Unbalanced Vision

P said that if it wasn't for C, we wouldn't be sitting here in the Picture Gallery of Royal Holloway. They met when C was reading Shakespeare at the college. He even helped her with the dissertation, and had to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream over twenty times. The limo was late for twenty minutes, but it arrived at last, and the happy bride was smoothly handed to her groom. The priest didn't ask the groom to kiss the bride though. As a bridesmaid, I was dressed in purple, got dolled up as early as 9.30, and had twenty hair pins in my hair. At the reception, I had to translate over twenty sentences, and the tolerant crowd said, 'Good job'.

Church at Chobham

We were there

The Picture Gallery

Wedding Cake

Last week HY and I spent three days sampling the air of Lake District. Verdict: 'tis good for the human body and soul. We pitched a tent at Baysbrown Farm located in a small town called Chapel Stile. Later the tent proved to be as strong as a brick wall--as the night wore on, the wind got fiercer the rain heavier, I was awake for hours thinking that we could have been blown away like Dorothy and Toto. But no, the second day turned mirabulously beautiful that one had to strip down to shorts. After cooking baked beans + can soup, we set off into the mountains! Of course, I attempted to dazzle fellow hikers with my new pair of Black Daimond Gore-tex gaiters, but found out that almost everyone wears them in Lake District; without a pair you are naked. Judging by the pushchairs on the route, the trail was disappointedly a bit on the easy side, but still fun to see the lakes, rolling hills, stone walls and sheep who never stop munching. In the evening, we awarded ourselves with the yummiest lamb chop at a local pub--one of the coolest things in life is to know someone who likes lamb as much as you do. I would love to stay another day to explore a different trail, maybe next time.

His new green tent

Almost ready

Swan and duck

The lens cannot capture what the eye sees

My flatmate and I have fond memories of the cheap and convenient food stalls in Taiwan. Especially during times when one is working on a paper or a drawing, and cannot possibly deal with tedious chores like cooking, these fast food around the corner of your flat become extremely helpful. Here there are proper restaurants, but the whole dining experience that takes up about two hours is no good. On the other hand, sandwiches are cold and unfulfilling. What I'd suggest are food capsules--preferably chewable tablets; they come in different flavours (chicken, fish, lamb or beef), and within two seconds you'd absorb the nutrition of a meal.

One sunny afternoon HY and I went for a walk in Richmond Park. This wasn't my first time in the park, passing by all those lazy, graceful-looking deers presumably making mating noises, but it was my first time at King Henry's Mound. We weren't planning to go there, but a toilet was nearby so we did. Through the telescope and the hedges you could clearly see St Paul's Cathedral and nothing else standing there in a distance of 10 miles--it was almost magical! As if it was a scared view, a sacred view to the past. On the other side there was a beautiful Thames valley scenery, like the ones printed on postcards--it was the Southwest Train route I take to Egham. I was a bit obsessed with the idea of the protected view and looked up some information on Google. There's a map of all the protected views within Greater London, about seven to ten of them all leading to St Paul's I remember--too bad I can't copy and paste the picture to show you. My window view should be protected as well--you can see the green rooftop of the British Museum from here.

Arrow points to the BM

The shop needs a new assistant at the moment. When the post first appeared on a university career website, we received 15+ e-mails. I must say there are some extraordinary people out there: ones who can't spell, begin the cover letter with 'hi there' or write a self-important paragraph of how wonderful he/she is, etc. My favourite is a woman who put '2987' down as her birth year--perhaps she's a time traveller. You can laugh at these job hunters, but I believe my CV must have been a joke to various HR bods. My boss says all we want is someone who is friendly, relaxed, responsible, shows a good sense of humor and a genuine interest in books. May I add good-looking and sporty if the future assistant were a bloke? Anyways, the staff I have came to known at this bookshop are all people I'm very fond of. I hope the new one will be no exception.

I recently went to see two plays two nights in a row--'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Volpone. The venues were not in the usual theatreland Soho, which is near my flat, so when the hours arrived I was kind of reluctant to make the journey. On the evening of seeing Ford's work, I was around Waterloo (already close to the Southwark Playhouse), and decided to come home. One reason was because of my unfinished paper. But on the way I thought about the intriguing blurb, 'A brother and sister's violent love for each other brings their world crashing down around them in John Ford's breathtaking masterpiece of innocence and obsession amidst a corrupt Catholic society'--now how can you resist that? 'Tis a pity to miss it! Anyways, I made way back to the theatre and was very glad to have done so. Even though it was an obscure Caroline play, the room was packed with audience. The Catholic tunes, the incense and incest, the Armani suits and the bleeding heart on stage (I love these theatre of cruelty!)--it is a fallen world we live in. I especially liked the brother's character: he had a scary, innocent smile on his face, as if he was unafraid of acting in extremes but devoid of blame. I won't say too much about Jonson's Volpone since I left during the intermission, but just to direct your attention to Wilton's Music Hall where the play was performed, still standing in a small alleyway in its old, forgotten and elegant manner.

I'm fed up with theatre now--shall take a short break and wait till RSC's winter season in London.

As a research student, sometimes you may find that your best mates are blokes who were dead 400 years ago: they talk funny and are extremely uptight when it comes to religion. I am glad to be in touch with a few cool living souls recently. It's a postcard from New Orleans, an unexpected visit at the bookshop, an e-mail from a lost elementary school mate, a fantastic storyteller and a dumpling-making evening.

It feels like summer today--lots of people are walking down the streets in shorts and shades, and I am worried. This is not right. A lady I met today was just talking about the strange calmness before the 1987 storm, when it was sunny and the leaves were still on the trees. 'I'm not a pessimist', she says, 'but this is a bit disconcerting'. However, this brings me in the mood for another cup of delicious frozen yogurt (the papaya flavour is my favourite), a small shop I recently discovered in Covent Garden. Highly recommended, and they serve organic muffins, too.

