Term in Review: Everything Else + Closing notes

Well, I'm back.

It's strange to think about.  Coming home at the time (yesterday in London) felt more like "leaving London" rather than "coming home," if that makes sense.  It felt much less like "returning to Columbus" than "leaving for Columbus."  And, you know, it hit me when I was leaving: I'll really miss London.  No matter how much I griped about the things that were weird about it to almost anyone who'd listen, London did become, dare I say it...home.  London actually became home for me.  Not that I ever considered my dorm to be "home" in the sense that I consider the home where I grew up (and am sitting right now, actually) to be my real "home," but in the sense that the city was, indeed, a part of me and that I was, in fact, a part of it.

Did I get to do everything I wanted to?  Hah, no.  I really wanted to go to Wales, to more countries in Europe (i.e. Belgium, Italy [DAMN YOU, VOLCANO!!!!!!], Germany, Spain), but I consider my time there this time around to be as complete as it gets.  For the hell of it, let's look at the list of "stuff I wanted to get done when I was here" and see how I did:

1. Adopt a fully functioning British accent.
2. Be able to find my way around London.
3. Go to a bunch of shows because every awesome band has some sort of stop in London (like...three straight nights of Pavement for me in May)
4. Immerse myself in the culture.
5. Pick a soccer team.
6. Have the time of my life.
7. And, uh, I guess I should probably pass my classes...right?

The results:
1.  Nope.  I think my British accent might be worse now.
2.  Done.  It's actually not that hard.
3.  Sort of.  I added a night of Pavement (so four straight nights) and went to Passion Pit at the HMV Forum.  Not the best record here but I wouldn't consider it too shabby.
4.  Sort of.  London's a bit too multicultural nowadays to have a 100% "British" culture, but what was there, I got into.  So I might mark this off.
5.  Oh, the pains of being an Arsenal fan.
6.  To say the least.
7.  I think I passed my classes.  I won't know until July-August and I won't worry about it until then.

Also, I apparently made a "London, you better do this for me" list:

1. Be awesome.
2. Don't sic your soccer hooligans on me for not having chosen a football club yet.  I will also be entertaining offers regarding the football club I should be supporting.
3. Give me awesome concerts.
4. Give me awesome beer.
5. Give me a good crop of London friends, both those studying abroad too and locals.


How it did:
1.  Yep.
2.  Yep.  As I said earlier, I chose Arsenal.
3.  For real.
4.  Yes.  The closer you get to Dublin, the better the Guinness gets...I am not lying.  So getting pretty close made the beer more awesome.
5.  Definitely.  I'll miss all of them and I better see a few of them in the summer.


So there.  London did pretty well with both "barometers" - though I'm unsure as to whether or not they can be considered as rigorous or even robust.  But that's not really the issue.  My dad raised the question as to whether or not the trip was worth it to me.  A thousand times over.  OK, so the bed they gave me in the dorm was a piece of shit.  OK, London was a bit weird at times, but if you put me right back in time to last fall when I was considering it with full knowledge of what it'd be like, I'd make the same decision.  I wouldn't do it again starting right now, obviously, but it was really worth it as it is.

I really can't be displeased.  And it's not even that I, like, enjoyed school (who enjoys school anyways?).  It was everything else.  As I told my dad when I pitched the idea of coming abroad to him, I told him that the steep cost wasn't strictly implying that I was paying that money solely to be at Unversity College London.  The money was also to be granted access to London and to be able to be part of it.  Granted, the niche I carved out for myself was mostly with other American ex-pat students also looking towards the time we all headed back to the States, but it was comfortable.

And that's probably what I'll miss the most.  Finally, at the end, I was grounded into London in some way and I was finally able to start enjoying it the way London was likely supposed to be enjoyed to begin with.  I made a great group of friends, and it was sad to see everyone heading back to their own towns and cities in the United States.  But, you know, just because we all left London doesn't necessitate an end to those friendships.  So, there's no real downside to all this, when you think about it.


My friends back home, here?  Yeah, I'm excited to see them again.  It's felt odd being away for so long, because in some ways, even if you talk, you can't hang out, really.  But that all changes because I'm back now, and I'll see the lot of them now.  It'll be a great feeling to see all the close friends I have here once again.  Maybe we'll go to Thurman's and enjoy real burgers (sorry, London, that's one thing you are vastly inferior to the United States in), hang out, and all that jazz.


Will I miss London (or, rather, am I missing London)?  God, yes.  I miss it right now.  But while I was sitting in the airport in London waiting to see what gate I was at (and seeing a close friend off whose plane left a bit before mine), I realized that yeah, my time was winding down.  It was time to come home, and now I'm home.


NP: The Kinks - Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One

As I was sitting there in the airport, I put on this record and the song "Strangers" hit me like a ton of bricks, cut me like a thousand knives, riddled me with a million bullets.  It perfectly summarized leaving London, leaving the world I'd somehow (against all odds, likely) carved out for myself there behind...

"Where are you going I don't mind
I've killed my world and I've killed my time
So where do I go what do I see
I see many people coming after me
So where are you going to I don't mind
If I live too long I'm afraid I'll die
So I will follow you wherever you go
If your offered hand is still open to me
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two we are one
So you've been where I've just come
From the land that brings losers on
So we will share this road we walk
And mind our mouths and beware our talk
'Till peace we find tell you what I'll do
All the things I own I will share with you
If I feel tomorrow like I feel today
We'll take what we want and give the rest away
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two we are one
Holy man and holy priest
This love of life makes me weak at my knees
And when we get there make your play
'Cos soon I feel you're gonna carry us away
In a promised lie you made us believe
For many men there is so much grief
And my mind is proud but it aches with rage
And if I live too long I'm afraid I'll die
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two we are one
Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two we are one"

2010.05.10-13 Pavement, London, O2 Academy Brixton

I didn't keep track of the setlists because there is already good aggregator for such a thing here: PAVEMENT 2010.  But here are my notes, night by night.

You can also find photos on my Facebook...I only really have night four, as that was the only night I remembered my camera.

