Some shady practices

I was out bright and early this morning to put up posters for the People and Planet speaker event about the Make Poverty History campaign on Monday evening. Unlike UCL, which has official places for posters (which must all have the Union logo on them and be approved by the Union), it appears that at LSE the place for posters is along the walls on Houghton St- they are always thickly covered with them, but they don't appear anywhere else. Apparently they're not strictly allowed there, but everyone puts them there anyway, and I think it gives the place atmosphere- you really feel you're on a campus even if it is really a public side street.

What with having nine o'clock lecture, and always arriving half an hour early in any case, I was quite happy to help out, and would actually have thought it sensible to get the posters beforehand (either via a handover in person the day before or by having a copy sent to my email and printing some out) and put them up by myself saving anyone else having to get up so early- it has to be early because the posters are normally taken down at the end of each day (though on this occasion they hadn't been), and the spaces fill up again quickly the next morning. But as it turned out, the chair of the society came too- I'm not sure whether the posters weren't ready to hand over the day before, or if she felt as the chair she had to be there- though she may have had a nine o'clock lecture too- she was certainly off somewhere with a friend at the same time as me. Sadly, the posters were white to tie in with the white bands, and so they didn't stand out that well- but hopefully enough people will see them to increase attendance.

After my lecture, I read the Guardian over a cup of tea and a pain-au-chocolat for an hour or so (belated breakfast) before going to the library to check my emails and contact SC2 about meeting up later, then finished the recycling poster. I then went and got some lunch at Kantan, and sat and ate it outside the library, again reading the Guardian. I then went back in to do some more work, but I felt very tired- I have recently been existing on Margaret Thatcher levels of sleep and hope it won't induce a state of delirium in which I decide to close some mines and abolish school milk- and had a nap before making another stab at some of the questions from Principals and Methods of Statistical Practice; we'd gone over them all in class but what with the tiredness and the boring voice the methods hadn't gone in enough and so I was able to attempt them as if unseen (more or less).

I left around four, only to find that someone had double parked their bike with mine- arriving so early I'd been lucky enough to get a space in the nearest cycle racks to the road- also the most popular ones. I stood and looked at the combination for some time. Whoever it was hadn't been so silly as to accidentally lock my bike as well with their lock, but because the lock attatching their bike fell between my saddle and handle bars, at a lower level than either, I had to lift the other bike right up in the air and simultaneously push mine forward (backward would have been more direct but harder as I'd have had to get their lock all the way over my handlebars and basket), so that it was completely free but on the wrong side of the cycle racks (ie the wall side) then lift my bike right over all the others. At one point I thought it was going to turn out to be impossible and I'd have to get the bus back and in to LSE next morning, at a cost of £1.60. I'm afraid that, to let off steam, I wrote a note explaining the difficulty the bike owner had caused me and blutacked it to their saddle. Which isn't just about selfishly venting frustration: supposing whoever it was just hadn't thought about it properly and realised it was going to make it hard for me to get out, if I didn't leave a note they might well go on to do the same thing again, to me, or more likely to someone else, but after reading the note might look harder for an alternative solution in the future. Though to be fair to them LSE really doesn't have quite enough bike parking, especially since it turns out students can't park by the three Towers. Looking back in a calmer frame of mind, I should probably have phrased it in a less hostile and angry way... ah well.

After getting a bit of shopping on the way home, I scanned in my pictures and emailed them to SC2 (though she has a data stick, I don't) and then went to meet her. We got the leaflet all finished, pictures and all, and are just waiting for approval from the hall manager before printing and distributing copies. We'll send out the recycling poster at the same time- it lists exactly what can go in the pink recycling bags in the kitchens, which despite the claims of the management, is neither childishly simple nor completely covered by their own note on the poster about kitchen cleaning times. For example, they just mention plastic, but according to the website of the borough council that runs the scheme, it's only plastic bottles that can go in- anything else, such as cellophane or carrier bags, can't. Our version (done by me :) ) is heavy on drawings and attractively laid out. SC2 had also made some posters, for Climate Change Awareness Week which is about a fortnight away, which were brilliant- they had funny pictures and a common theme- "You don't need to [eg do without coffee in the morning], just [eg boil exactly the amount of water you need]. Together we can do it!" (there was something else I've forgotten in the end wording). They're to promote the Interhalls Energy Saving Competition that will hopefully be taking place over the week, so they don't need to go up just yet- but they will be great when they do. We also sorted out who we need to talk to about various things, to do with finally getting the leaflet and poster out, and with planning things for Climate Change Awareness Week.

