Episode 394: Happy Birthday, Dan!

Managed to finish reading 'Beachy Head' for tomorrow's lecture and seminar, but I have no idea what Charlotte Smith's point is. I thought the ending was interesting, but have absolutely no idea how it relates back to what she was dealing with at the beginning. I mean, the Blake reading from last week made more sense and I thought that was somewhat perplexing already. All the botanical and ornithological glosses are kind of irritating as well. Bought four cartons of Innocent smoothie today, which made me happy. I'm convinced that drinking those has no discernable impact on my health, but they're delicious anyway. Had no idea what buses stopped near the Dragon Phoenix Restaurant, so I ended up walking to Dan's birthday dinner from my house. It's a nice place, kind of like a homelier version of Wing Wah, in the sense that the variety of food is more restricted, but the place feels less impersonal somehow. It's actually fairly straightforward, literally, to get from my place to the restaurant, although the streets are really quiet. Got accosted by a rather well-dressed and young beggar, who wouldn't go away despite my giving him a pound. Thankfully, some of my friends were around the corner in front of the restaurant, so I just walked off and joined them. Dinner and cake after was good fun, more for the company than anything else. I've missed being around these people more than I can say.