Notes from night 1:

-Stephen is really, really aloof compared to the rest of the band.
-Bob is the lifeblood of the show, he runs around and screams stuff into the microphone, talks the most to the audience and generally is the most active, and I fucking love it.
-They played most everything I wanted to hear, there were two songs I actually didn't recognize which I figure were on either the Watery Domestic EP or the Westing comp, both of which I'm less familiar with than their studio albums proper.
-Thanks, drunk guy, for ruining the most tender moment in the show ("We Dance" to close out the main set) and the most cathartic moment of the show ("Here" to end the show, period).
-I'm already pretty damn tired, how'm I supposed to sustain this for four nights?

Night 2:

-Mostly repeats except for a couple tracks. Still had two tracks I didn't recognize, one of them from the previous night. "The Hexx" finally appeared, though, which was fantastic.
-The band seemed to get to a slower start but when they got loose it was awesome.
-Giant inflated balloons for the second encore. Awesome.
-They ended with "Stop Breathin'" which was a peculiar choice. "Fin" was especially with Stephen's solo-ing, but Pavement has always been a rather messy band to me.
-No drunk people ruining my favorite songs, though "Here" did not show up tonight.
-Tonight was much more manageable than last night in terms of tiredness.

Night 3:

-Major issues with Stephen's guitar to start. "Frontwards" and the next song were kinda busts because his guitar parts are sort of necessary.
-Something was off tonight..."In the Mouth a Desert" imploded near the end. When they got their shit together in the middle-late of the show, it was awesome, but the show also ended sort of strangely with Stephen just jamming on the guitar sitting right in front of his amp.
-The crowd was a little more subdued tonight, Night 2's was still be best in terms of crowd.
-Giant balloons came out during encore 1. Apparently they're left over from the Flaming Lips' appearance there.
-I finally figured out the two songs I didn't know were, both off of the Westing comp: "Shoot the Singer" and "Debris Slide."
-"Box Elder" kicked all fucking sorts of ass.
edit: -apparently they played a song i didn't know: Lions (Linden), which i guess i forgot they played, probably because i didn't know what it was.

Night 4:
-One of the two nights I saw the opener (first night was the Clean, who I saw). Broken Social Scene was way awesome. Must listen to them more.
-Pavement came out firing. "Grounded" was ace. They were really tight tonight and they sounded great and energetic whereas the day before was languid and flagging. Part of it may have been the crowd, from the start the crowd was loud and really into it.
-Apparently Stephen's weird behavior at the end of the show yesterday (occurring on "Conduit for Sale!" was due to a nosebleed incurred by "Stop Breathin'"
-Stephen was a lot happier tonight and definitely less aloof, more chatty. There was ridiculous banter between Stephen and Bob about Cialis, Viagra, and really bad hangovers.
-The set was a bit shorter this time around, approximately 2 songs, as the show ended slightly before 11. Previous shows ended right at the 11pm mark or slightly after.
-No "Frontwards," "Box Elder," "Starlings in the Slipstream," but night 4 was their best night performance wise BY FAR so it was more than worth it.
-So glad I went to all four days.
-"Range Life" was a fitting closer..."I want a range life/if I could settle down/if I could settle down/then I would settle down"

Term in Review: Academics

Since I've only got a little more than one and a half weeks over here, I figured I'd start closing things up.  There's only going to be a couple more of these.  This one, and maybe 1-2 more.  For this one, I figure I'd "review" or speak of my time here in the academic sense.  While I still have two finals and a paper to do before I go, classes have been done for a long while, so I can write about the academic atmosphere here to some extent.  I know I've elucidated (or, rather, complained) on the subject before, but perhaps it's better to summarize.

The obvious difference is that I only have one set of classes here whereas at Ohio State I'd have two sets of classes (Winter Term as opposed to Winter and Spring Quarters).  But the way the UK school system is set up, my lectures essentially fit into Winter Quarter at Ohio State, while Spring Quarter is just exams and papers.  It's been a rather interesting approach.  The plus side is that I got to go visit Europe for awhile, seeing Geneva, Paris, and Edinburgh.  Not a whole lot of places (some people saw a WHOLE LOT of places, unlike me), but I'm not displeased with the amount I did, especially with impending exams.  The downside to the large break is that I really have no sense of work ethic anymore.  The Easter break sorta took that out of the picture, which given the work I still have to do, is not a good sign.

In terms of difficulty level?  UCL has been a lot more difficult than Ohio State.  Perhaps this could be attributed to my "Band Three" economics courses (equivalent to 600+ at Ohio State), but I think even given the equivalencies it still comes out to be more difficult.  This could probably be attributed to the "education culture" here.  We only had lectures once a week for each class, and only sometimes would we have extra tutorial classes to go over problem sets or readings, depending on the class.  This leaves most of it up to the student.  There's simply not enough class time to develop the understanding of material required for the exam.  Whereas at Ohio State a week devoted to a topic takes four hours of lecture, at UCL you get two.  The other two to figure out what the heck you heard basically come from you.  It has been problematic in light of Spring Term (the technical term for the exam period, but it's really all attached to the previous Winter Term and so the use of "Spring Term" is slightly dubious in and of itself), but it's something I still just have to push through and get this junk done.

The one area I find UCL extremely lacking in is "service."  This goes from teachers helping students, teacher aides helping students, to even providing amenities in dorms and otherwise.  Teachers are not very helpful here.  Perhaps it's part of the whole culture here, but they're not very responsive and oftentimes not the friendliest folks around.  One of my Professors, when dismissing his last lecture, told us to "not email [him] any questions about the material or the exam, because [he] won't reply to them."  When I went to another Professor's office hours, he essentially refused to answer my questions about the problem set due in a couple of days, mostly being dismissive and telling me to just "try my best and wait for the tutorial."  While in that instance it's true, I'll learn it at some point, I want to know it when I do the problem set so I can do it easily on the exam!  It's not that ridiculous of a concept.