L and I had arranged to cook together tonight, which was good fun. Though her room wasn't affected, she and her flatmates had been unlucky enough to have sewage bursting out of the toilets in their flat, going all over the floor- very unpleasant; and they hadn't been offered anywhere else to sleep tonight. Not only were their rooms likely to smell, but they would probably have to wait up a long time for the plumber to sort things out before they could go to bed. We felt quite bad leaving them (armed with all the ingredients and utensils we were taking back to my flat- we were cooking a vaguely Korean thing which she had the key ingredients for, and we also took an extra chopping board and stuff. Up in my kitchen, we intended to open the wine straight away but a combination of a bad (synthetic) cork and a bad corkscrew meant that we were getting nowhere- and the corkscrew, not ours, was looking like it wouldn't take too violent treatment. We then tried with forks, at first not getting anywhere, but laughing so hard that you'd think we'd already had the wine. Eventually we got the cork to rise a millimetre or so, at which point we hit upon a pretty effective method that involved one person using a fork to pull the cork out as far as they could, the other sticking their fork into the exposed space as low down as possible, and then the other removing theirs, and the two swapping roles. It took quite a while but we got there!

We made a kind of stir fry (with soggy rather than crisp vegetables though) with the main seasoning being L's spicy Korean pepper sauce, though we put other stuff in too, and we had soba noodles with it. It was fairly good; not the best thing I've ever made, but my brain wouldn't have coped with turning out anything that brilliant tonight and anyway, the point was the company. Finishing off the wine in my room afterwards, we were surprised when we looked at the time and found it was half past twelve- we'd been thinking nine thirty and ten thirty respectively.

I didn't see CMCC today, but I have, mostly accidentally, or at least not exactly on purpose, arrived at a greater level of knowledge than before- last night I was filled with an irresistible impulse to Google him*- I was very very tired so probably didn't have the most coherent purpose in my head, but I think I just wanted to see his name in print- already yesterday evening, and continuing today, I had a subconscious feeling that he didn't really exist and I'd made him up, or that the real version was completely different to the one in my mind (in fact today for a lot of the time I couldn't remember anything specific about him like face or impression of personality, but only the fact that I liked him). I think I expected references from the LSE website to him being the Environment and Ethics officer, and perhaps, given how politically active he is, a local newspaper story briefly mentioning him or a letter to the Guardian or something. I didn't expect to find his MySpace page- maybe because he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would have one (too serious?) and because though of course I've heard of MySpace, I'd never been to it before (and look down on it a little...). Of course, when I saw it there, I couldn't resist... there was a terrible photo of him (he doesn't photograph well), and his age in black and white, 19, hammering home what a big gap there is between us- but also the gold nuggets "Orientation: Straight" and "Status: Single". The first is of course very likely to still be true, and the second fairly- if I interpreted it right the page was last changed (or logged into anyway) just a few days ago, and while he might just have not got round to altering it yet, the balance of probability is that it is accurate. Naturally, these two facts do not mean that anything will happen- but it is nicer to just regret that he's almost certainly not interested in me than to also have to wonder whether he even has a vacancy for a girlfriend.

I also visited a (probably amateur) author's site where he had published some poetry age 16- when according to his profile he liked spending time with all his friends, but particularly with his girlfriend- and it was fascinating (though yes, I know, probably morally dubious) to have a window on his life three years ago- particularly as at that time of life three years makes such a difference in personality. Some of the poetry I thought was pretty bad- though that might just have been me- it was philosophy written in poetry style and not hugely deep or meaningfull philosophy at that**. But there was one piece where he'd used word patterns very effectively to produce something with a real ring to it (that doesn't quite sound right but I can't think of a better way to put it), and a love poem to his then girlfriend which was lovely (and showed, as my rational self had insisted, that my other side was wrong to feel it bizarre and irreverent to attribute any kind of sex drive to him). Interestingly, one of the poems covered something he'd told me about when we were on the tube to Archway- neither the 16 year old nor the CMCC knew that I would have both the poem and the conversational account together. Finally, I visited a link from his MySpace site to that of the band he's in back at home that he also told me about and they had some tracks to listen to; they took ages to download and you couldn't replay them without downloading all over again (I wanted to replay them so as to be able to hear them without gaps). Though CMCC is their main vocalist, I don't think it was him singing on the first track, but it was on the second- but it's hard to be sure as it seems his singing voice isn't terribly like his speaking voice, which in any case I can't remember. It was kind of nice to hear something that sounded vaguely like him though... And I very much liked the song- as always, for the tune as I can never hear the lyrics of songs, though the title was interesting- "It's worth doing badly"- I think it underlines a fundamental difference between us and explains why he has the confidence to run for important positions, speak at the UGM and propose motions. You see, I believe (I my other side; my rational side isn't sure I should believe it) that if a thing's worth doing, it has to be done as well as possible. Actually, I think a thing has to be done as well as possible even if it's not worth doing (sounds paradoxical- surely if it's not worth doing you wouldn't bother with it at all? but I have wasted time in some really quite creative ways in the past). This is probably holding me back.

Though I shall try to refrain from such shady practices in future, seeing a glimpse of him at a younger age and in a less perfect form has at least taken away some of my awe, and I may be able to interact more naturally with him next time I see him. Whilst remembering not to mention any of the knowledge I acquired from those sites...

*No, this is not an innuendo- it's your dirty mind, not mine

**Which of course doesn't reflect badly on his current self since he was probably a different person at 16 as most of us were. He appears to have been quite angsty (which reminds me of my ex-boyfriend; he lost a fair bit of it when he went out with me, as far as I could tell)- that seems to have been replaced by his political passion in the current model