Pre- Uni Catch - Up

I just had three encounters with my old school friends, the people who, after all these years made the effort to keep me in their friendship group.

The first meeting on the thursday was a funny affair. We, had arranged to meet in a McDonalds we had scorned so much growing up. To us as 'bishop' girl's it was a place for low-lives and wannabes to hang out, but for us now as adults, it was just plain funny. The Atmosphere was bright and slightly more elegant, if that is even possible for a mcdonalds, (refurbishments work wonders). The background music was vintage, fitting the mood perfectly. Songs such as Marina and the Diamonds, 'Hollywood' and 'Jenny Don't be Hasty' floated through the speakers throughout our catch up. We spoke about the past and our aims and dreams for the future. 7 years later we were still leaning one each other, relying on each others thoughts. It was a meeting I needed. It gave me strength and helped me feel like I have achieved something. There were so many different paths I could have walked down, and thank god I walked down the path I feel was best for me. I drew many positives and maybe, just maybe, I finally believe I was blessed to go to 'bishop'. We concluded that, the 'bishop' experience, if done right, will set you up for the rest of your life, where else would you gain morals to take you through university if not an institution filled with poster girls for the results of a screwed up life.

The second encounter was less vintage and slightly more sosphisticated, I was meeting for coffee in a starbucks in Canary Wharf near her house. After a slightly confusing chase through canary wharf to find her by the idea store, we met and got frappacinos. (All that walking around was thirsty work). So we settled down more like children of our age and proceeded to gossip. And gossip. And gossip. Only, it wasn't your usual 'she's fat' banter, more like the goings on of our respective universities. In contrast to me, She was feeling quite negative of her university experience but by the end of our chat she began to feel slightly more light hearted about it all~ perhaps it was not as bad as she had intially thought. We got to the subject of guys and our hopes to find someone who was not full of crap, which seems to be the norm for most university guys. She and I concluded our meeting agreeing that we must visit each other to see exactly what our universities were about. A key interesting point brought up in our conversation was both our failure to get into Leeds. And, would we be happy being around extravagant rich kids? Would we not feel inadequate? I insisted that we would have felt the impact much harder if only one of us got in. and once again, I concluded that i'm grateful to be from East London. It means there is no part of London I cannot go to. I am not scared of my home in the slightest. I am thankful for the values I have learnt too.

By now I was brimming with utmost confidence and happiness, and 100% prepared for my next encounter. Only, after a day spent alone it began to wear off slightly. Dinner with Izzy~ is always a mildly amusing affair. This time we chose a trendy vietnamese restaurant in Shoreditch. Cay-Tre. Firstly after a ridiculously long wait for a table we found the service to be hideously slow. They scrimped on our drinks by adding bucket loads of ice and we'd read there would be a service charge. The Pho brought to us was beyond tiny, although we did ask for small, but I don't recall ever saying baby sized. Nor did I think the sprill rolls would be so unceremoniously small especially for the large price. The 'Bun' I got was a delicious mix of pork with cold noodles at the bottom. I've concluded in my head, Vietnamese is like chinese cooking with Thai flavours. We were surrounded by nosily london 'hipsters' sipping wine and acting like they were important (and cool for knowing what vietnamese was.) Isabelle and I however, failed to be impressed. For a restaurant which tries to give the impression of excellence and be no different to a Chinese takeaway was somewhat disppointing. Amplified by the lack of choice on their dessert menu. We had to take our business elsewhere. I don't understand how Vietnamese people find the idea of dessert so foreign. They offer desserts in their shops and then proceed to look at you like you have grown a third eye when you attempt to tell them you only want to eat dessert in their shop. Relying on isabelle's vietnamese was not going to get us very far but the people did point us to another restaurant that did allow us to eat dessert only. Not without some strange looks at the two london girls, one black and one yellow. Insisting we only wanted grass jelly and jack fruit.

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