I got up early again and went for my run. It was just another beautiful day for a run and I'm really enjoying it. One thing that I am starting to have a problem with is all the crap in the air. There is so much soot and just general dirt that I'm constantly hacking stuff out of my throat when I run not real pleasant. I also found something rather interesting when I was leaving the building in the morning. The entry hall is lined on one side with big glass mirrors. The one closest to the door was smashed pretty good. It happened sometime last night. Woops. I didn't see another person the in the flat at all this morning since no one had class or a place to be.
The trip to work was good this morning. I had the last little bit of the audit to do, so I finished that up and brought that over to the guy in charge, Oscar. I think it was him. It was either him or the girl who works in financial, Diane. I'm not sure which since they both talked to me about it. Well, he gave me a couple of things that needed to be fixed so I had to go back and get those done. I was really sick of this t that point. I really wanted to be done. I think the worst part was that they were mistakes that I had noticed and not ignored, but was just aware of. I also realized that I didn't do a section right so I had to go back and fix that all up. That ended up taking me the rest of the afternoon pretty much. I was granted a little reprieve though. There were some records that were missing that had been put into a different file. I was going to have to go and sort through all those to find the missing records. Not fun. I had given them the record I had copied and Dianne said that she would go and do it because it would take her about the same amount of time to find them and it would to explain it all to me. That was very nice.
The rest of the day I spent transcribing the last few articles for the reader. The first few articles weren't in a form that we could copy, so they all had to be done by hand. Not really that bad of a job. I managed to work my way through about half of what I needed to get done before I called it quits for the day. I got back in the neighborhood and I wanted to grabbed some food from a grocery store. I picked up a couple of random things and some things that I found on sale. I checked my mail on the way home and then made myself some dinner. I realized tonight that I'm one of the only people who really cooks on the trip. There area about five or six people who cook more than just boiling some pasta or throwing something into the oven. Its kind of wierd, but yeah.
The rest of the night I sat around. I spent a lot of time getting caught up on my blog, which I hadn't written in for a while. I had plans for things to do, so I didn't want to have to do that. Other than that, I spent the night watching TV with some people in the flat. A bunch of people went out, but I didn't get back to the flat until like 8, so I just wanted to chill for the rest of the night.
Friday, 16 February 2007
Feb 15th
So today I got up early to run before work. I got my alarm set for the right time this morning, so that was a plus. I left before most people got up and by the time I was back and out of the shower, most of the people had already left for class. I think I'm not going to be seeing a lot of the people on the trip anymore at this rate. Not that that is a necessarily a bad thing, but its going to happen. The train ride was surprisingly quick this morning so I got there with plenty of time to spare. I had the rest to the auditing to finish and that took me pretty much the whole day. I got through the first two years without to many problems. All the receipts were more or less in order in these big binders so I pretty much just had to go through and pick them out. Not a big deal at all. The third year was a different matter however. This year hadn't been sorted in any really discernible manner from what I can tell. I think that they were sorted by when they were received, but they weren't labeled in that way. The only writing or labeling didn't correspond to any sort of pattern I could figure out. Needless to say, that made for a long day. It took me most of the day to get through the binders, but I still had one to finish for Friday. It's just really mindless work and really tedious. I don't mind it all that much really. I figured that I would be getting the crap work since I am the intern in the office, so its not unexpected. I'll be done with it in a little bit and I can get back to the more interesting stuff.
I got back from work and made myself some dinner. The rest of the night I spent getting myself caught up on my journal. I hadn't had a chance to write in that for a while so I spent a few hours writing in that before going into my room to read and relax. People didn't seem to be around for some reason so I enjoyed the silence.
I got back from work and made myself some dinner. The rest of the night I spent getting myself caught up on my journal. I hadn't had a chance to write in that for a while so I spent a few hours writing in that before going into my room to read and relax. People didn't seem to be around for some reason so I enjoyed the silence.
Feb 14th
Today was a bit of a break. I didn't have to go to work this morning so I got to sleep in a little bit. I went for a little longer run than normal because I didn't have a chance to the day before. It was a nice morning and it felt really good. The mornings have been just about perfect for running. There hasn't really been any wind to speak of in the morning and the weather is cool but not cold. Just beautiful. I got back and made myself some lunch. Nothing special, just food. I had some time to sit around before I had to go to class. I can't say I really did much until I got to class today.
