kids and husbands on the side. They were already one-up on us in that they'd given birth. We lost the final 1-0, though I'd like it to be known that I did one-of-those-kicks-when-the-ball-is-coming-from-the-sky-and-you-just-randomly-or-perhaps-completely-on-purposefully-stick-up-your-foot-like-some-kind-of-gymnast-twisting-it-235-degrees-and-hit-it-hard-in-the-right-direction kicks. It's the most skillful I've ever felt. Sweating like a european in a humid country after strenuous exercise, we celebrated in style with our winnings of non-alcoholic champagne and dodgy baseball caps. The bus smelled rank but I stuck on the Strokes and all was well. Got back, had dindins, had a much needed shower, peed around on bookface and the likes then had a tension-filled room allocation meeting and ended up on the boys floor like the sluh I am. Wrote this and totes forgot to Skype the rentals. Will do so tomozzo. After finishing this book. Sayonara! x</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-57948356499679406122012-05-08T14:54:00.001+01:002012-05-08T14:54:11.666+01:00Future Job Prospects: Mermaid<span style="font-size: large;">Post Chem and Physics I feel I can now openly write my blog without feeling the shame of the school and the guilt of myself. Thing is, my brain's spent so long on electromagnetic wave optics and trigonal bipyramidal VSEPR theory that I kinda forget errything that happened in the past week (or so). </span><div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So dinner on Saturday was followed by BLANK. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday morning I was supposed to tutor Paco but the thunder and rain was UNRALE so Cherry called it off. Instead I headed off to Kowloon Tong with Mia, Paula and Leila to study geo in Pacific Coffee. <a href="http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/228/703/first-world-problems-ii.jpg">They didn't do chai latte</a> (boo hiss) but they didn't really mind us studying so that was great. A few variations of the term "Because poor women have more babies" were thrown around and we felt very intellectual altogether. I shamelessly splashed out on a sketchpad (which I didn't realise was a hipster brand until an obviously jealous Jason pointed it out) and some nice markers in the most lovely bookshop ever - though it was lacking chairs/beanbags. We got back I dunno when, to find that José had lost his "flash-dick" and therefore initiated a mass e-mail war. I studied a tiny bit for my chem test, doodled in my notebook, went to Pooey's room for a bit and doodled and went to bed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monday was 9am chem test. Slightly better than the last though it was hardly a happy skippy fairytale walk in the park moment for me. I studied a bit of Maths and went for a swimble. At 6 I met Áine and le Bobster at the gate and we went to Mammy's house in Sai Kung before heading out avec na páistí agus a fear to Hebe for dinner. I had me a pizza and we talked at length about Denmark. And Irish passports. Got back late enough, did a little more maths and some Chinese.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday morning I went to tutor Paco and played a substantial amount of hangman with him. The rest of the day were spent with the Kinks and my maths book in the block 1 dayroom, before tutor group (and Simba) milkshakes, burgers and wedges in Wendy's flat. The xbox Kinect was out again, but obvs we're all such hardworking souls that we neglected it in favour of further studying. I did some maths and convinced myself I had it down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wednesday, and geo first exam. Threw down some made up (though highly-plausible) case studies about Ireland and all seemed to go well. Gender and development? Sor'ed lawd. Maths paper one then violently assaulted me. I was a little shellshocked after it so lord knows how paper two went. Wednesday evening consisted of more chinese, another nice swim and little else. Think I watched </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1869309/" style="font-size: x-large;">Black Pond</a><span style="font-size: large;"> that night too, which was the best movie I've seen in yonks. Or maybe it's just Will Sharpe. Obsession du jour, ngl.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thursday began with unintentionally waking up early. I did a pitiable job on physics then somehow wasted the rest of the day. I did swim though. Oh, and went to tutor Charlie. And discovered that it is Laura who has my pink skirt. I added a load of words to our 中文 class' Memrise list. Jason and Paolina came over and tried on my sequin-adorned clothing and that was about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Friday I got up early, had a shower, got brekkie then headed to Sai Kung on the bus with Palomo. We set up camp in an unbelievably air-conditioned Starbucks (who <i>do</i> do chai lattes, buíochas le dia) and I waded through 2 chapters of physics, exam questions and all. After a quick lunch of a mega Paisano's slice, we got the bus back, I went for a swim and then I had peer support training. From 4:30-6:30 which were fine, if a little tiresome when bang shlap in the middle of study leave. Friday night I was with Jason in the art room then had a DMC with Livvie. Went for a walk with Mia