Why are you reading this when you should be working?

The undergrads were at it again last night. Only this time they were in my hallway. I'm dreaming of a delicious, devious revenge; your suggestions are more than welcome. Part of the problem here is that the doors of our residence halls are not equipped with spyholes which means I can't actually visually identify the guilty. Oh, I suppose if I were sufficiently alert at that ungodly hour of the morning I might be able to at least discern a recognizeable accent, were it not for the fact that the loudmouths in question are generally pretty unintelligible to begin with. But normally I can't tell exactly which side of the hall they live on, let alone which room they enter on their return.

When you think about it, spyholes are a pretty obvious omission as safety features go, especially in coed dorms where women might be at particular risk. They seem to have thought of everything else: smoke detectors, fire alarms, the ubiquitous CCTV, fire doors placed at roughly 3-foot intervals down ever corridor... (I imagine that the British obsession with fire doors, which are generally quite heavy and require considerable force beyond that which mere mortals can summon in order to push them open, dates back to the days of the Great London Fire.) But the room doors do not have chains or other impediments to prevent or even delay someone from simply barging into a student's room whether or not they have unlocked the deadbolt from the inside first. I probably shouldn't mention this, since everyone knows the place(s) I'm referring to, but then I trust my readers to be sensible, non-criminal types who wouldn't do anything daft with this information. But I digress.

Back to the problem at hand: one possible way around this is to have (some) drugs legalized. The only current legal favourite, alcohol, completely obliterates any sense of judgment and seriously impairs all faculty of reason. I have yet, however, to find a single soul who had ever gotten high and subsequently thought that driving on the wrong side of the road at speeds well in excess of the legal limit (for example) was a good idea. If anything, they tend to slow down and drive verrrrry sedately so as not to attract undue attention. Similarly, stoned people don't smell nearly as offensive as a thoroughly liquored-up pissant; they just have a faint, sweet musky odour. Nor do potheads tend to make as much noise, if only because -- as perhaps in the case of driving -- the paranoia factor kicks in. They very rarely engage in aggressive or threatening behaviour, whereas drunks do so as a matter of routine.

* * *

Headed back to Tottenham Hale this afternoon to help Ian again and having been there once already I didn't get lost. This time, god help us, we went to Ikea ("Swedish for disposable furniture") to help furnish his new abode. Like I say, you should always have a buddy system when shopping at places like Ikea, i.e., someone to save you from yourself when you start picking up useless little trinkets beause they're "cute," or they're cheap, or worse yet, both. Places like that are least dangerous when you are "purpose shopping," the kind at which we men excel. This involves first making a limited list of absolute must-haves, precisely identifying the aisles/areas in which the item is located, making a beeline for those locations and items, then making a quick getaway.

And we both more or less stayed on course; I got my little desk/bedside lamp and my french coffee press and got out relatively unscathed, less than $20 poorer for our efforts. (Of course the reduced-rate travelcard to Tottenham and back cost me $12, but that's another story best left for another day.)

A quick health check for anyone who cares: running program on target. Mental health OK, a little sleep-deprived but otherwise good. Dental health: still flossing regularly -- I'm happy to report (and you can tell Dr. Tobias) the habit has now stuck. Stress level: manageable. Finances: ditto.

Right, that's enough for one day. Hoping to catch up on what I missed yesterday. Good night.