Colored Ink
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miss something? check the archives about me name: n/aaliases: kit, kits, kit kat, the smart girl, foxay, an chin age: 20 location: oakland, ca hobbies: anime, manga, comic books, reading, writing, doodling, video games likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, animals, food, laughing loudly in public, SUSHI dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives contact: coloredink(at)gmail.com wishlist playstation 2car a good night's sleep money stress-free life trigun long colt keychain ipod hardon-kardon speakers 19" flatscreen monitor world peace realistic wishlist transmetropolitan vol 5-7, 9-10long-term obsessions comicsyaoi/shounenai/slash writing music animals life and living current obsession(s) smallvillecurrently reading anansi boys by neil gaimancurrently watching smallville (3.2)farscape (1.) stargate: atlantis (1.7) scrubs (1.4) hana yori dango (20) utena (23) witch hunter robin (18) rose of versailles (19) matantei loki ragnarok (15) scrapped princess (14) sailormoon live action (25) |
Saturday, March 4, 2006 [link] 10:05 a.m. listening to: nothing Dear God, it's been nearly a week since I last blogged? How terrible of me. Part of it is, admittedly, the frustration I've been feeling with pitas. I'm still chewing over the idea of moving. Perhaps I should see if there's any way I can retrieve my archives voa Google cache or the Wayback Machine before I make a decision. Nothing much to report, anyway. I went with the internship at gay.com, although it looks like Diva magazine wants me to do some freelance work for them (!!!). I don't know if I can handle that much work, but I'm going to try! I think I can do anything with my NEW LAPTOP. Yes, that's right. I am finally getting a laptop. Those of you who keep an eye on the LiveJournal will know about this already. I am so excited. Monday, February 27, 2006 [link] 01:18 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle The secret to losing your weight: STARVE YOURSELF. I ate one meal a day while in Italy, and the rest of the time subsisted on fruit, bread, and matte courtesy of Argentinian man. Matte is delicious. I have to find it when I get back to the States. Best of all, it makes you feel full for many, many hours. This is important when you're eating one meal a day. That's the sad state of affairs when it comes to backpacking. If you're going to give up something, it's probably going to be food. Museum fees are non-negotiable. Transportation prices are, more or less, non-negotiable. Food? Is totally negotiable. I mean, in my case I apparently have to eat at least once every twelve hours or my body starts rejecting food, but whatever I eat in those twelve hours doesn't actually have to be very much. I was ravenous a lot of the time, though, and consequently, now that I'm back where I have money and food is within easy reach, I find I can't tolerate being hungry anymore. Two weeks ago, if I was feeling a little peckish, I would have thought, "Eh, that can wait a few hours." Now I'm all, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FOOL. YOU'RE HUNGRY, GO AND EAT. I also twisted my ankle something fierce while I was in Florence. I tripped coming down from the Piazzale Michelangelo at night. I don't think it's sprained or anything, since I can walk on it fine, but it has reduced mobility in some areas. Standing on my toes is difficult without my right ankle buckling from under me; going down steep stairs also hurts a little. I can't decide whether or not to go to the doctor. I'm confident it'll heal fine on its own, but there's that niggling fear I might do some permanent damage. Hrm. In internship news, it looks like I might have a job with gay.com or Diva magazine. These are both tremendous opportunities, and I'm really excited. Also, I'm aware that the archives on this blog are still fucked up. I've emailed pitas help about it several times and received no reply; I'm beginning to wonder if the pitas system hasn't been abandoned entirely by whoever runs this thing, especially considering that they don't take new sign-ups anymore. I'm very unhappy about this state of affairs. I love this pitas and don't want to give it up, but if I still don't get any response, I'm going to have to move my blog elsewhere. I can't handle something that doesn't have an archive. I'm confident the archive--or at least, part of it--can be accessed via Google cache or the Wayback Machine, but I don't want to have to resort to that. Worst come to worst, I can move the whole personal blogging thing to my LiveJournal and move the geekblog to, uh, my other LiveJournal. But I don't want to. I like the system just the way it is. Friday, February 24, 2006 [link] 10:28 a.m. listening to: nothing The Hermit from the Major Arcana put down his lantern and pushed the dense crowd away in a circle, then joined hands with a British redcoat, a jester, and other assorted costumed and uncostumed peoples. They began to dance in a ring, pulling innocent bystanders in as they did so; I was one of them. Then the music broke apart. I've never moshed before, but I was sure this was what it was like as I was hurled back and forth, bouncing to the frenetic music as best as I could amongst the packed bodies. Italians dance with their whole bodies, arms and legs moving in opposite