It's almost two weeks since my last entry, and I think I can safely say that I've established something of a weekly routine. Plenty of stuff to talk about, so I shall do my best to keep things as concise as possible. Okay, here we go!
We begin on Friday the 29th of January. I headed out to the library and made a start to my assignment for The Theory of Language Learning and Teaching; 1500 words due on the 8th of February. I think I knocked out a few hundred words while also watching Norway lose a really close game in their semi-final against Germany in the men's European handball championships.
Saturday the 30th was practice at Battersea as usual, except this time I came along to the pub afterwards. You see, one of the great things about this club I've joined is that they often go to the pub after practice on Saturdays, to hang out, have a pint and a nice meal. I allowed myself a cheap and cheerful cheese & bacon toastie, because although I was really hungry I'm still trying to keep a lid on my spending. As our time at the pub was winding down, the lovely Hanna from Sweden invited a group of us over to her place and I couldn't possibly refuse.
So off we went; Hanna, Joakim, Elvijs, Dennis and I, and we had an awesome time as day turned into evening (and some additional friends arrived). I think the highlight was when I played my favourite Side Brok song (links to Spotify) and the general consensus from everyone was that it was some thoroughly good hip hop. Which it is. Side Brok is from Hovdebygda, between Ørsta and Volda, south of Ålesund, which is between Bergen and Trondheim. Side Brok is the bomb.
Norway lost the bronze final against Croatia on Sunday. That's life.
Monday marked the start of a new week and a new month. I went to class, went home, had two bowls of porridge, went to floorball practice, went home, did the haka because I realised I was wearing all black after showering, and went to bed.
Classes on Tuesday and Wednesday went by as usual, with three notable exceptions: On Tuesday I found myself annoyed with a guy who was constantly contributing his thoughts without raising his hand or giving anyone else a chance to shoot in. That's kinda annoying, but whatever, I won't hold a grudge. I then paid a visit to the Natural History Museum! Most of the pictures I took were of large animals which I then sent to friends on snapchat with arrows and text like "your mum" written on it. I had a great time. Here, then, are the only photos actually on my phone's memory card:
After class on Wednesday I officially made friends with my two first fellow students who are from England. Darel and Josh are in my Theory of Language Learning and Teaching class and we hung out together afterwards. I had no idea, prior to following them down there, that Uni Westminster had such a great common area at its Regent Street building. Obviously an institution like this would have something like that, but I never even imagined seeking it out. Here are some pictures to illustrate:
I brought my floorball sticks to class on Thursday because I wanted to hang out in Hyde Park afterwards. That I did, and I also recorded some video of me messing about with some tricks I haven't done in a while:
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| Hyde Park sunset, looking toward the Albert Memorial. |
We begin on Friday the 29th of January. I headed out to the library and made a start to my assignment for The Theory of Language Learning and Teaching; 1500 words due on the 8th of February. I think I knocked out a few hundred words while also watching Norway lose a really close game in their semi-final against Germany in the men's European handball championships.
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| Schrödinger's student: Working hard, and simultaneously hardly working. |
Saturday the 30th was practice at Battersea as usual, except this time I came along to the pub afterwards. You see, one of the great things about this club I've joined is that they often go to the pub after practice on Saturdays, to hang out, have a pint and a nice meal. I allowed myself a cheap and cheerful cheese & bacon toastie, because although I was really hungry I'm still trying to keep a lid on my spending. As our time at the pub was winding down, the lovely Hanna from Sweden invited a group of us over to her place and I couldn't possibly refuse.
So off we went; Hanna, Joakim, Elvijs, Dennis and I, and we had an awesome time as day turned into evening (and some additional friends arrived). I think the highlight was when I played my favourite Side Brok song (links to Spotify) and the general consensus from everyone was that it was some thoroughly good hip hop. Which it is. Side Brok is from Hovdebygda, between Ørsta and Volda, south of Ålesund, which is between Bergen and Trondheim. Side Brok is the bomb.
I'm not that comfortable with taking candid photographs among new people, so this is the best shot of people at the pub I could muster (left). They're a really nice bunch, and I ended up hanging out with them until late at night (right: a self-portrait moments before I'd made it back to Old Street).
Norway lost the bronze final against Croatia on Sunday. That's life.
Monday marked the start of a new week and a new month. I went to class, went home, had two bowls of porridge, went to floorball practice, went home, did the haka because I realised I was wearing all black after showering, and went to bed.
Classes on Tuesday and Wednesday went by as usual, with three notable exceptions: On Tuesday I found myself annoyed with a guy who was constantly contributing his thoughts without raising his hand or giving anyone else a chance to shoot in. That's kinda annoying, but whatever, I won't hold a grudge. I then paid a visit to the Natural History Museum! Most of the pictures I took were of large animals which I then sent to friends on snapchat with arrows and text like "your mum" written on it. I had a great time. Here, then, are the only photos actually on my phone's memory card:
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| "Soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside; armadillos!" |
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| That's a big squid. |
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| Looking back on the main entrance hall as I was leaving. |
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| King's Cross St Pancras was stupidly busy, because people were on their way to see Arsenal play a goalless draw against Southampton. Haha! I'd only just gotten off this Piccadilly Line train, which was quickly brimmed with a small percentage of the people standing on the platform. This wasn't the case with my southbound Northern line headed for Old Street. |
After class on Wednesday I officially made friends with my two first fellow students who are from England. Darel and Josh are in my Theory of Language Learning and Teaching class and we hung out together afterwards. I had no idea, prior to following them down there, that Uni Westminster had such a great common area at its Regent Street building. Obviously an institution like this would have something like that, but I never even imagined seeking it out. Here are some pictures to illustrate:
The Old Gymnasium (left) and a room (right) that used to house a swimming pool. I'm pretty stoked about the pool table.
