.. And So It Ends! Week Three Of Finals (Days 140 - 143)

(Being the events of:)
MAY 22 - 25, 2011

Well, I'm finally all finished up! Nothing to do now but relax, enjoy London, and spend what's left of my money. And enjoy this beautiful weather! .. well, as it's raining on-and-off outside now, so it looks like that's going to have to wait.

The last final wasn't too bad: just a lot of memorizing definitions and computer theory, specifically that dealing with operating systems. Piece of cake.

Watched a couple films to take a break from studying, including a couple I'd already seen, but just was 'in the mood for': 'Inglourious Basterds' and the 2009 reboot of 'Star Trek'. Both real solid flicks! Other than that, popped another classic in: 'North by Northwest' - a great old Hitchcock thriller with the fantastic Cary Grant. Love it. Perfect mix of thriller, action, humour, and romance. Plus, you gotta love the performance of Cary Grant; the guy's got some great lines..

Not much happened between the studying and relaxing. Oh, finally caught up to the end of the last season of Dexter! Loved it - excited to see what next season's going to be like. Moved on to the next show already: the new HBO fantasy series 'Game of Thrones', which is pretty good so far. First episode was pretty much character introduction - it reminds me of like a 'Lord of the Rings'-themed soap opera so far. Not a terrible thing, but supposedly it'll have some good action and intriguing story lines so it's something to look forward to. Other than that, I'm pretty much all caught up on every other show - and both Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother just had their season finales, so looks like no more of that until they come back in the fall. Modern Family's got one more episode this week, but since I pretty much caught Game Of Thrones at the beginning, I'm probably going to be looking for another show by the time I get home.

Man, can't believe I'll be home in 10 days. Stateside in 9. Looking forward to American food and television. And my family and friends. Not looking forward to having to wake up for work again before noon, but I guess I'll figure that out when I get there..

After my final, I went out with some people last night: started out at a friend's flat and pre-gamed for a while with more people showing up. Eventually, we made our way down the road trying to find a place to go and ended up at a bar doing karaoke. It was fun; did some dancing and singing. Headed home for the night, grabbing a burger on the way of course, and ended up skyping with Brittney for a bit before hitting the hay.

Aaaaaaand that's about it. Woke up to rain thrashing on the window and decided it would be a good day to just hang in, relax, watch some TV, play some guitar. If the weather clears up, I'll keep an eye out for anything going on tonight, but who knows. Right now, popped in one of my all-time favorite movies, 'The Shawshank Redemption', as an end-of-term celebration (what's better than a prison-break story!) while I type up this post. Tomorrow, hanging out with some people during the day, going out to dinner, then heading out for the night. No real set locations yet, but we'll figure it out. Should be fun regardless!

With my time here getting shorter and shorter, looks like next week's gonna be all last-minute sight-seeing, partying, sleeping, and packing. Then it's homeward bound. So look out for a couple more good posts before I finish up for good. No idea if I'll keep this up afterwards - if I do, it probably won't be on this blog, since it's travel-themed. We'll see; I'm actually doubting that I'll keep it up.. Oh well.

Good music of the moment:
Grizzly Bear - 'Little Brother', off their album 'Yellow House'

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Happy end-of-term!
Cheers!

Just A Stroll Through London On A Sunny Day (Day 139)

MAY 21, 2011

Just felt like taking a walk around London this afternoon in the beautiful (rapture-free, 'surprisingly') sunny weather. So yeah, here goes! I've taken most of these pictures before, but just felt like flashing around the camera today.. Been a while since I just went on a photo-run. Felt good!

I don't know if I'm just going to throw pictures up here, or put comments on them, or what.. I figure since I've already posted pics like these, there might not be much else to say.

From Waterloo Bridge:

Somerset House

The Strand

Trafalgar Square

Never remember what this building actually is, regardless of how many times I pass it or take pictures of it.

Around Horseguards:

Around St. James' Park:

All the country flags along the road were pretty neat

Buckingham from a bridge in the middle of the park

.. and Horseguards in the other direction.

Around Buckingham Palace:

All the construction around the statue was finally done so I was actually able to walk up onto it.

The Mall, under those great blue skies

Onto Green Park:

Brittney and I had a picnic here too!

I'm thinking of taking my guitar out underneath one of these trees some day next week. See if that gets the creative juices flowing (to be fair though, I've written some good stuff over the last couple days!)

Wellington Arch

Wandering around Victoria:

Geez, no getting over these walls..

Grosvenor (no idea how to go about pronouncing that..) Palace Gardens.

Aaaaaand looping back towards Parliament:

Nearing full circle down on Southbank:

Crazy busy on a Saturday

Now with a 'beach'!

So yeah: basically vented all those finals frustrations in a nice long, meandering walk today! Got to actually enjoy the weather, rather than watch it out the window. Anyway, it's been a while since I wrote a good picture-based post, thought I'd get one up! Almost actually went to one of the museums I still want to get to, but decided against it as it was getting late by the time I thought about it. Oh well, I'll have a ton of time once that last final is done on Wednesday. Speaking of that, I'll probably get started on studying tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad of a final: more in my comfort zone (as opposed to thermo), since it's my Operating Systems close. Hooray for more computer stuff.

As for tonight, I'm torn as to what movie to watch. I've been hanging around (got some fish 'n chips for dinner, yum!), writing some music, and watching a couple episodes of Dexter, but gotta pick out a movie to finish off the night. Should I go with something new? I don't know if I'm in the mood for anything that's left on my list: 'The King's Speech', 'North By Northwest', and 'The Town' to name a few. Might go with an old faithful..? Maybe something out of my DVD case. Who knows. I'll flip through it in a minute and figure something out.

That's about it! Aaaaaand look at that: it's midnight. Looks like I survived the rapture! (crumples onto keyboard and bursts into flameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekfam ,jg∫˚ ≥™t/qafcbasdib;bfc

^how the hell did I make that TM symbol?!?! No idea.

Good music of the moment:

Sunny Day Real Estate - '100 Million'

Ha look at that - "Sunny Day". Didn't even mean to do that, it literally just came on my iTunes now. Nice.

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Only two weeks left! How nuts is that..

Cheers!