As Fi Bows to Peer Pressure

The title comes from Johnny Clegg’s song of the same name - it’s what I’m listening to.

I’m feeling more like myself tonight, helped by a day working at home and an evening spent at the pub with Jess catching up on life, love and all things. Work’s website needed attending to, one of my many “fascinating” tasks, and that was followed by 50 lengths of the pool (my current average), a dip in the spa pool and a few minutes in the steam room. Steam rooms are very hot.

We tried the Marlborough Arms, just off Tottenham Court Rd, tonight and I’m pleased to say it was a great success. A large pub with a newly refurbished interior, it had a large variety of drinks and we had no problem finding a table despite it being fairly full. Staff were lovely and the prices weren’t bad either so all in all a great other local.

Tomorrow I am off to see the New York Philharmonic play Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F Major and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Proms season. I *LOVE* the Proms and firmly believe that this is one of the best British/London institutions. M(attias), my Swedish flatmate, and I will pay 5 pounds (that’s two to three cups of coffee here) for this pleasure and that’s a bargain if ever I heard one. Beautiful music in an amazing venue, what more could I ask for?

In other news, I am a tad worried about the ever-more-concerning issues in the Caucasus and in particular Russia’s involvement. We live in “interesting” times. And lastly I’m outting myself as an Obama supporter, I was never really a Clinton fan at all, and it’s fascinating to watch the changing face of US politics through this campaign. But bed calls for now . . .

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

As I’ve said before, this London life is full of ups and downs and today was definitely a down for a number of rather stupid reasons:

1. We had a meeting about breakfast options last night, and it took ages and in some senses was very frustrating.
2. I went to bed with a lot on my mind and didn’t manage to get to sleep. I currently have serious sleep problems.
3. In order to get to sleep, I decided to watch the movie that came with my Independent on Saturday. It turned out to be quite a good movie, but just a tad depressing with the main character killing herself through arsenic poisoning. The movie finished at 2am but I was finally tired enough to go straight to sleep.
4. I woke up late, frustrated and feeling a little depressed.
5. London is a long way from Wellington, where my family and Dave are, and I miss them all a lot. Today was one of the days where I missed them a whole lot!
6. I don’t really have anyone I can ACTUALLY talk with about exactly what’s going on for me here and I feel a tad lost without the general help of my prayer4, Dave, Sylvia, Pete, Ruth, Reuben, girls group, and the countless other people who are always willing to go out to coffee with me at home when I need to just rant and rave about life.
7. I overslept and missed my first lecture. After deciding that I really didn’t feel that great, I decided to try and recharge my batteries and missed the rest of my classes for the day.
8. I hate missing classes . . . so now I’m frustrated that I was silly enought to miss classes.
9. I had no clothes to wear, but at least I’ve fixed that problem now.
10. I have got into the habit of not eating breakfast and then forgetting to eat lunch. Not good!
11. I miss my family and Dave (I think I’ve said that already).
12. Everything costs too much here.
13. I have an essay due on Friday and I am struggling to concentrate on the subject (religion and politics in Indonesia).
14. I have a presentation to do next week and I am struggling to stop procrastinating by looking at Jeffrey Sachs’ interviews on the internet. At least it’s vaguely relevant and I might use one of them for the presentation but it’s not helping me write the essay, which is due first.
15. I am going to miss my CU cell group this evening because I really want to get this essay planned out so I can write it tomorrow.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today is definitely a bad day!

 

Ok so here’s the dealio - I seriously lack NZ friends on Facebook because no one in New Zealand has a clue what Facebook is. I am therefore feeling very loser-ish :oP

Now they’ve just changed Facebook so anyone can register and use it, it used to just be high school/college/university students but they’ve expanded that to everybody.

Please please PLEASE register/join up and then look for “Fiona McKenzie” in the “LSE” network and add me to your list of friends. If you’re a Vic student, then you can register using your Vic email address and then be part of the oh-so-excitingly-full-of-international-students VUW network. Otherwise just register as a generally normal person (which of course is what you all are) . . . it’s a seriously addictive networking website and such a wonderful way of procrastinating.

I can not believe I am blogging about a lack of Facebook friends, this is definitely a new low for me :o)

I am having a particularly exciting week. Two reasons for this are blog-tellable, however the last I’m leaving to comment publicly on until I’ve emailed friends and family.

1) On Sunday I had the fantastic honour of baptising Lisa and it was really awesome! Baptisms are such great moments to be a part of, and just soo special to see such a wonderful friend taking that next step with their relationship with God, fully all good!!

2) Today was my 6 month anniversary with Dave, and he was at SLC so naturally I went to SLC for the day :o) We had a great time (I thoroughly enjoyed the Palm Grove pool and got a little burnt again) and although seemingly a small feat, it meant a lot to both of us and was just generally lovely and happy and really fun! Dave won’t read this until Sunday or Monday when he finally gets back from SLC, but I think he’s a fantastic man :o)

3) You’ll have to get an email from me about this, but Thursday night/Friday day were very overwhelming and I’m really excited about the future now. YAY!!!

Despite the heading, I do really mean this:

I am incredibly sorry to all those who I haven’t kept in touch with in the last 2-6 months.

So I’ve been busy, insanely busy, but really that’s not an excuse where I’m concerned because friends like you (and I do mean you) mean a lot to me and I should have tried harder to keep up.

This year has taught me an awful lot and at some stage I might tell you about some of the rest of it, but one of the biggest things has been realising my own limitations. I’m not superwoman, no matter how much sleep I miss. I can’t do everything at once and expect it all to work out. I especially can not neglect my friends for any reason. I feel like I’ve done that and I’m sorry. Funnily enough, this past 6 months have been when friends like you have been particularly supportive. From the quick txts and emails from all over the place, to those that I saw in class or at 1st years cell group every week . . . everyone has been so lovely to me so I want to take this time to thank you for this too.

While I’m being entirely public about this (view it as a bulk email) I really want to thank Dave (now it sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech) who put up with not really having a girlfriend for the first four months . . . maybe even five counting exam time. Not only did he put up with it, but when it all got too much sometimes he was so willing to be there for me. I know I’ve already said this a million times Dave, but thanks for everything! You are amazing!

And . . . while I’m waiting to hear back from jobs . . . I promise to get in contact with you all properly soon soon.  I’m sorry for being such a lacking friend this year . . . but thanks so much for all your support that you gave me anyway, it all meant a lot!

Last night at about 8:50pm our time, explosions occurred in 7 places (4 confirmed) in London. The explosions occurred entirely on the underground system, apart from one on a bus. These have been declared, by Tony Blair, to be terrorist attacks. Some people have died, many have injuries from flying glass, burns and some are said to have orthopaedic injuries. The man from a London Hospital just announced that they only have 6 critical patients at that hospital from the attacks.

Please pray for all of those who have been hurt and injured in this attack.
Please pray for all those who do not know where their family-members and friends are.
Please pray for Britain.

On a more personal note, I’m not entirely sure where some friends of mine are, including a friend who lived in London and took the underground every morning to work. Please pray for her, her family back here in NZ, and for my other friends. If you are a friend of mine on that side of the world and you’re reading this, please email me so I know you’re safe . . .