Winter Wonderland

I got a Christmas card from Sarah! Yay!!


I have sort of started very slowly and lazily decorating my room for Christmas. I bought some fairy lights a couple weeks ago, and have lined the back of one of my shelves with wrapping paper (will do the other three eventually).


I also bought myself an advent calendar. Yay! It's lame, though, because they spoil Christmas! As you might be able to see in the picture, there is no door over the 25th of December. They show you exactly what's in there, thus spoiling the surprise! Dummies.


Also, I started attaching all letters and postcards to the side of my wardrobe, just because.


I met a bunch of friends in Hyde Park this evening for a sort of Christmas fair. They had rides, and booths selling handmade stuff (a "German market"), and ice skating, and, most importantly, food. We were all more than a bit peckish, and as we were all members of the Hot Dog Appreciation Society, we partook of some lovely bratwurst, sauerkraut and all. Mmm mm.

Appreciating sausages

After the feast, we were all thirsty, so we forked over 4 pounds for a tall coffee-cup of mulled wine. That's a pretty extortionate price for a cup of mulled wine, but I guess they justify it by making the wine ludicrously strong. I swear there was gin in there, too. Anyway, we wandered around, did some shopping, got quite tipsy, giggled at absolutely everything, tried on some hats, then settled down to some cotton candy. Pictures here. Are my classmates not ridiculously adorable?

Woodpecker

I think there's a woodpecker on my building. Knock it off, you stupid bird! I'm actually trying to study for once!

Hot dog appreciation and Panto

Darn it! I can't believe I forgot! Happy day-after-your Birthday, Ross!!

Oh, yeah, Mama. You'd fit right in here.

Migraine Maven: Yeah, I had a discussion about "rubbers" with Holly and Laura. I knew it meant condoms and erasers, but I also thought it was used to mean wellies. They said "no," though.

My classmate, Aparna, decided to create a Hotdog Appreciation Society on Facebook, so of course I HAD to join. Last night after class, we had our first club meeting at a place called Gourmet Hotdog Company in Soho. I'm sad to say that I was unable to appreciate my hotdog. I thought I'd balance my unhealthy beef hotdog with a healthy wheat bun. Bad idea. I also ordered fries, and they were cold and awful. Poo.

After that, I went to my first pantomime with another classmate, Maya. It wasn't quite a proper panto, but they tried. Pantomime is a quintessentially British phenomenon. A pantomime is a play put on around Christmas time. Key elements to every panto include a man dressed as a woman, a woman dressed as a man, audience participation, and lots of bawdy innuendo jokes. See the wikipedia page for more conventions. We went to see a reworking of Robin Hood, done by students at Imperial College London. I assumed they were drama students, but Maya said they weren't, and that explains a lot. It was fun, though, and very funny, if "unpolished." The Sherriff of Nottingham was hilarious. He thought he was a pimp and spent much of the first act sitting next to a girl in the audience, trying to seduce her. Since he was the villain, everyone had to "boo" him during curtain call.

Next week, a large group from our course is going to a proper pantomime (i.e. professional). It'll be Cinderella, and I'm really excited about it. I want to buy a party dress and wear it to all the Christmas and New Year's events. People may get tired of seeing me in the same dress, but I don't care. I have to justify spending money on it!

Life on the NHS

I posted before about how I was worried that it would take forever to get treatment/testing for my sleep disorders because of the burdens on the national health service. A couple weeks ago, I went to see my GP and ask for a referral to a sleep doctor. This required me photocopying my large packet of test results from back home so that she could review them before referring me. Apparently, the data were sufficient to warrant a referral, and today I saw a doctor at the hospital.

There was no indication that this doctor was a sleep specialist. I'm not even sure I was in a "sleep clinic." It was just called, "Clinic D," and many of the other patients in the waiting room were geriatric. Anyway, my GP had apparently not passed my previous test results onto this sleep doctor, but whatever. He said he wouldn't do any more blood work since I told him I've had plenty and it's always normal, but he wants me to do another overnight sleep study (would only be my fifth in so many years) so they can make their own decision. At what point do I say, "Enough!! Just f***ing fix it!"? All I really want to know is whether the doctor thinks I should be sleeping with my CPAP machine (please say "no," please say "no"). But I suppose it won't hurt to have another test done. It's further confirmation, so I should be happy. It's just that every time I have one of these, I get my hopes up that I'll actually get effective treatment, and then I spend months trying different things, and they all fail. I think I have no hope anymore.