to Ma On Shan. I got fro yo and on our way back along the dark promenade we had to pass through frog breeding zone. We nearly got sexually assaulted and were saved only by the fact that we weren't frogs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saturday morning was my meeting with Linder about me english exam. That was fine, just 30 minutes of shite. I went to learn chem with Beata and Khet but soon gave up, instead swimming again because it makes it feel like I've been productive, and then procatinating with Jason in the art room. I'm ashamed to say I watched Mean Girls too, not because of the connotations of the movie (all of which, in my eyes, are positive), but because I did absolutely nooooooooothing. We listened to lots of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag8XcMG1EX4">Crowded House</a>, argued over whose country had the best musical exports and procatinated some more. We also perfected the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7CHfqg0wd8">One Direction "What Makes You Beautiful" parody </a>in retaliation to my supposed friends at home having allowed their minds to become goo under the influence of those five unsavoury boys. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday I went over to tutoring for Paco. Didn't get paid which was a little disheartening but I'm hoping she'll realise for next time and I'll be rolling in it. I actually did study all day Sunday, venturing out only for a serious sugar fix. And a swim. And had a long study break in which I skyped ma famille. Did a helluva lotta physics past papers though, wrote my english essay and went to bed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monday morning was another Linda meeting. I bumped into Áine at brekky before handing in my essay so we had a nice half hour dmc. After my meeting was over I put a wash on then knuckled down, doing physics and chemistry (and having some amazing power-naps) until I wound up rolling about on the floor of the block 1 dayroom with Maya and Khet having a "productive" pillow fight - you had to yell a useful chemistry definition before you were allowed to attack. Skyped Megzers too. I was super jeally of her jumper. Before going to bed I got my stuff from the laundry room and therapeutically changed my duvet cover, put away my laundry, matched my socks and created a bag for lost socks all in order to put off the inevitable fact that chemistry and physics were on the next day. I listened to Sana's advice though, and convinced myself that I knew everything. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This had me sleeping well until 4am when I woke up in agony. Fitfully I stayed in bed until 6:30 when I felt the need to check my facebook. I had a shower, went to breakfast then ran to the nurse's office for the strongest painkillers she had. I downed a couple but was in far too much pain to revise before chem. Chem and physics exams happened, I went to Ma On Shan for celebratory large H1 from the Hui Lau Shan place with Livvie, came back, swam (though I think I only did 4ish lengths, the rest of the time being spent pretending to be a mermaid #noshame), had a pear for dinner cause it was grosspants then returned to meine schlafviertel to write this. English tomorrow but sure that'll be nowt, I'm a native-speaking lang and lit cop out. 中文是另一个故事...</span></div>
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<br /></div>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-55690319634758455382012-04-28T11:31:00.001+01:002012-04-28T11:31:13.330+01:00The Great Khan Academy Binge of 2012<span style="font-size: large;">At the height of les examens I don't feel I should be indulging myself in the mysterious art of blog-writing, but I'm at that awkward "half hour before dinner" time anyway - 'snot like I'd get anything else done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I recks I left off with me potentially watching Skins with Jason. Somehow, we did end up watching the first three episodes - all in different locations around campus. We watched the beginning of Franky's episode but she's just so infuriating that we couldn't bear to watch any more. And saw an absolutely MEGA spider.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday morning I set off with Halfdan & Maxim for some WWF volunteering mayokey in the basement of th'absolute back arse of nowhere in Whampoa. We really didn't do much at awl at awl, save occasionally dress up as pandas and sign petitions not to eat shark fin soup (don't do it y'all). We got lunch in this chinese fast food place - I don't mean no Mickey D's now. €2.50 for a mega beef stir fry yoke. After squashing into the panda suit for a couple more hours and taking photos with a billion people who think you speak cantonese we headed home at about 4 (ish) and got back onto campus around 6. No clue whatsoever what I did on Sunday evening. I like to think it involves studying. Oh! It does. I spent a while dans the bibliotheque.