Current mood:	hungry
Current music:	Ortiga - Rise

Farewell, Nana
I’ll update this in the morning, as our house internet has been shockingly bad recently. It has a habit of cutting at any point between 15 minutes and two hours after the last time we reset the router, and resetting the router is the only way to bring it back. Whilst not an obstacle, it tends to make work take a fair bit more time than it otherwise would, which is obviously not optimal.

I was extremely tired on Wednesday, having been up late through the extended General Meeting, and needing to be on campus early for a 9am seminar. I somehow managed it, feeling awake only through my own will, at least until I bought myself a mocha which I drank over the course of the seminar, which was a combination of a discussion on the French Revolution, and a rough plan for when we’d be giving our presentations. I’ve a presentation to give on Bismarck in just under a fortnight, for example. After the seminar, I went to the library to make up for the lack of handing in the Japanese History book the previous night, although not before photocopying the relevant chapters.

After that, I went to the college shop to pick up a few things to keep me going, and went to wait for the bus to Slough, where my parents were to pick me up for the funeral. The bus took some time in coming, and when I did get on it, to find it cost twice as much as I’d expected, being about the same as a train ticket involving several changes, the bus was full of old ladies being stereotypical old ladies. A textbook chav joined us in Windsor, and spoke loudly about illegality over his phone before throwing a can down the bus aisle, being rude to the driver, and then walking off with his hoody pulled over his baseball cap, with another cap in his hand. If anything, I would have been the arty college student stereotype, but then, stereotypes can never define me very well.

Between the brutalist face of Brunel Bus Station and the shining panels of the Tesco Hypermarket, I met my family, who had spent their morning driving all the way down here. We briefly brought each other up to speed in the car on the way to Burnham, driving through Slough Trading Estate, which appeared very much like America to my eyes, although it’s hard to explain why. I was actually quite taken aback by how close my aunt’s house is to the Estate, and how close in turn they are from the picturesque perfection of Burnham Beeches and the beginning of the Chilterns. We’re only the other side of the Thames Valley here in Egham, but it feels very different somehow.

We were greeted by my aunt’s dog, Megan, who brought a deflated football to our feet before walking back into the house with it. Only my Aunt Sandra, who shares my hair in many ways, was at home, but after some time spent drinking coffee, handing out plates and watching my brother pet Megan to the extent she began chasing her tail in excited circles with her legs in the air, which was quite cute, my cousins and uncle arrived. Edward has now become a giant, standing well clear of me and slightly taller than my brother, who is now clearly taller than me himself. Bryony, on the other hand, is still her usual self, looking a few years older than she really is. We sat and looked at photos for a while, and I described my memories of my aunt’s wedding (which I attended at the age of two and a half) before my grandfather arrived, being his usual self, which I know must have been hard for him, given the nature of the gathering.

The hearses arrived soon after, and en route to the picture postcard church where the funeral was to be held, we discussed many random things amongst each other. I kept wondering if the hearse driver thought we were taking this seriously or not. However, once we reached the church and the coffin was brought in, emotion clouded over all else. I’d have liked to have given my own tribute to my grandmother, but there wasn’t really time, nor had I had the chance to arrange it, but otherwise it was a touching occasion. Bryony was in near perpetual tears, and even the more macho members of the family needed tissues. The service ended with a slideshow of photographs from my grandmother’s life set to Abba’s ‘I Believe in Angels’, which I found especially touching. I remembered that my last day spent with her involved us looking at photos of older, long-departed family members, and now we were doing the same thing. Everyone was crying and hugging on our way back to the black vehicles.

The rehearsal (that’s a pun) took us through many miles of beautiful countryside to a crematorium which felt a lot less beautiful, but I still noted how the inside was tinted as to resemble the twilight of a sunset. How appropriate. We were not there for long, and then it was time to say goodbye to the coffin. I did so in the way I’d been planning all day: I pointed out a finger and said ‘boop!’. Whyever did I do that? Well, from when I was little right up until my last visit, Nana would always ask me ‘What’s that?’ and point to my chest, and when I looked down, she would tap me on the nose and say ‘boop’. I’d never had the chance to do it back to her, and just then, I did.

