10/05 - A lot of work went down today, and the following few days too. Consequently not much fun happened. I did a fair amount of internet shopping after hours - some headphones, memory stick, a book (Cory Doctorow's new one, For The Win). On my way home, I got a call from Kelly telling me that she had just talked to Gordon (head of her course) and he had said that the prospects of her getting onto the mental health PhD she wanted were not good. I tried to reassure her, but with not much success. I panicked a bit, went to the Asian supermarket on Rue De Servette and bought a load of stuff to try and calm me down, then bought a pizza from Pizza Brasil (this only cost CHF 10, and came with a free litre of ice tea!). By the time I made it to Coutance to catch the bus, Kelly had rung me back and told me that she had received an email from Patrick Maxwell, who is the chap who ultimately decides if she gets the new PhD or not, and he said it was all fine. That was a draining few minutes, I arrived home having been both terrified and elated in quick succession. I added some extra anchovies and cheddar to my pizza and grilled it for a bit - it became so greasy that by the time I had eaten half of it it had started to soak through the box. It was still delicious, but made me feel a little guilty.
11/05 - Today I missed a bus by a few seconds, popped into the shop to buy batteries and missed the next one by about two seconds as well. I started the day somewhat grumpily, worked until about 1415 when I remembered to go and have lunch. R1 stops serving at 1400, so I was left with a terrible chicken curry sandwich (not enough filling, as always), a tiny salami bun thing and a massive doughnut with about half a jar of jam in it. Worst lunch so far. I worked until about 1915, went to my French class intending to find dinner along the way, and spent 20 minutes wandering though the extensive car park before I finally found my way in, only to find most of the routes barricaded off - I ended up inhaling two cheeseburgers and grumpily arriving 20 minutes late for French. Ironically, when I arrived they were doing 'excuses', and I was entirely unable to think of one.
12/05 - Today was just another day of work - I have been rather busy, and my memories of day to day occurrences are fading fast. My main memories are that I ate quite a few pistachio macarons, had a chicken kebab for lunch (it was not very delicious), met James on the bus and we tore into the PhD system (particle physics especially) and all its inefficiencies. I think all I had to eat was noodles - my diet has gone to absolute shit this week, mostly pizza & burgers - certainly nothing one might call a vegetable.
13/05 - Today is Ascension Day, a holiday in Switzerland. I spent the first half of it sitting on the floor of my flat, doing some work in my dressing gown. The second half I spent coming home. I was starving by the time I got to the airport, got a Big King XXL from the Burger King in a bit of the airport I had never seen before. The lady behind the till was incredibly slow - she would take an order then saunter about making it herself, waiting for it all to be ready before giving it to the customer. Usually another employee does the fetching - this meant that every order took a couple of minutes, so I spent 20 minutes queuing for my food, so I ended up arriving at the gate as my flight was already boarding. On the upside, the burger was great.
When I got to Gatwick I headed straight to Farringdon to meet Kelly, as she had a surprise for me - this was an exhibition in the Barbican, featuring a load of zebra finches in a room with a load of guitars and cymbals - as they flew about, landing on the instruments, they created a sort of soundscape. It would have been great, if it weren't for two things: There were not enough finches, so the sounds were sporadic and incohesive, and also we had to queue for about an hour to get in. After this we tried to go for dinner, which proved to be a frustrating task. Firstly we missed our first reservation, then couldn't get into anywhere we wanted, and ended up settling on an Italian restaurant that lured us in with a glass of Prosecco - the staff were pretty short with us, the food was or a pretty low standard, and its only saving grace was that it was only about a tenner each. Add to this the fact that I was exhausted and probably a little grumpy, and one can see that it was not the ideal dining experience.
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