Wednesday, September 25, 2002 9:19pm gmt ~ How do I always manage to find the creepiest guys to sit next to at internet cafes? First it was the drunken harrasment by italian men, now the man next to me now who appears to be looking at latex porn. Damnit.

Anyway, despite that, things are going well, yet again. A few flatmate tensions all directed at the same person, and my random self conscious moments, but all is well.

Last weekend we had our trip to Stonehenge, Avesbury, Wells and Bath, which was really nice. It was great to have a social outing with the entire group, and it definitely helped ot mix things up a bit. It was also nice to get to spend a whole night in bath, cause it really is a beautiful city. That night was also my first night in a youth hostile, and turned quite slumber partyesque, which I enjoyed.

I've lately been worrying that our small group is already branching into cliques, but I'mfeeling like my personal alarm at that has forced me into working towards breaking it a little.

I actually just got back from having dinner at a flat with people who I hadn't talked to much. It was very nice to randomly be invited to that, and a lot of fun. I've got lots of reading to do tonight though, so I've headed off and am missing out on the post-dinner socializing, but whatever. Lots of reading and work....

What else was there to tell... Ah yes. Yesterday was our trip to Greenwich. Yet another trip I'd done before, but it was still a good time. Me and two friends of mine split a bottle of wine on the way over, which was nice.

Today was the first of two 24 hours tube strikes, so being in the furthest flat from our classroom, I got to enjoy an hour walk to class, which left me, after a two and a half hour class, on the verge of collapse.

The guy next to me is making scary noises.

I've been very proud of my letter/postcard writing lately, but I remember every day more and more people I should write to. So there may very well be things in the mail for you, and hopefully more to come. I've finally gotten some mail, and that's made me really happy. But it also means there's return mail to be written =)

I know I had more to say, but I'm feeling ready to go and see if hte strike really ended when they said it would, and if not to brave figuring out the night bus schedule. Everyone keep commenting and sending me emails and mail. More later, hoepfully sooner than the last interval. And Eileen, update damn you! Bye =)

Thursday September 19, 2002 5:09gmt ~ Hello again. Things are going really well here, though yet again I'm completely exhausted. The last two days have been wonderful though, and I've had multiple moments where I've had to take a step back and realize that I'm really here, and that htis is what going to school for me is right now. It's incredible.

Tuesday I went to see Morrissey at Royal Albert Hall with Sam (a guy on the program). It was soooooo wonderful, and my god that place is beautiful. It was like going to a rock concert at the Kennedy Center. And being able to drink at concerts is nice. Anyway, the show was great, not as much Smiths as I would have hoped, but really great. That was such a fun night, most definitely my best yet. We tried to go out for drinks afterwards, but got back after the pubs had closed and our attempts to find later clubs and bars failed and I ended up just deciding to try to rush and catch the last of the traisn home. Which I did quite literally. It took me three transfers to get home, and I caught the last train on each line. Quite frightening. And then walked back to my flat from the station at 1am, also quite frightening, but I survived, so it's all okay. And a wonderful night.

Then last night I went to see Twelfth Night with my class at the new Globe Theatre, which was almost equally amazing. A bad time finding hte place, a long confusing walk through a rather industrial and creepy part of the city, but we got there after finding an equally lost old Australian couple. But the show was amazing. I feel so gipped by my early shakespeare education. The place was great, the show was great, and looking around and being surrounded by your professors and classmates and having such a good time, it was amazing. One of my flatmates (dan) is also a complete Shakespeare nut, and it was fun watching him watch the play. The Globe is also on an amazingly beautiful part of the Thames, right across from St. Paul's cathedral. I have to go back and take more pictures. Dan also showed us a really nice pub afterwards with a patio righ ton the river (it was freezing however), and then took us on a scenic walk back to the tube station where we passed by Southwark cathedral, an old prison, Cynthia's Cyber Bar, and a bunch of random good stuff.

