And here comes July

First, let me recap quickly the last days of June.

• Monday night was probably the worst night I had here (well, apart from my actual first night in the UK). It was raining heavily, thunder and lightening were scary, especially when you are all alone. I turned the TV on to take my mind off what's happening only to find on one channed a program called "Is this the worst weather ever?" where it was all about floods, changed the channel to find the fleet celebrating the Trafalgar 200 anniversary, and finally changed the channel again to find the Mayor of London on the news talking about the water problem in the city and urging the people not to flush the toilets everytime. Was it a water-only-theme that day?
  

• After staying in for two days since I moved, I went out last night. This was the first time I go to an event I knew about from The Lecture List. It was a stand up comedy show by Shazia Mirza, the first feamle Muslim comedian. I was very interested to see how would that go. Aisha, my ex-flatmate came with me. To tell you the truth, the show was funny and entertaining, but some of the stuff she said was pretty shocking to me. I mean, there were times when I couldn't even laugh at somethings she said and instead thought: is it really appropriate to laugh at that? Being a muslim and of Asian origins, much of her material had to do with religion, culture and ethnicity, but I thought that she was over obsessed with religion and sex in a way that kind of makes her no different than any other comedian. At times, I thought she was actually trying not to be 'too much of a muslim'. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.
  

Ok.. and here comes July. July has always been an eventful month in my life. But this time, it's going to be extra special. How extra special? Well, I will start with the good things:

• First, this will hopefully be the month when I finish my thesis proposal. Whether I am going to be officially registered or not, I just hope I will finish my work and leave the official stuff to happen whenever and at least be psychologically relaxed later, which brings us to the second point.
• This will be the month when I'll be counting the days left for me to go home on my first vacation after 6 months. Boy, I never thought I could stay away from home for 6 whole months.

Ok, end of good things, now bad things.

• This will be the month when I miss my mum's birthday on the 3rd for the first time in my life.
• This will be the month when I miss my brother's birthday on the 26th for the first time in my life.
• And this will be the month when I miss celebrating my own birthday on the 10th with my family.

Need I say more? Well, all I can hope for is making myself busy would help get my mind off things. Still, I can't help thinking what on earth am I going to do on my birthday? Whatever happens, I really hope it will involve two things: people and chocolate cake.

p.s.1
I am at Trent Park today for the first time since I moved. It took exactly 45 min. to get here. I needed to blog, and it seems that having internet in my flat will take a while due to unexpected complications.

p.s.2
after the show yesterday, me and Aisha had a bite at one cosy cafe. The Gazpacho soup was very good, it was my first soup with ice cubes.

Mai