November 9, 2011 - A Flowery Day!

I'm currently sitting in the Library with these glass windows in front of me and a gorgeous view of the Chapel, a clear night sky (that followed two rainy days), and a full moon. How I am to get work done here remains a mystery to me. I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow :P It's taking me forever to print out some notes for my classes because some stupid guy decided to print 8 pdf articles, each of which take around 15 minutes to print. And I am too lazy to go to the printer upstairs. It also took me forever to figure out that I am currently on the mezzanine floor and the first floor is actually above me :( 

Anyways, today was a pretty interesting day, but I didn't get very much work done which I am slightly regretting now. It's only 7 pm though so I have a whole night ahead of me! And coffee will help too :) Sigh. So much for kicking that addiction.... I do enjoy tea a lot more, but coffee actually helps me stay up. Yesterday was so cute because I had my first supervision at Addenbrooke's Hospital (which is awhiles away from here) and my supervisors brought us tea and cakes since we had to fight the rain to get there. If the weather wasn't so icky, I would have taken my camera too. It was just light mist, but enough to drench you if you were in it for too long. This supervision wasn't actually a real one, more like TA office hours than one on one with a professor. My first real one is on Friday!! Wish me luck!

Today after class, I stopped at the falafel stand/truck whatever you might call it and had an amazing fiery falafel wrap:

Then, I finally got around to doing the flower arrangement for the chapel. Someone moved the greenery over the weekend so I wasn't able to do it then. And something or the other kept going wrong every single day till today. Luckily it was nice outside so it made the task more enjoyable. First, I went to the porter's lodge to pick up the chapel keys, which I felt so honored (spell check is telling me I spelled that word wrong because it should be honoured. blah) to be carrying around. The chapel was built in the 1600s, so to be able to have access to it and be alone in there is somewhat exciting!

I then headed over to the flower shop in the market place to pick out some flowers for the arrangement...

I think I picked out a decent bunch. I needed some red, with the theme of Remembrance Sunday, but other than that, I was given the choice to pick whatever I liked and fell within my budget. The shopkeeper was super helpful in giving me advice on what would look best in the chapel, because I would clearly be an expert on that topic. I also got some greenery (not specifically photographed) from the Head Gardener to spruce up the arrangement. That bag was SO heavy and I had to carry it across St. John's :(

After collecting all the necessary items, I got to work in the private room next to Chapel's back entrance. First I had to fill the pots with oasis that had been placed to soak the previous week....

And TWO hours later, ta da! I'd like to think that I did a decent job. I did not realize (no spell check - you do not spell this word as realise) it would take SO long. It was also somewhat exhausting, getting everything to stand correctly, but I was very excited to see the finished product ...

I had to make two arrangements because one of them goes into the antichapel that visitors pass through in the tourist route...

And the other goes up in the front of the chapel!

Technically you aren't allowed to take pictures in the chapel, at least there are signs for that in the antichapel, but since no one was there, I kind of abused my privileges. Shh don't tell anyone! It was also a lot nicer during daytime, but by 4 pm, the chapel was a lot darker so taking pictures was slightly harder. Its pretty gorgeous, I have to say...

After that, I was pretty exhausted and relaxed for the rest of the day. But I have one last exciting story. So I've been seeing EVERYONE wearing these brooches/pins/whatever you call them around here, and I could never figure out what it was for. But I finally found one guy with them.. Anyways, they are actually in order to fundraise for the Poppy Appeal, which donates all its money to the Royal British Legion's charity work, emphasising the need to help all generations of the Armed Forces and their families - today and for the rest of their lives. Last year they raised 36 million pounds!

Now I have no excuse for not working...but there is a novel (Game of Thrones) currently sitting in my bag...maybe I'll read a chapter and then work :D Sigh. Hopefully I'll finish up a decent amount of the remaining 7 essays (I'm done with one!) in the next two weeks... I also don't really have that much of a choice either...