And that's fine. I'll get the test done, they'll tell me to sleep with the machine, and maybe I'll try another drug that doesn't work. None the worse for wear, and at least I'll be making an effort.

The doctor said they do their sleep studies differently than in the States. The ones I've had before involved electrodes attached to my chest, legs, and various places on my head and face. This makes it really hard to sleep normally. The doctor here said they don't do any of that. They just videotape you and record the sounds you make. That doesn't sound like it would be very sensitive! He said the bedspread is spotted, so they can see movement more easily. How bizarre!! We'll see how this goes. It sounds like it should be more relaxing than my experiences at Harborview (drab rooms, loud hallway, thin mattresses, lots of stuff attached to you so you can't turn in your sleep=useless.)

Anyway, my real point of this post was to say that you hear all kinds of awful things about the NHS, but so far, my experience has been exactly the same as at home with private providers. The referral time from GP to specialist was the same. The sleep doc said the wait time for an overnight study is about 1 month, which is exactly what it was with Harborview/UW Physicians, and he said they'd automatically schedule a follow-up appointment when they got the results, which is better than UW Phys. And this time, it's all free! At least I think it is...Not sure about the sleep study. I'll have to check with my sources (i.e. British classmates).

Prescriptions here are all 6 pounds, no matter what they are (except contraceptive pills, which are FREE.) But if you have a chronic disease, you get everything absolutely free. Holly has diabetes, and she gets all her insulin shots and tester thingies free, but she also gets everything else, like antibiotics for an infection, free. I know there are huge negatives associated with universal healthcare, but that one sounds like a positive to me.

In other news, I have booked a flight to Hamburg for Easter! Woot woot! Also, I just bought a pair of rain boots online. :-) Language barrier: I told Holly I wanted a pair of rain boots, and she said, "You mean wellies?" When I said, "Yes," she said, "I wasn't sure what rain boots were." Well, boots that you wear when it's wet, obviously! Silly English.

Parkour sucks

Oh my goodness, I want to die. My head hurts. And that's nothing. Tomorrow, my whole body will be completely stiff.

Tonight, I foolishly allowed my classmate, Sally, to convince me to attend a "beginner's" course on parkour. I've known of parkour for a while, since I lived in France, so when Sally said she was trying it, I was intrigued. The people running it were like drill sargeants. They'd shout at you if you couldn't hold a stretch. They started with an insane warm-up session. Around a large rectangular part of the gym, we had to run forwards, sideways, and backwards (no big deal), then hop the whole way with our feet together, then crawl the whole way on our hands and feet, then do several push-ups, then walk the whole way on our hands and feet like monkeys, then special monkey push-ups, etc. I gave up after a while.

Then came the fun part of doing somersaults and jumping over obstacles. We started by running at and up a wall. I was not good at this. You're supposed to run at the wall, then put one foot up on the wall to vault yourself upwards. There was no vaulting for me. Jumping over things was fun, but I sucked at it. I think I chicken out and don't get the momentum to clear the thing, so I kind of inchworm over it.

Towards the end of all this jumping and sumersaulting, the fire alarm went off and we were forced to leave the building. Temperatures are just above freezing here in London, so it was a bit cold, but that didn't matter because the drill sargeants made us jump up the stairs (feet together, body low to the ground) and climb up the stairs backwards on our hands and knees. Then they made us crouch down, jump, and land back in crouching position. We were let back into the building, but not before my leg muscles turned to mush.

Once back in the building, we had "warm-down" which was really like a yoga session (but more brutal). I stopped going to yoga because the woman mentioned doing hand stands and I freaked out, but now I think yoga, hand stands and all, is a walk in the park. I'll do any other sport or exercise routine, just please don't make me go back to parkour! Who needs to climb walls or jump fences anyway? Not me! Jazzercise. That's the sport for me.

