Snow (just a tiny bit but still...)

You can't see it too well, but there's snow on the tree stump

We're finally having wintry weather- it's now as cold as it usually is in late November and December (and January, February and March as well though). And there was even some snow, which actually settled which is pretty unusual for London. I didn't know anything about it till about one in the afternoon though: I didn't get up that early because I don't have any classes on Wednesday morning, and I didn't notice anything as I left halls, but when I was walking through Lincoln's Inn Fields on my way from the bus stop to LSE I saw little rings of white round the plants in one of the flowerbeds. I thought 'Snow!', but then I thought maybe it was salt or something. But when I looked closely I saw that it really was snow. It must have been quite something to last that long (I assume it fell during the night). I'm sorry I missed it.

Easier to see in this picture, but it's not so nice!

It's certainly been cold enough, and unfortunately not all of LSE's buildings have perfect heating. I would say that at least it's saving energy and causing less carbon emissions, but sadly I think it has more to do with poor insulation, open windows etc than heaters not being turned on. Yesterday morning we had three hours of one course in the same room, and I had unwisely chosen to wear a skirt that finished just above the knee that day. While the lecturer was going through the notes I was sitting with my hands clasped to my knee-caps, but when on a couple of occasions he gave us 15 minutes to work through some calculations and I had to write, I had to just let them get cold.

There was an open meeting about the Sutherland appointment yesterday with the Students' Union General Secretary. Of course, almost everyone who turned up was anti-Sutherland, which at least meant we didn't lose time arguing about whether or not he was a Good Thing. The General Secretary seemed broadly sympathetic, but he also wanted us to make 'realistic' demands, the un-appointing of Sutherland not apparently counting as one. He said that he would convey all of our feelings to the Director, but was asking us for some kind of compromise demand, asking what Sutherland could do to be acceptable to us as Chair, and failing to realise in spite of our best efforts at explaining* that really there wasn't anything he could do: for example, I don't see how given his past record he can fulfill the part of the job description relating to being a figurehead- he doesn't represent us at all. Well, unless he's got a time machine of course to go back and change it... Unfortunately, I think the General Secretary also didn't grasp that we weren't being uncompromising for the sake of it, out of arrogance or to get attention or because we liked having our own way, but because we really really couldn't see any possible solution we could be happy with other than him not being chair. I mean, if the Director were to come up with some way for Sutherland to be Chair that we could be at least fairly satisfied with I'm sure we'd give it serious consideration; I don't actually think he could because I don't think one exists, but if he did... I could definitely see where the General Secretary was coming from- he was saying that what we were saying was quite vague (I think he was referring to some of the ideas about having more student input in the selection process) but if the Director was there he'd be asking for concrete solutions/ proposals, and I could see it as he said it: it was exactly like the individual proposal excercise in the Civil Service Fast Stream Assesment Day, and I could well believe that talking to the Director would be exactly like that. However, there is an important difference: on the Assessment Day I was trying to persuade them to give me a job, and if they had given me one then in future situations like that which would be for real I would be trying to keep it. In this situation however, I don't see why, were I to be talking to the Director which of course I won't be, I couldn't say 'Well, I can't actually think of a concrete proposal which would make Sutherland acceptable to us. But then I'm only a humble student and you're the one with all this management experience. Though I don't believe such a proposal exists, I'm prepared to accept that I could be wrong. If you think that there is something that would work, please give me some suggestions". After all, even if he just said the meeting was over and refused to consider anything unless we came up with the proposal ourselves, we wouldn't be any worse off than we are now. Anyway, this is all besides the point: we can't see a compromise and we are still asking for a binding referendum of students and staff on the appointment.

I've been to some interesting events this week. In addition to Monday's Islam and Feminism discussion, there was a talk by Hilary Benn yesterday** organised by the Labour society which I went to with some People and Planet people to ask questions about provision of AIDS treatment in developing countries, only I didn't know enough about it to ask any questions myself so I was really there for moral support I suppose. Then today there were a couple of films. I really wanted to see the first one but thought I wouldn't be able to because there was a Green Party committee meeting at the same time. However this turned out to be brief as only three people were able to make it and it had to be rescheduled. Though I turned up to the film about 20 minutes late it was only just starting. It was really good- it was about female genital mutilation (it was part of Women's Week), though it was a drama, not a documentary. It over-ran by ten or fifteen minutes but even though I had a lecture I couldn't not see how it ended so I was just late for the lecture. Though as it happened, though I was ten minutes or quarter of an hour late, the lecturer was still on the first slide, so I'm not quite sure what I missed (though annoyingly we have less than 50% of the slides on the hand-outs he gives us (which are identical with what's available in the public folders), and he doesn't leave the others up long enough for us to be able to copy all the stuff down- I'm a bit worried that while I get it as he's speaking about it and with the slides in front of me, it's going to be tough to revise). The evening film was a documentary about sex-workers which was part of India Week. It was really refreshing to see a non-stereotypical facet of Indian society, and also interesting in a broader context.

Back in halls, I cooked with Flatmates 3 and 7. We did spring rolls, vegetables in black bean sauce (me), vegetable stew in cheesy sauce (Flatmate 3), rice, pickled cucumbers, and tapioca and red bean dessert (Flatmate 7), and had tea with it as well, though we didn't have time to linger over it chatting for ages on this occasion. The black bean sauce was still too salty really, but it was better than last time I attempted it (in Fourth year). I put straw mushrooms and water chestnuts in as well as ordinary mushrooms, green peppers and courgettes (which last two I overcooked unfortunately) and onions (which I undercooked). The water chestnuts were interesting because the Chinese word on the tin was not the name they went by in Taiwan and Flatmate 7 didn't know what they were (though we both*** thought she had probably had them before), and I couldn't really describe them. Flatmate 3 did know what they were, but she told me when we were eating them that she didn't normally like them but she did in this case- maybe it's because she would normally have them fresh but these were tinned.

Flatmate 7 was telling us a bit about the purge of intellectuals and the middle classes by the Kuomintang in Taiwan a long time ago. It's interesting that in this country most people have heard about the Cultural Revolution in China, but not about this similar happening in Taiwan- I certainly hadn't before tonight.

I still haven't managed to find time to fit in my laundry. I've now postponed it to Friday- but then I was supposed to do it last Friday and the one before. Good thing I have so many pairs of knickers...

*some of them it has to be said made at somewhat greater volume than called for- there's one guy, bless him, who doesn't seem to be able to express his opinion to someone in opposition to it without ending up shouting rather heatedly; he also formed one half of a very loud (and extremely over-protracted) dialogue about whether or not the anti-Sutherland people should form a society at Monday's meeting (of just the anti-Sutherlanders), which ended with him storming out muttering about having 'things to do', but luckily both halves of this dialogue seemed to be the best of friends again at the Tuesday meeting!

**I didn't do karaoke with my UCL friends in the end- we rearranged for various reasons

***I think, but maybe it was just me