(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

G and I went to emperor's party last night, and had a great time; talked mainly to sion_a and mobbsy; also saw ewx, acronym, lnr and many others who I rarely get the chance to talk to much these days. Perhaps against my better judgement I stayed until about 2am, before getting a taxi back (Panther ripped me off, bastards), finally getting to sleep around 3. Then I got up at 7, still quite hungover obviously, to catch a train to Leicester to give my final tutorial (on revision and exam skills) for that group of students this year. Ah well, at least I can still do that sort of silly thing; clearly my undergraduate years were good practice for burning the candle at both ends :-)

Nearly fell asleep on the train back; felt very out of it; this feeling of unreality was compounded by a very strange conversation with an elderly Indian chap on the train who seemed to have arrived in the UK directly from India a couple of days earlier. He enquired at some length about farming practices as illustrated in the fields we were passing (e.g. hay bales - "rolled by machines!" he commented in apparent disgust) and later asked whether I was a student at Cambridge :-) On learning which subject I taught, he held forth briefly on the poor standards of British English he had observed since his arrival, and enjoined me to instruct the British people in proper usage of language! (It seemed inappropriate to attempt to argue with him, so I just smiled and nodded.) Then, in a rather unexpected change of subject, he asked what Harrow was. My description of it as part of London did not seem to satisfy him, until I realised that he must be thinking of Harrow school ("I have met people in India who talk of going to Harrow and Cambridge - so what is Harrow?"). We finally parted in Cambridge station, where he seemed to be planning to spend the night before catching a train to Ipswich, his ultimate destination. This also seemed surprising, but perhaps he was unsure of the distance between Cambridge and Ipswich, or the frequency of British trains.

Got home to find G still in bed with his hangover. Joined him for a few more hours of sleep. We woke up at 7.30pm. I now feel odd in other ways...

Comments

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

I love random conversations with foreign strangers. Once on an aeroplane I chatted with a South African guy about how to erect sturdy fences so as to protect your farm from being raided by the herds of wild pigs who would sweep down from the mountains. Completely surreal from my POV.