The other lacking arena of UCL "service" is the provisions for students.  For one, there's no wireless internet in the dorms.  While I suppose for some wireless internet is a luxury (may be the case in Britain), at Ohio State there was most definitely wireless at campus dormitories.  Not so here.  While my dorm is sort of "satellite" with regards to the rest of campus, they should really provide that.  When I'm on the internet, unless I'm in the middle of campus, I'm in my flat on my computer, which is connected to the internet via ethernet.  It's a pretty old technology, so I don't see why they can't just update it.  Also, while wireless security is understandable (Ohio State's has that), ethernet port security is entirely unnecessary and useless.  If someone is over or visiting and needs to access the internet via their own computer, it's impossible.  The ethernet connection won't operate.  One of the worst policies I've seen here.

And, one last gripe about UCL is their library system.  So maybe I'm biased because I've worked at the Ohio State Libraries since I got to Ohio State freshman year, but I have not seen a university library as dysfunctional as UCL's.  Their classification code is essentially a poor "homebrew" which makes little to no sense, and it's really not great to work with.  Different branches of university libraries even use different classification codes.  At least the Library of Congress code is a workable system.  In addition, their collection seems to be rather small in comparison to Ohio State's.  Some other things include limited desk hours available, such as very limited opening hours for their "issue" (circulation) desk and "enquiry" (reference) desk, which is a problem...at least Ohio State's are open past 5 o'clock.

Part of the problem is that there's no student staff helping.  It's literally just a bunch of librarians working.  And part of this issue may be explained by the size of student body served: UCL's undergraduate population is about 20,000, half of Ohio State's.  In addition, some of the library size issue is mitigated by the existence of a public London library system, which is not really plausible at Ohio State, but multiple libraries resulting in library-hopping is no fun (especially when it is necessary to decode multiple classification code systems as I do not think there is a universally applied code in London).

All this disparaging does not imply that studying at UCL and in London was the worst time of my life.  It's certainly been challenging, but more of what I'm trying to say is that UCL is fundamentally different from Ohio State, and perhaps I don't jive with it as well.  The other thing is that I've certainly been learning a whole lot here, both academically and non-academically and so the study abroad experience has proven itself to be invaluable.  But perhaps for me (at least for now) the lessons with the bigger benefits have been non-academic in nature.  That's a story for another time, I suppose.

The end is nigh,
-e.

NP: The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

This is one of my favorite records.  I'm listening to the "Closet Mix" present on the Peel Slowly & See boxset, which I prefer to the Valentin Mix.  I did elaborate on the whole mix shenanigans on my sister blog a couple days ago, and the pertinent entry can be found herein.

Ah, updates

Once again, rather late.  I took a two-day trip to Edinburgh (20th-22nd) which was loads of fun.  First up was Edinburgh Castle, which was old and cool.  It sort of dominates the view of Edinburgh (as it probably should) and you get a view of the whole city from it.  Here's my favorite shot from the Castle (actually, the outside of it), with a fountain on the grounds outside of it, at the bottom of the hill:

And then we walked around the Royal Mile for a bit, then located Elephant House, which is where JK Rowling wrote the first bits of Harry Potter, which is super cool.  I think, though, enough people have been like "let's go visit where Harry Potter was written" that the cafe realized it and made it kind of touristy (or, the cafe "sold out" if you prefer that set of vocabulary).  Afterwards, a humorous bit regarding wigs occurred, which is observable via Facebook.

The first night we took a haunted ghost tour of Edinburgh's vaults.  The thing is with the vaults, they're built inside one of Edinburgh's bridges (I believe it's the south bridge?), and without ventilation, lighting, and, you know, basic living conditions, it was a pretty terrible place to be.  With regards to the tour and the guide itself, it was pretty impressive with the way everything built up to near the end, with stories accompanying each vault that, along with most people being particularly suggestible in the vaults due to the conditions, amplified the fear bits in people.  It climaxed with a story in a particular room where 96 women and children were killed by their husbands because of the great fire in Edinburgh which cooked the vault's inhabitants (and thus the husbands essentially mercy-killed their families).  Apparently (I did not actually see the perpetrator) then around this point, an extra tour guide jumped out into the entrance and scared the whole group.  Funnily enough, and maybe as a result from not actually seeing what was going on, I only jumped a bit was only really rattled because everyone else freaked out.  The tour itself took the stories and made them "ghost"-y to scare people, but I would hazard to guess that most of the stories were true, which is kind of scary, when you think about it.

The second day involved a trip to St. Andrew's, famous for it's Old Course and the Chariots of Fire scene where they run on the beach.  There's also a very run-down cathedral there, but all in all St. Andrew's is a very small town/city and so it didn't take a long time.

And then we went back to Edinburgh and took a night bus back, which was pretty terrible, to be honest.  Not a lot of room, plus a bumpy bus makes for not happy sleepers and people.

Otherwise, there really hasn't been a lot going on (especially since Italy did in fact fall apart, as evidenced by the Edinburgh trip), but now that third term starts today, I need to get cranking and start studying for two finals and write another paper.  Here is how it works out:

ECON3019 exam (2010.05.11) - 100% of my grade
ECON3019 exam (2010.05.17) - 100% of my grade
HIST2312B paper (2010.05.17) - 60% of my grade

So as it turns out, this sucks because my grades hinge entirely on one test for two of the classes, and one paper can swing my grade from really good to really bad (and vice versa, hopefully)...though given my first paper (which I collect back today) and its quality (probably not very good, the more I think about it), any effort on the second paper will be more of a "bad to good" scenario than the other way around.  Or so I hope.

But yeah, three weeks and two days until I return!  It's weird to think about that.  No matter how much it sucks to be not around all my friends back home, I've established a nice friend network here and London has become rather bearable despite all its quirks...and I'll actually miss it when I get back, which part of me never really expected given how hard it was to adjust to here and everything (and part of me never expected to fully adjust).  I'll be back soon (and it'll be great to be back, trust me).

-e.

NP: Wilco - A.M.

An old standby of mine.  Some tracks are kinda weird, but it's Wilco and I love it all the same.

An open letter to Iceland

Dear Iceland,

I send great vibes your way due to the recent volcanic activity in your country.  However, I do not appreciate it endangering my trip to Italy which (in)conveniently starts tomorrow.

Best wishes,
-e.

A long while's update!

So it appears that I last updated two weeks ago.

The first of the two was quite boring.  Just stayed around London and hung out and got everything for the trip ready.