Justin's class was pretty fun today. We are talking about the Jack the Ripper murders and we went over the details of each of the murders and interesting facts about each of them. There were things like the fourth victim gave a false name to the police that turned out to be the name of the last weekend. The last name of the fourth victim was the same as the estranged husband of the first. He also talked about why it has persisted for so long. As in the reasons that the story resonates with people even to this day. For example, there are societies devoted to discovering who the murder is. What is it about this murder that evokes such a string emotional response in people. He also talked about what is called psycho geography. This is the powerful impact that a place can have on a person's mind and pull out strong emotions. He thought there is something about the places that the murders that were committed that has something to do with this. I personally don't know but I think its an interesting subject none the less.
After class I went with a couple of people to get some food at the Sandwich shop. I decided to mix it up and got one of the pizzas that they have there. They have a bunch of other things there besides sandwiches which I had not tried yet. It turned out pretty good. It had ham, pineapple (whatever dad), onions and mushrooms. It wasn't much more expensive than a sandwich, so yeah. Good stuff. Class itself was pretty good tonight. We talked about Mary Poppins for the most of the time. WE also went over the process the actors and directors go through breaking down the parts of a scene to figure out how to act it. I was pretty tired at this point, but I think it was pretty interesting.
After class almost the entire class, including the prof, went out to pub near by. That was a lot of fun. I really like the fact that I can go out to a pub with my teacher and its not a big deal. It was pretty cool. We talked for awhile and I asked him about a couple of shows. One of the guys there was even nice enough to buy us all a round of drinks. A good night overall. The reason we had gone out was to celebrate Valentine's day. I'm not going to complain about getting out of class early.
When I got back, I sat on my computer to see if Katie was around. We managed to talk for while, so that was really nice. Skype was even being really cooperative and worked almost the entire time without any problems. That was really nice. I finished talking to her and then went to bed.
Justin's class was pretty fun today. We are talking about the Jack the Ripper murders and we went over the details of each of the murders and interesting facts about each of them. There were things like the fourth victim gave a false name to the police that turned out to be the name of the last weekend. The last name of the fourth victim was the same as the estranged husband of the first. He also talked about why it has persisted for so long. As in the reasons that the story resonates with people even to this day. For example, there are societies devoted to discovering who the murder is. What is it about this murder that evokes such a string emotional response in people. He also talked about what is called psycho geography. This is the powerful impact that a place can have on a person's mind and pull out strong emotions. He thought there is something about the places that the murders that were committed that has something to do with this. I personally don't know but I think its an interesting subject none the less.
After class I went with a couple of people to get some food at the Sandwich shop. I decided to mix it up and got one of the pizzas that they have there. They have a bunch of other things there besides sandwiches which I had not tried yet. It turned out pretty good. It had ham, pineapple (whatever dad), onions and mushrooms. It wasn't much more expensive than a sandwich, so yeah. Good stuff. Class itself was pretty good tonight. We talked about Mary Poppins for the most of the time. WE also went over the process the actors and directors go through breaking down the parts of a scene to figure out how to act it. I was pretty tired at this point, but I think it was pretty interesting.
After class almost the entire class, including the prof, went out to pub near by. That was a lot of fun. I really like the fact that I can go out to a pub with my teacher and its not a big deal. It was pretty cool. We talked for awhile and I asked him about a couple of shows. One of the guys there was even nice enough to buy us all a round of drinks. A good night overall. The reason we had gone out was to celebrate Valentine's day. I'm not going to complain about getting out of class early.
When I got back, I sat on my computer to see if Katie was around. We managed to talk for while, so that was really nice. Skype was even being really cooperative and worked almost the entire time without any problems. That was really nice. I finished talking to her and then went to bed.
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Feb 13th
I was going to get up and run before work this morning, but I set my alarm to the wrong side of noon, so I didn't have enough time. I jsut sat around reading while I ate breakfast and enjoyed the calm. I got to work and I got started on a new project. I was given the task of setting up an audit for the cotton project that went back three years. I have to look through these huge binders of reciepts and find the ones that were part of specific project so they can report it to the international office. Its taking me forever, because as far as I can tell, they have not been arranged in any order. Of they do, they haven't been labelled in any sort of coherent manner, so that doesn't even really matter. Oh well, I'll grind through it here and get back to the better stuff. Damien was there for a while so I had him go over some stuff for the database for me so that I can get started doing some more work on that.
Once I finished up with work, I went out to find something to eat. There was a pub on the corner that advertised its great food selection and it had a football match so I decided to check it out. Well, there great food selection consisted of nachos and fries. I think I missed something in there, but oh well. I went into the Tube and ate a place there. It is called NimComSoup. Quite a play on words huh? The food was pretty good. I had some jerked chicken a piece of pecan pie. What's interesting about the pie is that instead of having a really carmelly filling, it was chocately. Not goey chocalate, but more like a really dense dough that is chocolate flavored. It was different, but I liked it. I don't know if I would get it again, but it was a nice surprise. After that I hopped on the Tube to find the theater for a play I was going to that night: Avenue Q.
