A room of one's own

As sad as it will be to not help keep Mike in Belsize Park warm through the winter months I do suspect a lovely room for one in Bethnal Green will make for a suitable consolation. Thank fucking god - I have found a room. But more than that - I have found a room in a lovely house owned by a truly lovely girl that I would love to live in - and they it seems, would love me to live in too. Collective sigh of relief please.


Add to that two days of consecutive sunshine and I could weep with joy.

Not sure when I'm going to move in - hopefully next weekend - but I'm terrified I'm going to jinx it somehow so don't want to think about it until I've handed over my paltry Australian shekels, got my key and dumped my crap all over the floor. Fingers, toes, eyes all crossed until then please.

School is still going well - but the work has started all of a sudden - last week it all seemed so civilised, with early finishes and vino after lectures. The concept of actual work hadn't really occurred to me. Oh how that has changed. I spent two and a half hours yesterday at the Tate Modern working on two object analysis assignments. Really so interesting but exhausting - was completely catatonic by the end of it - not even a scenic walk over the historic Tower Bridge could assail my sookiness. It is pretty phenomenal though when you can pause momentarily at any one random spot in London and have the extraordinary history of this city overwhelm you.

I caught up earlier in the week with an old friend from Brighton days nearly a decade ago (p.s. when did I get this old?) Anyway, we had a grand old time but it really drove home for me how exhausting Making New Friends can be. Am enjoying it - and there are some really incredibly fabulous girls on this course (and have I mentioned yet that when I say girls I mean girls - not even a token gay man. Welcome to impending spinsterhood...) but I'm finding it strange and occasionally disconcerting to be "the Australian", "the one who's always wanting a 'quiet, early night'", "the one who proposed the 'Up Yours' theory in the Tate Modern" (which is catching on by the way), "the one with the necklaces", "the one with nice skin whose cheeks turn pink when I talk in class" (uhuh...), "the one who turned up 40 minutes late to the welcome party and arrived right in the middle of the speeches only for the new Institute director to then ask who the token Australian was?" Excellent.

I would have a crisis about it but I'm too busy having crises about employment, the cost of public transport, whether or not it's acceptable to eat Special K for breakfast and dinner and the fact I am already sick of everything I own and have nothing to wear.