(no subject)
I am absolutely shocked and embarrased by the number of typos that the second-most recent entry contains. My standards have slipped quite a bit, haven't they? In my defence, I was (probably) quite tired when I wrote that entry...but still. It is so bad. I need to be more alert to these things.
*
I went for a pap smear at my GP clinic today. I don't mean to diss the NHS for the sake of it, but as I laid on the examination bed with my legs apart, listening to the nurse go on about how she couldn't find my cervix opening or whatever and feeling her digging around in my vagina/cervix/I don't even know what, then having to go through the same agony again because she used the wrong size of contraption the first time, I couldn't help but flash back to the last time I had a pap smear in Singapore. I went to a government hospital because it was cheaper, and yet, it was so quick: in, scrape, scrape, out, done. No puttering about, no re-insertion of an uncomfortable device into my vagina, just chop chop done.
Today's nurse was nice and she explained the findings of my last pap smear result to me, and she made me feel comfortable, but I didn't want to know that she was having problems getting what she needed while she was poking around my privates. I could feel the device moving around my insides and it was fucking uncomfortable. I would've felt better if she'd poked around, kept silent, then explained what went wrong after taking out the stuff from my vagina. The talking during was really quite agonising.
Luckily, it was second time lucky, and then it was done in ten minutes. I hope that the results come back normal; I really don't want to have to utilise the services of the NHS unless I absolutely have to. And yes, I am still miffed that I was forced to pay the bloody health surcharge.
*
I spent my afternoon going for a run in the insanely windy weather, which was just bloody awful, then reviewing the last article for the journal which I thought was due this week but which was actually due last Saturday. I felt so embarrassed when I received an email from my managing editor, asking if I could do it by today. I even replied saying 'Sure I'll do it by tonight', thinking the deadline had been brought forward, and so it's quite imaginable how I wanted to die when I discovered that I'd got the deadline wrong. The article was actually interesting this time. I liked the argument, but I thought it could do with more rigour to be more convincing. I did some research into this area when I was at CIL and I didn't come across articles with this guy's argument, and so I judged it quite original on that basis; but maybe I did come across the argument and I've just forgotten. Ah well.
Dominic has - directly or indirectly - exerted undue influence over me and as a result, I will go to this parlour talks that he's in charge of organising later tonight. To be fair, he merely said, 'You should come!' in that cheerful way of his, but because it's quite cute, I was left without much of a choice.
My Sunday afternoon with him was really nice. We went to the Chinese eatery with yummy dumplings, and we had them fried this time, like guotie, and it was awesome. I skipped the noodles this time as we were going to this tea place for scones, which we duly did. He corrected my pronunciation of 'scone'; it is 'scone' as in 'gone', not 'cone' with an s in front of the 'c'. He said I pronounced it American. How tragic, right?
We were supposed to discuss Thomas Aquinas on law and the common good, etc, but I stupidly left my annotated print out in the law faculty despite going to the faculty on Saturday with the sole purpose of retrieving it, so it's been postponed to a later date. We swung by his place so that he could fetch his gown to go to chapel at 6pm. He forbade me from entering his room because he said it was messy. I couldn't even peek into it despite trying to peer over his shoulder, but his height completely blocked my view. It is so unfair, isn't it?
(By the way, he's in love with Aquinas. If I should be jealous at all, it would only be appropriate to be jealous of three things: his work, Aquinas and Wittgenstein.)
We stopped by the plodge on the way to his place. I picked up a book that was in my pigeonhole. I carried it in my left arm and it weighed practically nothing, but he insisted on taking it from me. 'Can I carry it for you?' he asked. When I started to say no, he added, 'Please.'
We hung out for a bit in my room. I observed with some envy that he has really nice fingernails, the type that makes me feel like applying some nailpolish onto them. He then expressed his dislike for nailpolish and said that it was a good thing that I didn't wear any make-up. 'You have very nice skin,' he said.
'Thanks,' I replied. 'Is that a compliment?'
'Well, it's a genetic fact, so it's not really anything you've done by merit, so...'
'Okay, wait - so if you said that someone was pretty...okay, if you said that I was pretty, would that be a compliment?'
We were sitting side by side on the edge of my bed with his arm around my waist. He leaned in with this bashful smile on his face and said, 'I think you're quite pretty.'
Guess what my immediate response was? It's so obvious isn't it?
'Only quite?!' I exclaimed.
'I think you're very pretty,' he said. 'Of course I meant 'quite' in my sense of 'quite'.'
I am happy to be 'quite pretty' in his sense of quite, which is the standard sense of 'very'.
*
I have to eat now! I also need to do some work on my PhD at some point, I think.
