A somewhat hectic day, but not too bad though I did not fulfill nearly all I wanted to, to be sure. To begin, I woke up relatively early, before 8:00 I think. After waking up, I perused the internet for a bit, and then took a long and hot bath, where the towel rack was heated for some reason, in the bathroom that is, and the water was consistently hot, it was actually rather pleasant. After getting ready, I walked to Ladbroke Grove and took the train to school. Prof Reuter’s class was as usual entertaining, and full of great information about various aspects of history and architecture, generally in that order. He did actually talk about a wealthy matron he used to let a flat from (in the cellar of her house) for about fifteen years. Apparently this lady was rather eccentric and somewhat old, but had the great boldness to try and endeavour to meet whoever she thought looked or sounded interesting. For example, she asked Prof Reuter one day
“Norman, who is that young man with the very attractive lips?”
“Do you mean Mick Jagger”
“Yes, that’s him” and apparently after learning his name she invited him to dinner. So this was an interesting narrative and one I was very glad to hear. After this class, I tried to go and collect my second installment of the per diem, and found it rather difficult as they would accept no form of identification, saving that of the passport, which I did have my wallet sized copy of, but not quite the bonafide passport they wanted, so consequently, I walked out of the American Express office empty handed.
I also during, the period between classes studied for my Astronomy test, but not to too much merit, I fear. During the interim, I tried to download my pictures from my Grand Tour, and to this I was mostly successful, until the end, when the internet ceased working for me again, which was naturally frustrating. I then tried several times to restore my computer so that I could again obtain the internet, but no such luck, at least not at school. Astronomy, by the way, was about the end of stellar life, and black holes and such like that, rather fascinating really. After class ended, I thought it most prudent to go home immediately, but the lines being a bit busy, it took me a little while to get home, however it was not nearly as long as I expected. I then walked up Portobello Road, for two reasons, one to get a supper that did not consist of Ramen Noodles (Yes you can have too much of a good thing) and two, to see where the Portobello Road post office is in order to fetch a package I had waiting for me there, it was a bit further up the road than I should have thought, but closed, although it must have just closed within the quarter hour of my having found it, because when I returned it was before 18:00 and the post office was supposed to close at 17:30.
I did buy some pizzas from Tesco and then when I got home, finished the job of the pictures I had been working on before. I uploaded the est, and decided it was time to go through and post every picture possible, even to entries that were over a month old, and I am glad I did, because the journal looked so bare before. I also completed the entry for the day previous, and all of this, although very prudent and necessary for me to do, was in fact an effort at procrastination at the true tasks at hand, and that is writing papers. A little before midnight I started writing my paper for my Advertising course, and although the results of it are heinous I am sure, or at least stupid, at least I had something to turn in. As to my Classical Music course, it was a bit different than I should have liked. I wrote about half of the paper, but surely not enough for the comfortable feeling of knowing I had it finished, I remained awake in my filthy room until about 3:00 in the morning. One other thing to mention before I conclude this fine entry, I did actually call the HOST family representative and asked him if I was replying too late to get a post to go to Stockton Heath (which is between Manchester and Liverpool) for the 25 November, and fortunately I did not. Allow me to elaborate slightly, since I was gone to Europe void of internet access, I was unaware that this bloke was trying to get my attention rather earnestly, but the lucky or unlucky thing (according to your perspective) about being alone in completely foreign lands with little access to anything, is that you can avoid any contact which in a great way is quite liberating, or isolating, again according to your point of view.