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Monday I had my last day 1. Physics first block, and save from that not much to report. Actually had a mega dictation in Chinese but it went alright. At break we took photos in our WE ARE BAGHDAD t-shirts. Pretty legit really, I'm building up quite the collection of oversized pyjama shirts. On Monday afternoon I were with Paloma in the common room, skyping with le daddykins, then made a few pinhole cameras to the beautiful sound of "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__HeE6NWmDE">Hot Problems</a>" followed by pizza with the coral monitors in the common room. Think I spent Monday night working(ish) in the block 1 computer room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ar an Máirt bhí lá uimhir a dó agam. Chem first block. We did a lab. It was vile. In fact, day 2 generally always is vile. Tar éis an scoil, I went for a wonderful aul swim with Mia - despite the soopah cloudy weather it was pleasantly warm. <strike>Mebbe Mia peed</strike>.I did some mando & physics study before going to tutor Paco. That child is insane. Read some Pippi Longstocking and The Jungle Book, got paid and bought a celebratory grape soda and those weird chewy sweets that try to be Puccho, but aren't, but are, however, a lot cheaper. When I got back I shtudied a little more after a poor dinner of toast and a fake pear in the block 1 dayroom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wednesday was my last morning free of the year. Twas a grand aul day, with Khan Academy and Memrise.com binges interspersed with a trip to Ma On Shan with Áine for fro-yo and summat from the bakery. We walked back cause it's almost sacrilege not to by now. Went back to me hardcore study and made my procrastination productive by spending my time on College Prowler and putting myself off unis in the US. I caught Eoin on his half day back home so we had our regular Wednesday chat and showed each other morto pictures of each other. I feel it might be pushing the line to post one here - though I'm tempted. I think I'm more worried he'll retaliate with the ones of me that don't deserve to ever see the light of day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fursdaaay turned into a musical after maths class, with myself and KhetKatAttack (I try saying this errytime cause it sounds cool but it never really works so I have to stick to Khetkat) skipping to chemistry singing "IT'S THE FIIIINAL CHEM CLASS doo doo doo doo do do doo doo dooooo" (repeat). After school I watched an episode of Shkins, did some more mando and then went to tutor Charlie which was great. We talked about the most ridiculous things, though a large chunk was on the anatomy of jellyfish and how likely her flat was to suffer at the hand of a natural disaster. I got back to school to find that I'd missed dessert night and so was a little emotionally unbalanced which led me to staring blankly at the art room wall mouthing songs to myself whilst Paula, Leila and Mia got concerned to the point of freaked out/annoyed. I went to bed relatively early on Thursday after ordering McDonalds, and Jkwok was sposed to come over to watch Skins. Child bitched out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Friday was my last day of classes for this year. Nammuch cray cray shizzle happened, save Jason letting us out of mando early after a rapage of a dictation. I watched a coupla episodes of Skins then had peer support training from 2:30 until 5:30. I left there at about 6, after leaving a meeting on how we should monitor the stalking of the 0 years. At 7 I went to lion dance with Beata and, when no one showed up, went back to my room. Did a little more mando practice then went back to Lion at 8 and beat up James. Left there, then Jason came over, we watched 2 episodes of Skins, went to Wellcome, bought grape soda, C+, crisps, mars bars, ice-cream, inshtant nudeln and then watched the other two (all the while yelling abuse at Franky for being such an annoying tool). We also agreed to go to Peru together after graduation next year. They deffs are not ready for our jelly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This morning I got up again for Lion Dance, and left when not enough people showed up. I called Sara on the dayroom phone then at 11:30 met Áine at the gate to go to Sai Kung. We got to Sara's house, met her friend Ivan (the perhaps stretched link between me & Sara: Me -> Mum -> Ivan -> Sara) then went out for lunch at the country club place which was beaut. Got back at about 4:30, then wrote this and did a little more mando. 'Bout to go to dinner, slán leat!</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-5651862325380724992012-04-21T16:10:00.000+01:002012-04-21T16:12:18.222+01:00The Geriatric Bassist<span style="font-size: large;">Chewsday morning I had my English FOA. Further Oral Activity (somehow not a euphemism). Did it on godhatesfags.com . We watched<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX9Xo6zm_kM"> this video</a> in chem and then I collected a food parcel from the office, containing wonderous treats from the homeland. After that I had a meeting with a few peeps which became a DMC with Khetkat and handfuls of Cadbury mini eggs. At 4 ish I had a shower and then at 5 I went to tutoring, which was pretty fun again - though Charlie's still damn scared about boarding school. We played a card game based on stockbroking. It was intense - I was rubbish. After tutoring I thinks I came back, superglued my bass-induced blisters (it legit works) and had band practish, then check in, after which I popped round to Wendy's flat for choccie, tea and a good aul chinwag, to the entertaining