I got off the Tube and wandered around for about ten minutes. There are no really discernable landmarks to orient oneself because the streets have no real order. I finally found a map on a wall and got myself all straightened out. I still had about an hour before the play started and about half that amount before I could even get in. I wanderd around to find a pub to catch some football and passed by two that looked pretty dodgy. I ended up going towards these bright lights and it turned out to be the world premiere of a movie. I saw some "stars" walk by, but I didn't recognize any of them, so I moved on. I foudn I pub with a TV so I ducked in. I was at the bar and the bartender tried to give me some other person's change before I had even order, which turned out to be rather fortitious. We al made some jokes about and I moved on. Well, the guy who was at the bar came up to the same table as I was at and we started talking. I know, I made small talk. Aren't you proud of me mom. ;) We talked for about 45 minutes. His name was Steve and he was from a small town outside of Perth in Australie. Really great guy. He is currently in month nine of an extended holiday here in London. He's go it pretty rough. He's met up with some firends and is working and just having a great time. He was waiting to meet a friend to go to dinner. She showed up and we all talked for a little while longer. Her name was Micheal and was on a five year Visa for working as an architect. She was from Oklahoma. Good people.
I had to say good bye and get to the play, which luckily was not that far away. The play was really funny. Its sort of a grown up version of Sesmae Street and played on that quite a bit. I really enjoyed it and laughed a lot. We had a group of about 15 people from the trip, so it was a really good time. The play got done pretty early as shows go and I came right back to the flat. I headed to bed pretty early since I had to work the next day.
Once I finished up with work, I went out to find something to eat. There was a pub on the corner that advertised its great food selection and it had a football match so I decided to check it out. Well, there great food selection consisted of nachos and fries. I think I missed something in there, but oh well. I went into the Tube and ate a place there. It is called NimComSoup. Quite a play on words huh? The food was pretty good. I had some jerked chicken a piece of pecan pie. What's interesting about the pie is that instead of having a really carmelly filling, it was chocately. Not goey chocalate, but more like a really dense dough that is chocolate flavored. It was different, but I liked it. I don't know if I would get it again, but it was a nice surprise. After that I hopped on the Tube to find the theater for a play I was going to that night: Avenue Q.
I got off the Tube and wandered around for about ten minutes. There are no really discernable landmarks to orient oneself because the streets have no real order. I finally found a map on a wall and got myself all straightened out. I still had about an hour before the play started and about half that amount before I could even get in. I wanderd around to find a pub to catch some football and passed by two that looked pretty dodgy. I ended up going towards these bright lights and it turned out to be the world premiere of a movie. I saw some "stars" walk by, but I didn't recognize any of them, so I moved on. I foudn I pub with a TV so I ducked in. I was at the bar and the bartender tried to give me some other person's change before I had even order, which turned out to be rather fortitious. We al made some jokes about and I moved on. Well, the guy who was at the bar came up to the same table as I was at and we started talking. I know, I made small talk. Aren't you proud of me mom. ;) We talked for about 45 minutes. His name was Steve and he was from a small town outside of Perth in Australie. Really great guy. He is currently in month nine of an extended holiday here in London. He's go it pretty rough. He's met up with some firends and is working and just having a great time. He was waiting to meet a friend to go to dinner. She showed up and we all talked for a little while longer. Her name was Micheal and was on a five year Visa for working as an architect. She was from Oklahoma. Good people.
I had to say good bye and get to the play, which luckily was not that far away. The play was really funny. Its sort of a grown up version of Sesmae Street and played on that quite a bit. I really enjoyed it and laughed a lot. We had a group of about 15 people from the trip, so it was a really good time. The play got done pretty early as shows go and I came right back to the flat. I headed to bed pretty early since I had to work the next day.
