The Price of Everything, The Value of Nothing

I am in a dark mood today. Yahoo was kind enough to remind me it was Helen Arsoniadis' birthday, Winamp shuffled to Scarborough Fair right on cue, and it has been raining on and off since I woke up. The end of the valution project and an assessment centre appointment resulting in no job offer have left me feeling rather empty, though not bitter I think. At least I now know that BA is worth 313p per share, and have issued my first (and last) ever hold recommendation. I also got a chance to dress smart twice, for which I am always thankful.

I have threatened to injure the Indian guy in my valuation group so many times in the past week it is not even funny anymore. I sure hope nothing happens to him anytime soon: I'm probably on a hundred CCTV tapes, vowing to make him the 'first idiot to land on the moon'. And I'm too cute to go to jail for hate crimes. But it turns out I'm not a solitary volatile weirdo: nearly everyone had a group horror story, or alternatively, they had a lovely group that wasn't getting any work done.

Still, the project went well, and some people at least proved themselves to be worthwhile. Looking 'at one another short of breath' we discovered 'inside something a rush of greatness' as the unnamed poet wrote on a wall in Covent Garden (which I passed in search of one of the best sandwich shops in London). At any rate, by Friday morning everyone was walking about like zombies. And what do you do to send tired and vexed people right over the edge? You throw a party with free drinks. I took a deep breath and went to get utterly plastered.

White wine is devious: it conceals the Spirit, as the Arabs wisely called it, beneath layer upon layer of finesse. What is a party guest to do? Omar Khayyam, that very great man, succumbed:

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder;
and He bid me taste of it; and 'twas---the Grape!

Anyway, the dying splendour of the Caliphate was not quite what we got up to. We got up to decadence and debauchery, egged on by that insurpassable style guru, Pascal Frantz, and his amazing trousers. Notice how he is beset by Thanos et al., eager to find out where he shops for clothes (pardon! Thanos already knows) and whether he can help with careers at Louis Vuitton. I take it some people decided to keep drunkenness at bay for a while, no doubt because, having witnessed this year's barrel run, a profoundly english tradition celebrating embarassing inebriation for a price, they were ware of repeating such feats themselves. There have been rumours of a naked English guy running down the stairs of the Old Building, but I have seen him up close. And believe me, it was possible, up close, to discern that the man was English.

Anyway, the night wore on at the 5th floor of the Old Building, and some of the crew, myself most definitely NOT included, turned to the most notorious drunken pastime: trying to shag really wasted girls. Alarmed and disturbed, I got to work planning an exit strategy that included shisha, something I'd promised myself while turning up my sleeves in front of the BA spreadsheets. I was all too happy to join a group of friends and strangers heading for Wagamama, which I heartily recommend.

There were two options for shisha: Bayswater or the Crush. Now the Crush usually depresses the hell out of me, bringing up memories of the summer school and inviting cruel comparisons. But free shisha is not a thing to be dismissed lightly and Bayswater is about 45 minutes away from the LSE. By tube. At the Crush, those of us who were shisha enthusiasts tasted the tobacco and tested the equipment, and were stasfied that neither was below par. Everyone else just picked it up really fast. It is, after all, easy to relax and do fun things if one doesn't take oneself too seriously. With the smoking session over, I stayed for a couple of drinks more, but ultimately sheer exhaustion caught up with me and I went to bed.

This is the last week of the Michealmas Term, I am thinking. I will be at home in less than a week. I need to go shopping for presents for everyone back home, and try not to get lost or go bankrupt in the process. After all, I am increasingly likely to stay here. It will not hurt to reassure those left behind that I care. But there's still work to be done before I am free. Brilliant Vayanos, disagreeable Soonawalla, and two back-to-back presentations due Monday. it feels like the assessment centre all over again, but then, everything comes with a price.