background noise of Brian playing Fifa on xbox live - expletives in abundance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Wednesday I had school and that, got a letter and a postcard or too, replied to the letter in Chinese class and then walked to Lee On to send a parcel to the siblingly unit and said letter. I also did a quick toiletries shop and managed to bag myself 4 free bottles of OJ and some sweets. Upon my return I positively did not do my physics lab, had another band practice sesho and avoided dinner. After check in I had a meeting with Peter and John Wang faoin being leader of photgraphy next year with Palomo, which developed into yet another DMC with Palomo, until she persuaded me to up and go do my physics lab. I did it in the block 1 pc room, as that is where the fun's naturally always at. No srsly. I got back to me room pretty late but it was DONE.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ish. I kinda had to finish it during brekkie on Thursday but sure. After last block english I think I pissed around until 4:30 (I really must've done something productive, it's woeful to have to think back over all the hours I appear to have done nowt), when I again had practish, until about 6. I stayed behind for a while though to get to grips with the fact we'd just added a whole 'nother song to our repertoire. Dinner was toast again (oh joy), then more practice, and more again, then getting changed out of me day's clothes, into other clothes and repeat, until I'm back in the clothes I had been wearing anyway. It's a long established routine. At 9 I met Andres @ the gate and was met first by Tomi, then Arshia, Adam and Mr Buttril. He plays the embarrassing dad role overly well. I loved it. I think around this time we (Adam's dad) named the band "Hate Crime Fanclub". I really quite like it. We got the bus to central, went to notre venue, freaked out over a) guy playing guitar left handed and b) note the singular form of the word guitar. Soon after we were there a whole host of girls busted out of the door, and despite my lack of surprise (ta to Paolina), it was purdy nice to have them all thurr. Once we had finally managed to get hold of another guitar by means of Adam's siblingly units and replaced the generic Filipino cover band, this generic multinational cover band went up for soundcheck. Here is where I had my minor shit attack. Now I may be in standard math, but that bass had one more string than experience had led me to expect. Armed with this foreign instrument I did my best, though once or twice all of the strings seemed to become a million. It all seemed to go alroish, the best bit being Áine's appearance (and wonderbra). Snow always sounds good too. When leaving at around 12 ish, I got a few handshakes from the successful attractive types that one occasionally finds lurking in HK accompanied by "You're the bass player?". The "CHDUH I am" feelings I attempted to hide, and prolly failed miserably. We all went on to La Bodaaaaaaaygaaaaaaah and China Bar for a little while before coming back in a plethora of taxis. Once I was back I flicked through me chem notes in anticipation of Friday's test.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Friday I had a free morning block so twas post-Lan Kwai shower time, then tok, whereby a disgruntled Kalpana read out her e-mails and shouted a bit, then another free when I crammed my chem by the syllabus-load. Then came the chem test. The lump in my throat then is too large to quantify. I think it's better summed up by my behaviour in geo. Motionless staring forward. Julie seemed to know to avoid engaging me too much. I got back to me room and skyped Daddt then at 2:30 I had peer support training until 5:30, after which I ranted with Khetkat, got worked up, and released this frustration in a way not too dissimilar to those facebook likes which go something like "sitting in the corner of your room stuffing your face and listening to Adele". Though in my case it was my bed, home-sent Lindt and the Magic Numbers. Once I'd cleaned myself up I marched to Paloma's room and demanded we go shopping. We left for Mong Kok at 6ish, and after some crazy crazy hours of trawling through the wondrous Mee & Gees off the ladies market, a gawjus and unreal cheap sushi dinner, and some new adjectives such as "zingtastic" (though that was one of the worse ones and I can't think of our others), and rakes and rakes of stripy blouses, we got back at 11:30. Aaaand signed in as 10:52 as we'd neglected to sign for extensions. It was a most pleasant evening. We had a trial of the clothes in my room, as should always be the custom after any shopping trip, and though I had to give one of me tops to Palomo cause it was too small it probs looked better on her anyway. And I was mega proud of my dodge granny dress. (MUM: Be afraid, be very afraid). I was with Paolina & Laci in the block 3 dayroom looking at the photos from Thursday, and our favourite hungarian told me of his plans to go learn irish during the summer. Legend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saturday I woke up at 10, and by 11 was at the gate to go on the junk boat. Despite going the shorter way to TST, myself, Christine, Michi & Halfdan ended up at the ferry terminal to China and not exactly at the Star Ferry pier. Through no fault of my own, might I