Student shenanigans

It would be really useful if I spoke German. It appears that most of the theory I need to read for my next essay is written in German, so what chance have I got? Nine.

Ever hopeful, I struggled into the library, stopping in the madly busy Canary Wharf mall for a tiny bit of Christmas shopping, loathe as I am to indulge in this mad commercially-dictated consumerist activity of waste, greed and gluttony. Yet, we all blindly buy into it year after year...learning nuffink. Charles Dickens has a lot to answer for, if he wasn't so busy doing the twist in his grave.

Anyway, who's not listening to Sufjan Stevens? I've been addicted since 2004, and I really need to discuss this with somebody...namechecked by Snow Patrol, but still generally quite obscure. Perhaps it's better this way. So, I make it to the library at Senate House, and settle myself behind a desk somewhere in the artificially-lit claustrophobia-inducing confines of the 6th floor - that's the tower in the photo - intimidating innit? I find loads of relevant books - happy with my haul I try to read them - mmm, not so successful. There may be trouble ahead. Please would somebody explain Reception Theory to me between now and the New Year? And it's nothing to do with hotel lobbies.

This evening's lecture featured a guest speaker to discuss sexuality in Victorian London as portrayed in the novels of Sarah Waters. Bold. Lesbians all over the shop. Let's talk about queer London, oh and Happy Christmas. Afterwards we all trooped along to the bar at the Tavistock Hotel and stayed too long, which meant an interesting journey home in the company of many drunken office party revellers. I got chatted up on the DLR by a posse of drink-sodden women of a certain age...they said I looked like Jon Bon Jovi - that's how well their beer goggles were functioning - 'Perhaps you mean Catweazel?', I suggested helpfully. As I made to get off the train two of them grabbed me tried to stop me from leaving, but being on the wobbly side of well-balanced, they lost their footing and ended up in a writhing heap of bingo-winged limbs on the vommit-smudged floor. I carefully disentangled myself from their grasping hands and disembarked as quickly as I could without looking back. The stuff of nightmares!