English Weather

I know that England gets a bad reputation for having some pretty terrible weather. Having lived here for a year, I've seen just about everything that this little island can do from snow to hail to pouring rain. And that was all in one day.

Normally, the weather here doesn't bother me too much. I'm fairly productive when it's grey and rainy, and since that is most of the time, I'm pretty good about getting my work done. The few days that it is brilliantly sunny and pleasant makes those days even more wonderful; the grey makes you appreciate the blue skies that much more. I can generally even tolerate the cold and damp that seems to seep into every corner of the house. There is no toasty warm feeling when you walk in from out of the cold, only a slight less cold feeling.

I think what astounds me the most about English weather is that it is so... abrupt. There is none of the 'transition period' that exists in the states. There are no brisk mornings that melt into pleasantly warm afternoons, easing the switch from summer to fall. No. In England, we had weather that was in the mid to upper 80s, sunny, bright, swelteringly hot even. I went so far as to switch to my lightest duvet.

One week later, it went grey, cold, and hasn't peaked past 60. I've taken to sleeping in sweats and using my fleece blanket (although I haven't caved on the heavier duvet yet. I'm still holding on to hope). We've even turned on the heat for first thing in the morning when my other flatmates get up for work. It's hardly the end of September and I'm bundled up in blankets and I honestly debated bringing out my winter coat the other day. I'm sure, come November, I'll be talking about how we had a balmy Autumn, and this unpleasant and sudden switch from summer to late Autumn will feel like a distant memory. But seriously, England?  Can we get at least a few warm days?

My Dissertation

There is something about a looming deadline that makes me very productive.  The problem is that my productivity involves getting every thing else that I needed to get done finished instead of whatever it is that is due.  My dissertation has been sitting at a lamentable (and laughable) 10,000 words for the past two weeks, I only need another 3500 to hit the minimum word count, 5000 to hit the maximum.  The problem is that I can think of about 100 hundred other things that I could do instead.

20 Things I've Done INSTEAD of my Dissertation:

1. Cleaned my room.
2. Reorganised my books.
3. Done laundry.
4. Gone to Scotland.
5. Read a 400 page book.
6. Read another 400 page book.
7. Caught up on some movies I've never seen, such as When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, and Magic Mike.
8. Found out Cleopatra is a 4 hour long movie and watched it anyway.
9. Caught up on some movies I've seen about a hundred times, such as The Swan Princess, Up, The Rescuers Down Under, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
10. Watched 3 seasons of Qi.
11. Gone rock climbing.
12. Gone running.
13. Wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles of Sainsbury's.
14. Wandered around London to look at hidden gardens.
15. Looked at flats on spareroom even though I'm not moving for at least a year.
16. Looked at flights to see where Sean and I should travel to next.
17. Looked at just about every cute cat picture on the internet.
18. Caught up on Jenna Marbles.
19. Folded origami.
20. Looked at desk organisers, and desks, decided against all of them.

So that, ladies and gentleman, is how I've avoided doing any work for the past few weeks. Good for me. And now I guess I can add "wrote a blog post" to that as well....