Feb 12th
Monday we didn't have class, instead we met outside the Houses of Parliment for a tour. Cynthia almost didn't make it because someone pulled the emergency lever on the Tube and they took her train out of service. Once we got inside, things were pretty interesting. We walked through the entrance that the Queen takes when she come to open up the session of Parliment. The crowning room, which is the first real room she comes through, is decorated with various scenes from Arthur's code of chivalry. There are only five of the seven panels completed because the man carving them literally worked himself to death over the ten years he spent carving out all the figures on the room. The entrance to this room right off the stair is also unique in the whole building. Its the only place where you will see the colors red, green, and gold in the place. The colors are symbolically divided with the powers in each house. So, green only appears with the commons, red with the Lords, and gold with the royals. Fun fact. There are also symbols in the midst of all this that represent the various parts of the empire. There is a symbol for each of the coutnries of the Uk and two roses inside one another. The roses represent the civil war and something else which I can't remember right now. We walked through the House of Lords, which is an amazingly intricate place. The carving and scroll work is absolutley everywhere. Very impressive. THey also have this big thing called the Woolsack. This contain wool from all parts of the empire to represnet the power of Britain and to emphais the role textiles have played in its formation. Pretty cool. We were just getting ready to go into the House of Commons when an alarm went off. We had to clear out of that part of the building and we went into the chapel where they had displayed deceased members of state and had trials in the past. I realized that there was a problem and that when we probably wouldn't be going in when a security gaurd with an assualt rifle entered the building past us. Oh well, we were scheduled to go back and tour commons and get a presentation about the average day of a representative.
We were going to go to a pub for lunch, but that broke down when people found out that slection would be pretty limited and so they wanted to go somewhere else. We were then going to go another pub that had a better selection, but they didn't open for quite a while later. So that plan broke down and we came back to the flat. I made some food and learned how to play a game called 500. Its kind of like hearts, if you've ever played that. You make bets on how many hands you'll win and get points if you get that many hands or lose points if you fail too. Its a fun game and I played it for quite a while before going for a run.
When I got back from run, Cynthia had showed up and made us food. She was throwing a birthday party for eveyone who had a birthday on the trip and got just a ton of food. She got us scottish eggs, samosas, springs rolls, cheese, bread, fruit, veg, smoked salmon, bangers, and many more things. She also of course got cake and ice cream. I ate a lot of food, free is always the best. After that I did some homework and got to bed early since I had to work the next day.
We were going to go to a pub for lunch, but that broke down when people found out that slection would be pretty limited and so they wanted to go somewhere else. We were then going to go another pub that had a better selection, but they didn't open for quite a while later. So that plan broke down and we came back to the flat. I made some food and learned how to play a game called 500. Its kind of like hearts, if you've ever played that. You make bets on how many hands you'll win and get points if you get that many hands or lose points if you fail too. Its a fun game and I played it for quite a while before going for a run.
When I got back from run, Cynthia had showed up and made us food. She was throwing a birthday party for eveyone who had a birthday on the trip and got just a ton of food. She got us scottish eggs, samosas, springs rolls, cheese, bread, fruit, veg, smoked salmon, bangers, and many more things. She also of course got cake and ice cream. I ate a lot of food, free is always the best. After that I did some homework and got to bed early since I had to work the next day.
Sunday, 11 February 2007
Feb 11th
Feb 9th
I got up an went to work today and the ride was much faster tahn it was yesterday. The weather was fine so I was able to catch a train really quickly and it ran fine. I just kept working on the reader the entire day and I managed to get all the formatting I could get done done. So that was pretty nice. I have a couple more articles to do that still needed to be scanned in. They didn't have the old copies in a format that could be read anymore, so that took some time. Damien got me started on the database project that would be the task I was working on for the rest of the time I was there. I have an email account that a filled out form gets sent to. The form is one that retailers can fill out. We then put that onlone in a directory that people can look at so they know where they can buy organic cotton. Its actually a pretty cool system. Once I get the hand of this, I'm going to start talking to companies to get how much organic cotton they've sold so that we can put out a report on how much organic cotton is being sold in the UK and track its growth. So that's going pretty good.
After work I came home and went for a quick run before grabbing some dinner. On the way home I stopped by a patissere that's near here and picked up some little cakes for desert. I also stopped by a place called Threshers tha sells wine and took advantage of a deal they had going on for some wine. I made myself a big dinner. I had a nice sirloin steak with some garlic mashed potatoes. It was really good. After I got everything all cleaned up I headed to go do some laundry that needed to get done. That took me longer than I had expected because one of the washers was busted. I got a blog post written while I was waiting and did some reading the rest of the time. I got back and sat around online before heading to bed.
Feb 10th
I got up this morning and got ready to go run. I went over to the Union to get my number and I helped out one of that captain run down some of the last entries. After that I went and got warmed up. The race itself went pretty well. I ended up on the tail end of the top third or so in the first leg, which I was pretty happy with. I felt like I ran a pretty good race all things considered. I feel like I could have run it better if I had been doing some more speed work, but I'm happy with the way things went. After I got cooled down, I ran around doing what I could to help. I ended up back at the Union waiting until the awards ceremony was going to start. That took forever to get started because the person doing results couldn't figure out who the winenr were. All they had to do was look at the top three finishers of the last leg and they could have figuured it out. That was apparently a strech for them. Some the teams even ended up leaving because the wait was getting so long. After everything had finished, I helped get the room all cleaned up and headed home. When I got back I made a lot of food, since I hadn't really eaten anything since this morning. I talked to Katie for a long time and then headed to bed.
