to run around frantically, fight the crowds in covent garden and oxford street, and bake up a storm of cinnamon cookies and plum, apple and walnut cake.

and also to receive phone calls from my dad because he was bored stuck in a traffic jam on the way to bugis junction to pick my mother up, who was calling him repeatedly to tell him to pick her up from somewhere else due to aforesaid traffic jam but could not get through because he was on the phone with me, and then a lot of passing the phone around ’so your mummy can talk to you’ and my dad could go back to shouting at other drivers. so there was news about my grandma, siblings and cousins, and wonderings about whether or not i’d be back for chinese new year this (next) year, and how my studies were going, was i actually studying or really just having fun, and about my graduation and who was going to come in july to attend it. and then also lots of moral lessons passed through the phone line, about ‘that friend of yours’ and ‘proper behaviour’ and ‘think about your reputation’ and ‘tell him not to take it personally’.

are we all janus-faced and multiple-lifed? once again, i will reflect upon the concept of ‘asian values’ as a construct invented to further the social engineering project. and like, whatever.

and while M splutters and is flabbergasted at (1) being the subject of the parental conversation while he could hear every single word of it, (2) my mother being so nasty to him, (3) how not not to take it personally because it clearly was a personal attack even though they’ve never met him before, and (4) what the hell ‘lor’ and ‘lah’ meant, it is also time to pack up the car with still unwrapped presents and other assorted sundries and head off down the A21 and into the southeast - after waking up 3 hours later than planned due to the holding of half-asleep conversations with the parents afterwhich i had to fall asleep again so as to recover from the shock&horror of it all (see above).

oh, and of course ’twas the season for christmas trees, log fires, roast turkey, glazed parsnips, caramelized carrots, roasted potatoes, stuffing, roast loin of pork, brussels sprouts and christmas pudding.

the leaves are twirling and swirling through the air like ballet dancers. the rustle-crackle and the whoosh-whoosh ominous-sounding, until i look up and see these great big masses of leaves flying past my window.

like being caught by surprise whilst scuba-diving, and suddenly having to stay really still while a huge school of barracuda pass you by in their silver-blue-flecks-of-light brilliance.

but anyway, many pictures follow. because i’ve only just uploaded them, even though some date back a month or so.

gig 01: Faust
gig 01: Kid Koala
gig 01: Explosions In The Sky
gig 01: Fourtet
gig 02: Courtney Pine
gig 02: stairwell at the De La Warr Pavillion
the gherkin, on the way to Paul McCarthy at Whitechapel Gallery
self-explanatory, on Brick Lane
where clothes go to die
chive flower husks

Cycling around on my new-old pushbike has become a daily affair. Suddenly everything is so much closer and quicker to get to – now I just have to get over my fear of roundabouts and cycling across the bridges. I’ve also realised that there is a certain fraternity amongst cyclists, we eye up one another whilst passing and smile, nod or wink in recognition of each other’s efforts.

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Chive flowers are so pretty when they’re in bloom, and when they’ve seeded they resemble hearts on stalks. Cutting off the heads to collect the seeds, I’ve fallen in love with their raspy paper-like texture, and the faint onion-garlicky smell.

I’ve also bought spring bulbs to plant after suffering a full-blown case of bulb-envy over the weekend. See, M persuaded me not to get any in November because ‘we’ll be moving before they come up’. The fool. Now I see the hyacinths in pots in other people’s houses and I get so jealous I want to pierce the bulbs and introduce root rot. But now I’ve got my own (at half-price too!), and I have to plant them now now now or they’ll never grow, and come spring I might fly into a rage and start eating them damned bulbs.

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Last night there was a Christmas drinks party for the current and future trainee solicitors of the firm I’ve signed my life away to.

Last night there were too many gin&tonics, and waaaay too many flaming sambucas. I hate that sticky sickly sweet thing. The only part I liked about it was holding the fire in my mouth. I’m a fire-eater! RAWWR!

Obviously, everyone there already is or is going to be a trainee solicitor. But I never expected those on the LPC now to be so cloistered. Perhaps I’m reading too much into things, but they seemed so insular and hidden away in that corner of the lounge never venturing out except to get drinks from the barman.