Also, I did end up running on Sunday before meeting Dominic. It was raining. Rain water was all over my face, and it was just like in Singapore, except it was cold.
*
I went for a pap smear at my GP clinic today. I don't mean to diss the NHS for the sake of it, but as I laid on the examination bed with my legs apart, listening to the nurse go on about how she couldn't find my cervix opening or whatever and feeling her digging around in my vagina/cervix/I don't even know what, then having to go through the same agony again because she used the wrong size of contraption the first time, I couldn't help but flash back to the last time I had a pap smear in Singapore. I went to a government hospital because it was cheaper, and yet, it was so quick: in, scrape, scrape, out, done. No puttering about, no re-insertion of an uncomfortable device into my vagina, just chop chop done.
Today's nurse was nice and she explained the findings of my last pap smear result to me, and she made me feel comfortable, but I didn't want to know that she was having problems getting what she needed while she was poking around my privates. I could feel the device moving around my insides and it was fucking uncomfortable. I would've felt better if she'd poked around, kept silent, then explained what went wrong after taking out the stuff from my vagina. The talking during was really quite agonising.
Luckily, it was second time lucky, and then it was done in ten minutes. I hope that the results come back normal; I really don't want to have to utilise the services of the NHS unless I absolutely have to. And yes, I am still miffed that I was forced to pay the bloody health surcharge.
*
I spent my afternoon going for a run in the insanely windy weather, which was just bloody awful, then reviewing the last article for the journal which I thought was due this week but which was actually due last Saturday. I felt so embarrassed when I received an email from my managing editor, asking if I could do it by today. I even replied saying 'Sure I'll do it by tonight', thinking the deadline had been brought forward, and so it's quite imaginable how I wanted to die when I discovered that I'd got the deadline wrong. The article was actually interesting this time. I liked the argument, but I thought it could do with more rigour to be more convincing. I did some research into this area when I was at CIL and I didn't come across articles with this guy's argument, and so I judged it quite original on that basis; but maybe I did come across the argument and I've just forgotten. Ah well.
Dominic has - directly or indirectly - exerted undue influence over me and as a result, I will go to this parlour talks that he's in charge of organising later tonight. To be fair, he merely said, 'You should come!' in that cheerful way of his, but because it's quite cute, I was left without much of a choice.
My Sunday afternoon with him was really nice. We went to the Chinese eatery with yummy dumplings, and we had them fried this time, like guotie, and it was awesome. I skipped the noodles this time as we were going to this tea place for scones, which we duly did. He corrected my pronunciation of 'scone'; it is 'scone' as in 'gone', not 'cone' with an s in front of the 'c'. He said I pronounced it American. How tragic, right?
We were supposed to discuss Thomas Aquinas on law and the common good, etc, but I stupidly left my annotated print out in the law faculty despite going to the faculty on Saturday with the sole purpose of retrieving it, so it's been postponed to a later date. We swung by his place so that he could fetch his gown to go to chapel at 6pm. He forbade me from entering his room because he said it was messy. I couldn't even peek into it despite trying to peer over his shoulder, but his height completely blocked my view. It is so unfair, isn't it?
(By the way, he's in love with Aquinas. If I should be jealous at all, it would only be appropriate to be jealous of three things: his work, Aquinas and Wittgenstein.)
We stopped by the plodge on the way to his place. I picked up a book that was in my pigeonhole. I carried it in my left arm and it weighed practically nothing, but he insisted on taking it from me. 'Can I carry it for you?' he asked. When I started to say no, he added, 'Please.'
We hung out for a bit in my room. I observed with some envy that he has really nice fingernails, the type that makes me feel like applying some nailpolish onto them. He then expressed his dislike for nailpolish and said that it was a good thing that I didn't wear any make-up. 'You have very nice skin,' he said.
'Thanks,' I replied. 'Is that a compliment?'
'Well, it's a genetic fact, so it's not really anything you've done by merit, so...'
'Okay, wait - so if you said that someone was pretty...okay, if you said that I was pretty, would that be a compliment?'
We were sitting side by side on the edge of my bed with his arm around my waist. He leaned in with this bashful smile on his face and said, 'I think you're quite pretty.'
Guess what my immediate response was? It's so obvious isn't it?
'Only quite?!' I exclaimed.
'I think you're very pretty,' he said. 'Of course I meant 'quite' in my sense of 'quite'.'
I am happy to be 'quite pretty' in his sense of quite, which is the standard sense of 'very'.
*
I have to eat now! I also need to do some work on my PhD at some point, I think.
Also, I did end up running on Sunday before meeting Dominic. It was raining. Rain water was all over my face, and it was just like in Singapore, except it was cold.