The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

The Wretched

So pretty much this week has been a "Black Plague 1, Europe 0" sort of a thing. Because I sure am sick. This wasn't particularly apparent on Saturday when the St. Alban's fiasco happened, but by Sunday it was pretty clear that All Was Not Right With the World. When you and your partner are sitting down working on your presentation, and you basically fall asleep in the chair, you know that either your presentation is boring as hell, or you're just that sick, and I knew the presentation wasn't THAT bad.

Cue Monday. I'm really tired, pretty congested, but I go into school anyway, because hey, meeting and play tonight. Can't miss those. And I don't, even though I should have, since mid-play my right ear filled up with fluid and I couldn't hear anything from it, which was maybe not so good, as these things go. The play, Love's A Luxury, was pretty hilarious, though. I thought I'd die mid-play from laughter and disease, but it was good.

And, since my ear still had all that fluid and it hurt to lie down, I got all of about two hours of sleep in bed, and another hour propped sitting up on the couch, which is even less comfortable than it sounds, really. In the grand scheme of Things To Do More Than Once In Life, that experience isn't really on the list, nor is the next day, which involved the forementioned presentation on Hadrian's Wall, which went about as well as can be expected when one of the presenters looks like Ye Olde Authentic Black Plague Victim. The part of the day that IS on the list is the talk and tour we got from Christopher Walker, who's the curator of the Ancient Near East study room at the British Museum, which means he's in charge of all their cuneiform tablets. As in they have something in excess of a hundred thousand of the things in various states of repair. And, as Margalyn put it in her journal, "I HANDLED A CUNEIFORM TABLET! :)" Also got to hear a whole bunch on the British Museum's history with the things, which was cool. And of course I got to touch a random 3,000 year old lump of clay with little scratches in it. Yay.

And then I went home and slept a lot, and slept in bed this time, since the fluid levels were down from the previous raging Nile flood levels to something a bit more managable. And as sleep usually is, this was good.

And then the next morning I got up and went down to the Museum of London, which is another one of those city museums I keep talking about with all sorts of random cool artifacts about city history, including the obligatory Victorian shopfront walk, which isn't quite as cool as York's obligatory Victorian shopfront walk(s), but is still somewhere on the list of Things To Do More Than Once In Life. The next time I do it, however, I'd like to be able to do more than just shamble around doing my plague victim impression.

Somehow I also managed to make it through Westminster Abbey, which on the whole was a lot more impressive than I expected for some reason. York Minster's still cooler, but still. Still. Of note:

1. A little stone before the RAF Chapel, trod on by legions of unsuspecting tourists, saying "Oliver Cromwell - 1658" or something of that sort. Along the same lines, James I gets the same treatment, in an even less conspicuous spot.

2. The sarcophagi of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots each have their own fire blankets.

3. Charles Darwin has a great big monument in, and I think is buried in, the Abbey.

4. Assorted royal tombs, which vary from the hella impressive (Elizabeth I) to fairly unimpressive (Edward I "Longshanks") to random stones in the floor (James I).

5. Assorted coronation paraphenalia, including the chair, which was comissioned back in Edward I's day and looks it.

All of this having been seen, I went home and slept a lot more. And here I am, staying home from school for a day finally and getting some rest. Yay.

Posted by Dwip at May 27, 2004 11:42 AM