From their midst emerged an ex-schoolmate from Singapore who stopped me and asked ‘Are you from RJ?’ I was slightly stunned by the question, and after answering in the positive had to think really hard to match her face to my memories, and I finally realised who she was whilst in the toilet. But I can no longer remember her name. I’m sure I never knew her name whilst at school, and we only knew each other by sight, each of us navigating our own way and intersecting occasionally through the occurrence of mutual friends. She tried to tell me above the din of the music and drunken lawyers-to-be, but alas, it fell out my ears and mixed with the clinking of glasses and the calls for more tequila. I’m sure I’ll get to know her a lot better when I start my training contract.

But I digress.

Apart from those on the LPC, everyone else seemed to be mingling very well. Too well, I suppose, seeing as it was all this mingling that resulted in those flaming sambucas. And it was interesting that everyone got along, which bodes well for my future, and it felt like a confirmation of this nebulous thing called a training contract that has so far only seemed like a faraway concept. Which is nice, I suppose.

Friday night started out as a dinner and a trip to the pub.

But 24hour drinking rocks, and we ended up horrendously drunk after staggering our visits to 3 different pubs/bars, picking up friends as we went along. Herne Hill is where I’d like to move to, if only it wasn’t so far out and we hadn’t already decided on Bethnal Green.

Saturday was spent shopping with T, and then having fortifying drinks under the arches of Peckham Rye Train Station. Good conversation and amazing buys. I honestly think that our shared post-colonial upbringing (her in South Africa, mine in Singapore) does a lot for our friendship and increases our mutual disbelief at the bend-over-backwards political correctness and social correctness in England.

After which it was back home to a feast of lamb curry, dhal and vegetable curry. And more wine. And more whiskey. And more Port.

I think we overdid the drinking by Sunday afternoon, and last night was spent semi-conscious and hazily hungover in T’s kitchen, having nut loaf, butternut squash soup, tofu and couscous salad and mince pie.

I heart weekends.

Especially when they play out without any deadlines looming, or any niggling feelings telling me I really ought to be back at my desk highlighting and underlining.

For a month, anyway. And then it’s nose back to grindstone, and continuing to freak the housemates out with my long sustained spells of diligence.

But it’s good that term is ending now. I’m so tired, and I haven’t been able to breathe.

I spent an hour or so cycling on my new-old pushbike, and it felt so nice to not think about how best to fit my life in around my work for once. I didn’t think about which chapters I had to finish by tonight, I didn’t think about what I needed to catch up on for my class on Friday, I didn’t think about all the up-coming essays and reports I had to do in the next few weeks. I was occupied by other thoughts, like what to make for dinner and where I ought to be cycling to in order to purchase ingredients (I decided on spiced rice, roasted large flat mushrooms with mash stuffing, and salad, by the way).

And of course now that I’m back, the books loom large on my shelf and the emails start trickling in. Reading schedules have to be worked out for this week and over the holidays, essay deadlines have to be entered into the calendar, feedback noted and filed away.

This last week of term is an academic blackhole. It’s a vacuum where the lectures take place but no one’s really paying attention anymore, and no one really cares what takes place because they’ve all got plans to fly off to foreign lands sometime in the coming week, and questions pop into my head about whether I ought to read now for the first class next term or should I just leave it for now.

But most important question in my head of all: How did I get roped into cooking Christmas dinner for M’s family? This is serious English-ness we’re talking about. And me! Chinese girl from way out there cooking Christmas dinner for 6 to 10 others? Oh dear. It’s going to be interesting times, I can tell.

restlessness like a spider scuttles up and down, in and around.

a discomfort with being still. of sitting here. of being this.

i need to go go go! somewhere or other. before its too late, and i’ll be left with .

what is it about port and red wine that leads to headaches?

and what is it about the closing-in of essay deadlines that results in procrastination?

and the debilitating nature of ignorance, which leaves me shocked and unable to write (much like a rabbit caught in the headlights), whenever i don’t know all, absolutely all the things that i will put down on paper in reply to the essay question.

and the proliferation of happy christmassy green-and-red-and-gold cinnamon-ginger-and-nutmeg-scented thoughts that invade my mind, when really i should to be thinking about the causes of corporate failure and whether we ought to be concerned when companies fail.