I brought my floorball sticks to class on Thursday because I wanted to hang out in Hyde Park afterwards. That I did, and I also recorded some video of me messing about with some tricks I haven't done in a while:
Here are some pictures I took:
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| I have no idea why these birds were here. They seem way too exotic to be flying around London in the wild, but what do I know... |
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| The Albert Memorial. |
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| The Royal Albert Hall, directly opposite the memorial. |
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| Another shot of the sunset. |
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| Looking back towards the turnstiles at Old Street. This is what traffic during peak hours looks like at my local station. Getting home from Oxford Circus can be a bit of a hassle, but not quite as bad. You can imagine how it might be like to negotiate this horde on Mondays as I head towards Royal Oak for practice. |
Later that evening I sneezed twice in a row and went to bed with a sore throat. I wasn't feeling any better in the morning, when I was planning to get some work done before meeting up with Darel as we'd agreed to do on Wednesday, but I ended up just lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. I eventually made it to Regent Street where Darel and I discussed the impending deadline for our assignment (8th of Feb, remember?) and a whole bunch of other stuff along with his two other friends. Darel knows a lot of people, you guys.
Late that night, I felt a wave of spontaneity wash over me: I hired a Santander cycle and rode east to see what I could find. I ended up almost all the way to Poplar, where I docked and walked around a bit. I then tried retrieving a new bike to get home but it didn't work. Turns out I didn't dock it properly, or something. That's all sorted out now, but back then I was pretty much stranded without a bike. So I ran (just over 5k) back to Old Street in the small hours of the night/morning.
I treated myself to some fresh grip tape on my stick before going to bed prior to practice at 12:00 on Saturday:
After practice, I roamed all the sports shops I knew of (Sports Direct on Oxford Street, Lilywhites by Piccadilly Circus, various Runners Need locations nearby) looking for a foam roller. I settled for what I found at Sports Direct near Chancery Lane after concluding that Runners Need only stock expensive Nike rollers and there is literally no variation in stock/prices at Sports Direct; at least not worth bending over backwards to seek out. I also saw some funny/cool things that day:
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| These escalators at Chancery Lane, which used to be the shortest on the whole of the London Underground until some slightly shorter ones at Stratford were built. |
Sunday the 7th of February 2016 was three things at once: Bollesøndag, my final day to finish my assignment, and Superbowl Sunday. Predictably I spent most of the actual day procrastinating and doing fuck all. Superb. I also watched the replay of the match between Australia and Singapore, in the Asia/Oceania World Floorball Championsip Qualification final, which I don't regret doing for one second. For bollesøndag (basically Norway's pancake day; paraphrased to "bun Sunday") I had a coffee and donut at McDonald's on Oxford Street before heading to the library to finish my essay. I almost finished in time before the Superbowl started. I stealthily watched the first half in the library before packing up and taking a bus to Old Street during the halftime show.
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| "Bollesøndag" at Micky D's. |
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| I got the best seat in the house on my way back to Old Street. |
I then stayed up 'till 6am, finishing and fine-tuning my assignment before handing it in. Yay. Time to sleep. Oh, I almost forgot; this advert fell off inside the tube carriage I was sitting in on my way out to the library, and I brought it with me to decorate my room:
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| Good old Dave. |
Monday the 8th of February rolled around, and I brought my floorball gear to Writing Poetry, so that I could chill out after class and make my way to practice without stressing. Unfortunately, I forgot all my writing materials and this was the day we were supposed to share a poem we'd written with the rest of the class. So I frantically jotted down this little thing fifteen minutes before class, which they actually quite enjoyed. Result! My plan was to write a sonnet, in iambic pentameter, but it turns out I wrote it in iambic tetrameter. Silly me, but it does help in coveying the chaotic state my head was in at that moment:
Scatterbrains
Forgot my stuff and failed to bring
poems for all to read and sing.
With pen and pad I scrawl and write
asonnetthingy here to make things right.
My time is up, all hope is lost.
My scatterbrains are going to cost
the chance to hear from all you here
of what you think, I'm screwed, I fear
Unless this couplet can achieve,
a smile on your face 'fore you leave
I did really well at practice that evening, despite still nursing a crappy throat and mild cough. My shots during the warm-up were remarkably consistent, and I was even managing to do it with my head up; looking before releasing the ball. But oddly enough, considering I'm still nursing a sore throat at this point, the big improvement was just how much running I was able to do. The inspiration came from watching the AUS v SIN match, trying to emulate the intensity I saw from those players. I noticed a funny thing, actually; it's amazing how much you can move around when you do it proactively as opposed to reactively. Or as I put it to one of my teammates, how much you can run when you don't have to run. Does that make sense? In any case, it works.
The guy from last week's World English class wasn't quite so dominating this Tuesday. Speaking of Tuesday. It was pancake day. Naomi, Colleen and I made some pancakes in the evening. It was great.
Note to self: Must tell you guys more about my flatmates and teammates.
Cheerio!
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