add. We eventually found the right pier and set off through Victoria harbour and mega buildings to the (Brian Cox voice) vast and expansive sea. There were a bajillion jellyfish chilling around, though this didn't put us off jumping off the top of the boat numerous times and trying out various acrobatic techniques on the ringbuoys. Despite the speakers blowing at one point, the craic was had, even though they made me do some contrived stand up to make up for the lack of entertainment. The thunder and lightening of the past week faded away for us to reveal beaut skies, yet I didn't even get too burnt. Heather got married to Apoorva and Peter told ... sensitive... stories. We got back to TST at about 6ish I think, then went to Chungking for gorgeous food in the Khyber Pass place after negotiating our way through the lift system and the strange underworld that is Chungking itself. After dindins we came back to campus, I had a shower and threw on me granny dress again, wrote this and bought me some Jack White, Sallie Ford and Princess Chelsea on the iTunes. I'm planning to watch Misfits/Skins with Jason, but it's a plan of mine and Jason's so it's perhaps unlikely. Though with the promise of an irish easter egg it's only a matter of time. </span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-42399333548060920632012-04-16T15:11:00.003+01:002012-04-16T15:23:37.074+01:00Despos in Need of a Name<span style="font-size: large;">Sooo on Tuesday I had my morning block math which was as atrocious as always - me and calculus just don't see eye to eye at the moment - then chem and what have ya. After school (which ended at 2) I went to Ma On Shan with Wendy, Ella & Brea to get snacks for our block activity. After purchasing the whole of the crisps isle, I sent my letters and went back to campus. Once I got back, I did some work on my Math IA, just polishing it up and that. That evening was the opening of the art exhibition which was like WOAH. I was so super jeally it was unreal. Chem has sapped all my remaining energy and life - something rejuvinatable only through art! (and neologism)</span><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">On Wednesday had a free morning block, then ToK, then another free - in which I printed me maffs, then chem & geo. At 2:15 all of block 2 piled on the bus to go to Silverstrand beach out past Sai Kungers, and we shwam in the sea, and lay on this weird floating island yoke and pushed people off the weird floating island yoke ate ice-cream and laughed at Ray. We got back around 5ish, when I prolly worked or at least tried to, before going to a talk by Paloma's mammy on her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/BerylProductions">animation work</a> which was super interesting - she does the Charmin ads and that! </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.berylproductions.co.uk/wp-content/files_mf/cache/th_a4a86d2a50571da3483032c3b25597f9_charmin_print_ad_duck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://www.berylproductions.co.uk/wp-content/files_mf/cache/th_a4a86d2a50571da3483032c3b25597f9_charmin_print_ad_duck.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thursday was handing in IA day. Oh the abundant happiness. I went shopping for ingredients with the café team, came back and did some more café admin, then went to God (the Woody Allen play) which I daresay I completed with my two lines "I'm not fictional!" and "But I have a boyfriend at Harvard business school!", as haphazardly scrawled on my hand. Tar éis God, I went back to the art exhibition with Livvie-uh for one last longing look at what could have been my future. On Thursday night I was too afraid to go back to my room because of prank day (second years have no more classes and so have nothing else to do but turn to fear mongering), and so I worked a little on my geo IA but for the most part just stayed in the block 1 computer room, helping Antonio & John Wang make certificates for the teachers. Luckily Dilene had hidden some mini eggs around the block and I was able to survive on those along with mini naps until 3am when I reckoned it was safe to leave for bed. I climbed itno Glenda's bed (she was away) because I figured I'd be safer if my roomies saw my empty bed, but at about 4 crawled into mine, and slept until 6:15 when I ran for freedom, avoiding all main routes and sticking to the walls when I happened upon the mass of second year bodies in the courtyard, waiting outside for my morning block.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/579072_10151509214425077_546600076_23776446_149262182_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/579072_10151509214425077_546600076_23776446_149262182_n.