i realise now that i can’t decide between writing it as ’soy milk’, or ’soya milk’.

or maybe i’ll be better off writing it as ‘tau hway chwi’.

i think i’ve missed the chalky sweet taste of it, which explains my sudden conversion.

all those childhood memories of pouring tau hway chwi out of a plastic bag bought from the market, still warm to the touch. and the big plastic containers with green borders at hawker centers, half creamy white and the other black-brown and slithering with grassjelly. and those white and blue packets of vitasoy.

some of my cartons say soy milk. others say soya milk.

right now, i think ’soya milk’ looks more aesthetically pleasing.

In another series of firsts, I’ve

• voluntarily called my mother up for a chat, that ended up lasting something like 2 hours;
• switched to soy milk instead of cow milk for coffees, teas and other milk-requiring foods;
• sent away 3 rolls of films in the post to be developed and printed and then sent back to me;
• skipped a class and made up excuses to the teacher for not attending because I couldn’t face giving a presentation on an incoherent and really lousy lecture topic that I chose at random (I know, I’m such a saddo in so many different ways); and
• begun arranging a holiday for myself on my own to somewhere only I (and perhaps 2 others, just in case I go missing etc) will know.

Yes, it’s been interesting the things I’ve been getting up to (or not).

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I think reading week is installed only because we would lose our sanity otherwise.

I know last term I was desperately craving a break 5 weeks into the whole routine, but didn’t get it. This term, I’ve got it, but somehow I don’t feel as if I’ve been putting in as much effort – perhaps it’s the skipping presentations, and the fact that we do have a break now, mitigating the stress.

But it does give the law students a nice stop-gap to let us come up for air and take in some surrounding views of the land beyond our textbooks. Only law students get reading week at the LSE, but also only because we are the only course that has 2 lectures per subject per week and at least 1 class per subject per week – all other classes get 1 lecture, 1 class, and reading lists about half the length of ours.

So anyway, reading week is fabulous. It’s an extended weekend right smack in the middle of our ten-week terms, given to us by the grace of those above so that they can take a break from our blank faces, distant gaze and slack jaws. It’s also a week where most of us will do anything but reading – except the minority (like me) who have essays due on the Monday after.

Barring that fact, though, reading week means I get to wake up later than usual, potter around the kitchen and in my room, finish reading Weight by Jeanette Winterson, and dismantle my room in bits for transportation to Whitechapel.

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Everyone should grow chives in cans. Or even grass.

It’s exciting watching little green things sprout and grow and lean towards my ultra-bright daylight-simulating fluorescent tubed desk lamp. And they look very silly while doing it as well, providing me endless pleasure and distraction.

The hyacinths no longer hold any appeal for me. Having burst into pinkish-purple blooms, their sickly-sweet cloying scent has resulted in their banishment to the kitchen and also into the cold cold cold outdoors.

Chives and grass are much better.