(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

Yesterday afternoon, went over to G's place and hung around there the rest of the day. G felt rather ill and very embarrassed after the previous night, and suffered further misfortune: he cooked us dinner, and ate some off bacon by mistake, which made him very sick and traumatized afterwards. Also, he was constantly thwarted in his attempts to play online shooting games, since his computer was not behaving. Eventually he read a bit, and went to bed in disgust.
Meanwhile, I played lots of Diablo (my rogue is now down to level 13: actually in Hell itself). Have been fighting golden cobras, death lords, and currently fire drakes and scantily-clad dominatrices who hurl fireballs and cold balls at me :-) Also, did the quest to kill the Lord of Blood - he was amazingly hard. I tried just thwapping him with my good sword and wearing maximum armour, but his sword was devastating, enough to kill me in 2-3 hits. I couldn't heal myself fast enough to kill him. Eventually, hit on the strategy of wearing my lighter armour so I could wield my good bow, and kept running away from him, round and round in circles, firing backwards every time I drew ahead a bit. Fortunately, he moved a lot more slowly than me, so I managed to kill him like this, and got lots of nice armour and weapons for it.
Also did lots more Japanese - have now finished revising the chapters I did before, and have moved on to later chapters. Have learnt (or remembered! due to Chinese GCSE when I was 13) lots of kanji, and also the hiragana syllabary. I'm really enjoying it - I might do some more later this afternoon.
Today, got up and came into town in time for VL's funeral. In St Edward's Church, which was packed with tearful relatives, friends and colleagues. The service was unlike the only other funeral I've ever been to (my grandfather's, a few years ago, which was a Scots Presbyterian affair - very dour). It was "spiritualist" in nature (if that is a denomination, or maybe just a focus). There was a little sad flute-playing at the start and end (since V was a very good flautist apparently, and devoted to music), and the service itself contained no hymns, or even explicit prayers. One person spoke the whole time (I'm not sure if they were a relative of V, or a minister, since I was behind a pillar), saying various spiritual things about V's soul journeying into Other Realms, and then gave a fairly short account of V's life. Apparently she had been married for about twenty years; I never knew that. All very sombre and mystical in tone. Afterwards, walked back to college with two other female college fellows.
Still trying to organise travel to Helicon, and help G find another job.

Comments

VL

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about VL dying. I didn't know her at all but think, from the way you talked about her, that you thought after her.

Re: VL

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I hadn't actually seen her for a number of months before she died - she'd been in a nursing home apparently. But it was still a shock to hear she was dead, and a great shame, since she was so young. Apparently she had become reconciled to her illness and death by the end though, which is something.