directions, and part of the fun at this concert was, apparently, pushing people at each other. At one point I was impacted with the weight of maybe three people and nearly knocked to the ground, but a strong arm hauled me back up. "Grazie," I said gratefully, because being trampled by a bunch of wildly dancing Italians isn't my ideal way to go. "Attenzione!" my savior rebuked me, and whirled away. After the concert, I took my tired and weary self back to the train station to catch the last train of the night to Venezia Mestre, which is just outside of Venice proper. I ended up at Venezia Mestre with about two and a half hours to spare before my train arrived, took myself into the nicely-heated ticketing area (which was empty of actual ticket sellers) and took up a spot on the floor next to two Australians. We were promptly evicted about half an hour later, when the station more or less closed for the night. All of it. Even the bathrooms. Why would you make a station where trains run at 3:30 in the morning but you have to wait outside on a cold, windy platform for two hours? I shivered for two hours, huddled next to the Australians and making conversation with an Italian who spoke excellent English (it turns out he studied in Bristol). I still had blue and red paint and glitter on one side of my face. The train did arrive, fortunately, and I didn't die of exposure (obviously), and I went back to my hostel in Florence and they graciously allowed me to take a hot shower. And now I am well. Wednesday, February 22, 2006 [link] 11:17 a.m. listening to: nothing I overslept a little this morning. Thus far I've been woken at 7am every morning by the bells of whatever cathedral's in the Duomo (I believe it's the Santa Maria de Fiore?), which I suppose is a romantic, if slightly annoying way to wake up in the morning. I darted into the bathroom, passing Ivan already in the kitchen. We've developed a habit of sharing matte in the mornings. I discovered matte two days ago and already I'm addicted. I'm not sure I can find it in the States, which makes me sad. Fortunately, the Accademia, where Michelangelo's David is housed, is right down the street from the hostel, so the late start did not impinge us too much. There was hardly any queue at all. Unfortunately, the top floor of the museum was closed, I think for renovation, but it was okay because David is on the first floor. And David. . . I don't know what I can say about David that hasn't already been said. I saw the copy in the Piazza Vecchio, which Isabella told me was pretty much the same. She was wrong; they're not the same at all. The copy is not even a pale shadow of the real thing. David is breathtaking; I've seen a few great works of art by now (Guernica, the Mona Lisa, Botticelli's Venus) and so far David is the only one to live up to all of my expectations. I dare say he surpassed them. He's just--I can't even describe it. So gorgeous, so magnificent. He almost hurts to see. You never want to see any sculptures afterward. The detail is stunning; you can see the veins in his arm, the tendons on his hands. I found myself wishing, for the first time in my travels, that I had a camera. They don't allow photography in the Accademia, but I don't care; I would have taken one anyway. If there is great work of art in which you can see in your entire lifetime, let it be David. He's well worth it. Tuesday, February 21, 2006 [link] 05:40 p.m. listening to: nothing Here I am in Florence! So far, the experience has been thus: Sunday: - slept most of the day (had a rough trip), unaware that. . . Monday: - most of the museums are closed, so I - climb the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is a vista point just across the river from which you can see all of Florence and - a man exposes himself to me on the way down (WWRRRYYYY) Monday was pretty miserable, actually. For some reason my hostel was almost completely empty except for me and a German girl, Isabella, who is amazing because she can not only speak German and English, but also Italian. Jesus. But due to the general emptiness, I was frequently bored and depressed, especially with the constant rain. Oh yeah, it hailed on Monday. HAILED. I didn't even know it hailed in Italy. Today, I went to the Uffizi with a very nice Argentinian named Ivan, whose name I cannot pronounce in Spanish (which kind of makes sense, seeing as how it's not really a Spanish name). Also, got an internship placement offer that will make my life extremely difficult for the next two days because life is like that. Ha ha ha. But tomorrow will be the Accademia, where I will see Michelangelo's David and get it over with. And then I will spend the rest of the afternoon chasing around my placement. I finally found a cheap(er) internet café, though! So far I've been using this one down the street from my hostel that charged €3,00 an hour, which is quite frankly insane, but it was the cheapest I could find. Today I did some walking and exploring of side streets and discovered, like, three internet cafés that charge only €1,50 an hour. Oh well. Better late than never. Wednesday, February 15, 2006 [link] 12:45 p.m. listening to: It occurs to me that I forgot to talk about how my honey mustard chicken turned out. And it turned out great! I sauteed the chicken in a pan with some diced onions and served it up with