Tim's Book Launch

I worked from home today (too tired after last night's party), and Emily stayed home for the day as well, as she was feeling quite sick. I made her a ham sandwich just to be nice, which she really seemed to appreciate. Just really spent some time hanging out with her and Tim, having a very chill morning.

At around 4 PM, Tim left to go prepare for his book launch, and then I got a call from Nikola just wondering why Tim hadn't given him a complimentary copy of his book, particularly that Tim had mentioned him in the acknowledgements. As always, it's great to talk to Nikola, but I really didn't know what to say. How to explain Tim's behaviour? Because I agree, Tim's been acting rather strangely, but how much do you attribute to just failing to think about it, vs. just being douche-y? I must say though, I'm tremendously curious to see if he remembers to send a handwritten bread-and-butter note after he gets home. Why do I get the sinking feeling he won't?

I left with Emily to go to Tim's book launch party, and broke one of my heels on the Tube on the way there. (The little plastic bit came off the bottom, so the shoes were still walkable, if a bit unbalanced).

Once we arrived, I got a glass of wine, and stood around talking to people, including Nikola, Jen, and Flori. I was quite delighted when Alister popped in just a tad bit late, as I always love seeing Alister. Soon enough, the speaking started, with some old QC giving an introductory long and rambling speech about famous Australians whose names I did not recognize. The whole thing just went over my head. The speech went on for nearly 30 minutes (I checked my watch), and I was sooooo bored!

Then Tim gave his little speech, which was much better than that of the rambling QC, although nowhere near as good as the talk Michael Scott gave a few months ago. It's rather funny how I'm becoming a critic of book launch parties...

After the launch was over, a group of nine of us went out to dinner, popping in at a local Thai place. I ended up sitting next to Alister and just talking to him the entire time, which I almost felt a bit bad about, but I so rarely get a chance to see Alister, I almost felt like it was a wonderfully guilty indulgence, to just take the opportunity to catch up with a good friend.

We talked a bit about his job and how he's enjoying work, and as I suspected he's suffering from the same problem that I was when I started at Accenture, that of time management skills. Unlike when you are a student, and can just do things according to your own schedule and decide the priorities of your own projects (and usually just have one main thesis you are working on), you really have to learn how to fit into a corporate structure when you start working, and keeping track of the multitude of minor tasks. I'm sure he'll do fine, as I figured it out eventually, so I'm sure he will as well.

Finally at the end of the evening, I went home with Nikola, Jen and Alister, and we walked by the old closed Aldwych station. It's actually a fascinating place, a completely abandoned Tube station, that is now only used for filming movies. I had read much about it but had never been quite sure about where it was, so I was perhaps a bit excessively excited to see it.

Nikola and Jen got off at Victoria, whereas Alister, Tim and I changed trains at Earl's Court. Tim seemed a bit bemused by my enthusiasm and excitement about London transport (I kept cheering for the arrows on the sign boards to indicate that the next train was for Olympia), but he's been so cheerless and melancholy throughout his entire trip that I suppose it's a really terrible way to go through life. Perhaps I'm a bit strange, but I can't imagine being as NOT excited about things as Tim is. Must be a terirble way to go through life, really...