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">So yeah, I guess now it's Friday, so time for a new paragraph. Uhm. So aside from a few casualties, prank day didn't seem to happen, though that made me even more paranoid, along with Julie, who insisted on locking all the doors whilst we had class. They played loud music at brekkie & lunch and terrified me. At 5ish there were drinks down at the principal's house so I stole a dress from Rara, and hung around to steal some spring rolls and uglily photobomb a few photos. The second years were all about to leave for graduation dinner so Olivia and I figured we were being too awkward so we went to Maddie's room and lay on her bed before going to Wellcome and buying about roughly a gazbillion balloons. And an ice cream. We set up camp in the block 4 dayroom and hosted a MEGA AWESOME SUPER BALLOON BLOWING UP PARTY, of which I was the sole attendant, save Maddie who can't blow up balloons, and Olivia who eventually managed a packet or so. We recruited whoever happened to stray in there, including Carmen, Tara and Ottavia, before Sylla came by and helped us to write a bitchy e-mail to erryone telling them to come. Once the time the canteen party began rolling around there were more and more people to blow them up and transport them and eventually the place looked alroish. The second years' arrival interrupted my DMC with Livvie, but after a little while longer in my room with her good self and Maddie we headed to the canteen party for a lil while. I left when Arnett started to do his thang. I think my body could exert no more energy and I collapsed into bed.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/574977_2054568379854_1713913844_995218_1885465938_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/574977_2054568379854_1713913844_995218_1885465938_n.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">4 and a half hours later, I got up for coral monitoring yaaaaaaaaaay. Had a shower, packed me bag, and went to the poolside to sort out gear. We got the bus to Tai Po, got on our boat after loading all the gear, and helped ourselves to a hearty nutella sangwitch. I was on photos with Laura so we did the low down on that, basically a photo of the transect erry 50cm. There was some weird ass waste in the water, as well as a load of jellyfish, which, while being my second favourite animal (after bats dontcha know) were the small see-through boring kind and were not so nice to bump into after clearing your leaky mask for the 4th time. After our dive was over I made me some nudeln and reminisced about School Of Rock with Andres, as well as examining bellybuttons and Dawn's peeling marks. There were also some interesting ethical debates too - "if your son was gonna die, would you get an illegal organ to save him?" and "if you were driving a train and one good kid was playing on the abandoned line and 10 bad kids were playing on a line they knew was in use, which line would you take?". These are summarised loike, but same idea. We got back at 6ish and then it was insane uber rush to get all the stuff for café together after cleaning all our dive gear. Café started at 7:30 and despite some AV balls ups and perhaps-so-controversial-I-shouldn't-call-it-controversial-on-my-blog-for-fear-that-people-remember-it-or-get-mad comedy it was <strike>great</strike> finally over. It had been a darn tough week and by the time I was all alone washing the floor of the student kitchen (after, of course the dutchies' large cleaning input) and listening to The Bluetones, the bliss was unbelievable. When finally carting my stuff back to me room, I bumped into Tifftiff and had a well nice DMC with her on the make-out bench, watching a cockroach devour a stray M&M. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/576466_10150656692047283_556597282_9774932_813209392_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/576466_10150656692047283_556597282_9774932_813209392_n.jpg" width="265" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">BUDDY CHECK</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/559769_275520869201084_232153846871120_626947_1751545690_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/559769_275520869201084_232153846871120_626947_1751545690_n.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">wo de epic roomies doing KPOP right thurr</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday morning I took my time getting up, and didn't let myself do any strenuous work until 12, when I went to the library to work on my Geo IA. After 5 productive hours and a short noodle break, I went to jam and all that with le band (despos in need of a name) for a couple of hours, before grabbing dindins and heading to Bheki's Voice talk on the anthropology of LPC. This was followed by a skyping to the mammy and the sister, when we had a "hot-people-off" and she showed me all the clothes I was going to steal during the summer. I went back to work on geo after check in, until 12 when I wished the pitiful group in the block 3 computer room luck.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5600000/Johnny-Depp-johnny-depp-5664146-1280-800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5600000/Johnny-Depp-johnny-depp-5664146-1280-800.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Johnny Depp won</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Cette matin, I had a free morning block so i got up early enough, had a shower, completely finished me geo, printed it off and went to maths. I had a free chem block too - condensed divinity right there. I had a parcel from the mammy in the general office, packed full of choccie - most of which has already been devoured (or given away in return for art pieces). At 2:30 I had coral monitoring service planning, when I discovered that next Sunday Imma be dressing up as a panda for a WWF event. Seems legit sure. That were over at like 5, and at 6 I had more band practice (is there no better phrase?) until the disgruntled first aiders had had enough of RHCP's "Snow" and kicked us out of their examination room. I had a quick dinner, watched some amazing forked lightening - first I've seen in me life and wrote this yoke, not after popping in to see Wendy & Brian to ask for an extension next Thursday. You'll see why when that happens I shpose. Until then keeeeeeeeeeeep dancing!