Feb 11th
I got up and got a run in this morning. I could tell that I had raced the day before. My legs were feeling pretty heavy and I was I dragging just a little bit. It was a really nice morning, so I just took it slow and enjoyed the morning. I got back and mayde myself a nice big breakfast. Since most of the people were out on trips this weekend I decided I would treat myself to some good food. Or at least I would try to cook some good food. I think it turned pretty good. As I was cleaning up, one of the guys said he was going to go to a sports store to look at some stuff. There were a couple of things that I wanted to look at, so I said that I would go along. The place is having a massive sale. January is normally a big sale month for stores here, but its going on longer at this place. I found a pack that was like 80 percent off that I'm planning on using for a day pack when I'm travelling. The guy I was with wanted to stop by Harrod's to get a gift for his girlfriend, so we stopped by there. That's an interesting store. Different. That's for sure. I came back and made some stir fry and then talked to dad for a while. Since then I've been sitting around just hanging out.
I got up an went to work today and the ride was much faster tahn it was yesterday. The weather was fine so I was able to catch a train really quickly and it ran fine. I just kept working on the reader the entire day and I managed to get all the formatting I could get done done. So that was pretty nice. I have a couple more articles to do that still needed to be scanned in. They didn't have the old copies in a format that could be read anymore, so that took some time. Damien got me started on the database project that would be the task I was working on for the rest of the time I was there. I have an email account that a filled out form gets sent to. The form is one that retailers can fill out. We then put that onlone in a directory that people can look at so they know where they can buy organic cotton. Its actually a pretty cool system. Once I get the hand of this, I'm going to start talking to companies to get how much organic cotton they've sold so that we can put out a report on how much organic cotton is being sold in the UK and track its growth. So that's going pretty good.
After work I came home and went for a quick run before grabbing some dinner. On the way home I stopped by a patissere that's near here and picked up some little cakes for desert. I also stopped by a place called Threshers tha sells wine and took advantage of a deal they had going on for some wine. I made myself a big dinner. I had a nice sirloin steak with some garlic mashed potatoes. It was really good. After I got everything all cleaned up I headed to go do some laundry that needed to get done. That took me longer than I had expected because one of the washers was busted. I got a blog post written while I was waiting and did some reading the rest of the time. I got back and sat around online before heading to bed.
Feb 10th
I got up this morning and got ready to go run. I went over to the Union to get my number and I helped out one of that captain run down some of the last entries. After that I went and got warmed up. The race itself went pretty well. I ended up on the tail end of the top third or so in the first leg, which I was pretty happy with. I felt like I ran a pretty good race all things considered. I feel like I could have run it better if I had been doing some more speed work, but I'm happy with the way things went. After I got cooled down, I ran around doing what I could to help. I ended up back at the Union waiting until the awards ceremony was going to start. That took forever to get started because the person doing results couldn't figure out who the winenr were. All they had to do was look at the top three finishers of the last leg and they could have figuured it out. That was apparently a strech for them. Some the teams even ended up leaving because the wait was getting so long. After everything had finished, I helped get the room all cleaned up and headed home. When I got back I made a lot of food, since I hadn't really eaten anything since this morning. I talked to Katie for a long time and then headed to bed.
Feb 11th
I got up and got a run in this morning. I could tell that I had raced the day before. My legs were feeling pretty heavy and I was I dragging just a little bit. It was a really nice morning, so I just took it slow and enjoyed the morning. I got back and mayde myself a nice big breakfast. Since most of the people were out on trips this weekend I decided I would treat myself to some good food. Or at least I would try to cook some good food. I think it turned pretty good. As I was cleaning up, one of the guys said he was going to go to a sports store to look at some stuff. There were a couple of things that I wanted to look at, so I said that I would go along. The place is having a massive sale. January is normally a big sale month for stores here, but its going on longer at this place. I found a pack that was like 80 percent off that I'm planning on using for a day pack when I'm travelling. The guy I was with wanted to stop by Harrod's to get a gift for his girlfriend, so we stopped by there. That's an interesting store. Different. That's for sure. I came back and made some stir fry and then talked to dad for a while. Since then I've been sitting around just hanging out.
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