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Thursday, July 20th, 2006
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6:37p - Heatstroke Strikes!
Aaaargh. This relatively tranquil International Building PC lab has just been invaded with around eight Russian children, of which all are loud boys of about my brother's age, and a few slightly older girls (although they may only look slightly older. They are being very loud and it's all rather surprising, although I'm not sure if it rivals walking past about 20 Japanese students en route to the loo earlier, and then realising I was wearing my Belldandy T-shirt. Oh, the joys of using the facilities of a university taken over by Summer English Language schools! Oh well, it's a little like travelling without the travel. With this atmosphere, I could be in Yekaterinberg. I just wish they would stop shouting at each other all the time! I've resorted to listening to loud (German) music through headphones to drown them out.
Anyhow, it's not only loud Russian teenagers that give this corner of Surrey a foreign feel. This heat is simply wrong for England. Provence, contental Europe I can understand, but not in Englefield Green! I know that America's also heatwaving currently, and that their temperatures are hitting a good 10'C higher than us, but it doesn't avoid the fact that it is Surrey that is bearing the brunt of this current heatwave, and that I am very bad at coping with heat. I've mentioned before how I'd prefer moving to Scotland or somewhere up North after Uni, and this is a significant factor in that. I can handle cold reasonabley well, even enjoying a chill wind, but I am like an Inuit when it comes to handling clear skies, little wind and temperatures over 30'C. Heatrash aplenty, although that can be narrowly averted through staying indoors...
Sunstroke and heatstroke are different matters. Indeed, an ill-advised shopping trip to Tesco on Tuesday reminded me of how careful I need to be in such conditions. It was sweltering on the way there, although we stopped on campus for a while. Tesco itself was air-conditioned (unlike most resedentitial buildings in the UK, it seems), and I had fun actually choosing grocieries for a home for a change, but the way back was torture. After about a mile, we were hoarding as much shade as we could, but half a mile later, we collapsed in a meadow through fear of genuinely collapsing if we carried on. We ended up spending half an hour in that little meadow where a Holloway building used to stand. The rest of the walk back was still painful however. Later that evening, I cooked Holly & I a meal of Mediterranean cous-cous with balsamic vinegar and nut roast, but I went to bed feeling a little off-colour.
I awoke feeling rather hot. I then experienced a growing level of mental confusion before realising a sudden burst of nausea. It wasn't long before I was repeatedly sick. When I calmed down, I still felt hot and a little dizzy, so rather than going onto campus to get things done, I played on Phantom Brave to take my mind off things. I had a headache anyway by this point. Dry heaving came about two hours later, but then my stomach felt settled enough for some coke and toast. I gave up on the game and went to lie down for the remainder of the daylight hours with their enduring heat. Reading Amy's copy of The Science of Discworld 2 helped a little, but my headache worsened to the extent I couldn't focus properly. I'm not sure what happened after that, but I ended up spending the last few hours of Wednesday lying on Anna's futon in a delerious state, napping to avoid the headpain, with tight breathing and an increased pulse, according to Holly. I was burning up all-over. When Amy came, she agreed with my suspicion, telling me I had the classic symptoms of moderate heatstroke. If it had gotten any worse, I'd have been hospital-bound, but I managed to cool down overnight, and this morning, I was merely hot, hungry and overtired.
I thus had a large breakfast this morning to deal with that, and also because since the initial sickness of Wednesday, the thought of nutroast made me feel rather ill again. I went for pretty much a full non-greasy breakfast, with cereal, toast, coffee, yoghurt, fruit juice and quarter of a pink grapefruit, which provided me a few minutes of confusion as I tried to figure out how to eat the refreshingly-tart red fruit. Truth be told, I've accomplished relatively little today as well, but given the story of the rest of this week, it's safest for me to stay indoors read Discworld, play Phantom Brave and drink lime cordial. Mmmm...limey! Also, Holly has vanilla fudge, which is blissfully gorgeous.