Thanksgiving in London, Weekend in Sussex

I'm very happy to report that Thanksgiving was a great success! I always worry when I plan parties. Actually, I always worry period. But especially when I plan parties that there won't be enough food, or the food will suck, or not many people will come, or they'll all be bored. The whole week before Thanksgiving, several people asked me several times if one turkey was going to be enough for everyone (it said it fed 8-10, and we were expecting 20 people). Each time, I assured them that one turkey would be plenty, as no one really likes turkey that much anyway. Why waste precious money on multiple turkeys? But their constant questions did make me fret a bit that it wouldn't be enough.

None of that happened. There was the perfect amount of food: everyone got enough, and there were hardly any leftovers. Many people complained of being full or bloated, which I assured them was traditional and proper. Everyone from our course was invited, and some people came that haven't attended any other social events, so that made me happy. Those who didn't show up are excused on the basis that they wouldn't have fit in the apartment.

My wonderful classmates:

See more pictures here.

Holly brought leftover sparklers from Bonfire Night, so we all went to the park after dinner and played with sparklers. FUN!



After class on Friday, Laura, Holly, and I headed to Holly's home in Sussex. We stayed until Sunday morning, and it was lovely as always, plus quite relaxing. We went to the pub, The Hatch, for drinks Friday night. Saturday was miserable weather, so we bundled up and pulled on Wellies and trudged across the fields to...the pub. This time for tea and coffee, though.

Trudging

All bundled up

Deer chillin' with the horsies

Saturday night, we played a couple games of Scrabble. Holly was score-keeper, and she won both times. Coincidence? Hard to say...For dinner, we had proper, English, take-away fish n' chips. I'm a little ashamed to say this was my first fish n' chips, though I've been here two and a half months. But that's London's fault. No one knows where to find good fish and chips in London, though I've spotted a couple places that I need to try out. Anyway, it was DELICIOUS. It's rare for me to say "no" to anything that's been fried.

Venture into Chelsea

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Ms. Petey, old people who have retired and are living off of social security, aka "pensioners," are poor. Nobody cares about them because they're old. This knitting campaign would give the impression that there is an epidemic of pensioners unable to pay their heating bills, or even to buy blankets for themselves. Check their website for more info: Age Concern. I can't knit anyone anything because I left my knitting stuff at home. Michele is going to send it all to me, though, so it's all good! Michele is my hero!

Jax, I'll show you what I plan to do with the caps.


Cold little rat ears.

Last night, I went to "Korean Night" at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The posters promised Korean music videos, but there was no music, and no videos. The food was DELICIOUS, though! Yummy yummy in my tummy! Two of my classmates have lived in Korea, and they introduced me to Soju, which is a Korean alcoholic beverage. It was sort of like vodka with a fruity aftertaste.

Today was a long but good day. I had Health Policy in the afternoon, the class that I very passionately hate. Lecture was ridiculous as usual, but seminar was surprisingly not too bad. Dare I say, I mildly enjoyed myself? After class, I rushed across town to Chelsea in order to buy all-important French's Fried Onions, the most important ingredient in green bean casserole. It was sort of silly to travel across town just for a can of fried onions, but I don't know where else in the city you can buy American foods. I texted my classmate, Carina, who lives in Chelsea, and she invited me over to watch a bit of "telly." I showed her the onions and described green bean casserole, and she went off on a rant about the bizarre traditional foods that we eat for Thanksgiving. She was particularly upset about the marshmallows that are applied to "sweet potatoes." (Apparently, in the UK, sweet potatoes are "yams," and yams are "sweet potatoes." I just checked wikipedia, and it turns out the Americans have it wrong. Surprise, surprise.)

Chelsea is a really, really wealthy part of London. The wealthiest part, actually. It follows that Carina is rich. :-) Her parents are "in the oil business," and her brother works in finance. She lives with him, so she doesn't have to pay rent. Sweet deal. It was nice chilling with her, but then Gray's Anatomy came on, so I had to leave because I hate that show. Also, Seth Greene was squirting blood all over this one doctor, and it was nasty. On the way home, because it was lateish and I hadn't eaten dinner, I answered the call of the Golden Arches and partook of my very first McDonald's meal since arriving here. Sadly, I cannot say it was particularly enjoyable. Whatevs.

Ooh, also, on the tube going home, a guy with a purse sat down next to me. I don't mean a guy with a manbag. It was a full-on, stylish, leather, woman's purse. I stealthily looked at him to confirm that he wasn't just a short-haired woman. He wasn't. It was odd because he didn't look otherwise effeminate at all.