An amazing few days. And, we're going on a field trip this weekend to Stonehenge, Bath and Avesbury. I've done Stonehenge and Bath before, but I loved them so it should still be great, and a good tim ewith people. I really like this group of people. I definitely want this semester to be a break from Oberlin, and was worried to still be with Oberlin students, but it's a great group. I was over at another flat for dinner with a bunch of people one night and it turned into a giant Oberlin conversation which I didn't like, but generally its' great. I complained to Sam about htat at the concert, and then we got onto Obelrin topics later and had to stop ourselves. It's great though. Fun and nice and interesting and intelligent people. Good class discussions, lots of good stuff. And our professors are really fun and enjoyable, and the line between personal and academic is very blurred, which can be good nad bad, but seems to be working out really well.

Ok, I think that's it for now. Glad I could get time in to write up an update. Keep sending me emails and everything. I'm getting so impatient for receiving letters I know are coming. Crazy slow mail =) There's lots of postcards on the way, and a letter or two, with more to come. Byeybe till the next time. Also this'll let you knwo why I won't respond to things for a few days. Alright, hope all's well, bye =)

PS~It's funny how britishisms are getting into peoples vocabulary now. Fake british accent attempts annoy me, but I enjoy the added vocabulary. Rubbish is hte main one coming into mind right now. Anyway, it's enjoyable.

Also, the water here has insane amounts of lime in it, so there's always lots of white stuff floating around. Kinda yucky. Ok, random stuff. Bye =)

Friday, September 13, 2002 11:34pm gmt ~ I'm so exhausted. Today was our first day off since the day we arrived (last friday). Yesterday I wasn't back to my flat for about 14 hours. They're workin' us hard. Not that it's really made up of too large a percentage of work. But it's all really exhausting. So I'm very glad to have some time off. Also, there's no classa gain until tuesday, so we'll finally get some time to explore the city and sleep and all that good stuff.

Updating's feeling like such a huge task right now. Hopefully I won't still feel that way in a bit. I really lik ethe new layout I had done, but it won't be ablet o go up until this winter I'm thinking. Oh well.

I was getting pretty homesick the last few days, I think mostly cause of the seriousness of the news lately, but also I hadn't been calling people yet, so that needs to start happening. I wanna be writing to people too, but that'll take awhile to get going. So I now have phoencards, and talked to Ana for probably an hour anda half last night, which was really nice. So more calling.

Last night we got student standby tickets to see Antony and Cleopatra at the Royal National Haymarket theater for liek a third of the price. It was really good, and a shakespeare play I've never actually seen or read before. So that was cool.

Tonight we went to see Lost in La Mancha which is a documentary about the failed making of a Don Quoixote movie by Terry Gilliam, which was really good.

Otherwise, I'm just exhausted. Still so much I need and want to do.

Alright, well I think I'm off, since everyone here's heading home. More later, I miss people a lot though. Oh, and there's letters and postcards in the mail, and more to come. Bye all, write me!

ps, apparnetly Ben and JErry's (store I worked at this summer) is kind of falling apart and Tim (manager) is quitting and it may even go corporate. This is incredibly depressing and could very well spell the death of a big cool part of Alexandria subculture. I am sad.

Tuesday, September 10, 2002 2:06pm Greenwich Mean Time ~ Greetings from London =) I've been in the internet cafe a bunch, but never with enough time to get around to updating. The more and more I'm tempted to send out mass emails to people however, the more I realize that this is definitely a good thing to have.

Everything's going really well though. I've been here since friday morning. My flat's great, not very central but very nice and in a neat neighborhood, my flatmates and I are getting along well, and everyone in the Oberlin group seem to be interacting well and I've already met a lot of very cool people.

It has been insanely busy though. Today was our first day of class, which does mean we now have lots of reading and work to do, also means more free time. Before that, we had orientation all day every day. Which was actually really good, and the normal annoying getting to know you stuff was generally avoided and replaced with sending us out w/ each other. So I've managed to meet a lot of cool folks, feel comfortable talking to and going around w/ folks right away, and I've even got myself some tickets to go see Morrissey next week with a guy I started talking to yesterday. Really expensive, but it's good in all kindsa ways, and it's Morrissey.