steamed green beans and pesto pasta and it was one of the most fantastic dinners I've had in a while. The mustard or honey or whatever it was scorched in the pan a little bit--I think the pan was too hot--so the chicken turned out a little bit blackened on the surface, but other than that it was a very delicious experiment that I will be sure to repeat in the future. The other day, I passed by a busker in the Tube. I like to give street musicians some money if they're good (I have heard some really awful howling in the New York subway, where I wanted to pay the woman just to shut up), so I fished in my pocket for some coins. Then I realized that propped up in his guitar case was a cardboard sign that read, in green marker: SMILE (just a reminder). I smiled and gave him my money, and moved on. Tuesday, February 14, 2006 [link] 07:15 p.m. listening to: some Natalie Imbruglia stuff Happy heart day, everyone! Today, while walking down the street, I someone with paint-splattered jeans and t-shirt that were probably not a fashion statement dashing home with a bouquet of long-stemmed roses. I wanted to buy flowers for random people, but decided against that because I did that last year and the florist was insane. So foolish was I! While I at the grocery store the other day, I pondered buying a chilled meal of honey mustard chicken with mixed vegetables. While staring at this £1.49 purchase, it suddenly occurred to me that I had mustard, honey, and chicken, and there was no good reason I could not do this myself. So I left the purchase alone, and this morning I cut up a chicken breast and dumped it into a plastic baggie with very generous amounts of English mustard and clear honey. Then I left the baggie in the fridge and went to the Sherlock Holmes museum. I was expecting there to be a student discount, but unfortunately I had to pay the full adult price (£6). The museum is not really worth £6, not when there are like a gabillion much better museums around that are free, such as the British Museum and the Natural History Museum. But it was very charming and full of Victoriana, and the very top floor had some waxworks of Sherlock Holmes characters, such as a very cold and imposing Dr. Moriarty and the Man with the Twisted Lip. I dislike waxworks, even if they're bad ones (which these are); they skirt the edges of that uncanny valley. The museum was filled with tourists from all over the world; there's a visitor's log on one floor where you put down the date, your name, and your country of origin. I was the only person from the United States on that page. Consequently, the tiny little museum was constantly dotted with people taking photographs, making it difficult to proceed as you wish. I'm not certain any of them were real Sherlock Holmes fans. An elderly man stood in the recreation of Holmes and Watson's very cluttered study. He introduced himself as Mr. Sherlock Holmes and pointed out Watson's writing desk, his medical bag for some reason perched on the chair, Holmes's armchair and other such artifacts of Holmes's fictional life. Visitors nodded, took photographs, and moved on. "And where's the persian slipper where he keeps his tobacco?" I asked. "It's on the mantle," he pointed. "And there you'll see the dagger in his correspondence, and also the photo of Irene Adler, the woman." "From A Scandal in Bohemia," I recalled. "Someone's been reading the books, I see," said the gentleman with a smile. Perhaps I know a little too much about Holmes for my own good. Monday, February 13, 2006 [link] 02:29 p.m. listening to: "Fair" - Remy Zero Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I'm amazed only because I didn't even realize that tomorrow was Valentine's Day until when I saw the date just now. Goodness. I just feel so disconnected from it, here in another country. I suppose the grocery store has had an abundance of pink and hearts recently. I'm sure that if I looked back through my archives--which I can't, because they seem to be broken, and I've emailed pitas twice and they haven't said or done anything--there'd be a slew of the typical angry, disappointed entries of the bitter single. Or maybe entries that say I-don't-care-when-I-really-do. This year, though, it's going to be different. Because every day is Valentine's Day. Love every day, folks. It's worth it. Friday, February 10, 2006 [link] 02:39 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle I've started composing blog entries in my head and then completely forgetting to actually blog. The problem is that I pretty much have a set time each day that I use the computer lab, and after I check my email (replying to emails as necessary), check LiveJournal, and do other Internettish things, I completely forget to blog. And hence why the last few days have been relatively silent; it's not that nothing's happened, it's just that things happen and then I fail to talk about them. Maybe I should start writing things down longhand or something, but I really hate transferring blog entries from notebook. I don't know why, since I do most of my fiction writing that way, but it bothers me if I have to blog like that. I guess I feel that blogging should be spontaneous. So, what has happened? Well, the sun has come out at last. This is a big deal in England. Yesterday, I stepped outside and was blinded my sunlight. My eyes were no longer