June 2010
6 posts
Fun fact.
Today I was a model for a soon-to-be published textbook on nailcare.
A copy of every book that’s published in the UK is kept on record in the British Library. My hands and feet will be immortalised in the British Library, for all of eternity.
That’s just a cool little thing to know.
This morning I drove to work on the left side of the road again. I answered the phones when I knew it would potentially be a hearty Scottish accent on the other end, and mindlessly rattled off prices in GBPs all day, and I ordered pizza from dominos.co.uk, and said my Cheers’ at the proper time and I complained just the right amount about the weather.
I really am pretty good at this, you...
May 2010
13 posts
Reasons to miss London in no particular order.
The dilemma over whether to get on the 38 or the 19.
Farringdon Grill.
Shoreditch on Sunday afternoons.
O’Neills.
Betsy’s and the Eagle.
Irving Penn at the National Portrait Gallery.
Selfridge’s after work.
Monmouth coffee.
Black cabs.
The V&A.
Sloane Square.
PC boxes in the stairwell.
Dodging the charity-people-who-want-your-money in Trafalgar on the walk to...
“I JUST DROVE ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD.”
Leeds.
I’m in Leeds now.
And it’s awesome. I love the people. I LOVE THE ACCENT (this is directed to everyone in London who thinks it sucks). It’s absurd how fabulous everyone here is…the Northerners are some kind of nice. I have been invited into this lovely home which I absolutely adore, and everyone I work with is truly just… darling. I can understand now when...
I’m sitting in the Barcelona airport. It’s beautiful outside, and I realise that’s kind-of-sort-of-ironic because I’m inside. But I’ll take what I can get on account of it’s been raining eight of out 10 days of my Spanish-Portuguese vacay. Aw, well. So much for soaking the rays before heading up north.
There is a current Race Against the Volcano going on...
BENFICA! CAMPEÃOS!!!!
Well, I apparently picked a great day to be in Lisbon.
Benfica won the Portuguese League Championship and it was as big… well, as big as anything. As big as when BCN beat Manchester last summer, and I only saw pictures of that, because it happened the day before I showed up in the city. I had a fabulous ride home with my cab driver, who was honking at every single person he saw in the...
The final 24 hours.
I’m packing, BEGRUDGINGLY.
Spent the early afternoon wondering around Regent’s Park, which was an excellent way to pass my last full day in London.
And now I’m sitting on the corner of my bed, the only space in this room that’s not piled up with clothes and mess and books and luggage. Two more finals, three suitcases, and bam—headed to Heathrow tomorrow night....
Cinco de Mayo, among other things.
Well, it’s the 5th of May.
This day always makes me think of senior year of high school, which then inevitably makes me think of how happy I am that it is no longer senior year of high school. It’s the stupid markers of time (like Cinco de Mayo 2007) which make you realize just how much happens in a three-year period. Wild.
Today I took my first final, which was very much so a...
It's not the end of the beginning, it's the--oh,...
One more class.
Three more finals.
Six more nights.
One more week.
Then:
Five days in Portugal.
Five days in Spain.
Four weeks in Leeds.
GO GO GO.
April 2010
7 posts
Speaking of new adventures.
I am racing to pull together a 10-day-9-night trip; I’ve got some empty spaces on the calendar to fill before I head up to Leeds.
All of my combinations are sucking so far. I want to do something really worthwhile with the time and I can’t decide where I want to go. And I need to decide by like, tomorrow, if I have any chance of scrapping this all together in time.
Anyone ever...
Baby, baby... where did our time go?
Well, shit. I’ve been making a mockery of my Tumblr account (I will blame The Volcano, it makes a bloody good excuse). Under my belt in the past few weeks, I’ve got one canceled trip to Morocco, one canceled trip to Nice, several hacked-together (but damn-fine-if-I-do-say-so-myself) final papers turned in and some pretty good times had due to the recent travel constraints.
On Friday...
Volcano Week.
It all started on Thursday.
That was the day that I was supposed to go to Morocco.
I didn’t of course, because of this beast:
…Which, if you haven’t heard, is a giant volcano that is pretty much continuously erupting in Iceland. By Friday afternoon, it had grounded flights in 23 countries. All of the ash that the volcano is spitting up can screw with plan engines and just....
Solitaire.
So I officially almost got through today without speaking out loud. Kamen House—our flat complex—has become an absolutely ghost town, what with the massive pilgrimage to Rome (no really, it’s called that) and other various weekend trips because of our very, very rare four-day weekend.
Overcome by a large block of free time and no one to bother me whilst I wait for the family...
“Family, incomingggggg. On Saturday afternoon.”
March 2010
12 posts
Lost in Translation.
A few times a week, I eat lunch at this place:
Why yes, it’s a Japanese deli.
