Day 32, 8 Feb: Charlie's Secret Library (Because Stef's Isn't the Only One)

Norfolk Terrace, Day 32. 23:59. Charlie’s Secret Library (Because Stef’s Isn’t the Only One)

A talk with Alvin led into the difference of higher education in UK vs. America, as I cooked up mushrooms, frozen chicken, egg, and shell pasta all in a funky sauce I’m glad I finished off (it was a little below my standards of savoriness). I have to confess their system is better: Med school right after high school (so, he, along with Matt and Gemma, are in it right now). Training (“placement”) is included within the weekly class schedule, and to top it off, America’s health care system just really blows. UK all the way.

            I joined Charlie, Jen, and Irish Laura (not Lithuanian LOW-RA, also spelled “Laura”) in the library in the evening after dinner. Charlie found me at the library computers and gave me instructions which I followed minutes later. I call this entry “Charlie’s Secret Library” because I found the spot just as isolated (the “all to ourselves” feeling) and magical as Stef’s yesterday, though starkly different in other respects (for one, it wasn’t a whole floor, but…). It was on the top floor of the library in a private room with dramatically bright desk lights. It’s funny. I studied with friends at the bottom of the library yesterday—now I’m at the top. What a change—and yet, both times, I wind up finishing my studies for the night on the second floor. It just happens that way.

            Also at the library, I printed out pictures (bigger than I anticipated…maybe I read the dimensions in inches instead of centimetres…no, that doesn’t make sense. Oh well) of my family in Tahoe and one of Katya and me in the Botanical Gardens. Since I printed them out two hours apart, Charlie took one to my room when he left and I brought the other one back.

            Going to the gym with Charlie, Dan, Stephen, and James (visiting the flat/UEA for three days; he’s the guy who stayed in my room last semester, incidentally) brought me out of my depressive spell from the late morning/early afternoon. This non-running outside is killing me. I got in 6 minutes of treadmill running after the two-hour workout of intense bicep and tricep exercises. Definitely pushed myself.

            There was arm-wrestling before this, as if to test manliness since Marie was curious and wanted to start this competition. Ridiculous (yes, I lost)!

            I finished Old Man Goriot in the library. The tale ended very much like King Lear, as mentioned in the notes. So sad to think that neither of his daughters, whose two lives he basically sacrificed everything for to the point of excess, did not show up for him on his deathbed or at his cheaper-than-cheap funeral. Only the student protagonist and the servant-boy (of the widow who runs the lodging house for most of the main characters (the non-aristocratic folk in the novel)) were in attendance.

            I was able to skype with Katya, squeezing it into the middle of her day and the end of mine. Distance is tough. And above all, extremely, extremely annoying.

            That is the day, I say, as I sail away…to the land of Nod. Good night.