used to it. It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, and then I marveled at the perfect blue eggshell of the sky. I craned my neck up several times just to look at it. It was the same today, but there were a few fluffy, puffy clouds in the distance, of the kind that people often compare to sheep or cotton candy. This is kind of strange, since they really don't look like sheep at all. They could look like cotton candy, maybe. But I think they just look like clouds. My glasses fell apart the other day. I managed to save the screw and tried to put the frames back together myself, but it was too difficult without a screwdriver. My old frames I could put together by hand (as long as I could find a screwdriver immediately afterwards to fix them nice and tight); these new, more expensive frames would not make things so easy for me. I knew there had to be an optician close by, on Gloucester Road--if there was going to be an optician anywhere it would be on Gloucester Road--but things close early in this country, and class didn't end until 6pm. I clutched my glasses and contemplated just dashing out of class early. Fortunately, class dismissed about ten minutes earlier than expected, and I grabbed my things and dashed down to Gloucester Road. I reached the shop just as it was closing up; the opticians already had their bags packed. I knocked on the door and held up my glasses, and they let me in. I showed them my glasses; I still had the screw and everything. They said things like, "Good catch!" and commended me for saving the screw. I entertained them with slow-motion re-enactments of my dash down to Gloucester Road in search of an optician. The man put my glasses back together, tightened all the other screws as well, and even gave them a polish. "How much do I owe?" I asked, digging in my pockets. I only had a twenty-pound note to last me the rest of the week. "Absolutely nothing," the optician assured me. "Are you sure?" I squealed. "Absolutely," he said, handing me my glasses. "Thank you!" I gushed and skipped out the door. I will have to bring them some flowers or something, later. Monday, February 6, 2006 [link] 01:15 p.m. listening to: nothing I visited Leeds Castle and Canterbury yesterday. It was fun! Leeds Castle is beautiful, save for how it is very obviously a museum inside. I was most fascinated by the rooms that are still in use: the dining room, the conference room, the seminar room. The conference room had leather folders and Leeds Castle stationery, with surely what are very expensive pens, all laid out inside, waiting for wealthy, influential businesspersons to come in with their five thousand dollar suits and discuss the futures of nations. I wondered--I still wonder--what it's like to live like that. What it's like to do your business in a thousand-year-old castle. Outside, I met a girl who said that the castle was gorgeous, and that her grandmother's house was decorated just like that. I thought that her grandmother must be ridiculously wealthy. A lot of the people I've met on this trip are ridiculously wealthy or at least have relatives who are ridiculously wealthy. One day, I stared for rather too long at a classmate's shoes, trying to determine if they were Gucci. Leeds Castle appears to float on top of a lake, which I think is the best part. The moat goes right up to the walls. There are swans and ducks and lots of Canadian geese (why are they here?), and their very famous black swans, which I saw from afar, sunning themselves on the grass. I love waterfowl. Swans are elegant, but ducks are just cute. There are peacocks, too; two of them greeted us in the parking lot. They were white. I've never seen white peacocks before. The male was particularly impressive, with his long, snowy tail feathers. He sat on the roof of the gift shop while students took pictures of him. I'm glad I don't have a camera; I think it would prevent me from really seeing things and enjoying them. Canterbury is very obviously a tourist trap now, and I passed several clusters of tourists hunched over Lonely Planet guides and fold-out maps. I bought a chicken and vegetable pasty and ate it while sitting in a small courtyard with some sort of war memorial in it. There are a lot of war memorials in Britain. The cathedral was filled with memorials to the dead, the walls of the nave lined with reliefs and sculptures dedicated to dead soldiers: cherubs, scrolls, shields, crossed swords, and heraldry. Britain's been a lot of wars that we Americans learn about only in passing. I wondered if Brits ever came to this cathedral and wept over their great-great-great-grandfathers, the way Americans leave flowers and wreaths and letters at the war memorials in Washington, D.C. It was Sunday, so there was service, and most of the interesting bits of the cathedral were then closed. I was directed out by a woman with dark, curly hair and green eyes. She wore a long black coat with a white collar and called me 'sir' because I was wearing my coat zipped up. So I didn't get to go down into the crypt, which made me feel cheated; my experience with cathedrals has been that the crypts contain the most interesting parts (and sometimes you have to pay for them). But it's very lovely, with an appropriate amount of stained glass; St. Peter's Basilica is mighty and impressive, but it doesn't have stained glass. Maybe