Not an extraordinary day, but also a frustrating and funny one all the same. At the beginning, I went to class, where I fell in love with the notion of ‘picturesque’ or perhaps to be called ‘the picturesque’ (notice the article ‘the’ incorporated). It was such a beautiful notion to have such a thing, and the paintings and house we saw displayed in class were most alluring for me. I think, resultantly, that I shall take this as my final project for the course and hopefully produce a rather good paper as a consequence of my new passion for it. Anyway, during this time, I also downloaded my pictures of Paris, and later on, added them to the entries for it. When class finished, I went to the STA office to fulfill my appointment to get my shots, but two bad things happened while I was there, the first was not such a big deal, the second somewhat ruined my day though. For the first, it was the questions as to what shots and everything I had already, which wasn’t so bad, but I really have never taken it upon myself with the resolve I ought, to recall the details of my immunisation records including when I had each one done. So, I only actually got one shot today, and that was for Yellow Fever, but I did not get the one for Typhoid, which I need to go back and do, probably next week, checking my records of course.
During the course of getting this shot, I was informed about my options for how to deal with Malaria while I am down there, and it sounds quite horrible in anyway I go about, wether it is on my coffers, or on my body, I am not sure that it will be pleasant anyway it happens. I was told that I have three options, the first was to get a pill that I take daily with virtually no side-effects, but would cost me £3.50 a day, and I have to take it two days before I get into the malaria region, and a week’s worth when I return, as you can tell this is a very costly way to go about it, with a total bill at about $250.00 (Cor!) The next option is to take a pill about once a day for the same duration of time (well 3 weeks more after returning), but with some possible difficult side-effects, but on the plus side, it would be about 1/7th of the cost or nearly 50p a day, leaving a much nicer looking total bill of $112.00 or so. The final option, which I am not sure about but looks sadly the most appealing, is to do a weekly pill starting about 2 weeks before and going 4 weeks after, costing about $70.00- $80.00. The unfortunate side-effect with this of course, is that it can likely lead to nightmares and psychosis, so there you have it, and they advise you not to take it if you have a history of mental illness in your family, how funny is that.
So after getting this shot, and depressing information about malaria, I was keenly aware that in my wallet in my pocket, I did not have my primary, or any credit cards with me, this was the beginning of problem number two of the day. I went outside to pay, and when I found the bill was £40.00 for my Yellow Fever shot, I had to admit that I only had £20.00 on me, and had to go home to get my credit card, they were gracious enough to allow me to do this, but asked me to come back today, as opposed to tomorrow, and for this I had no option but to go home right then and there. This was extremely unfortunate because I had class in 55 minutes, for which I was not prepared, but I knew what I had to do, as painful as it was. I took the tube home, and naturally it was being uncooperative (confounded Hammersmith line!). When I did finally get in, I found to my utter fear that it was missing, and I could not find it, so for the first time since my arrival to London, I had to use one of my alternate credit cards. This was highly annoying and frightening, but I went back and payed. Worrying the whole time that my card was in the wrong hands, but I knew truly it could not be, because more than just that one card would have been missing. Anyway, I checked my bank account once back to my class (mind you I was 30 minutes truant), and found there was a charge for today although I did not use it. I was deeply troubled by this, until I realised that the balance was right, and figured the last transaction I made had probably just gone through today, as sometimes happens.
During class itself, we took a test as usual, with me feeling less than confident about my answers, and afterward we learned about the Milky Way and the rudiments of galaxies. It was all fascinating, but I was quite happy and ready to get home. Once there, I wrote a letter or two, and still was not blessed with the gift of the internet. I made some more Ramen Noodles, the best treat in existence, and finally at the end of the night, and all of my toils... I wrote this lovely entry, hopefully to be posted without too much hindrance tomorrow during class. Well, that should be the end of this not too eventful, yet eventful day and I hope you enjoyed it for all its humourist aspects, as well as the logistics of malarial shots, but it could be useful for those of you audacious enough to venture to a malaria laden land like Africa in future, so bear it in mind ;-) Anyway, being the tired bloke I am right now, I feel that the hay is calling for battery, and that, my friends and future self, is what I shall do presently so wish me pleasant dreams while I still can have them before the psychosis inducing drug I have to take to avoid death kicks in.