If I’m on lunch break from class, I will run in and grab sushi (and Milk Coffee Pocky! mmmm!) to-go, chopsticks thrown in the bag, and run the two blocks back to class while everyone curiously stares at me for eating something besides a smushed and sad-looking sandwich.
Other days, like today, I get...
07:28, Tuesday.
I am up. I am writing a paper.
It’s my own fault. I should have done it earlier.
I blame the system.
It does appear to be sunny today, however.
OPTIONS.
I have a whole afternoon and am immobilized by choice.
Damn.
Spring Break--a quick and dirty (belated) follow...
So I lost my camera in Madrid. Sorry for partying. Luckily, I lost it at the hotel and they shipped it back to me this week.
Meaning I have no photos from Tenerife (LAUREN EDGER, YOU’RE BREAKING MY HEART WITH THE HOARDING OF YOUR PHOTO LIBRARY).
As for the photos I do have, it is essentially a random smattering of me and Edge walking through Madrid and entertaining ourselves...
"Dude, what time are you starting tomorrow?"
The following e-mail was sent out to all London students mid-afternoon yesterday by our Program Director.
To All London Program Students,
I would like to begin by wishing you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. We wish you to enjoy the day but also to act responsibly. We have every confidence that our students will act responsibly today, as usual, However, it has come to my attention that some...
And in no particular order...
…a top 10 List-of-Fabulous from the (!) first half of the semester.
1) Spitalfields Market, the most deliciously wonderful way to wander for clothes on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
2) The random Saturday night happened upon in Islington with Ellen where every bar-pub-dive Columbian restaurant rocked harder than the last.
3) Pub-crawling through Clerkenwell, on any single day of the week,...
Expletive expletive WTF--IT'S MARCH.
And here’s how I feel about it:
You too? Oof. And it feels like March. Or, perhaps, the March that I imagine in my head, which is derived of some summation and derivation of South Bend + Solana Beach + Las Vegas. While I don’t know how quite to explain that one… I can tell you it was cool, bright, sunny 47 out today and I could walk around in a short skirt and a long jacket...
February 2010
12 posts
Let's talk about the Olympics.
And how because of them, they are redoing the Tube system. And because of that, nobody can get ANYWHERE. Which is ironic, sort of.
I just want to get to Notting Hill Gate. How does that mean I have to walk 20 minutes, take 2 buses and three stops on the tube? COME ON.
And the time passes by.
Oof, more days march on. Things are going by heinously fast around here… fast enough that I can say spring break is already two weeks out.
When did that happen, eh?
And yet, the stories keep getting better. (Talk to Flat 6, if you really want to know.) I feel like we’re not particularly up to anything life-altering, nor am I set out to do anything eccentrically exciting, but...
Rain, rain, go away.
I’ve come to the conclusion this week that I may not be as good at being an adult as I thought I potentially was. Evidence:
- I still get tend to complain about the weather, getting a cold and being cold.
- I don’t want to do things like homework.
- As much as I attempt to get better at it, I can’t force myself to become a morning person.
- I would potentially consider...
Does anyone ever really get sick of this song?...
Travel, travel, travel.
Read ‘em and weep:
My next weekends lined up and coming at you.
12-14 February: Paris, France
19-21 February: Stockholm, Sweden
26-28 February: London, London, London
6 March: BOUNCE OUT FOR MADRID
Oh, yeah.
Twenty-five days until I am posted up on the beach, on an island slightly south of Spain, slightly west of Africa. It may look something like this.
Except that first we’ll be hitting up Madrid. So, so excited.
London in February.
I’m attempting to be good at this tourism thing, so I have actual documented proof that I went to Winchester Cathedral, Chawton House and Jane Austen’s house. Very pastoral stuff, my friends. See proof right here!
In front of Chawton House Library—potential future summer home.
I unfortunately have gotten to the point in the semester where doing work is unavoidable, which is...
I’m curious as to when Europe and the States diverged on the opinion of s-t-y-l-e. Maybe it’s a democratic thing, and the pomp and circumstance is what still makes people get up and dress for the day. It’s a better way of living, really. I never understood—particularly in South Bend—why there seemed to be such a desperate hopelessness of self-presentation.
Things...
Misty in the River.
People are going to head out to Les Miz tonight, but I can’t say I’m in the right mood for the musical, drawn out, morbid sing-along version of the French Revolution. Another time. Too grandiose for a Wednesday.
“MINERDA.”
Groundhog Day.
Lots of rain on my eight minute walk between the tube and building where I work. I listened to the Wallflowers, which I thought was appropriate. Good walking music, by all accounts.
It’s February now, meaning the second month, meaning the end of the beginning. The insanity of the beginning week-weekend-day thing must eventually end, or at least, people are going to start traveling with...