I should have gone to service. I like attending the services of other faiths, except for the parts where I get flustered because I don't know what to say or what hand gestures to make. But I don't like attending services when they're held at the heart of the religion--it feels like I'm intruding--so I never did attend mass at St. Peter's Basilica, and I didn't attend service at the Canterbury Cathedral. Some of the others did, and they said it was beautiful. I could be Anglican, maybe, if it didn't look very likely that the church is going to schism over the ordination of homosexuals. There is a Journalist Church on Fleet Street. I think it's nondenominational. Thursday, February 2, 2006 [link] 12:43 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle Class starts in an hour and a half, but I'm considering going home. In the summer of 2004, I was struck by acute labyrinthitis, which is the fancy way of saying that I had an inner ear infection. There was no warning; I simply woke up in the middle of the night with the sensation that I was falling, even though I was lying on my bed. It continued over the next several days. My sense of balance was completely shattered and I couldn't even walk without leaning against a wall for support. I went to the doctor twice. The first one sent me home with nausea medication; the second actually told me what I had and gave me antibiotics. The infection eventually went away, but the vertigo didn't. Vertigo is a word often used in literature to describe a sensation of dizziness or lightheadedness, but in medical terms the two are something quite different. Lightheadedness is a sensation of being about to faint; with vertigo, you feel like the world around you is actually moving even though it isn't. In both cases you may become nauseous or vomit. I definitely had vertigo. It continued for months, though not as severe as during the infection itself; it generally only came on when I tilted my head back (for instance, to look at something on a high shelf) or lay down in certain positions. I needed two pillows, or one very firm pillow, to sleep at night. A few months into the new school year, I sucked it up and went to the doctor. The ENT told me that a few people experience residual aftereffects from acute labyrinthitis and that it could last for several months. He recommended that I do some exercises to help my body compensate (they basically involved making myself dizzy on purpose until my body got the idea). I caught a cold during winter break, and I don't know if it was just a coincidence, but my vertigo went away. It returned a few months later, still fairly mild, and that's been the pattern ever since: a few days or weeks where I can't tilt my head back or can't sleep on one side of my body (usually it's only in one ear), and then it disappears again. Sometimes it's just in the morning and it goes away for the rest of the day as I walk around and do my business. So far I haven't sought any medical treatment for it; I don't see what anyone could actually do. The vertigo came back a few days ago. I'd neglected to inform Boston University about it; I probably wasn't experiencing it at the time and forgotten about it, or thought it'd gone away for good. Now it happens when I'm standing, not tilting my head back or anything, just putting things in my pockets and getting ready for class. It's accompanied by a wave of nausea. It's particularly bad today; walking to the computer lab was challenging; every time I stopped at an intersection and looked both ways before I crossed the street, the edges of my vision tugged and shivered like tapped Jello. When I got to the computer lab, I checked my email and then looked up vertigo on WebMD. I know how dangerous and stupid trying to diagnose yourself using the Internet is, but I trust WebMD. I use it only in situations where I or someone else has some new, uncertain affliction and no idea whether or not it's worth going to the doctor. The second hit was Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). All my symptoms are there. The positional nature of my vertigo, the nausea, everything. It even says that it will sometimes stop for a period of months or years (years!) and then suddenly come back. What concerns me is that I'm not, as far as I can tell, in any of the risk groups: I am not an older adult, I have not had any head injuries, and I have not had ear surgery. The only thing that might apply to me is vestibular neuronitis, which usually follows a cold or upper respiratory infection. The vertigo didn't occur following a cold, but maybe vestibular neuronitis can be caused by an inner infection, too. I don't know. Anyway, my conclusion is this: there's no point in going to the doctor. I can get nausea medication from a chemist, maybe; that's really all the doctor could do for me. God. This sucks. I don't know if I should go to class or not. Wednesday, February 1, 2006 [link] 02:43 p.m. listening to: nothing I live in a basement flat. This translates to: I have trouble getting up in the morning. I never realized how important natural light was to my getting up in the morning. It's not so much the sun falling on my face as the light gradually registering on my closed eyelids until I rouse, open my eyes and realize, gosh, it's awfully bright outside, it must be really late. I'd better get up. Here, my