Last night we went to see A Play Without Words which was indeed a play without words. It was music and movement, some more dance than others, but definitely more play than dance. Anyway, very cool, and it was the first time I've ever seen the orchestra come out on stage for curtain call. Which I heavily approve of.

So much craziness. I'm no longer jet lagged, but now just normally sleep deprived. I haven't fully unpacked yet. I've started writing letters and postcards though, just need to find a post office and get stamps. So many errands to run today. And books to read.... It's hard to be ready for school to start when you've been so busy without a break for such a long time.

So now onto pre-leaving stuff. It was all very hectic, packing till the last minute. We did manage to get a party together for the night before I left though, and that was really good. Got to see work people and all the normal folk who were still around. And Chris did show up, and was actually normal after a bit, and that all turned into a very crazy but good night, and we got in some good goodbyes and closure, which I'm always a fan of. Now we see if letter writing works.

We're supposed to be going to a September 11th thing tonight. Which I definitely wasn't happy about, though I've finally agreed to at least go for part of it. It's all crazy. I think my reservations are in how emotional I can still get, reservations about experiences becoming to generalized... sentimentalized? I've realized I'm very selfish about my experience. In an odd kind of defensive way. I dont' want it being touched. I don't want to "Transform 9/11". It's something to me, it doesn't feel over, I don't want to have people acting like it is, I don't want it to be simplified or easily changed into being about world peace. I don't want anybody qualifying my experience for me. So anyway, I have lots of reservations. And I guess furhter down the list are safety issues, but at leats we're not going tomorrow. One girl doesn't even want to go to class, though I don't think that's much of an option.

We've only had one class so far, but it looks like it should be good. A little odd, but I definitely like, respect and feel comfortable with everybody, so it should be good I think. It's strange to suddenly have the environment change to an academic one though.

Anyway,I think that's it for now. People should email and write me. I'll hopefully be able to call people soon. I miss you guys.

My life's been going pretty well and excitingly lately though. I'm likin' it. More later, promise. And hopefully I'm working on sending you something. Bye for now.

Sunday, September 1, 2002 2:35am (technically monday) ~ Quick update, cause I'm tired, but wanted to get up the new hopefully functional commenting system. The old one's downfall has almost convinced me to switch to blogger or greymatter. It would probably help me update more, make it require less effort. I dunno, we'll see. So... I'm off to London in four days. It's crazy. I'm really excited, but also overwhelmed and maybe in denial. There's still so much to do, and I still want my new webpage up, but oh well. This one will have to do for now. It takes a lot of time to move and reformat all these pages. It'll be nice when it's up though. The only real problem is that I've barely got any space left w/ angelfire, so I'm a little limited in what I can put up. All the old videos are back again on the new site and all that good stuff. Ah well....

Yesterday was my last day of work, though I've been going to the store a lot late. I'm hoping we can convince Jen to throw a party at her house wednesday and I can try to get work folk all together one last time. And maybe lure Chris in for some closure.

I know where I'm living in London now. And who I'm living with. I've kind of started packing. Tomorrow my mom and I are spending quality time together =) and running around town trying to get the last things I need. I'm trying to tie up loose ends and do all the stuff I told people I'd do before I leave. Crazy times.... But god is it exciting. Getting my housing info made me crazy excited. Much realer. It's gonna be insane.

Speaking of insane, I've had the weirdest sleeping pattern lately. Maybe my body's adjusting for London time.... but backwards. But anyway, staying up till 5am every night for random reasons. Got hungry, got sad. Weird stuff.

Last night I just started thinking about Thomas and I a lot. All my fears and worries came back. And I don't want to be worrying, and I'm happy to have this time to be single, meet people, date, etc. But balancing that with the fact that you're in love is fucking tough. You don't want to lose it, you don't want to let yourself forget it, as much as that can seem like part of being single and dating other people. Crazy. I talked to him about this a little tonight, but weirdly. I must compile =)

Ok, that's my not so quick quick update. I need sleep. Or more fake bacon.