Hey everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well! This week has been a bit of a blur - wake up, go to campus, write or teach, go home, heat up something from the freezer for dinner (oops I forgot to meal plan), go to bed a bit too late, wake up tired, go to campus… it must be nearly reading week…
Autumn has well and truly set in. It’s really cold now (or at least it feels that way to me - we’ve already reached the Tokyo winter level of cold), and for most of the week it was rainy too for added autumnal vibes. On Monday I got caught in a ridiculously heavy shower which lasted for exactly the amount of time it took me to walk to the tube. Started as I left the house, ended as I went down into the subway. What did I do in a past life?!
it was kind of funny though #visitbritain (also I need a new raincoat)
another british icon spotted in the supermarket (this lettuce outlasted prime minister Liz Truss 3 years ago)
There were some nice autumnal moments too:
soas library (I don’t go there any more I feel like I’m going to bump into my students RIP)
it’s officially winter slipper season
the view over the river near our house never fails to look good when the sun is out
a lovely sunset on the one day I left SOAS before it got dark (Friday)
In amongst all this I managed to go climbing twice! It’s a great way to destress. And not only did I do plenty of V2s and some arm training (the quest for a pull-up continues), I also did a few V3s yesterday for the first time ever which was very welcome! P.S. to my London climbing friends, City Bouldering has £7.50 entry on weekend evenings if you book online in advance… just saying…
at yonder, where there were sadly fewer new climbs than I expected, but I did a good arm day session in the gym! this is their highball, I wouldn’t be caught dead climbing it eek
oh look she’s climbing (this was a fun V2)
my first V3 ❤ (the red climb)
happy days :) three V3s! the setting at stratford city bouldering is so much fun, although the air is suuuuper chalky
I managed to do some fun things outside of climbing…
I made a cute sign for the GTA office. featuring the suica penguin!
went to a zine workshop on saturday about working out my ‘type’ and ended up making a zine largely illustrated by delicious baked goods… maybe my type is cake?
meeting kathy for tea and a good natter <3
cheeky wine and a good chat with my housemates on saturday night! plus I actually cooked dinner for once, hooray
And then today we got together as a house to carve pumpkins ready for Halloween! It was super wholesome and nice to spend time together after a busy busy week for us all. It was even better after an extra hour in bed because the clocks went back (Japan friends, we are now GMT rather than GMT+1, so we’re a whole 9 hours behind you!) - although the nights are much, much darker now! 4:44pm sunsets here we come…
Hopefully after starting this week better rested it will feel like less of a rollercoaster. It’s also the last week of teaching before reading week. Thank goodness! I would also like to cook more this week, which only really requires working out what to cook and then buying ingredients. Not that hard right?
book of the week
Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading All About Love by bell hooks and this week I finished it! To be honest, I feel like I need to reread it and get a highlighter out to let the message fully sink in - it’s so readable that I ended up skimming through it in my eagerness to eat up all of bell hooks’ excellent words, especially on the tube. But essentially I think it can be summed up with the argument that love should be a verb not a noun (specifically defined as “the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth“) and that it goes way beyond romantic relationships to every aspect of life - love for friends, family, strangers on the street, communities, and so on. She goes through all of these aspects of life and more, although as someone who’s arguably dedicated way more love to friends and family than romance over the past few years, it was her points about romantic relationships that stood out to me the most - especially her point that love and fear cannot coexist, that the kind of action which loving requires (open communication, honesty, dedication to mutual growth, etc) eventually casts out fear, but also the importance of loving behaviour being mutual. I guess with being scattered across the globe I’ve been a little afraid to open my heart. Maybe now I’m back I will? Who knows what the future holds? (is this too personal…??)
the quote which made me get my phone out on the tube
album(s) of the week
As promised last week, I gave The Last Dinner Party’s new album From The Pyre some more time, and I found myself enjoying it a lot more. Aside from the singles, which I already knew as masterpieces (The Scythe is so so heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time), I’ve come to like some of the other songs, too. Count The Ways has a great guitar riff going for it. Rifle is atmospheric and haunting. Woman is a Tree is primordial and prog rock-y. Sail Away kind of sounds like a high school choir ballad but I appreciate the longing vibes. We won’t talk about Inferno. I think, basically, that you have to be in the mood for this album but if you lean into it, it starts to make more sense. I enjoyed it!
Then on Friday, along came Sigrid’s new album There’s Always More That I Could Say. Ohhhh this is a great one. I’ve practically had it on repeat since Friday morning when I listened to it on the way into SOAS. Pop princess magic. Fort Knox was a banger but it’s somehow even more of a banger in the context of the rest of the album. Eternal Sunshine is a slower end of album song but it sounds like CMAT and I love that. But the whole album is incredible! 10/10 would listen again (have listened again… and again… and again…)
So it’s a joint album of the week for these two! Shoutout also to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida (Prospekt’s March edition) which I listened to again after many years while writing, and Lily Allen’s absolutely outrageous album West End Girl about her very, very messy divorce. I think she probably had to run some of the tracks by a lawyer…
The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre
Sigrid - There’s Always More That I Could Say
In search of a quieter week this week, let’s see what happens. Also as always please feel free to reply - it goes straight to my personal email and I love hearing people’s thoughts!
See you next week,
Stella x