Swan Lake

Life is too short to remember the name of this cathedral

Swiss fondue

Protestant grand-daddies

Geneva greets you with their ubiquitous ads of clocks and watches. If you haven't gone out of your generous mind yet to buy one as a souvenir present, opt for chocolates--the country is famous for those sweet brown blocks, and they are cheaper. (Of course avoid types that you can already buy in London supermarkets). A good idea is to get chocolates that are shaped in Swiss army knives. The excuse would be: sharp objects are not allowed on planes so I got you an edible one instead--how thoughtful. They are also very fond of bovine friends--T-shirts, magnets, key chains and ash trays all picture a happy cow grazing on the grass. I suppose British cows would create a more sinister effect. This was my first hen party weekend--not the fishnet stockings and telegram stripper you would imagine, but equally fun. I shared a room with the bride-to-be, my funny friend who lived in the same student hall during freshman year, and one of the best things was we could chat till we fell asleep.

Hi, Tudorland fans,

Are you going to watch the final episode of Elizabeth I on Channel 4 tonight?

Also, I've finished reading Every Man Out of His Humour which has left me in a muddle. One of the few passages I can make sense of is Macilente's idea of marital love:

'You are too amorous, too obsequious,
And make her too assured she may command you.
When women doubt most of their husbands' loves,
They are most loving. Husbands must take heed
They give no gluts of kindness to their wives,
But use them like their horses; whom they feed
Not with a mangerful of meat together,
But half a peck at once; and keep them so
Still with an appetite to that they give them.
He that desires to have a loving wife,
Must bridle all the shew of that desire:
Be kind, not amorous; nor bewraying kindness,
As if love wrought it, but considerate duty.
Offer no love rites, but let wives still seek them,
For when they come unsought, they seldom like them.'

HY has 15+ days of holiday left till the end of this year, and he's grumpy about it. If I tell my working homies they will shake their heads in disbelief. Asian companies have the talent of making their employees feel guilty for taking holidays. They train you to work like machines 24/7, and then you loathe the idea of relaxation. I hope to work someday, but at the present stage I have a bloody long dissertation to write, and that thought is put till later. I can do anything I want and earn lots of money afterwards, that's what they tell me. Now it's difficult to judge the value of this degree though, what you can do is believe that it is very, very worthwhile--for what else motivates you to study in libraries during the weekends? But it's not hard to analyse my pig drawing actually, anyone can tell I wouldn't mind wearing a tie.

I have been urging my minion HY to give this site a face lift, but he only responded, 'just do it yourself'. The idea is to use a white template, with letters in grey, peach red and dark purple. I want to change the site name to 'Vile Jelly', which retains the idea of the eye and is quoted from King Lear:

Cornwall: Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?
Gloucester: All dark and comfortless.

I think this is a brilliant, brilliant scene of cruelty; our eyeballs do look like vile jelly. Now back to the website. Moreover, I want to remove the links and just keep the journal: no one really bothers to read 'about me', and I find that people only look through 7 pictures max in those huge on-line photo albums. (Unless there's some nudity involved?)

A dull Monday to start the week. I abhor having to deal with bank problems: the tedious process of standing in queues, hearing different stories from each staff, and then travelling to branches to figure out which one tells the best story. This time it was a problem with the anglicised name printed on my cheque, what a bore. Later on I rode far and away to search for a Boots store that has a so-called Advantage Card machine. The form tells me I should find a 'larger' store. The two-storey mega Boots on Tottenham Court Road is in fact not a large store, the machines in the second shop were dysfunctional and finally the one near Bond Street is your holy grail. I now have a glorious 1500+ points to spend, yet on the way home I realised I have forgotten my umbrella somewhere again.

Bridezilla

Whilst the men were partying away in Antwerp, C and friends were having a mini hen do at Hampton Hill. First I met up with the other bridesmaid D for a hairdresser session. The hair stylist commented on my fine hair, and suggested to add volume by using fake locks--I'm a bit suspicious about this; we'll see how it turns out. Later on we went back to D's house and waited for the other hens. This was my first time meeting D: she strikes me as an energetic and friendly lady, someone easy to have a conversation with. She told me how she reluctantly gave up her fabulous career and social life to become a full-time mother. Now life in D's household is pretty hectic, with two toddlers constantly needing attention. As the crying sounds of the younger one faded in the bath tub, the doorbell rang and in came groups of pretty women. After a bit of greetings and downing champagne, we drove to the Thai restaurant. The food wasn't the only spicy thing on the table, these lusty ladies were talking about boob jobs, lingere and sexy wedding nights. Someone from the other table shouted, 'Don't do it', but we didn't care. Then out of the blue some young lads outside ran across the restaurant window full-monty style--woohoo! We asked C what worried her most about marriage--it's only the snoring, she says.

Come and see my work tonight

Ever since I came to the UK, I've become a big magnet to architects and designers. At the student residence, three of my friends were studying architecture at UCL, then through them I met the others--they usually hang out as a clique. Currently I'm living with two architects and one interior designer. From what I observe, they take great photos, go to fancy launch parties, have good tastes, prefer to use large desks and like to say, 'that is so ugly', when looking at other people's designs. Last Friday was SJ's exhibition opening at the Chelsea College of Arts, a school nicely located beside Tate Britain. There were works by art, textile and interior design students: SJ's project was about a neglected street near Brick Lane called Fashion Street where the old textile companies were situated. Yet I mostly remember the bottles of wine poured into my glass; judging from the pictures I might have had the lion's share.