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As I spend more time here, the weeks go faster. But as I look back, it still seems like time has gone very slowly.

I volunteered three times last week. Twice I did the shop trolley, once with Simon (who was ok--somewhat less enthusiastic than he needed to be to sell things and interact with patients who are hard of hearing) and once with Angie (lovely lady who used to run a boutique in Oxford Street). Angie has friends who live in my home state and has visited them several times and loves it. In addition to the shop trolley, I also spent one day directing patients around the outpatient clinics of the hospital with Phyllis, an English lady who has lived in South Africa and Canada. She has volunteered with the hospital for 25 years. She was phenomenal. We had a great time. She was bragging to the other older volunteer ladies downstairs that she got to spend her morning with me.

Our theatre performance for the week was Dunsinane at the Hampstead Theatre. It was a continuation on the story of Macbeth (the real Macbeth, not Shakespeare's play) done by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The whole production was really, really good-- right up there in my opinion with Rope and Twelfth Night.

On Wednesday, I had dinner with my flatmate from Australia. She took me to Brick Lane where the fare of choice is a curry. We, however, went to a really trendy pizza place for a chorizo, rocket, sweet potato, and chickpea pizza which we ate in the midst of an artist studio/space/shop. Very mod, and I had a great time seeing her.

My class this week dealt with British food and culture. I bought prawn cocktail and roast beef flavored crisps to class along with wine gums and Twiglets for the students to try. I also asked my mother to talk to the class about the kinds of food that she ate growing up. I think they liked that!

On Thursday, we went to the Wallace Collection, which is on Manchester Square off Oxford Street. The collection was once the property of the family of Marquesses of Hartford and finally the illegitimate Sir Richard Wallace. Items in this collection cannot leave the house to be displayed elsewhere in the world, and neither can other works of art be displayed next to them. It's a beautiful house with amazing art and ceramics.

This weekend I met up with my professor, his wife, and my alumna friend from my university in Brixton, known for being a very edgy area of town (not necessarily very safe, but trendy all the same). We started at a Portuguese coffee shop and worked our way to the Brixton markets and finally to a really awesome old windmill that was in the middle of a park nearby. We then had an excellent lunch at a Colombian restaurant.

Sunday I took a practice MCAT from the AAMC-- I did fine. I didn't do as well as I would like to do on the real thing, but I have about seven weeks left to study and practice, so I have some room for improvement.

I have decided that I need to take more time to study for the MCAT and distract myself less. As such, I'm not going to be doing the triathlon in March. I will, however, keep up the training so that when I get back to the US, I'll be ready to do a sprint after a month or so.

Other than that, life is dandy.