the weather is hot, and it is muggy inside the lab. there will be thunderstorms soon. i cannot think that well in the heat, and although i should be writing my thesis, i have not really done much of it over the last 5 days. i house sat for two days over the weekend, as my parents and brother are in france, and whom i will go out to see this friday courtesy of eurostar. due to the nature of the holiday (they're driving around in a big winnebago caravan) i thought i would be adventurous and only book my flight back to england when i got out there, so that should be wild.

i have done so much since i last posted, which were rather satisfying to my soul, but perhaps may not seem that interesting in type. I treated my mum, brother and his friend to a movie, minority report. i trained (relatively) hard for my kung fu grading, and learned that Mark, the second degree black belt whom i have been harbouring secret fantasies about and whom i haven't seen for ages is moving out to australia, so i am crushed. but i'll get over him. sniff. maybe. i went to a garden party and drank maybe four small cups of red wine which stained my teeth, but had a good time as we sat out in the garden right until midnight. some of us from the department tried to get last minute tickets to the shakespears globe theatre, but when we got there all the tickets were sold out, so we ended up sitting outside a pub until almost midnight. I went to a part-time friend's birthday thing, in a bar in Soho, with my new blue dress. the bar had really big square leather covered furniture, and the drinks cost £7, and there was a waitress who walked around taking your order, and brought you the bill later. i never go to places like that. i had one drink, but i had a nice time, there were a couple of nice people i could chat to, and a girl that i knew but hadn't seen for ages was there. she brought her new fiancee along as well, who looked like really steady marriage material, and said they were engaged. i asked her to show me her ring, but the diamond on it was miniscule. i'm not even entirely certain that there was a diamond there, now that i think about it. she was a bit embarrassed about it, bless. everybody left the bar at the same time, just before midnight. and yesterday, i graded, and am now officially a red belt. i was very nervous, which was annoying, as i didn't want to be, and it stopped me from performing to the best of my abilities. and i was also paired with a 13 year old girl, so sparring with her was not so fulfilling. she did kick me in the ass a few times, though, with that slapping noise that sounds quite humiliating. my kung fu pal tracy sparred against a young boy, but he was rough, and he hurt her arm, and the pain made her cry. but that is what sparring is all about, it is a controlled fight, and you can get hurt if you're not careful. we watched a girl grade to get a black belt. she was smaller than me, and i was worried, because she got very tired when she was sparring, it was also very hot in the hall. she had to spar three times, and after the second spar she looked on the verge of collapse. then she had to break three things, a stack of tiles, a plank of wood, and a freeze block. but she did those exceptionally well, she hit the freeze block so hard that her hand went through it and hit the floor underneath it.