I graduated!

I leave for Indonesia on Saturday. While I’m excited, it feels like I just got home. I still miss Mexico and wish I’d had more time there. However, I’m sick to death of London. I’ve been going into the centre of the city a lot this week and the traffic, dust and mean people who bump into you on the pavement are just too much for me right now. Chilling at my mum’s and knowing that I’m a safe distance away from the craziness of the city is proving quite therapeutic. It’s quite odd really, because usually I can handle the city. I don’t know what’s making me feel so fragile right now.

Cynthia Enloe received an honorary fellowship at my graduation ceremony today. I was starstruck. I know that sounds really sad, but this woman really made me sit up and listen over the past year! I was cruising through my International Relations course, casually studying, then we got to feminism. It was like a lightbulb turned on above my head! I felt completely engaged. It forced me to rethink and challenge assumed knowledge for the first time in my life. It showed me the importance of challenging assumed knowledge. Seeing her there reminded me why I went to university and why I take an interest in politics, so I guess it was poignant that it happened to be on my graduation day. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

здравствуйте!

“Меня зовут Светлана!”

My name is Svetlana!

I was Russia at a Eurovision party last night. I didn’t actually drink the vodka; my lightweight constitution is too fail frail.

I have finished my undergraduate degree! I can’t actually believe it. I keep waking up at 6/7am in a panic thinking MUST REVIIIISE then realising that it’s really all over. My body needs to adjust to no more full time education, I think. Strange really, because this is the first time I haven’t been in full time education in my conscious memory. It’s a very nice feeling.

I’ve decided that I’m going to post more photos on here, seeing as I’m picking up my new Nikon from home today. Prepare yourselves to see more of my ugly mug/what my ugly mug finds interesting in the capital. I’m also contemplating restaurant reviews…primarily inspired by an amusing lunch I had in a Thai place on Upper Woburn Place yesterday.

Sun is shining!

I made a Twitter account. Mostly for online interactions with one Stephanie who is across the seas, but the damned thing won’t let me upload a picture of my beautiful (*cough*) face. I dislike it already.

On the life front, I had a wonderfully lazy afternoon in Brunswick Square with Sam today. A lazy afternoon I can’t really afford, given my current dissertation situation but I’ve been so deprived of sunlight tucked away in my flat that as soon as I plonked myself onto the grass my body wouldn’t let me move until I’d absorbed 2 hours’ worth of vitamin D. It really does nothing for my motivation when the sun insists on shining so. Why couldn’t it be miserable like it is the rest of the year round??

It seems as though the healthy eating/exercise regime I’ve been trying to keep up since January is working as I have been told twice this week that I’m ‘wasting away’. I have hardly been to the gym recently due to dissertation madness but I plan to go a bit mad up in there once I hand this thing in. I’m desperately missing my thrice-weekly dose of endorphins and Pimp My Ride (it’s usually on in the evenings when I go). Yo dawg, I heard you got ADHD so I put a pool table, a bubble machine and some flat screens in yo car so you won’t be bored while you drive, dawg.

Another thing I’m missing is my mum’s kitten, Shakti/Choki (although mostly known as ‘Booboo’ or ‘Booboolina’).

Just look at her little face. She grew rather fond of me when I went home for a few days and my mum said she was quite forlorn when I left.

Dissertation update (bleh): I wrote the hardest section last night on Islamic courts and inheritance law (*YAWWWWWWN*) so I should really just suck it up and get on with the rest of it. Not much further to go, but it’s a case of so near yet so far. I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep.