I guess it's as good a time as any to write something which didn't revolve around shopping, music gigs and work (sort of). And having been in London for just over six months now, I've also been in a bit more of an introspective mood, which prompted me to write a semi-update on the girl I am now vs. that girl I was a couple of years ago.

So here goes:

I'm the girl whose grandmothers passed away during the run-up to her CFA exams - one for each level. I'm the girl who wondered, half-jokingly, after she'd passed Level II whom the exam gods would call to be sacrified when the time came for her to take Level III. After all, I'm the girl who no longer had any living grandparents.

So far, so good, she noted, a week before the exam.

I'm the girl who feels as if she's been spending the last ten years running away from the girl she used to be, the comparatively weak girl who was easily frightened and hurt by other people, and who spends so much time today pretending she's tough as nails and doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything else other than herself.

I'm the one who just got called "terribly sweet" by a new best friend in spite of my doing my best to convince him of the above.

I'm the one you saw sitting in the aircraft just last week, with her texts on the table, but, instead of studying, was staring out the window at the clouds below. If you were curious, I was asking myself, not for the first time, whether I was someone whom my grandmothers would be proud of.

And, quite possibly for the first time, I'm the girl who answered in the affirmative.

Yes, I'm that girl, but a little older, a little wiser, a little more grown-up. You?