M. Willis Monroe

I like getting in to soas right when it opens in the morning and sitting in the bar for a while doing work at my favorite tables. Chris the barman is in as well getting the bar ready for opening and he always puts on really interesting nice music in the morning.

Good quiz tonight I wasn’t so hot on the questions when I was writing them but they turned out ok. Anna and I are going out for dinner tomorrow night and seeing a play, yet to be determined.

I just noticed this building cycling in yesterday. Strange sort of abandoned Chinese warehouse type thing right next to the Arsenal stadium. When I went to unlock my bike yesterday evening to head home I realized my back tire was a bit flat so I started to pump it up and the nozzle of inner tube actually snapped off of the tube. I’ve never had that happen before and it was a bit annoying. So I locked up my bike again and walked to the tube. I’ll buy a new inner tube this morning and put it on my bike.

I bought some cds recently that are all very good

• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
• The Fugees - The Score
• Junior Senior - D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat
• Luscious Jackson - Fever in Fever out

Anna and I left Friday night to head up to Birmingham to stay at her parents. We had a nice and relaxing weekend. Went for a few walks sat around the house. I did some work in their garden and read the paper a lot. It was really cool to see her sister’s photos from her and her boyfriend’s year long expedition in Australia, New Zealand and southern bits of Africa.

I read an interesting piece in the Independent about an old recluse who was murdered in Hampstead. Now the Home Office has said the the trial must be held behind closed doors (the first murder trial to be deemed so) due to interests of national security. Here’s a link to the article and the wikipedia page. It’s really fascinating. He published a few books in the 1960s and was a freelance photographer but basically hand’t done anything since then and just lived alone in a huge Hampstead house. Except he sent a postcard to his neighbor from America once. Curious.

I handed in my last essay in on Friday as well. Not entirely happy with the end result for them but I’m glad they’re in and done.

I’ve been incredibly busy these past two weeks writing essay after essay and dealing with the everyday work of preparing for classes as well. I’m nearly done with my final essay. Hopefully I’ll be able to hand it in tomorrow or at the latest on Thursday. After that I should be done for a while.

Anna’s sister and her boyfriend got back on Monday. They left a year ago to live in Australia for a little more than half the year and then they went traveling to New Zealand and then through Africa for the rest. I had never met them so it was really nice to finally get a chance. Anna and I are going up to Birmingham this weekend as well. Oh and we’re going to Wales in reading week.

Other than that not much is going on still working round the clock. I’ve got my dissertation topic confirmed with Andrew George for the most part, “Literary History of Šumma ālu“. Should be very interesting and I’m excited to be working on it. Oh and the photo is of a cup of coffee from these vending machines scattered around UCL and SOAS. It costs 40p and tastes like sweet milky coffee water but it’s surprisingly good and helps me get through long lectures.

Oh just as an aside I’ve been browsing the Klix website with the goal of trying to find nutritional information on its drinks and I came across this great quote:

KLIX machines boast 18 months between breakdowns… and that’s just the average!

You can find it here. I’m not sure if they’re marketing to people who don’t understand averages or they don’t understand averages themselves. But I guess the phrase does sort of make sense, yes 18 months is “just” the average (your mileage may vary).

Here’s my room in its well lit cozyness. I don’t have such a great view but sometimes a cat comes to visit outside the window.

I have to go and run some errands but it’s pissing it down with rain and quite gloomy.

Christmas and New Years was a blast. It was great to be home and spend time with the parents and friends back in Little Rhodey. We spent the week around Christmas house sitting in New York which was a lot of fun as well. I spent a lot of time in museums and at the New York Public Library.

I just got back to England yesterday. Anna met me at the airport which was very nice. The picture above is me wearing an apron that Tomoyuki and Saori sent. It’s amazing!