The trip itself:
-36 hours in Geneva
-6 days in France

Geneva is actually a very boring city.  It's likely because I was there on Easter weekend and so no one was around, but it seems more or less that Geneva lived up to its nickname: "City of Joylessness."  Must be the residue of the Calvinism that held there for a long time.  Even, say, the trees were always trimmed to look depressing:

And outside of a clock whose face was constructed of flowers, and the all-famous Lake Geneva and the fountain there, there really isn't a whole lot to the city...it was rather empty and slightly glum.  So 36 hours was actually quite enough to get a good feel of Geneva.  So it was time to leave for Paris!

Of course, I did go to France already.  But the return trip allowed me to see some extra things.  For one, I was able to just enjoy Paris for Paris rather than going into "take a picture of this so I can remember it" mode, which is never the right way to enjoy a city (but sadly I fall into that mode rather often).  Revisiting the Louvre allowed me to catch more that I didn't see the first time, but the key find this time around was a trip to Monet's house and garden.  He had both a typical French, walled-in garden and then a more spacious Japanese garden.  They were both stunning in beauty.  Here's one favorite photo from that:

It's from the Japanese garden, and I have always liked those "bleeding heart" flowers.  I remember my old piano teacher used to have them growing in front of her house.  Here's the other that I particularly like:

Th

This one was from the walled-in garden.  I had to actually lay down on the ground to get this shot, but it was worth looking especially goofy lying on the ground to take this photo (I mean, imagine seeing someone just randomly lying on the ground at a very touristy location) because I'm really a big fan of this photo.  It might actually be my favorite from Paris.

Our tour guide for the Monet thing was pretty awesome because we also got to go through the countryside and see rural France.  It's really lovely (and seems like a lot of rich folk move out there for retirement or the like), and we got to stand on what once was a key hill that separates the valley of the Seine and the western Normandy areas.  A rather breathtaking view:

Some other Parisian notes:
1. I enjoyed the buskers a whole bunch this time around.  Random tuba players, accordion players, jazz combos, and all.
2. The Metro is fine and all, but not when the part that goes overground is right outside the hotel room.  Yikes.
3. Boxed wine is a worthy adversary.  Next time, I will eat dinner before meeting you again.  I will win.
4. Parisians aren't the most friendly, but I found them on the whole slightly more friendly than Londoners.
5. While it's bearable to deal with the language barrier in France, as many of the French at least know some English, it's still a pain.  It does, however, yield its moments, as when asking the hotel receptionist a question, his response was "I do not...understand.  My English is...dead."

For the next couple of days, I'll be around.  And then Friday, I leave for Italy!  Part of me is really excited, but part of me knows my time in Europe is beginning to wind down (5.5 weeks from today, I will be coming home!) and I do miss Ohio dearly.

Cheers,
-e.

NP: Brian Eno - Another Green World

This album didn't click with me until recently, and so now I've been exploring Eno and ambient music in general, at least.

Update?!?

At the behest of my friend Rob, here's the update:

With regards to trip planning, it's obvious that at least part of my trip did not turn out.  But I will be spending a day and a half in Geneva (the greater portion of a day will likely be in the Alps), which will be nice.  And then I'll be back in Paris for six days.  Which will be awesome.  Sure, I may not revisit the Eiffel again, but it'll be nice to visit the rest of the stuff I never got to see.

In other news, though, I've been keeping up pretty well with the NCAA tournament, seeing most of the MSU-Tenn game and the end of the Duke-Baylor game.  MSU-Tenn was definitely one of the most gripping games.  Maybe it was because I chose to personally invest myself into the "Izzotron" with Ohio State's unceremonious dismissal by Tennessee, but most likely it was a preference for the Big Ten over the SEC (and, let's face facts.  The SEC sucks.  Also, they were a pretty weak basketball conference this year).

But this has led me to a bracket-picking discovery.  It's unbelievably hard to pick against the Izzotron.  You just can't.  Unless there's some beyond-overwhelming disadvantage, the Izzo makes up for that.  He's some mastermind and genius, and his teams that he puts out, no matter what deficiencies, are always playing crazy good defense and are pretty disciplined (i.e. free throw shooting, etc.).  The discipline played a big part, I think.  Tennessee shot pretty poorly from the line, which cost them especially down the stretch (it's what also cost Kentucky vs. WVU...notice an SEC trend here?).

So here's the picks for here on out:

MSU vs. Butler: MSU
WVU vs. Duke: WVU

MSU vs. WVU: WVU

The only outcome I'm pretty adamant about though, is WVU advancing to the final.  I'm not sure Duke can keep up with WVU.  MSU-Butler seems like a tossup.  If MSU has enough rest they can do it.  But, one might have to imagine Butler advancing given a hometown game.  This occurred last year given Michigan State's run and advancing to the title game in Detroit (though they got blown out by UNC in the title game).

Aside from that, there's not a whole lot that's been going on.  I did meet up with one of the kids of the  family I know here in London (mentioned VERY early on),  and got coffee and chatted.  He was pretty much mortified with the way doctoring is set up in the US, with the whole medical malpractice deal and the fact that there's no real protective body for doctors, and the fact that becoming a full-on doctor takes much longer.  That sort of stuff.

I did go out for a drink with a friend, and met some of his college friends, which was nice, but I just couldn't miss the rest of the Duke-Baylor game so I came back for that.  Sounds lame, but it really isn't, haha.

That's all for now, I'll update again in a few days or something.  Most of my week will be getting all that trip stuff prepared and studying for exams.  Not very exciting, unfortunately.

Cheers,
-e.

NP: The Velvet Underground - VU

This is steadily becoming my favorite Velvet Underground record, for reals.  Within the last 24 hours, I've probably listened to it all at least 5 times.  Yeah, about that...

Hey folks

Sorry for not updating in awhile.

But to go through it all:
Two weeks ago consisted of writing a history paper.  I was going at a pretty good pace (spacing the work out over two weeks), and a few days before it was due, I was at 2000 words and I went to meet my professor to see if where I was going was pretty solid.  Turns, out, it wasn't solid at all.  So I had to rewrite the whole thing.  And then I still went out on St. Patrick's Day.  I needed to finish the paper before my sister got here, but that didn't really happen.