alarm clock (or rather, my cellphone alarm, as I do not possess a conventional alarm clock) rings insistently at me until I fall out of bed. My hand gropes and skitters across the counter until I find the phone and hit buttons until it stops. Then I open my eyes into gloom; my body insists, it can't be that late, look, it's still dark. I know very well that it's not 3 AM; it's actually 9 AM, the same time I always set my alarm. But I reset my alarm for 10:00 and go back to bed anyway. Monday, January 30, 2006 [link] 12:56 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle This morning I stepped out the door and saw a couple making out on the street. It was sweet and nice, rather than eye-rollingly disgusting, like it usually is. Maybe because I haven't seen much of it here. Brits aren't very demonstrative people. Yesterday I went to Chinatown for Chinese New Year. There were fireworks in Leicester Square; it was pretty exciting. Very noisy! And a lot of air pollution; by the end the square was in a sort of a dense white haze. Some of the smoke was pinkish. I don't know if that was on purpose or not. But the Chinatown area was ridiculously crowded! You had to turn sideways and crabwalk while people squeezed past you, inadvertantly crushing your kidneys and whatnot. We ended up leaving Chinatown and eating in SoHo proper instead because there was literally no way we would've been able to eat in Chinatown without waiting an hour for a table. Sometimes I am walking down the street, and then I realize that whoa, I'm in London. I've been here three weeks and it still doesn't feel real. I still feel like a visitor. Well, I guess I technically am a visitor, since I'm not really a resident. It's not like I'm really living here. I mean, I'm living here, but I've got a plane ticket, I know when I'm leaving, and I know that I'm probably not coming back. I love traveling. Maybe I'll toss my hat into the wrong and try to become a foreign correspondent. I mean, you get paid to travel places and write about them! Would I ever be a war correspondent? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, unless I really managed to lose all this weight and get myself in shape. You have to be fit to be a war correspondent. Thursday, January 26, 2006 [link] 01:11 p.m. listening to: "Chaconne" - Secret Garden Last night I saw Edward Scissorhands. . . the ballet! Okay, so it wasn't actually a ballet, per se. Not that I've ever seen an actual ballet, but I've taken the occasional ballet lesson (shut up, my mother made me) and I know some of what goes on there. But it was definitely the story of Edward Scissorhands, as told through interpretive dance! And it was beautiful. Parts of the story had to be altered for the stage, of course, but I felt it was all to the good (they had to alter the scene where Edward accidentally hurts the boy, whose name I can't remember; that's the only change I felt weakened the story). The ending was radically different from the movie, but in a stunning, heartbreaking sort of way that was, I think, really just a gigantic metaphor for. . . something. Edward was perfect, awkward and clumsy at first, with his scissor hands and absolutely no sense of what was expected of him. Then, as he became more confident, more accepted, he began to dance with the others, and it was wonderful! It was perfect! Some of the production was less about dancing as simply moving with the music (which has a surprising amount to do with dance). We had nosebleed seats, of course, really high up and far away from the stage, but sometimes it was all to the good because sometimes there was so much happening on stage that the ability to see all of the stage really helped. Except for the part at the very end, when it started SNOWING ON THE AUDIENCE. Then I wished I was in Circle One. I really want to rewatch the movie now. Argh; my kingdom for a DVD player! Wednesday, January 25, 2006 [link] 01:26 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle I almost got hit by a truck today while crossing the street. That'll teach me to listen to music while walking to class. Aiiee! I had dinner last night with an old high school acquaintance who just happens to be studying abroad in London this semester as well. It was great. There's so much to talk about, you know, when you haven't seen each other in years. And we would have completely missed each other if it weren't for this blog! Blogging's such a funny thing. I know some people who tried it, and it just didn't work out for them. They forgot to update, or they just felt it was pointless, and somehow they felt like failed bloggers. Except I don't think there's anything like "failing" at blogging. You're a blogger or you aren't. It just doesn't work out for some people. And then some people end up blogging every day or even multiple times a day. I've gone through phases of diligent updating and dry spells where I updated once a week, if that. It's funny; why didn't I ever think I'd make a journalist before? There's been this whole largely stupid debate about whether or not bloggers are also journalists that I'm not going to get into here, but I think there's something about a certain sort of blogging style that can be an indication of whether someone's got that journalist's blood or instinct or whatever you want to call it. Not saying that I'm a born