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1sYkJPVVs5bs8cGZVpMLnbZYbopRRFo4G92aKoI54EcTwUYVVM3x2l0Ems4MclIXhXhWodhiWbUfCFS0UraUGAk5vpmm9zXbx8-xz3vCvV4SKHrOStBbwIPjcCiBxyRBSV9psXaQy4tQ/s1600/007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1sYkJPVVs5bs8cGZVpMLnbZYbopRRFo4G92aKoI54EcTwUYVVM3x2l0Ems4MclIXhXhWodhiWbUfCFS0UraUGAk5vpmm9zXbx8-xz3vCvV4SKHrOStBbwIPjcCiBxyRBSV9psXaQy4tQ/s400/007.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div><div><br />
</div>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2493579491051084022.post-55551867087044656362012-04-09T13:25:00.003+01:002012-04-10T16:19:01.424+01:00Blossoming into an Elegant Beauty<span style="font-size: large;">Good aul China decided to block blogger, and no amount of dodgy proxies were gonna get me past that this weekend, so soz faoi lateness and that shtuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So eeeehhh, last Saturday, I got up for lion dance, went to training, saw a haggard Laura, heard a haggard Laura's tales, couldn't find Maddie, went to find Maddie, found Maddie who was fast asleep, jumped on her yelling LION DANCE LION DANCE LION DANCE to no avail then went to Olivia's room to spoon with her and a haggard Laura. We played with the Daily Mail headline generator then popped some popcorn in anticipation of Rara's birthday on the block 2 roof. We had an uber roof party with shedloads of food and then I went to the pool, played some pool rugby - I had a major disadvantage in the form of a volatile bikini top - then went with Dawn & Áine to Ma On Shan where I got photos taken for my visa. Áine heartlessly left me stranded outside Wellcome so I made me own way home then decided to have a quick skype with Mavis. ...4 and a half hours later we called it a day. The amount I had to catch up on was unrale. Went to bed pretty soon after that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The part of Sunday which I can remember begins at about 7pm. Where the rest of it went I've no idea. I think I may've coloured in a few maps for geo? And I seem to recall getting some weird bread from Hetty & Carol? Hmm. Anyway, the 7pm part starts in room 103c, skyping the ginge, followed by a café meeting in preparation for next week's café. The theme's Anything But Clothes. What a wide range of opportunities that presents. Tar éis é sin I skyped les parents and then had one of those skype calls with Clobby where I get her to show me all the clothes she's bought lately so's I can wear them when I get back for summer and she takes photos of me looking fab on the webcam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monday I had a free morning block, then math when we got our dreaded IA (internal assessment for those lucky bejaysuses of you reading this who are unaware of the intricacies of the IB), chemistry, free block geo and physics. On Monday afternoon I missed the college meeting and service planning to go to the visa office with Dorte for our chinese visas. Dorte had The Hunger Games but I had to make do with running to Mickey D's to buy me some chips to entertain myself, as well as painting my nails and Dorte's nails whilst we crouched on the floor, much to the disdain of many around us. We left about an hour later, and I had a short but intense period of OHMYGODI'VELOSTMYPASSPORT before realising it was in the visa office. We both got some ice cream and continued our journey home. Once I got back I had some din dins then went to photography where we talked about our Tai O trip and presented our photos, had ice cream floats and BECAME LEADER WITH PALOMO. Well happy so we were. Big ideas and dreams and what have ya.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Tuesday I had english in the block 4 dayroom again, then chinese, ToK lecture on presentations - in the ever-witty words of Adam it was like presentationception - then more mind mushing maffs, and chem again. After school I legged it up to the office to collect my parcel from Daddy, and, upon discovering The Hunger Games amongst its contents, spent all afternoon reading it on the roof, then once it was dark grabbed some tea lights from my room and finished it. Should prolly find time to go see the movie in the cinema but the likelihood of that is nil unforchy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wednesday was a public holiday so I took my leisurely time getting up, did an absolutely miniscule bitta work, went to Wellcome and bought some stuff to make a cake for Rabeya's birthday, then cooked in the student kitchen with all the Asia Pacific people - inevitable K-Pop dance offs were had. We ate the cake in our room with our extended roomies and tales of Ocean Park. That night Olivia, Heather and I hung out for Livvie's birthday, and fell asleep in strange places.