The last week consisted of my sister visiting, which was awesome but now I miss home even more.  The terrible feeling was totally worth her visit, though.  Took her around most of the touristy stops in London, and then went through Paris in 36 hours or so and got through most of the big things, i.e. the Eiffel, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Bastille, Notre Dame, and the like.  It was a swell trip.  The French are even more standoff-ish than Brits, which was sort of surprising (probably shouldn't have been) and it was slightly hard to navigate without French and being able to ask people.

But here's my favorite picture from the trip (sorry to be so brief about everything - ask me when I get back!):

For once, it's not a panorama!  I'm not particularly sure what it's of, but my inclination says that it might be Perseus rescuing Andromeda.  The angle seemed rather interesting, and it turned out well.  Oh, and false, here's another favorite of mine:

It's a rather straightforward shot of Eros and Psyche, but it looks great.  You can probably ascribe most of that to the sculpture, and not me, haha.

But yes.  The term ends today, and I have two classes left (whereas at OSU I would have no Friday classes...bummer).  Afterwards is a month off, and then two exams and a paper to do.  Currently slated is Italy in late April.  Possibly slated (I need to go to the train people and inquire) is a massive two-week bonanza starting in Brussels, to Stuttgart, to Geneva, to Paris (again for me) and back to London.  Granted, this trip starts on Sunday if I go, so I need to figure that out today, it would be moderately helpful.

I know earlier I said I'd be screwed for my exams, but in some ways it doesn't seem too terrible, as long as I study like a crazy man.  Luckily with the UK system, there are no classes during the entire exam period, so I can wake up at nine and study the whole day.  It's not a terrible system at all.  We'll see how that goes.

Oh, and I'm back May 19th.  Mark your calendars, bubsniffers, I'll be back!

-e.

NP: Big Star - Keep An Eye on the Sky

Alex Chilton's death hit me pretty hard, and now all I've really been listening to (outside of some rare exceptions) has been Big Star.  I'd gone through the comp a couple times before, but honestly, my acknowledgment of Big Star was more of an "influence" thing for groups like the Replacements, Wilco, R.E.M., and basically any other musician thereafter.  But in coming back to it, every tune is a special tune, one anyone else would kill to write.  And Alex Chilton wrote these like he was totally not putting in effort, which is gross.  He was barely even 21 when he was writing all this Big Star stuff, and he'd charted at #1 earlier with the Box Tops at the ripe age of 16.  How's that for a model of success?  The talent this guy is absurd, and it should be time that everyone recognizes it.  But some people don't, which is the sad part.  Alex has said he has wanted it that way...he didn't want a lot of fame.  I wouldn't either, but with such skill it should've happened that way, I suppose.

The worst part is that it took me his death to revisit his material.  It happens that way often, but it always feels weird when you realize the voice coming from your speakers is no longer speaking any more, just a voice from the speaker.  But the legacy lives on, o my soul.

Something exciting!

Yesterday I went to see Passion Pit at the HMV Forum.  A friend had an extra ticket, and it was pretty swell!

The opener-opener was probably the worst opener I've ever seen.  Worse than Skeletons, worse than the Honeydrips.  This was just a trip to Hell and back.  As far as I know, the band's name was "Little Death"?  Not sure, but if it was, I died a big death during their set.  It wasn't that it was just noise blasting my face.  What I could discern wasn't great either, songs without a whole lot of originality and the like.  Just wayyyyy bad.

The opener (there were two) was Ellie Goulding.  Me?  I could take it or leave it.  Some of it had the electronic bend to it (hence the selection as a Passion Pit opener making sense), but it was also basically a whole lot of pop.  Which means for me, I don't value it too highly.  But she was a solid performer.  She's apparently a very British phenomenon, and quite a few people actually only showed up for her (i.e. leaving after her set, before Passion Pit's).

But Passion Pit was sick.  They are ridiculously good live.  The only downer with them was that the setlist was super short.  Maybe 13 songs?  They played most of the Chunk of Change [EP] and most of Manners (maybe not doing like 2-3 tracks off of it).  The unfortunate thing about the show was the group of douchebags in front of me.  I won't go on much about that, though, it was just aggravating because I just wanted to watch the damn show and they constantly infringed upon my enjoyment of it.  Maybe I'm getting too old for those sorts of shows.

Back to Passion Pit, though, I would definitely catch them if at all possible.  It is my understanding that they had played Columbus back in October, but I missed them, mostly because back then I didn't really know who Passion Pit were (was?).  There's not a whole lot of the whole banter business going on in their shows, which may have been kind of a bummer but they were on top of their game.  And they were a remarkably lively band.  The fear with a keyboard-based group like Passion Pit is that they would just idly stand by their keyboards and twiddle knobs, but they had a definite sense of energy and movement about them, which definitely helped them maintain momentum throughout their (altogether brief) set.

That's basically the only news I have.  I should work on my paper a bit if I'm going to do something tonight.  Yuck.

Adios for now, folks
-e.

NP: Passion Pit - Manners

There Really Isn't A Whole Lot Going On.

I'm kinda serious.  I'm currently putting off a Problem Set due Thursday in blogging.  No sightseeing worthy of elaboration since I covered Kew Gardens, mostly just a bunch of homework and hanging out with some close friends here.

We did make a Guinness cake here yesterday (Guinness is there to enhance the chocolate, apparently, not for actually making the cake taste like Guinness, unfortunately).  The icing actually had Bailey's in it too, which is absurd, but awesome.  Of course, that just made the icing "sweat" or whatever it's called (that's the terminology I heard from the resident bakers in the group).

I also realized over the weekend in having two pints of Guinness in London (the first pints since Dublin) that it still pales in comparison to Guinness in Dublin.  So if you like USA Guinness, you will absolutely fall in love with Dublin Guinness.  Depending on the person, you may sell all your assets and move to Dublin to marry Guinness.  Tales are told about Irish guys who don't marry because they feel like that would be cheating on their true life partner, their Guinness.  OK, I made that last bit up, but I seriously would not doubt that happening at some point.