journalist, but it's something I genuinely enjoy and wouldn't mind doing for the rest of my life. The blog was probably one of the early signs. Monday, January 23, 2006 [link] 02:35 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle The weather's suddenly dipped. The cold is quite unlike American cold; London cold is damp and pervasive, reaching down through your clothes and into a bones with hardly a gust of a breeze. Brrr. Good think I bought that new coat before I left the States. I'm supposed to go out for some of that famous Indian food tonight. It should be very exciting. I need to go to Boots. I desperately need lotion. And feminine hygiene products. Sunday, January 22, 2006 [link] 04:10 p.m. listening to: mp3 player on shuffle I dreamed of a strange, jumbled past last night. I was back in my old house, the one I grew up in, but it wasn't the house I left when I started college. It was the house of my middle school years, before my father moved his business practice home and the dining room was still a dining room. I was packing for study abroad and holding a conversation with Shalena, a girl I see maybe twice a month at school; we don't have any classes together, and I know her only by her sweet voice and bright blue hair. I remember thinking that I needed to empty out my laundry basket so that I could put my cookware in it, as I normally do when packing my dorm things for storage. It was a very strange dream. I woke with a lingering sense of obligatory dissatisfaction, as if such a dream had to mean that I'm homesick. And I'm not, really. I miss the human connection; I don't fit in here any more than I fit in Los Angeles. I feel like I fit into London fairly well, but not my classmates. I wish I were studying at an English college. I went to Chinatown on Thursday night, which meant that I also did some walking around in SoHo. I'm definitely going back there to drink and perhaps chat up some British ladies. Woo! I just booked my flight to Pisa. . . Florence, here I come! I thought about spending a night or two in Pisa as well--I mean, I'm flying into their airport, I might as well see the city--but then I discovered that hostels in Pisa seem to be ludicrously expensive. So I decided to just see the city the day I fly in (I arrive at about 10:00 am) and then hop an evening train to Florence. Assuming the trains to Florence operate in the evening. I assume they do. I mean, why wouldn't they? . . . let me check the Trenitalia website. Oh, they do. Good. I should brush up on my Italian. I don't know what to do with my evenings here. I'm in class for most of the afternoons: 15:00 - 19:00 on Mondays and Tuesdays, 14:00 - 18:00 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Afterwards, I don't want to do much of anything except go home, eat dinner, and watch some television (I have a television in my room; it's all very exciting). If I didn't have a television, I don't know what I'd do. Go mad with boredom, maybe. Life without a computer is hard when you don't also have a DVD player. I swear, that DVD player is what kept me sane through those winter weeks when I was also Internet-less, and no computer lab down the street with which to occupy my time. I watched an impossible amount of movies and TV shows (and I still lament not being able to finish the first season of Veronica Mars!). So, on Friday night, I made an impulsive stop by the bookstore. I hadn't planned to buy many, if any books here; after all, most of the books I can get back in the United States, without the miserable exchange rate. But I'd had recommended to me a book by Naomi Novik entitled Temeraire, with the title of His Majesty's Dragon in the United States (perhaps they thought the US crowd wouldn't understand the historical reference in the title, and rightly so). I preferred the title of Temeraire, of course, and thought that I was so bored with my reading material--I'd brought only three pleasure reading books from home, one of which was a very mediocre Smallville novel I bought at a used bookstore--that I might as well splurge and buy a new book. So I purchased a beautiful hardcover copy of Temeraire from a Waterstone for £12.99, which is a very appreciable price. That's probably the same price, converted, that I would have paid for it in the States. It is perhaps the best frivolous £12.99 purchase I have ever made. The book is stunning--well, for anyone who appreciates fantasy. Some people don't, more's the pity to them. The book is the Napoleonic Wars with dragons. I took the book home with every intention of reading a chapter or two before starting on my studies, and instead read it all in one sitting, nearly neglecting to make myself dinner. I read it even while I ate my dinner and then took it with me to bed. By the time I finished, it was two in the morning, and I promptly turned the book over to reread my favorite bits again from the beginning. In short, I urge everyone to read Temeraire (or His Majesty's Dragon, if you must). Buy it, borrow it, or swindle it if you must. There are apparently more books due out later this year. I am anxious as to whether or not I'll be able to purchase the UK copy of the third book, which is due out after I am well-ensconced back in the States. I do so love a matched set. Thursday, January 19, 2006 [link] 01:20 p.m. listening to: mp3 player I'm a little angry at