Butterfly Wings

I went home at the weekend, intending to get plenty of work done like a good little girl- instead, when I wasn't sleeping in or getting very wet in a downpour in a wood, I was making butterfly wings. These are theoretically for the Climate Change demo on 4th November- but I'm not even sure I'll be able to wear them: though I know the student contingent will be dressing up I'm not sure what there is in terms of rules or guidelines for what you can wear. The idea behind the wings is that, like the example of the butterfly flapping its wings and creating a storm, the actions of individuals can change the world- but in fact it's stretching it a bit because climate change is not chaotic in the sense that the storm is and actually a small difference in input only makes a small difference in output: if one person carries on with unsustainable levels of consumption and everyone else cuts down we'll still be fine; if one person cuts down and the rest stay as they are then we won't. But it's metaphorically true, in that if we all make a small change, that'll add up and we can make a difference... As a fallback, the butterfly wings are also appropriate because they represent nature which we will be destroying if we don't do something.

The wings are made of a twisted wire frame with an old sheet cut to shape and sewn on. I'm going to paint them if I get time, and get a leotard and black tights/ shiny leggings to wear with it. Preferably after I've checked it's ok...

They weren't the only thing I staggered into college with this morning*. While I was home I took the opportunity to pick up my three big tupperware pots. They're something like 30cm diametre and 10cm deep- not huge but the best thing I have to serve salads for 50 people (actually I don't think they'll be enough but what can you do? Well, buy some more, obviously, but short of that...). I actually got them when I was at UCL for exactly this purpose- to serve pasta salad and cous cous at the maths society (ADM) Christmas Quiz- the event of the year. Then they spent a few years looking after things like rice or ground almond that was liable to get knocked over and make a mess if left to support itself in my cupboard- making an annual reappearance in their starring Christmas Quiz role. To my shame, they still had all my store cupboard supplies from my final year. The top two tubs were fine- they had packets and packets of stuff that I wouldn't recommend eating but which could just go into the bin bag without any feelings of 'yuk!'. The third was different. There was some kind of reddish brown liquid on the bottom and soaked into all the cardboard packets, and on the top something long and soft. It was gross. I'm not entirely sure what it was (it was a bit far gone) but I'm guessing maybe a stray piece of dried gourd that got wet? Though the rest of the dried gourd was in one of the other tubs. I got it from the Japan Centre as an experiment and wasn't wild enough about it to get through it all in a year. Anyway, as you can imagine, after being in there for two years and counting it really didn't smell nice at all. Though I gave the tubs a quick wash out, it was a smell that lingered with me through the day and I just hope my fellow passengers and classmates didn't keep getting the whiffs I did... I'm going to give them all a proper wash when I've written this!

I had to do a lot of emailing today. One of my flatmates (Flatmate 7) has become a Sustainability Champion, so I was filling her in by email (I'd never have managed if I'd tried telling her face to face) on what we were up to and what needed doing, and where we hadn't already decided stuff so she could have some input into the decision making, and I also had to email SC2 about arrangements for the quiz- when we should meet up and so on- and to tell her I'd got the poster and introductory letter photocopied as she asked (now we have to try and meet up as she has the leaflets...). SC2 also gave me SC3 (the annoying bloke)'s email address, which I'd been asking for as I'd managed to give him mine without getting his and annoying though he is I do of course need to be keeping him informed as well. So I emailed him about what I and SC2 had been discussing... at least in future I should be able to just send one email to all of them; this time they all knew different things so it was complicated.

It's not all stress though. I made myself a simple but comforting supper of baked potato with cheese and onion, spaghetti hoops and pineapple cottage cheese (something I used to have for lunch quite a lot in third year but probably haven't had since I came back from Japan), and in an hour or two I'm going to treat myself to a chocolate muffin with whipped cream (which I used to have much more often than was really good for me, again in third year, mostly) while watching ER. It's not just harking back to third year- while I was in Japan I would often get some cake (gateau really) when I went into town at the weekend and eat it while watching ER in the evening- I used to spend the whole day looking forward to that. Which I suppose tells you how much I enjoyed my job....

*Usually I'd come back from a weekend at home on Sunday evening, but part of the reason I went home this time was a dentists appointment this morning so I went back after that- I didn't have a lecture till 2 so that was fine (though the bus across London took longer than I thought and I was five minutes late)