Classes end in two full weeks (aka two weeks after this week).  The last week will be terrible because there will be no incentive to go.  Also, my sister will be here (HUZZAH!) and so why should I go to class when I can take her places?  Yep, I guess I'm not going to class on Monday...we'll see about Thursday and Friday, after she leaves.

To end with two funny stories (or rather, jokes) that I happened upon, which may or may not translate as text.  They're "story" jokes which means the payoff is later...sort of like my favorite comedian of the moment, Aziz Ansari:

I took this class concerning economic development, and yes, poverty is a big issue and all, but the thing about it is that you have to give it to the right people.  So they have to use the census to do so, and go around and make sure people are poor before helping them out.  My teacher said that there are definite reasons for those near but not in poverty to make themselves look like they're in poverty to be able to rake in the benefits after the census people come by.  So I couldn't help but think of this:  "Hey, José, it's me, Diego.  How's it going, man?  Oh, your house got repossessed?  That's a bummer, man.  Listen, I need your help tomorrow.  Those census people are coming by tomorrow to see if I'm poor, so I need you to hold some stuff for me.  Like my TVs, my computers, my refrigerator, the floorboards in our house, and hey, take the toilet and the sink, too.  And if you want, you can take the Rolls out for a spin tomorrow.  Oh, and can I borrow some of your kids?  I need to them so I look poorer to those guys.  Thanks, man, I appreciate it."

I was in a class regarding politics and development and we were talking about AIDS and how it effects development.  And naturally, we got off topic, and so it de-evolved into a bunch of talk as to whether or not AIDS has social stigma attached to it.  You know, like the whole "You have AIDS? Shunnnnnnnn" sort of deal.  Somehow, we got to talking about the culture of the Zulu in southern Africa, and one of the guys in my class said it's one of those things that's not talked about, because to them you'd rather have AIDS and have a lot of kids and keep the whole AIDS thing secret.  He said it's not like they go out for beers and talk about this.  Really, man?  You think they would?  I mean, how would that go?  "Hey man, what's happening?"  "Oh, not too much."  "You got AIDS?"  "Hell yeah, man, it sucks.  Flared up yesterday."  "Dude, me too, I got it from my wife two years back.  Fuck that noize, right?"  "Dude, yeah, fuck that shit."  "Cheers, dude...cheers to that."

NP: Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

Way too late, I know!

I know.  I'm terrible.  I haven't updated in ages.  But, um, I am now.

Work is mounting.  And a couple of realizations about the school I chose to study at have scared me shitless and have made me try (and I repeat, try) to stop procrastinating and get stuff down.

1. UCL is the #4 school in the world
2. UCL rarely, rarely ever gives out the equivalent of an A.
3. I'm getting my ass kicked in one of my classes.

I half-realized the first point before I got to London.  The second I realized when I got a paper I wrote back marked with the equivalent of a B+, and the guy in my class I went with to get my paper said "Whoa, B+?  That's really good.  Since they don't really give out As..."  So, yikes.  And three has been a steady realization since I thought I did well in the beginning.  It's just hard.  There's just a considerable divide between what I thought was answering the question for the problem set and what they were expecting.  I don't know if this is just because I'm not cut out for it, or if the courses I took back at home ill-prepared me for the course here, that I didn't even take a course back home that would definitely help me right now, or if I'm just still not in the right frame of mind (as in a totally economic mindset) to approach the course.  It's probably a mix of all of them.  At least nothing we've done so far has affected the grade, because for better or for worse, the Final Exam is 100% of my grade.  Yep, 100%.  Which is sort of lucky because I'm getting my ass kicked right now, but that means I need to stop getting my ass kicked by this class to make it out of it alive.

And the sheer irony of it all is that I went abroad with the impression that I could just come back with a nice set of As or so and keep my GPA at the level its at...and now I might come back with a fistful of Bs and kill my GPA.  Jeeeeeeeezus.

But aside from all the academic junk that could get any person down, here's a description of the fun stuff that's happened since the previous update, which is numbered at...two things.

The first is a trip to Kew Gardens.  Basically it's a set of Gardens with a bunch of conservatories and exhibits sponsored/maintained by members of the Royal Family.  When visiting last Saturday, it was still the "Tropical Flowers" special theme, which meant bunches and bunches of orchids and other amazing-looking flowers.  Here's my favorite orchid photo:

 

It somehow looks less vivid than on the camera and on iPhoto before I uploaded it, so I'm gonna chalk the downgrade to Facebook and what I would guess is some strange tendency to decrease color count.  But moving on, here's another flower (non-orchid) picture I was a big fan of:

 

There were also small exhibits regarding animals, but there wasn't anything very rare there at all.  The rarest thing was probably a green water dragon, which I'm guessing is likely not very rare at all.  That being said, Kew Gardens was basically really fantastic.  I loved it.  I would love to go back when the weather's nicer.  There was a pretty rad "treehouse" sort of walkway that slightly evoked memories of Donkey Kong Country while on it.  It was ludicrously high up (my estimation is 50ft) and so you got to see the entirety of the park.  Pretty stellar, if you ask me.

Event number two actually occurred right after the trip to Kew Gardens.  All of us who went all came back to my flat and ate a very, very American dinner: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.  I'm lucky in that I received a shipment from my parents and can thus enjoy it once in awhile, but some of the folks hadn't had any at all since coming here.  Which amazed me.  It was a fun occasion, in that we were all American and were enjoying the essence of American (gourmet, depending on how you look at it) cuisine.

But yeah.  There has not been too much new.  Just a lot of work and a lot of muted panic as the horrors of this term have been slowly creeping up on me, dogging me every day.

Today and yesterday, however, have had totally beautiful weather.  I don't think the weather has ever been nice two days in a row since I've gotten here.  Woah.  I am super happy about that though.

Stay rad until next time, folks,

-e.

NP: Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Maybe David Byrne was right when he said that heaven "is a place where nothing ever happens."  Food for thought, I suppose.

Trip to Dublin!

Let's be honest, nothing exciting happens on a day-to-day basis in London, especially when you have a lot of work to do and thus no excitement or energy can be summoned for going out.

But, Reading Week (or, go out for a bit then come back and cram homework) presents a unique opportunity to, like, go someplace.  And so, off to Dublin!