Afterwards, we gathered around the flowers and talked amongst ourselves. The subject matter was mainly curiosities regarding members of the family unseen for decades. I got to meet people who send us Christmas cards every year, and some that I’d only ever heard mentioned a few times. After we rehearsed one last time, we headed down to a small pub in a village not far outside Windsor. On the way, we passed through Eton at the end of the schoolday, and the sight of hundreds of similarly-dressed boys, each one looking just like a little lord, was quite quite surreal. I mentally vowed that I’d get myself into a position of success that only a few of them could get, even with their privileges, so I could tell myself how rich private schools are no guarantee to anything.

The pub meet lasted a while. Lots of lesser friends and relations were already there, and the buffet just began. I did manage to gain a few samosas with chutney, but there was little else to appetise me, even though I had a few slices of olive bread. My brother and Edward set themselves up behind the buffet table for easy pickings, and I had a glass of red wine, not because I wanted one especially, but because I’d always had Indian food and red wine when I went round to my grandparents this last year, and well, it seemed appropriate. Meandering my way towards someone to talk to, I came across my dad’s cousin, who he had not seen in 30 years. My dad’s cousin turned out to be someone I’d never have expected in my family, even my extended family, as she is an extremely arty person. She moved to New York around the time I was born, and started publishing a zine for the Williamsburg area entitled ‘the Curse’, which was published monthly and came out alongside the full moon. I actually spent a few hours much later that night tracking her down online, and found her site, which Wordpress have taken down for some reason, and her myspace profile, as well as few intriguing reports that suggest she had an active role in the New York poetry and arts scene. She goes by ‘Daisy Hulme’ if that rings a bell with any of you. We got on very well.

Dad went to drop me off early as I still had things to do, and he was tired enough taking me the short distance to Englefield Green, so I was not surprised to hear he and my family spent the night with my aunt. I, on the other hand, after a brief period of near total fatigue, joined Holly in going to campus, where I spent an hour or so in the library photocopying just about every page of every book that was relevant to 1850s Japan. I still have much of this stack of about 80 photocopies to go through.

I slept so well that night, that I nearly missed my oral the following the morning. Having done no preparation this time, I fell back on the song translations I’d done for fun back in June, and played the relevant songs on YouTube. Astrid did not know what to make of Subway to Sally’s ‘Sieben’, whilst Anna and the Polish girl with us both had little joy for Wir sind Helden. Ah, no taste, they have, clear it is, to me. The rest of the oral was the usual combination of my strong knowledge of the subject matter combined with a shambolic use of German. I really need to improve, because I’m even worse than I was before.

Another mocha, and a chat with Viv, before heading off to history, where I took plenty of notes and contributed a fair amount to the class, even though my essay this time will have little to do with American Imperialism in the latter 19th century. Then I was free, and I eventually headed home to basically relax before heading back to campus for…anime. There was no German this week. Freedom (LGBT) also had their social I could have gone to, but I still have my doubts about joining them, partially through the lack of anything gender-related here (I’ve had little response from them over my constitutional amendment against gender-identity discrimination on Tuesday). Anyhow, I found myself enjoying ‘Paranoia Agent’ too much, and ‘GITS:SAC 2nd GIG’ is as fantastic as I know and love it to be. I can’t say I’m a fan of ‘Rune Soldier’ however, and I wish the society showed that first so I could miss that whilst I’m at German Soc, rather than the more interesting series…

Angst followed, but even that was cut off by a strong stomachache that left me curled up in pain with stomach cramps for a few hours before drifting off into a sleep that only departed at noon today. This threw me, obviously, not least because there was something I had to do on Friday morning, but I tried making the best of things, and went on a walk to Virginia Water with Holly just because it is so close and a shame not to visit it once in a while. It was very tranquil, and I have photographs to prove it. I’m still little further with the photocopies, even now, but I have spent a few hours on Tuesday’s German translation to clear up time for it in the next few days. I’d really like to have this essay finished by the end of the week so I can move onto Napoleonic Europe. It would be a lot easier if I didn’t put so much effort into my essays.