My brain thinks it's Reading Week...

One difference between LSE and UCL is that the latter has a reading week halfway through each term while the former sadly does not. This has not however stopped my brain from secretly believing that this past week has been a holiday*. As I mentioned, I missed one lecture through oversleeping and slept through much of the second part of another. Then I fell asleep again in yesterday morning's... Strangely though I was fine in today's, though it's more boring than either. There are several possible explainations, some more sensible than others: it could be argued that since I had been drinking the night before only in the final case, alcohol helps keep one awake the next morning- but that would just be silly. More plausible are the fact that I got six hours' sleep on Thursday night instead of four, and that this morning's lecture involved copying down things from the board instead of just following along in print outs.

I recovered from the effects of lectures both today and yesterday by going for a nap in the Shaw Library. I'd heard about it several times since coming here, but hadn't been before. It's not a serious study library, but is more like a common room- though I think you are supposed to be quiet and not use mobile phones. It has lots of comfy armchairs and fortunately, contrary to what I thought I remembered it wasn't a smoking area- I don't think I'd have stayed if it had been. The only problem was that it turns out to be a bit chilly- you need to bring your own blanket really! Yesterday there was some live music- not a concert exactly, more like a public/ open rehearsal (they were saying things between bouts of playing like 'Can we practice this bit?') which was very good- I would have liked to know the composer so I could buy it on CD when I had more money. To begin with there was just a harp and a violin, but later they were joined by a flute and some other stringed instruments.

Rather than going on to do some work, I followed yesterday's nap with a visit to the Garrick cafe- but technically I had a good excuse as People and Planet are doing a survey of fair trade availability on campus and that was where I'd volunteered to check out. Turns out they only have fair trade coffee- but on the other hand they only have fair trade coffee. No, not a stylistic glitch there, but me trying to be too clever- I'll rephrase: It turns out that the only fair trade product they have is coffee, but on the other hand all their coffee is fair trade. Of course, as I was conducting the survey in a subtle, I'm-just-asking-out-of-curiosity way, I was forced to buy a drink at the same time, what a shame. In spite of the findings of the survey I went for tea as I don't like coffee. I sat and read a bit more of my manga (I'd got it out of my locker to take up to the Shaw Library, and was carrying it around all day- and today as well (though it went back in the locker in between)). And by the time I'd finished the tea, it was time for lunch, which I went and had in the Quad (cheaper than the Garrick)- over more manga.

I went over to the Old Building in search of lost property, having mislaid three or four items during Climate Change Awareness Week (including a ring of considerable sentimental value)- but I turned out to have come during one of the times it was closed, and as there was only half an hour or so before the UGM, it didn't really seem worth going off and doing some work... Instead, I had a wander round the basement of the Old Building (which is where the lost property office was); I'd been down there before to go to the loos, but they're near the stairs and I hadn't ventured into the Interior. It's full of porters' offices and maintenance rooms- they've got a massive place that looks like a school DT lab, with machines and tools and everything that appears to be for doing repairs. Though you can't of course go in any of these rooms, you can walk along the corridors, which is rather different to UCL. I assume it's because there are also many many student lockers down there. The ones where I've got mine, on the first floor, still have loads unused, but these are all claimed. I suppose it's because the first floor ones are complicated to get to out of hours. There's also a computer room down there which, though packed during the day is apparently generally empty at night- not many people know it's open. When he was revealing this fact, EMCC called it the 'sole bastion of modernity' which describes it very well- it has a glass door and flat screen computers, where the rest of the basement has a very interesting ambience (which I actually really like).

Then there was the UGM at 1. This week the Director of LSE, Howard Davies, came and made a speech (pretty boring) and answered questions (considerably more interesting though he didn't actually make any promises about anything people were concerned about). There was just time at the end to have speeches from the candidates for C & S (who needed replacing after being no-confidenced 2 weeks ago), and for ULU council (there were three posts and only two candidates in the Michaelmas elections so there had to be a by-election for that too).

At 2 o'clock I finally did some work- this wasn't due to my discovering sudden reserves of motivation, though, but due to having arranged to meet up to work on the group project. I felt at the end of the session like we had got a lot less further on than last time- but I went away afterwards** to write up a summary again and sort one or two things out, and I actually got quite into the idea I'd been working on while we were all together- the first bit of enthusiasm I've felt about the group project. If we're on the right lines then it's actually pretty interesting. The only problem is that the software we're using, R, while brilliant in many ways, is very slow at performing loops in programming. Generally this isn't a problem as you can rewrite functions using vectors to get rid of loops and it's quick at vectors. But for some reason, my original tries at the couple of functions that carry out the most recent part, which I did using vectors, just weren't working, so I wrote versions that used loops. And you would not believe the time it takes. Usually a computer programme will run so quickly that a human doesn't notice the time lag. For the first function I wrote, it was taking a few minutes to come back with the answer. For the second function, which had a loop of its own as well as using the first function inside that loop, it took half an hour. And that's with lowish values for the number of times to do each loop. When I tried higher values today, it took more than an hour. And I had have to have three goes at it because I only had about an hour on the computer at a time between the various things I was doing, and by the time I'd got down to the computer room and got logged in and everything, it was only on the last occasion that there was enough time left before I had to go. I was actually having two computers at a time- though of course I wouldn't have done that if there hadn't been plenty spare- so that one could be working away on the function while I used the other to get on with things like emails and finishing writing up what we did yesterday.