While I was sort of excited to go, the main thing I was interested in finding is the music they listen to.  While Top 40 generally rules in the US and the UK, Ireland doesn't really take to it.  A lot of it is quasi-"alternative" rock, which I can characterize as quasi-R.E.M.  Sort of like it, with variations here and there...but really, if you want the stuff, just listen to R.E.M.  Seriously.  The most surprising part?  They love their reggae.  First full day, went to a pub that evening.  A band composed of 4 Irishmen and what I think was a Middle Eastern saxophone player were playing reggae!  And it was awesome.  For one reason or another, I got into the groove and went and watched the band (and danced, mind you) for the most part.  I recognized "Pressure Drop," which was pretty much it.  Because the Clash recorded "Pressure Drop" at some point in their careers (shows up on Black Market Clash and its variations).

All the sights and stuff were great.  The highlight was Phoenix Park by far.  For €5 each, bikes were rented and ridden around it.  For the scope of the park, Central Park is four times as small as Phoenix Park, and every park in England combined doesn't even come close.  It was remarkable.  My favorite part was likely the Papal Cross.  While I certainly have my qualms with religion as a social structure and have never been a part of that system, as a mode or method of faith, there are admirable parts.  But the cross itself was awe-inspiring, as I would estimate it being at least 60m tall...I'm not too sure.  Here's the photo of it:

Other crazy things about Phoenix Park consist of the random herd of 500+ deer that live there, unfenced, and the generally ridiculous hills on the outer edges of the park which make for painful uphill biking (but excellent downhill riding).

Then, the next "tourist-y" day was action-packed.  The morning included a trip to Howth Harbor.  It's basically a tiny seaside town, and it's amazingly beautiful.  There's apparently a golf course to stumble upon (if you take the unbeaten path to the castle as we did), but the real draw is the harbor, with the breathtaking view out to sea.  Here's what that looks like:

It looks unreal, like those really cheesy photos that OS developers put in as default backgrounds and such, but that, yes, was definitely the view I got.  I mean, I'm happy with that picture, but it looks almost too good or too unreal.

For those inclined for seals, there were plenty of those, too.  Since Howth is essentially a fishing town, you could have gotten fish and fed them to the seals.  We were all starting to go a bit broke, so that didn't quite work out.  Cash had to be saved for Dublin's finest: the Guinness Storehouse.  If you go to Dublin, you really, really, really, really, really, really, really have to go.  It was awesome.  If you don't like beer, ok, but really, you're in Dublin, so you will like Guinness...at least in Dublin.  It goes over a lot of stuff about beer and Guinness, and they are kind enough to provide you with a free pint at the bar located at the top of the storehouse.  The view is phenomenal.  It's the highest point in Dublin, so you see everything.  I ended up drinking two more pints than the one allotted, as somehow some folks in my travel group didn't like Guinness.  It would have been tragic if I hadn't saved the day.  But here's a good idea of what it was like up there:

The day we left was mostly smaller stuff like visiting the whole lot of cathedrals around there.  Christchurch Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Catherine's Cathedral, and etc.  They are architecture marvels, just stunning.  Other sights included the Dublin Castle (actually rather lame), and Trinity College.

Overall, Dublin was a fantastic place.  I would highly recommend going, but mostly only to visit.  Dublin is a rather small city for being a capital of a country.  My approximation is that someone so inclined could definitely walk across the city of Dublin in about an hour.  I wouldn't expect that getting through the majority of the stuff there would take more than, say, 4 days at the most, as I did.

So yeah, that's most of it.  See all ya'll soon.

-e.

NP: Funkadelic - Maggot Brain

Ah, an update.

No, I'm not particularly good about updating this on a normal basis.  Terribly sorry about that.  But regardless, I'm obviously the only one in the unique position to tell about what I'm doing and thinking, so you may just have to deal, hah.

But an update!  Classes progressed in their normal, unexciting manner, and then it was Friday.  Friday was undoubtedly the best day in London thus far. 50ºF, sunny, and everything.  I even went out on a run, which will probably surprise a lot of you.  The evening involved going to a pub with friends.  First, though, a trip to the ATM resulted in my check card being randomly consumed by the ATM machine.  Luckily, I have a backup, but I gotta get that card back from the bank.  Now, I didn't eat at all before going out (so, last meal at around 3, which was also the only meal of that day), so after a pint of Guinness and chugging the rest of someone's beer/cider mix (I believe it's called Snakebite?), I had a pretty good buzz going.  And so I went to grab some food, which was delicious, and ironically my buzz was gone right after I left the food place.  But the night was hilarious.  Also learned some new games, but uh, yeah.

Saturday was a lot of fun, with a day trip to Greenwich.  It's pronounced Gren-ich (Gren as in rhyming with "wren" and the w in "wich" is silent), which basically makes zero sense.  We took the ferry east on the river, and while cold, I got some nice photos which are all cataloged on Facebook and flickr for viewing.  But here's one of my favorites from the trip down:

 

This one occurs closer to Greenwich, and the photo shows some luxury flats (really really really expensive ones at that, apparently at least £1000000 each), and in the back are some financial buildings (i.e. that HSBC building...not plugging them at all, really).  The tallest building with the pyramid sort of top is apparently the tallest in Britain, at 850m.  Another photo I really liked was this one a lot early on in the ferry ride:

It's really just the London Eye, but the lighting was all strange because of the weather, which makes for good photography, I suppose.  But we arrived to Greenwich, and it was really awesome.  They have a pretty legit market there, seen thus:

There were loads of ethnic foods and everything.  Of course, it turns out everyone wanted to get out of the cold and sit down, so we ended up at a sit-in place called "Phillies," which is owned by a guy who lived in Philly for awhile, obviously.  But after we went to that, we decided to come back to the market, but only after checking out the Meridian line at the Royal Observatory.  There were a lot of good photos, but here's the favorite that I took there:

It's of the planetarium there, and I really like it.  I've realized that most of photography is being at the right place and the right time, so I wouldn't consider any good photos I take to be the strokes of a master of photography, as the camera does most of the lifting and the sun (very rarely around in London) is there to provide the lighting.  I mean, I took the photo, so I'm not totally useless.  But back on track, the planetarium was cool, and they have a lot of exhibits there which explain a whole lot.  Like how the Andromeda galaxy will absorb the Milky Way soon.  And by soon I mean, like, billions and billions of years away.  So time is ticking, so I should, uh, finish what I have planned.  Which is nothing (or everything, depending on the way you look at it).

