elanya

Jiggity Jig

OKay, here is my update on my day in Greenwich and London. Point form, 'cause I'm not feeling creative/coherent enough to do it otherwise.

-Woke up at 6:45, scrambled to get ready, and make sandwiches with bread I'd left to that last night. Bread was a bit dry, but useable.
-Made it on perfect time to board the train at the station. Boarded train and found assigned seat. Was recommended by attendant to go to a better cabin while I could. Took advice. Slept on train.
-Got to London St. Pancras. Will always think 'St. Pancreas'. Bought a crap assed chicken spring roll, ate half, regretted it. Not enough litter bins in train station. Embarked to find the underground.
-Found King's Cross underground station, not as hard or as complicated as I thought. Took Northern line to London Bridge. Was no falling down. Passed 'Angel' station and couldn't stop thinking of Neverwhere.
-Missed intended connection to Greenwich by being slow. Missed it by seconds, even. Had to wait. whee.
-Got to Greenwich, followed convenient signs to find museum. V. impressive building, but shit for content, more on that later.
-Looked at manuscripts for 4 hours straight. Eighteenth Century handwriting v. sexy. Pirates still cool. Not as much useful info as I'd hoped, but at least I know now, and learned some interesting things besides.
-Ate packed sandwiches in museum cafe, completely ruined appetite for later. looked around museum. Had only a few weapons to look at, and tattoo exhibit very disappointing. However, did learn that sailors in 19th century would get tattoos of crucified Christ on their backs so as to not get flogged. Thought was, no Christian would whip the image of Christ. Interesting thought, wonder if it worked.
-Decided to leave museum and seek interesting shops in Greenwich before things closed. First shops went to were only one that didn't close until 5:30 or 6, so once left them, nothing was open. Purchases: black t-shirt w Jolly Roger, Oxford Book of English Verse (used). Poked around in Maritime book shop, had cool new and used books that were out of my budget. Got a catalogue.
-went back to train station to get back to London Bridge to look around there to kill time. Everything was closed, including London Dungeon, which was right there. Damnit.
-Went back to St. Pancreas station (hee!). Hoped to find cool place to eat, but was not hungry and v. tired. Wound up reading many chapters of Tam Lin in two hours, plus some aimless wandering. Again, had perfect timing, as put book away just in time to board train.
-Boarded train. Was in cabin with stupid loud middle aged women convention who wouldn't turn off bloody mobile phones. Couldn't sleep, neither could guy beside me, felt bad for him. At least I had book. No room in no-mobile car, either, alas. Invented scathing diatribe in my head with stupid old cows, but none were foolish enough to bother me after started scowling at world in general. The got out book and dinner (snickers *really* does satisfy!). Read until cow con got out at Chesterfield. Put book away and revel in the last 15 min of absolute silence until got back into Sheffield.
-Came home. Turned on computer. Took off sneakers. Lied down which computer booted. Caught up on e-mail and LJ's (except fishy's must add to friends list). Miao, that is all.

I did *one* thing, at least, that I had originally planned to do over my Easter holiday. Which is to say, that I finished reading Tam Lin. Which I really did enjoy. I love that ballad, and the author placed it well in her setting. I was thinking that some of the characters seemed a little unnatural, but in reflection, it was only the unnatural ones, so I guess that is okay. The book did make me question whether or not I actually did ever miss out on anything by living at home for my first degree. I guess I just can't really believe what other students are like. You know, real people. 'Cause I'm obviously not one of them. *cynicism* And then sometimes I wish I could be on more familiar terms with the supernatural. Who actually wants to be real? Where's my elf knight, damnit?

Anyway, I finished the book, which was good, though it did made me feel morose, because I have no elves, because I obviously don't read enough poetry, or else the book was just aimed at people who like English a lot as a subject, or else it embittered me by dissing anthropology, and I just don't believe in colleges like the one in which the story was set, but I wish I could have gone to one.... and so on.

And then to cheer me even further, I decided/realized that I need to do my taxes, and pulled them out, and now I'm terrified that I am going to be doing everything wrong, and the England things is all complicated, and I don't know if I have the right forms, and they aren't asking me for things I think the should be, and what I really want to do is envelop myself in another story, not think about the fact that I still need to write a 2-3000 word essay on Margery Kempe, and read all my inter-library loan books, and I need to go to the library and spend some quality time with one of them that I can't take out, and then I need to start reading an archaeological report on glass that looks dreadfully dry, and I have to write up an outline of a presentation that I haven't even thought about, and pick a topic for my long (6-8000 words) essay and start working on that, and write up a 500 word thing on how Time Team (tv program) can be improved, and clean my room, and wash my duvet, and... damnit, I just don't want to. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet and I've been awake since noon (unbelievable enough since I went to sleep around 4:30 and had been up for 22 hours before hand), and....ergh.

And I wish they had had real fish instead of just fish cakes left last night when I went for food. And I dread the thought of having to eat, and have no food here anyway, which means that i also need to go grocery shopping. And I haven't worked any on my medieval kit, on the stuff I can do by hand, or on my boots, or on getting thread so I can bug one of the people I know with a sewing machine to be able to use their and damnit this venting just isn't getting me anywhere. I have songs in my head and I know how silly this all seems and if I get out of bed and get on with it, this will all seem very silly. Which I will do in the next five minutes. Only now I feel like I'm trivializing everyone else's problems. And so on. I'm not even actually depressed, just a tad morose and it is all the book's fault, and maybe the taxes, and... *le sigh*

I really have almost finished this thing about twenty times now. And this time, for real.

Both entirely ripped off.

The first... as Juno put it.. The weirdest ex-gax group ever. Fox spirits, wha? o_O

And the second, ripped off from Neil Gaiman's journal is a comic adaptation of his story babycakes, which can be seen here, here, here, or here.

Miao

I just did my taxes. Once again, I feared them, but when I got actually started I was able to figure everything out, figure out that I did in fact have everything that I needed, and that it was a cakewalk. So, having done them, I now need to actually file them, which will me less simple... I don't have all the paperwork I need to send back, basically. Well, the educational stuff, anyway. but they say they don't need it anyway, so, I don't know :o v. confusing.