Hm, I'm quite concerned about the situation in Mumbai. Very sad and tense. Terrorism sucks. It needs to go away.

Older people

I went grocery shopping today, and bought something I wouldn't normally buy. There is a brand called Innocent that sells smoothies in a bottle. I wouldn't normally buy them because they're sort of a frivolous spend, and, you know, bottles are bad for the environment. But I bought two little bottles tonight because they came with the cutest little knitted hats (and they were on sale)!



Here's what the tag says:

Every year, we ask the nation to knit little hats to go on our smoothies. For each behatted bottle sold, we (innocent and Sainsbury's) donate 50p to Age Concern.

Age Concern is a charity that provides hot meals, blankets, and heating advice to "older people" who can't afford to heat their homes. Isn't that sweet? I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it.

It has a button on top! So cute!!

Lack of snow and Snow

Becky, luckily, you don't live in a TB endemic area, so ignoring a persistent cough, while not a good idea, probably won't kill you. Probably. But yeah, I'm the same way. I don't go to the doctor for infectious diseases, only chronic stuff. That's probably because, for whatever reason, I never get really nasty stuff, just your average common cold.

So far, I haven't seen a flake of snow. I was out until midnight last night, and the sky was clear the whole time. It was really frickin freezing, though. There might have been snow in the early morning, but it was rain by the time I woke up. It's been raining off and on all day. Maybe we'll get snow tonight? I doubt it, though it is bitterly cold out there. Brrr!

Last night, I went out for Indian with Karen, Patricia, the Irish girls (Sharon and Aisling), and Neil (Canadian guy who read my palm and told me I was going to die an early, tragic death, but have a good love life). The food was delicious, and under GBP 8. It was near Carnaby Street, which is a good place to go for funky shops. Hovering over Carnaby Street and all the side streets where giant, blow-up snowmen.

Giant electrical plug on side of a building

Afterwards, we tried to go to the John Snow pub, but it was packed. John Snow was one of the first epidemiologists. He studied the waves of cholera outbreaks that swept through London in the, um...past. The 1880's maybe? Anyway, he speculated, correctly, that cholera was a water-borne infection caused by drinking sewage-contaminated water. He mapped cases in the Soho area, and figured out that they originated from the Broad St water pump, so he famously removed the pump handle, and people stopped getting cholera! (A good epidemiology student knows, though, that he wasn't really responsible for the decrease in cases. Cases were already on the decline when he removed the handle.)

Anyway, a pub in Soho was named after him, and is home to the famous pump handle. At my school, a lot of classes will go to the John Snow pub after the last lecture of the term to celebrate end of term. People at my school LOVE the John Snow pub. Someday, I will partake of a refreshing beverage there. Someday.

Wicked

The temperature dropped on Thursday night, so it was really cold yesterday, and we're supposed to get snow tonight. We'll see. I trust the weathermen here about as much as I trust them in Seattle.

Last night after class, we headed to the pub where the guy carded me, but I didn't get carded this time! Huzzah! I'm old enough to drink! Anyway, I couldn't stay long because Laura, Holly, and I were headed to see Wicked. We grabbed fish n' chips, which came wrapped up like giant cones, shoved them down our throats, and headed to Victoria for the show. I enjoyed it, but Holly and Laura were "underwhelmed." Laura said she thought it was a bit too "American." Well, it is American, after all. But I see what she means. The book was really dark, but the play is...well, a musical. It's a bit cheesy, and happy-fun-times. The girl who played Elphaba had an amazing singing voice, but too often eschewed it for a nasal, baby-doll voice that made my ears hurt. Also, she couldn't seem to decide on an accent. "Am I American? Am I British?" Which is odd because the actress is British. Perhaps my accent-radar is broken from overuse?

After the show, we decided to walk towards Westminster. Originally, the idea was to find a pub, but then we decided to just walk across London. You know what's awesome? Westminster Abbey at night. Laura, despite being from the UK (Scotland) and having lived in London as long as I have, had never yet been down to Westminster to see Big Ben. We paused for photos, and when I looked up at Big Ben, I noticed stars. Stars in London! Granted, they were really faint, but there they were.

Well, I really should be working on my essay about tuberculosis and the reasons why patients delay in seeking care for a persistent cough. Later!