Current location:	TW20 0EZ
Current mood:	aggravatingly hot
Current music:	Schandmaul - Talisman (Live)
Entry tags:	annoying people, breakfast, discworld, fruit, heat, illness, politics, russians, sickness, weather

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?