Some kind of a thing

I started work on my dissertation on Monday, finally, so I've been doing the nine-to-five thing again. I actually started pollen identification yesterday, so I was staring into a microscope for six hours or so, and I felt so sick. I always do for the first couple of days, but my eyes'll get used to it soon enough. Today I decided I deserved a lie in, but of course I didn't shut my curtains properly, and dawn's at about four in the morning these days. Hooray for me! So I lay in bed just as a matter of principle until nearly nine, though my room was smelling more and more like tar as time went on. Oh the joy of having a building site next door. I've learned to just block out the noise, but the smells can still surprise me. The sooner I move, the better. C'mon, July 1st! Get here already!

This afternoon a friend of le bloke is doing a pub crawl as she's leaving forever and ever prety soon. As I have no work to do anymore except my dissertation, I don't mind going at all, but le bloke has many and lots of work still due, and he may be stressing a wee bit.

And now - to the lab!

I've been alternating being unpleasantly busy with periods of doing sweet fanny adams lately, which is interesting.

I finally finished all my course work and handed it in on Tuesday (I could have handed it in on Monday, as I had it finished, but stupid Jars forgot that it was a bank holiday). While I was finishing that I was only letting myself go online for about a half hour everyday, so if you've been wondering where I've been, that's where.

I've also been battling with the godforsaken banks in this country. For some reason, my bank (Natwast I'm looking at YOU) won't give me a chequebook. It's because I'm a foreign student, apparently. And I need a chequebook in order to pay a deposit on the place I'm going to be living. What I might do with a chequebook that could be construed as untoward, I don't know. Note that this is the same bank that gave me a chequebook four years ago when I lived in England. Perhaps I've grown less trustworthy in the interim. Luckily for me, the chap I'm living with is quite lovely and said I could get the money to him however I liked, because who uses cheques these days anyway? So I went to my branch to transfer some money into his account. But wait a minute, what's this? A £25 fee for transferring money to someone else's account, that's what. Screw that, said I, I'll get a Banker's Draught (draft? Hm). But oh ho, no, Jars, unless you want to pay a £15 fee for that. Eventually I just went to his bank to deposit the money directly into his account, but really now. How obtuse can one fricking bank be? Very, that's how.

I'm also meant to be starting my dissertation, but the girl who'll be helping me out at first so I don't burn the place down won't be free until Tuesday, giving me an awful lot of free time. I've forgotten what to do with free time. There is still that pesky getting a job to be done, of course. And I might start researching, but that's a bit tough when you have only the vaguest idea of what material you'll be working with.

In less blah news, X-Men 3 annoyed me muchly, it is becoming sunny again, I think I might go to Chatsworth House this weekend, and I'm about to make apple pie.

Also, a rather belated HIPPO BIRDIES to siriaeve.

And so the search continues. Because apparently there isn't a double room in the city available from the 1st of July until the end of September that isn't full of barely post-pubescent boys, smells of curry and beer, or has windows falling out.

If anyone would care to lend me a tent for the duration, it would be very much appreciated.

Cheers.