These Russians appear to be spending their time playing online flash games, all the while shouting at each other and laughing at odd periods. Although it's only the guys doing that, generally. Given that I've ranted enough about the native students doing the same in the Queen's Annexe many a time, I guess this just shows that annoyance lurks everywhere...
Speaking of which, am I the only one who wants to go up to Isreal and Hezbollah and say I don't care who started it! I'm stopping it! and send them to their rooms with no dinner?
current mood:  aggravatingly hot
current music: Schandmaul - Talisman (Live) (7 comments |comment on this)
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7:07p - Empty Halls
...okay, now they are singing. In broken English. Off-key. I am resisting the urge to leave them in a metal box (with air-holes) in a place with no shade between the hours of 11 and 3 tommorrow. It's only a weekn until we should have broadband at Hazel House, however, so that means no more worrying about infantile Slavs, over whom I have doubts that their English is as good at their skills in irritation.
Anyhow, enough about these brats. Aside from the heatstroke attack, which could well happen again given how the hot weather isn't expected to break for a while, I've been doing rather little. I came down here to get a job, and am not getting very far with that. It's not entirely my fault. As much as I would like employment, walking around Staines, Camberley or Windsor in such heat would leave me baking in a similar fashion to yesterday, and I'd really rather not go through that again. It does leave the problem of being down here for a job, and not having any. Given how we have to buy our own food, electricty and so on, this means I'm gradually depleting my money, which is obviously not optimal. I can't help feeling I'm blindly spinning in circles, whilst the worldwiser go forth and are employed...
Ah, and it's now two and half hours after I began this entry. In that time, we were ushered out of the International by a woman who thought we were one of the noisy Russians. Holly and I then set forth towards the Queen's Annexe, but it was locked up to even us. Despite a pleasant breeze making being outside far more appealing than I remember it being since Eversley, I felt rather uncomfortable due to the masses of foreigners around. Not in a xenophobic sense, but in being in a familiar place surrounded by entirely unfamilar people. It didn't help that all but the East Asians seemed younger than us. However, far more disturbingly, Williamson has been ransacked. There are no windows anymore, just gaping holes, and thus I could look into what had been my room. Well, I don't know why I was asked to leave it in a good condition, because all vestiges of habitation have been destroyed. The carpet is gone, the door and doorframe are no more, the electrics have been ripped out and the same has happened to every other room. This wasn't merely uncomfortable, but genuinely disturbing. It had been my room, but...it was now akin to a ruin, occuping the same four walls...I'll try and capture a photo for you tomorrow.
Holly found out one of her favourite teachers from secondary school has died, so I feel very sorry for her. I daresay I'd feel a similar way with many of my old teachers...it's sad.
At Hazel, little has been going on. Brian left yesterday, during my delerium, and Amy briefly came and left, with me briefly saying goodbye this morning as I awoke from the long night's slumber. Now it's just Holly and I, which, while nice, means we tend to spend a lot of time doing almost nothing. In that respect, Brian made a good nanny. He shall be back in a week's time, briefly, to mastermind the internet development. After that, he'll be absent until termstart, as will Anna, possibly Amy, and we've no idea about Helen. Personally, I won't be spending all my time down here. As I've said, unless I get a job, being here is financially taxing, and my lazy side prefers a house where I have coffee brought to me in the mornings instead of having to make it myself through a lingering sleephaze. When we have the internet, it will become slightly easier, as I'll no longer have to trape onto Campus to get things done, and can actually utilise the internet for more practical purposes, such as jobhunting and research. In the meantime, I'm spending too much time playing Phantom Brave, but it's okay to play videogames obsessively as long as it's only occassionaly, right? Especially in this weather...
Finally, for those who want to send me things in the post, our address is:
( Hazel House )
I may type more, but I'm getting hungry, it's getting dark, Holly's still upset, and I'm a little annoyed at not being able to do the one practical thing I came to utilise the internet for, so never mind. Until next time...
current music: School Rumble - Sentimental Generation (2 comments |comment on this)
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