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Thursday I had a physics lab, english and then two free blocks. I grabbed my lunch early, then headed off to Wanchai to pick up the visas. I negotiated the million line changes back, had a nap in the common room then headed across the road to tutor Paco, this insanely ADD kid. He's pretty sweet really, and seemed to really connect with Pippi Longstocking. After that I went to the GIF on catholicism which were one of the better ones this year as far as debate was concerned. On Thursday night I downloaded Nick & Norah's infinite playlist. It was pretty shite, but the setting was good and Michael Cera's always great. Norah was just the most annoying thing. I also made microwave cake in a bowl. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kalafudra.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/nick-and-norahs-infinite-playlist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://kalafudra.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/nick-and-norahs-infinite-playlist.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXbocD2Dzj6aXqyofySK-4ztRW3L0Lkf9qMWdm_kuAY9re204nEVRkxYMaZ-ARmxx-4A0EgjQwrGmUrNzBMQ9KHRsagWbn1fis2To46byR6fRtYibrIIRAzbdRQn71MeFtciOie2HGcis/s1600/TPhoto_00004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXbocD2Dzj6aXqyofySK-4ztRW3L0Lkf9qMWdm_kuAY9re204nEVRkxYMaZ-ARmxx-4A0EgjQwrGmUrNzBMQ9KHRsagWbn1fis2To46byR6fRtYibrIIRAzbdRQn71MeFtciOie2HGcis/s320/TPhoto_00004.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Friday I got up at like 7:30 ish, for no real reason seeing as we had holidays, then finished the rest of N & N's infinite playlist because of course the internet ban came with 10 minutes left of the film. I got breakfast and then locked myself in the library for 13 hours to do my math IA, coming out twice only to stock up on cream soda, mars bars, fizzy Puccho yokes, and those bbq crisps. At midnight I banted around with JKwok & Verity by the poolside, stalking photos of our younger selves.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/554465_416237101723213_100000107809046_1684859_1263063360_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/554465_416237101723213_100000107809046_1684859_1263063360_n.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saturday morning I got up at 7:30, had a shower, packed for China, got breakfast at half 8, met the latinas at a latina half 8, and went to China. Via the flamingo filled Kowloon park. And a ferry. We were met by Mia and her dad at the ferry terminal, after the mexican took about a gazbillion hours to get through. Then we went out for lunch which was GAWJUS, peking duck for the winnage. We went to the underground to change some money and buy some pirated DVDs (I got One Day, Skins series 6 & Misfits series 3), then went to get our nails done. Must be the first time since Clobby pinned me to the kitchen table over crimbo. Okay, and that stint in the visa office but that hardly counts. Got a motorbike back which was legend and then we worked for a ages after a dinner of pizza and beautiful caaaakes.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/521984_3605186650151_1288171782_33518242_1162974225_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/521984_3605186650151_1288171782_33518242_1162974225_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Sunday we woke up like 10ish, got brekkie and helped set up for an expat easter brunch. When I say expat, I mean TODOS DEL LATINOS. My spanish comprehension improved dramatically. We hid a load of eggs all down the street, and ate our weight in choccy cake. We then left with all the foregin kids in Zhu Hai to go to this island where we rented a tandem bike and played volleyball. We started out with trying to get volleys of A...B...C...D... but it soon transcended into yelling out spanish words when you hit the ball, for example CALIENTE...GASOLINA....GUACAMOLE...CHIMYCHANGAS...ESPERA etc etc. I had a few fun experiences on the tandem bike, and rediscovered our love of squat toilets with Maddie. That evening we had the leftover pizza, worked a little more and then watched Like Crazy and One Day. I had to make condescending witty remarks during Like Crazy because it was so woeful, but I adore One Day though only Paula and I managed to stay awake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Got up at 9 this morning, had nutella on toast, packed my bag, did a bit of work on my chinese, went out for dinner and had such good vegetables. Like chinese-style bacon & cabbage, it's not a patch on scout camp, but they do their best. After lunch we went back, packed up the rest of our stuff and got the 4pm boat home. Except for Maddie, who couldn't get a ticket and ran away to Tibet or something instead. I had the best moment of my life so far when the woman on passport control didn't believe that the ugly passport photo girl was me. She was all "This not you. This not you. Show me your ears!!" and I was all "I know roish, it totally don't look like me now, I must've really just blossomed into such an elegantly beautiful human being". Mia & I watched Juno on the boat. Legend film. We got taxis back to campus, ate dismal dinner and then I migrated to the chinese classroom where I found Olivia and was joined by JKwok soon after. Which is where I am now. On the verge of a hell week but I'd rather not elaborate.</span>Hannah Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03613511290730843955noreply@blogger.com1