Pole goals and work shirk

So, as you may be able to surmise from the title of this post, pole's been going well. Work, however, has not. In the quest to finish the dissertation that is due a week today (OH GOD), I'm discovering a lot about myself, namely that my capacity for procrastination is endless, I have the attention span of a goldfish, and I am very unlikely to turn down cake when it is offered. Cake is my fuel, and I have a good friend who is possibly the most skilled baker ever to walk this hallowed Earth. Fuck maintaining this 9 stone goal weight, I think I may be on the verge of eating myself into an early grave.

Let's move on to a more positive note, and discuss pole. Last time I wrote here, I'd conquered the upside-down crucifix, was working on the dropback (which I now have nailed, turns out putting your hands on the pole behind you helps with levering yourself back up), and the less said about the climbing the better. Well, today, I have a whole lot to say about climbing. Why? Because I climbed to the top of the damn pole, is why. Seriously. I have photographic evidence and everything.



Try to contain yourselves.

 So there we have it - one more goal ticked off my list! That's two down so far, what with the bike riding (I must, err, practise at some point... it's not really legit if I forget all over again). Just nineteen to go! I say 'just', that's a hell of a lot of work to do. I'm barely coping as it is. My dissertation is going to be the death of me, and even if I survive that, I still have three more essays to do before I finish uni for good. The next few weeks are going to be filled with tears, snot, and long stints in the library. Wonderful.

On to more cheerful territory. I mentioned last time that I was hosting a dinner party, and would either return high as a kite, having huffed on the fumes of my own sweet success, or come limping back with my tail between my legs, with a court case hanging over me having been sued for giving my dear friends a raging case of food poisoning. Well, it's been a couple of weeks now, so I'm not exactly tripping out, but I can proudly announce that everything went off beautifully, although I very nearly annihilated my kitchen in the process. I think I managed to use every single item of kitchenware in the flat, and most of it wasn't mine. The washing up took days. On the bright side, everything tasted delicious... so delicious, in fact, that we couldn't stop eating. I think my stomach has permanently stretched. Between the three of us, we managed to drink half a bottle of tequila and half a bottle of vodka, yet we'd eaten so much that every last drop of alcohol was sucked up, like a highly efficient sponge. Ordinarily I'd have been trashed; instead I was just slightly off-balance. And that might have been my heels. I ended up making lime and chili pitta chips with homemade hummous and crudites to start, followed by a main course of... *deep breath* falafel; lamb and apricot meatballs; honey-spiced aubergine with grilled blood oranges; jewelled couscous; stir fried carrot with mango, ginger and pistachios; and garam masala roasted broccoli with almonds. Phew! We actually couldn't eat dessert until about half 11, because we were still kind of lolling about suffering with severe food comas, but eventually we managed to digest just enough to squeeze down a further course of passionfruit souffle with vanilla creme fraiche. Despite feeling so full I thought food was going to start oozing from my every pore, it was a brilliant evening, not least because I had several tequila sunrises.

So, without further ado, here is my Moroccan feast, in all its technicolor glory. Try not to salivate, computers don't respond well to that.

Front left: honey-spiced aubergine; front right: lamb and apricot meatballs; back right: tomato sauce for the meatballs.

Faces obscured for reasons of anonymity. Nicolas Cage was not present. Unfortunately.

Passionfruit souffle with vanilla creme fraiche

The Gaza Strip, a.k.a. my kitchen

Aside from shinning my way up poles and cooking banquets worthy of Henry VIII, progress has been made elsewhere. Knowing that one of my goals is to learn Russian, which happens to be his degree, my baker friend ended up turning teacher and giving me an impromptu Russian lesson over dinner. This started with, as all good Russian lessons should, a bottle of vodka.

Thank you, Mother Russia, for your glorious exports.

I can now tell you that that Cyrillic gobbledegook does, in fact, say 'Russian Standard'. Yes, I know it's on the label in English. No, that's not cheating. I know what those weirdass letters actually mean now. I won't go into detail here, but let me just say one thing - they will fuck you over. That backwards N thing? Yeah, that's not an N. Not even close.

Otherwise, it's all fairly quiet. I'm still running... in fact, I was supposed to be going for a run with my flatmate tomorrow morning, but having just seen the time, let's just say I'll probably end up crawling to the gym instead. I'm planning on giving blood once the dissertation is handed in, but need to plan that around my drinking, or vice versa. It really should be the latter, but the fact of the matter is I'm so stressed right now that alcohol will be taking priority. Once that's done, I can start thinking about getting my piercing, although given the state of my bank account, that might be somewhat delayed. I've not written to my grandparents for a while, which I feel awful about, especially as I didn't get a chance to see them while I was home, so I must do that. I've applied for a few internships, so we'll see how that goes, but I'm not holding my breath. My nails have been chewed right down due to stress and anxiety, ick. And The Daily Mail's website is still my go-to for procrastination in the library. Overall, it's looking a bit disappointing. Still, onwards and upwards. Nose to the grindstone tomorrow.

Or maybe I'll just eat cake.