i would begin with a guess how many hours i spent in ikea yesterday poll... but to be honest i'm about to tell you so unless you poll very very quickly it seems a bit pointless.

i spent: 10 hours in ikea yesterday.

now, its a big store, but that seems a little excessive.

on the other hand it was quite fun until the 7th or so hour rolled around and i was busy lugging big heavy boxes full of bits of wood that would after a long struggle fit together into a beautiful but inexpesnive wardrope. then it wasn't so fun and after that we had to wait in a very long queue to get the afore mentioned beautiful but inexpensive items delivered to us because my mum has a very small car rather than a big lorry and that wasn't fun either, but sadly, the actual ikea experience was.

it was literally like wandering round people's houses and saying "ooh, that's nice, where did you get it?" and then going out and buying it, rather than determindly not buying that paticular item which is unfortunately what happens if you're doing it in real life. saw lots of stuff i really liked but my mum pointed out repeated that i "had no wall space". i could move things around! "there still won't be any space" so i think some kind of university shopping expedition is in order after the 13th so we can pick up that wavey mirror and lots of other mirrors and large cheap rugs and *sighs happily* yes, definately. we're going.

nothing else to report because... well, i spent yesterday in ikea and i've just told everyone about that. possibly going to reading today to buy robert some new clothes (which is fun in the way that buying clothes for mark is fun and like 'what not to wear') although we have to wait for the delivery and anyway i don't want to change out of my pajarmas because what was quite bad sunburn has now become really bad sunburn that hurts when i wear clothes...

i'd like to say i've learned my lesson, but i think at 19 i'm entering old dog territory.

if we don't go to reading will instead spend the day reading (which i consider research... and which almost accounts for why i haven't written anything for the last year)(by the by, does anyone else want to pedition the town of reading and ask them to spell their name reding or redding, both of which actually make sense?) and thinking about writing more van helsing. in fact, i'll probably do that anyway, which brings me onto david and ali's philosophical argument and 'the life of pi' which i have just finished and which is basically robinson crusoe only fun and with a tiger. the ending is also amazing, but you have to read the whole book to appreciate it.

so, anyway, i feel i should stand up for ali and i want to with the following extract (one of my favourite bits) from pi. so here we go.

'...athesists are my brother and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap.
'I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.'

like 'the hours' and anything by stephen fry, pi is a book that fills me with pleasure just by putting words down in the proper order. the story i admit, is one i hated in robinson crusoe, but the way its written makes me quietly happy.

anyway, does it support ali? not sure, but i wanted to add it, because i'm an agnostic too and i think extreme faith should be applauded.