Jason's Daily Notes

Whew, I've been on Winter Break for two weeks now. It feels good, I'm really relaxed, but also have reverted back to being really lazy. It's incredible to me how much I can end up putting things off for tomorrow. But I keep telling myself that I deserve some rest, and to an extent I do, but most days I really have nothing to do.
Here are some highlights:

• 2 weeks ago, 9 December: I was taking my final exam for Marketing. Boy, I was so stressed over it, but it turned out to be not so bad. I somehow was able to predict that the company we'd analyze would be Crocs, Inc. So I felt good! Evie was stressed over the trays of sandwiches left in the room, which amused me a bit. After the exam, I said bye to Diana and Khowla, then joined Thibault, Alessio, Liza, Antoine, and David F for a burger at Byron. It was cold.
• 10 December: The night of several house parties. I ended up only going to two: Sophie's, which was packed as before but full of interesting new people to meet and mingle with. Then Swag and I went to Liza's housewarming/goodbye at her (nice) flat, which was a much smaller party and more of a sausage fest. However, incredibly, at that same party was Olivier, Louise's friend whom she introduced to me when I first arrived in London 3 months ago! What an incredible coincidence. Walking back to Tower Bridge, I found a perfectly good beanie.
• The weather was pretty cold, like 2-5 deg C. And the sun doesn't rise until 8:30, and it gets dark at 3:30. Short days really mess with me. I feel so lazy for not getting up and about, then it's 3 o'clock and the day's over so I figure that I might as well just stay at home. It's a reinforcing cycle of inaction.
• Got to meet up with some classmates (Khowla and Yeng) for dinner at Leon last week. Not bad. I learned how to say it's really cold outside in Chinese (Gin tian how long)
• I have been able to catch up with many TV shows, though I still have quite a ways to go. What I've been catching up on: The Office, Community, HIMYM, The Big Bang Theory, The Amazing Race (which I got my flatmates hooked onto last week), Parks and Recreation, The Inbetweeners, Pete v. Life, The Worst Week of My Life, Weeds, Chuck, Breaking Bad, Glee, The Simpsons, and Modern Family.
• Nike had her goodbye party/gift exchange on Monday. There were about 12 of us, and we ended up finishing 18 bottles of wine, whiskey, and vodka. Says something about Nike's friends, eh?
• On Wednesday (21 December) I had my in-person appointment to finally get my student visa for the UK. I woke up at 6am to be ready and to arrive in Croydon by 8. There were some delays with their system, so I had to wait an additional 2 hours. But having waited over 3 months for this, I was persistent that I'd see it through. I had lunch at a really cheap Chinese buffet. And it was successful! I'll have leave to stay in the country until January 2013!
• Last night we finally tried the Raj Tandoori, an Indian Restaurant near our flat in Rotherhithe. With the 3 of us there, we were the biggest crowd they had seen in weeks it seemed like. But the food wasn't bad.
• Today, Maria left at 6am. She's back in Germany for Christmas. She left us yet another small gift, the game "Never Have I Ever". She gave us advent calendars, bowls of chocolate for St. Nicholas day, gingerbread cookies, and sugar-roasted almonds! I feel almost undeserving of all this Christmas love!

Now it's Christmas Eve Eve and I want to go outside, but it's raining. So I'll stay in and watch more shows, maybe even a movie!

As I slept, I dreamt that I was at the Olympics. But it was no big deal, just like a giant furniture store or something. Alessio was there, and so were several girls, whatever. Anyway, they were sitting having nachos or something, and I wandered off and ended up in the room where the women's volleyball was taking place. There were some other random guys on the court, so I joined in too. I ended up playing volleyball for a while, probably because our team (blue) was not very good. They didn't care who served, how many people were playing, or whatever.

Then came reality.

I had class at 11. It was already 10 when I rolled out of bed, so I had to quickly scarf down some cereal and hurriedly wash up before heading out the door. I was bundled up warmly, because for the last 3 days it's been incredibly cold, colder than I ever remember it being in London, like 2ºC. Well, guess what? Today it wasn't that cold, it was like 10º. So I ended up feeling too warm. Not good for my body.

Got to class, it was Marketing. I thought the period would be spent on exam prep, and it was. But there was also a required reading, which I didn't have time to do. Instead, I read it during class. And the teacher was picking on me for most of the period. I had to deliver the response forms to the student services center. Bleh.

So I went back home, stopping by Tesco on the way. And I studied, or at least I tried. I ended up playing some Civ 5, which I had just downloaded. It was fun to get into, though playing games sucks on a mac.

Bad news struck: I skyped home (for like 2 hours) and my uncle told me that my other uncle wouldn't let me borrow his car as originally planned. This means I'll have to buy a car in North Carolina.

More bad news: Maria II, the second girl who was to move in to the apartment, couldn't do it. So now we're going with the asian girl. We seem disappointed by it. Bleh.

And I still have no dissertation topic! FML.

Now it's 11pm and I'm stressing.

I'm just feeling very uninspired today. Almost depressed. I just don't feel like talking to or seeing anyone. I think I've just had too much social interaction since arriving at LSE. It's been non-stop. I don't think I can handle that kind of lifestyle, you know, "work hard play hard" - I'm more of a "work less, chill out" kind of personality... the complete opposite of most of my classmates. Sigh.

I couldn't sleep again last night. Weird - I submitted my marketing essay on Friday, so I should have been much more relaxed and easy. I just don't have energy. I feel like I've gained weight too. I think I have such a slow metabolism.

I went on a random excursion to the Tate Modern. But there, I didn't really feel like browsing art. I just needed to get out of the house. I then took the tube to Canary Wharf, then skyped home to discover that I'm in one of the pictures in the latest Berkeley Study Abroad newsletter.

Now I'm off

I slept early last night, and I set my alarm for 7:30 so that I could work on my Marketing essay which is due tomorrow.
I woke up at 10.

Rushed to eat breakfast and get my things ready. Was about to shower, when I hear the shower turn on.
Swag was taking a shower. So I just rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and washed in the kitchen sink.

I was going to take the bus to the tube station, when I remembered that my travelcard expired yesterday, and I hadn't renewed it yet.
When I got to the station, the ticket stand was closed. The automated machines wouldn't accept any of my credit card.

No time. I had to rush. But I couldn't afford to take my usual tube-bus route to school, so I'd have to take the tube all the way around to Holborn. I had to take the Piccadilly Line, and for some reason at 11am, everybody was arriving from Heathrow, so I couldn't even walk without being blocked by 4 big pieces of luggage.

I ran out of the station, up the really long escalators, and to class, only about 10 minutes late. Everyone could notice that I was panting and sweating.

The class finished not a minute too soon. I had to submit my essay. It was due within 1 hour. I had it printed out, but I had made an important change and needed to re-print one page. I log into the computer lab, and print it out. What happened next was just the universe rubbing it in my face: Instead of one page printing, it had an error and printed out like 20+ pages with nothing but a few random characters on each page. No. Fucking. Way. I tried printing again 3 times, but no luck.

I went to the library to print it out. I log in to a computer there, and I swear it was the slowest computer I've ever encountered at LSE. It took 7 minutes for me to log on, and another couple minutes to open my document, and another couple minutes for the printer to come online. I had to clear a paper jam.

But Hallelujah! It printed out. I rushed back to the NAB and submitted my essay.

Now I have to write another essay, 2500 words, on Starbucks. Here we go...