Open wide. Image: Andy Teo When not studying Sue seems to be spending most of her time monitoring her cactus, parking, or at the dentist in a respectful silence...
My Christmas cactus seems to still be on British Summer Time. It's flowering already. It will have peaked by the time Christmas gets here, which actually if the shops are anything to go by is tomorrow, so it might just make it after all. It takes the fun out of things when it all starts too early. There's even a Christmas tree in my hairdressers, yet we have only just had Halloween and bonfire night. My Marxist colleagues would of course put this down to capitalist free market influences, whereas I just think overexposure dulls the senses and people will largely ignore the trappings until they are good and ready to get in the zone and not a minute before.
My Christmas cactus seems to still be on British Summer Time. It's flowering already. It will have peaked by the time Christmas gets here, which actually if the shops are anything to go by is tomorrow, so it might just make it after all. It takes the fun out of things when it all starts too early. There's even a Christmas tree in my hairdressers, yet we have only just had Halloween and bonfire night. My Marxist colleagues would of course put this down to capitalist free market influences, whereas I just think overexposure dulls the senses and people will largely ignore the trappings until they are good and ready to get in the zone and not a minute before.
I am however speaking from a platform of grim determination to put off donning my festive smile until the sloe gin is ready. I always have a house full at Christmas and rather than looking upon it as a time of love and family harmony, I usually approach the festive season with resigned weariness and armed with plenty of washing powder since it's not just the food and drink that needs organising but the sheets and towels and loo paper too. People come to me from far afield so I can hardly expect them to bugger off after the Queen's speech. A friend told me she doesn't know how I do it. Easy. I do it ungraciously and resentfully.
I'm still readjusting from being on the road during a 600 mile round trip just the other weekend. My mum is convalescing after some surgery so I drove to Essex to get her, had a 20 minute stop for a tea and a wee and then drove home again. But then she wasn't at all well the following day and the best place for her was really in her own home. There's little worse than having to stand on ceremony when you feel really rough so I drove her back, had a 20 minute stop for pie and a cry and then drove home again.
I'm still readjusting from being on the road during a 600 mile round trip just the other weekend. My mum is convalescing after some surgery so I drove to Essex to get her, had a 20 minute stop for a tea and a wee and then drove home again. But then she wasn't at all well the following day and the best place for her was really in her own home. There's little worse than having to stand on ceremony when you feel really rough so I drove her back, had a 20 minute stop for pie and a cry and then drove home again.
| I missed Monday lectures, I was just too exhausted to think and now of course I'm playing catch up. Everyone is exhausted though, it's a really tough term with a dissertation draft literature review also due this week. This implies we will have by then acquired a certain degree of a) knowledge of our subject title and b) have read around it. The dissertation itself is due in April next year so what are the chances of coming up with a draft review in November of this one? Er... Zip! | I have just come back from the dentist where I underwent the strange experience of being involved in a two minute silence whilst lying completely horizontal! |
Car parking continues to be a pain. If you have ever tried to park at Warwick Uni you will know from first-hand knowledge this is not an experience for the faint-hearted or weak bladdered, not least because they have neither lifts nor loos, and oddly enough not many parking spaces either!
This morning I got there at 9.15 and still struggled to find anywhere. Fortunately I had radio for comfort but then Andrew Marr came on talking about death and I'm thinking my turn will come round sooner than I think, using up my precious time allotted on this earth as I was, fighting for somewhere to dump my car. It's not the end I had pictured to be honest. I wasn't going to go for harps and celestial music, but neither did I envisage engine overheat and carbon monoxide poisoning.
I have just come back from the dentist where I underwent the strange experience of being involved in a two minute Armistice silence whilst lying completely horizontal! The dentist had set his alarm in advance of it, and without uttering a single word he and his nurse floated off in a singularly fluid movement to somewhere beyond my peripheral vision, so that I had no idea what was happening to start with, and leaving me in situ in the dentist's chair for the duration.
The whole thing was most surreal and almost pythonesque, but for the seriousness of the moment. I actually went there for a second opinion and it turns out that the minimum I can get away with paying is £219 for some treatment that I really have to have. They cant fit me in until January which suits me fine as by then my next student funding instalment will have arrived. There will only be one more after that and then I will have finished my three years at Warwick. I can hardly believe it.
Squeamish Sue
This morning I got there at 9.15 and still struggled to find anywhere. Fortunately I had radio for comfort but then Andrew Marr came on talking about death and I'm thinking my turn will come round sooner than I think, using up my precious time allotted on this earth as I was, fighting for somewhere to dump my car. It's not the end I had pictured to be honest. I wasn't going to go for harps and celestial music, but neither did I envisage engine overheat and carbon monoxide poisoning.
I have just come back from the dentist where I underwent the strange experience of being involved in a two minute Armistice silence whilst lying completely horizontal! The dentist had set his alarm in advance of it, and without uttering a single word he and his nurse floated off in a singularly fluid movement to somewhere beyond my peripheral vision, so that I had no idea what was happening to start with, and leaving me in situ in the dentist's chair for the duration.
The whole thing was most surreal and almost pythonesque, but for the seriousness of the moment. I actually went there for a second opinion and it turns out that the minimum I can get away with paying is £219 for some treatment that I really have to have. They cant fit me in until January which suits me fine as by then my next student funding instalment will have arrived. There will only be one more after that and then I will have finished my three years at Warwick. I can hardly believe it.
Squeamish Sue
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