a tale of two schwestern

according to a myriad of insidehighered and chronicle of higher ed articles, as well as a plethora of blog posts and books, the way to get progress done on your dissertation is to write just a small nugget of it a day. most people recommend two pages. i have yet to put this no doubt excellent advice into practice on my own dissertation (especially since i'm currently full of angst and crisis over it, having realized that i really just want to write about diagrams (it'd be fascinating, crossmyhearthopetodie), and thus am throwing a mental temper tantrum every time i consider the monster hiding under my bed/in my closet/ lurking around every corner dissertation), but it struck me that it might be an admirable approach to blogging, not just kee's visit, but this whole london thing generally. you can consider it a haphazard and completely unreliable advent calendar, of sorts, which i suppose negates the idea of an advent calendar, since reliability does seem to be one of the relevant characteristics.

so, in short, kee came to visit. and it was divine, as proved by this visual evidence:

kee masquerading as cindy lou who.

her friend sara came up from paris for the first two days, and we did things like walk through brick lane market and eat delicious food, attend an organ concert at westminster, and stop off at a christmas market which promised to be all germanische which means that it had very expensive wursts. i managed to convince them that it would be nothing short of delightful to walk back to my apartment from westminster (although at a slightly more relaxing pace than the one i had taken on my way to meet them at westminster, since i realized partway through that there was no way i was going to make it on time, but during the weekends they have this particular habit of shutting down entire tube lines for maintenance. i might have outwalked even chules.). it was, undeniably, the correct decision. there was even a convenient wagamama right by the globe to quell desperate protestations of numbed toes and fingers.

Of course you would dress up like a star so that someone could film you in the graveyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields.

kee, heading south over the thames. 

christmas market, from the bridge.

yes, please.

Tower Bridge from the south bank, walking back home.