i haven't been here for quite a while. tired too, but busy mostly. the day after i got back i went down to the hospital for an interpretation session that was supposed to last 30mins, but took 2 hours and 55 mins! of which i spent 15mins talking. the rest was spent in several different waiting rooms.the patient i was with kept saying "ji si le, zen me hai mei lai ne?" (why isn't it our turn yet, i'm so jittery) and though i guess it can't be helped in a busy hospital it is very unkind to keep nervous people waiting so long. by the time the appointment was over it was nearly 5 and i'd missed my last bus (there was a football game on that night so the buses on that route stopped running at 4.30.) by the way i finally found out how to say epidural in chinese, but only after struggling with the woman for ages getting both her and myself very confused about the kinds of anaesthesias available. in zhengzhou, i found out, abortions are routinely done without any anaesthetics whatsoever, and this horrified me and the woman taking her information. anyway, that's what i don't like about being an untrained medical interpreter. if you don't know the word, you can always describe the process and usually the patient can come up with the word in chinese if they can figure out what you're talking about, but what if you have no idea yourself? epidural, erm, yeah, something you stick in your spine. not like i've ever had one to know. my cousin winnie had one when she was having my niece and said it's like a light washing cool feeling down your back. end of extent of knowledge. so i said, did you ever have a (thing up your spine) when i realised i had no idea if you did have a needle in ur spine. is it a needle they stick in you? and is it a drip or what? how do they keep it in? where do they poke you exactly? i know it's supposed to go somewhere in the spine but is that at waist level? or lower near the coccyx or what?! anyway yes, i can now say epidural so hah, bring on the pregnant women!

got 5 hours of sleep the night i got back, but subsequently was awake unpacking and running misc errands and being at orientation activities for another 40 hours. my mind seemed awake enough. body wasn't saying oy you, time to zzz. so i was going about my business like any ordinary person, until i was coming back from the supermarket yesterday evening, standing outside the engineering school with heavy bags at my feet waiting for a bus that was apparently taking its own sweet time, when i caught myself swaying - i was falling asleep standing up! for another 10mins i tried to fight it by wriggling my toes and singing the emperor's nightingale, thinking the bus better come soon, but found it increasingly difficult to stand, knew there was a slope behind me that i could fall down if i fell asleep,tried to sit down,felt like an idiot, realised too there mustn't be a bus, so grabbed my bags and started walking home. interminably long, but at least i was more awake and when finally struggling up the stairs to my suite i was thinking that a more sedentary lifestyle was for me. does anyone remember that club su-lin wanted to start? *approvingly* where the only activities would be eating chocolate, avoiding exercise and taking cabs whenever possible? now that's my sort of club. speaking of which i would like some chocolate. joel called weds nite at about 11 and talked about marzipan and movies for about an hour. heh. i fell asleep in all my clothes yest. in fact was concussed as soon as i got in and got a drink.

managed to unpack all my books and it took me close to 3 hours to arrange them. ha! i managed to save lots of shelf space this year by stacking 2 and a half shelves of my books double (i used to just do it for one shelf) so suddenly i seem to have very empty shelves for lots of new books to settle in! when it gets bright i will go to the mailroom to collect even more books, and then write home and ask my mater send me more more books. am supposed to be getting on with my unpacking, but i'm reading the riddle master trilogy again. morgon of hed is so ! and i love raederle, the second most beautiful woman in the three portions of an. *sigh* the riddle master of hed is marvellous. the first book has a lovely incongruous disorientating beginning. couldn't stop reading, just as i couldn't when it first arrived in the middle of midterm week. reading it i was at the point of tears so often. not compassionate tears, the kind that is brought on by watching intense pain and suffering, but just because you are so stirred by all the emotional energy that you have to cry to release all this tension. i think the effect of fantasy is to polarise good and evil on an unintellectual level.

my swan lake poster is in such a bad shape this year i went online to order another one. fortunately the poster is still available. the current one was a birthday present from addy, and after three years of rolling it up for storage and rolling it the other way to straighten it and trying to get sticky bits on or off the back of it it has become a rather squashed mess, so i guess i have to retire it. i seem to have come to school with no blutack so i can't put up anything on my walls. i should also go get a new world map the one i had for the past 3 years ripped down the middle. i really should get on with the unpacking because all my boxes are in the living room and i don't want them cluttering up the place still when my suitemates move in. i put riddle master aside but then i started looking on amazon.co.uk for info on the new pratchett which will be out in november, it's set in ankh-morpork in the time when vimes is a youngster new to the city watch! wondering if i should buy the new discworld companion when it comes out. uva library has the previous edition and it was very funny. it stopped after men at arms though so i really want this 2002 edition which should include amazing maurice, and maybe even the new vimes book. hmm. i think i'll go shower and do laundry