After the People and Planet meeting yesterday evening, I met Ginger and we went to Wagamama- I hadn't been since before I went to Japan and maybe not even since before I started learning Japanese. It's something we used to do often in First Year, since there was a branch in Camden where our halls were, but after that we would often go to the cinema in Wood Green when we did something together (it's where we were in Second Year so it's kind of a nostalgia trip, plus there have never been any affordable cinemas close to where we've been living in later years, and we thought if we were going to have to travel somewhere it might as well be somewhere with two cinemas that had sentimental value), and there isn't a branch there. We were considering going to the cinema after that, but as I suspected it was too late so we just went to a couple of pubs on the way home- the first one was ok but the white wine was not very nice, and the second one had nice wine but the walls were covered with what were clearly the world's unfunniest ever cartoons that someone had gone out of their way to collect***. We provided our own humour though, so that was ok- somehow Ginger ended up telling me the fairy story Donkeyskin, and I kept interrupting with bizarre questions or comments, and somewhere along the way the princess became Boris Johnson, the country he/she fled to was The Past, and instead of Donkeyskin, the farmers were following the Guardian's Diary column and calling him the Helmetless Member for Henley****. The story even involved him dying his hair because its current colour would clash with the dress that was like the sun. I can't quite recall all the logic now, but at the time everything made sense...

As I said, I'm not quite sure if it was the alcohol intake, the six hours' sleep or the note-taking, but I made it through this morning's lecture without dropping off (and I wasn't even late this time). That doesn't mean I wasn't feeling drowsy though, and I revisited the Shaw Library afterwards. It was still unpleasantly chilly, but I managed to nap again (with my head at a very uncomfortable angle). I had a dream about CMCC*****- that he was in my Computational Statistics computer class. I glanced across at him and thought "This doesn't feel real; he doesn't look real. And I could swear that computer just moved places. It's like being in a dream or something". Then I woke up and discovered that I was in the Shaw Library and it was indeed a dream.

I wanted to have plenty of time to set the computer to running my function, so I decided to go and have lunch at that point (though it was only 11) so that I wouldn't have to be allowing extra time to make sure I'd be able to finish lunch by the Postgraduate Students' Forum at 1, but could just leave the computers at 1. I tried the Brunch Bowl for the first time, and rather liked it. It's much more of a canteen than the other places, which are cafes, and reminds me quite a bit of UCL's Refectory, only not so insanely crowded, more out of the way, and with hot food that actually tastes good instead of the interesting experiments one could expect to find in the Refectory. The food was tasty, it was nice and warm (unlike the Quad which is positively glacial), and though it wasn't quite as cheap as just getting the cheapest sandwich at the Quad, it was no more expensive than one of the less reasonably priced sandwiches from there or the Garrick- or rather, it would have been no more expensive if I hadn't splashed out on tea and piece of cake as well. They just looked so tempting, and after all I hadn't had any breakfast****** so I'd saved money there. There was a very good selection of tea, including peppermint which the Quad has always run out of, and things like Green Tea with Pineapple and Grapefruit- though sadly there was no fair trade stuff. The whole thing came to around £4.

The Postgraduate Students' forum was quite interesting, though I didn't say much- I thought I wouldn't have anything to say but actually I thought of some points as we were going along only there wasn't really a time when no-one else was talking to make them- but they weren't terribly important so that was ok. There were about three or four other postgrads there, plus the chair of the meeting- the Postgraduate Students' Officer, otherwise known in these pages as EMCC- the ex-male-co-chair of the Green Party who's still a very active committee member, and was one of the candidates we successfully got elected a few weeks ago. The Mature and Part-time Students' Officer also came along towards the end- I imagine there's quite an overlap between their jobs.
The other meeting I had today was one for Programme Representatives at 3. Again I didn't really have much to say, but it was good to hear what was going on. The Mature and Part-time Students' Officer was at that one too, representing his course- which I was surprised to find was statistics- I'm not sure whether that's undergrad or Phd or research Masters, but it can't be taught Masters, anyway!

After another hour on the computer, where I finally managed to successfully complete running the function (I think the meeting finished a little early and I actually got about an hour and five minutes...), I went to the last event of Rise Against Racism Week (there had been several I wanted to go to earlier on in the week but they all clashed with other things I was doing), which was a showing of The Pianist. Very harrowing, but very moving, especially at the end. The sound quality wasn't great though- I struggled to hear a lot of what was being said, so I can't imagine how it was for non-native speakers.

Rather than come straight home, I decided to go to Tottenham Court Road and buy something for supper that I've been missing ever since I went off to Japan (I used to treat myself sometimes in Third and Fourth years)- Sainsburys' Goat Cheese Tart Flamme. It really is very nice... Too bad the Kingsway branch doesn't stock it.

*Not that Reading Week was technically intended as a holiday; it was a chance to catch up on work- but I always ended up doing nothing; maybe going home and enjoying the autumn colours and going for walks and making biscuits for when we came back after said walks... This was something of a problem as I would always spend the couple of weeks leading up to it thinking 'Oh, I'll leave this till Reading Week'...

**Via another cup of tea and a cookie from the Students' Union shop...

***Sadly not someone who realised that was what they were doing, I fear

****Ginger had to have several stabs at this, coming out with 'Henson' instead of 'Henley' a few times- and those were the most coherent attempts.

*****On whom, fortunately, my crush doesn't seem to be anything like as strong as it was; indeed it seems to be on its way out. Which is probably just as well- though depressingly rigourously scheduled: I tend to find my crushes last about five weeks, and look how long this one has gone on for...

******Ahem. If you don't count chocolate, that is... I had a bar of Divine orange flavoured in my locker and had a couple of rows on my way to my lecture, since there wasn't time to get a croissant or anything, and ended up finishing the whole bar through odd squares eaten while going between the various things I was doing today...