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 this. And failing miserably. Interestingly enough, that link is one of only 4 bookmarks on my Google Chrome. Here is an assortment of things I have done (roughly) chronologically pre and post repatriation. 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. 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.
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.
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 Natural History Museum Dead Zoo where we found a melodramatic bat and a couple of sloths.
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.
6. Became opinionated on the abortion bill. Sorry but 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. 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". 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 is such a fabulous place). 9. Abandoned blog writing in favour of tea.
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. 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 Wallis 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.
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.
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). 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. 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.