myself for not exploring more of London. I have sworn to myself that this weekend will be different. This weekend, I will take the tube to somewhere--I don't really care where--and walk around and explore and maybe eat some British food. This I will do. Tonight I'm supposed to go to Chinatown with Chen Chen. A phone conversation with Eleanor revealed that Chinatown is about two blocks wide, but oh well. I wonder what they're doing for Chinese New Year? I purchased something called Jaffa Cakes at the store last night. The smashing orangey bit really is quite smashing. They have only 1 g of fat each, but that's rather a moot point since it's very tempting to eat the entire package all in one go. Whoo! Tuesday, January 17, 2006 [link] 01:45 p.m. listening to: nothing La Traviata last night was smashing. It makes me want to watch more opera. I find that opera, much like plays, really have to be watched rather than just listened to or read. I mean, I've listened to opera, sure, and it's very nice, but you really have to watch Alfredo stagger about on stage, heartbroken, to get the full effect. I really want to see Carmen. I'm in class four hours a day. It's quite excruciating, but each class only meets nine times, so it's quite understandable, really. My journalism core class is unfortunately rather dreary, but the elective--which is about being a foreign correspondent--is fascinating. The professor's seen and done quite a lot, and he has an anecdote for everything! The four hours just whiz by with him. Um, that's pretty much it. I still haven't explored very much; after class I prefer to just go home, cook dinner, and relax in front of the telly. This weekend I think I'll go take a peek around SoHo. Monday, January 16, 2006 [link] 12:18 p.m. listening to: nothing Correction: people were not actually raising their hands to determine their own social status! I just wasn't paying attention. Thank God. There is at least one girl with a six thousand dollar purse here, but there is also at least one guy who's worked every food service job known to man. It is a balmy 5 degrees Celsius out, and I am going to the opera tonight! EXCITING TIMES. Which reminds me, I had better see what La Traviata is about, otherwise I won't understand a thing. Thursday, January 12, 2006 [link] 01:37 p.m. listening to: nothing Time for tales of London! . . . actually, I have no tales of London, as I haven't really done any sightseeing yet. The past couple of days have consisted of grocery shopping, sleeping, learning the neighborhood, watching television, and generally getting myself settled in. Some of my neighbors have gone out to SoHo every night. It makes me feel old and a little boring, but I tell myself it's because I lack the finances. It's kind of true; I currently have about fifteen pounds to tide me over until Sunday. I'm confident I can do it, so long as I don't do anything expensive on Saturday. Fortunately, the museums here are free. I am surrounded by people intensely different from what I'm used to. My school, Mills College, is not one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Most people have never even heard of it, and those who do say inevitably say something along the lines of, "Oh, isn't that the all-girls school that protested against becoming co-ed int he 90s?" The students are not, well, always the best students. Most of them don't know how to write an essay, not even one of the basic five-paragraph ones that everyone (theoretically) learns how to write in high school. But they're opinionated, intelligent, and articulate. The class discussions are, three-quarters of the time, amazing; they know how to think, how to argue, and how to make others think. These people really know how to think out of the box. And best of all, they are people just like you. 85% of the students at my school are on financial aid; 60% of them grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. They're people who, by or large, couldn't get into UC Berkeley or Stanford or the Ivy Leagues. Their grades weren't good enough. But they still wanted to learn. The students here, though--who are mostly Boston University students--are by and large white and from affluent families. They're all well-dressed and preppie. Their expensive coats and shoes and scarves overwhelm me, and I find myself homesick for hand-knitted gloves and hemp skirts. I want to ask them so many questions. Have you ever even known someone poor? Have you ever worked a job not because it looked good on your resume, but because you or your family really needed the money? Have your parents ever made minimum wage? Have you ever taken the bus? Have you ever had the power cut off because you couldn't afford the bill? Have you ever talked to the cashier at the grocery store? Do you ever give money to homeless people? Have you ever done drugs? Have you ever even known anyone who did drugs? My God, have you ever really lived? One of the lecturers yesterday asked the students who were working class to raise their hands. I'm not certain anyone did, though probably one or two. Then middle class--a few more hands--and then upper class, when a flurry of hands went up around the room. Never let it be said that the offspring of the wealthy do not have an advantage over the children of low-income families. |
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