Also, there was the Meridian Line, nicely splitting the world in two.  I hesitated in getting the traditional photo of straddling the line as I wanted to be slightly more original, but I didn't come up with much (my Facebook profile photo is the result).  But it does seem strange to realize that, at least by some arbitrary standard, the world starts and ends here, because that's where all time is based off of.

But back to the market!  And I got some gifts for people, namely my sisters, and started compiling gifts for friends before making a return trip on the ferry.  So all was good.  Of course, in total, I ended up dropping £35 that day.  Yikes.  I spent most of the rest of the day really tired, possibly due to the impromptu run from the day before, from which I woke up extremely sore.

Today has mostly been relaxing.  Pretty good.  I still get the strange "I'm on a boat" feeling (yes, the song pops up in my head when I say that), which I don't like.  But I am done for tonight so I get to relax a bit.  Yay.

I leave for Dublin next Saturday, which is awesome, I'll be there for four days.  It'll be awesome and exciting.  I'm not sure what actually is in Dublin, but I figure that it's a place everyone should get to eventually.

Alright, I'm out, I'll write again soon, but if you want more, talk to me before!

-e.

NP: The Strokes - Is This It

Such a fantastic record.  I mean, it's the Strokes' best record, and I love it.  Actually, who doesn't love this record?

The Realization about England

But first, an update since I've sorta been slacking: but in a stroke of (mis)fortune, the only real significant thing on my plate this past week was a homestay in Southport, which is basically extremely close to Liverpool and Manchester.  I stayed with a nice British family, a mom and twins (the father and the other kid were in the States).  The father has a job in Hollywood or something, which explains that.  But it was nice.  I was taken around Southport the first day (some people ventured off to Liverpool, I think), and here's my favorite photo from that sojourn:

 

This is what's known as a Victorian arcade, which basically is a mall.  But since it's older, it's smaller (you could perhaps argue it's smaller since the nature of business then was small business, not like it is today).  I got to meet a butcher in what's apparently a pretty famous butchery in one of the parts of Southport, and another guy working there had a friend or relative in Dayton, which I found pretty amusing.

The next day we went out to the pier.  The day was sort of cold, blustery, and really gray, but I do like this photo that I took:

The lantern sort of reminds me of something out of a video game.  Zelda, perhaps, but I'm not sure.  And then everyone went back to London.  So, 11+ hours on a bus to stay for, like, less than 48 hours.  That led to some good feelings the next day (sitting down still gave me that "I'm on a bus" feeling, which is not great when you're sitting on solid ground).

---

But to my realization.  England, all in all, is not terribly different from the United States.  Sure, you have the "driving on the other side of the road" and the accent and all sorts of that, but outside of the eccentricities and niceties of a culture, it's still almost the same as United States.  Everyone speaks English here, and it just doesn't feel like an entirely different entity from the US.  In some ways, it almost feels like just being on a farther away campus from home (as at Ohio State, home was 15min. away, this just feels farther rather than being totally removed from home).

Now, some of those niceties and differences do get on my nerves sometimes (i.e. my previous saga of getting charged for EVERYTHING, having to walk for copious amounts of time to get to places), and sometimes I love the differences (the accents, the good beer), but no, it doesn't feel that different in the long run.  A staff member at Arcadia told us that England was "80% the United States" when it came to resemblance.  He also noted that what differences there are between the two are not glaring; they're rather subtle, and as he put it, they "poke you in the face constantly" rather than punch you in the gut.  I'd agree with both statements.

Part of this, I suppose, stemmed from my expectations.  Having romanticized the British culture for most of my modern existence, I saw Britain as a sort of paradise (I do hear that Wales and Scotland come pretty damn close to paradise, though).  And, well, no place is really ever paradise, is it?  London is a city like many other cities, just bigger, with better public transportation, and is, well, British.  I also saw Britain as some sort of wild new world out there, which is definitely not the case.  I'm not saying that I don't like living here at all, because it's great and I love it and it's been rewarding, but no, it's not terribly different from the United States.

I considered, in my romanticizing of London, that I would perhaps come back after this abroad experience and simply just live here forever.  But after even a short month, I realize that I truly appreciate the Kraft macaroni and cheese, and in general the American niceties.  For sure, I'd love to come back as a vacation opportunity, but in some ways I'm not ready to give up being American (at least yet).

But yeah, I should really get to doing work.  I have a paper due Monday and two problem sets due Thursday, and I'm nowhere near as far into any of them as I'd like to be.

-e.

Update! To procastinate, really.

Hey, folks.

I've got a paper I SHOULD be working on, but obviously this, and probably getting a ticket to go visit Dublin, Ireland for a bit are more pressing matters than the "definition of development."  I mean, please, right?

While I've been complaining a whole lot recently about the amount of work I have to do, I do heartily understand that I really did bring it on myself, and I'm sort of glad I do have quite a lot of work to do.  Of course, when I looked at schools, I looked at the name of the school, "University College London," and I just figured that I really wanted to go there, much like I did with Ohio State.  It was just like "Oh, I really want to go to Ohio State," and "Oh, I really want to go to University College London."  Only after applying did I look it up and find that, oh dear, University College London was 9th in the world in terms of universities (it has since moved up to no. 4, behind Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale...thus ahead of Oxford, people).

So I know I'm getting a damn good education, which was kind of the point, right?  Of course, I'm getting to go to London, where I've always really wanted to go to, and I get to go to tons of places in Europe, which is also awesome, but I'm still a student, so, well, I should do work.  This touches upon my second point.  I was talking to some other students studying abroad here, and they nonchalantly talked about "Oh, yeah, we just go out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday" and I was just sort of baffled that, well, at the no. 4 school in the world, you spend the majority of the time going out instead of doing homework.  (Granted, my grades are transferring back for actual credit, so I have to try to do really well while some people only need to pass).  But then she went further and said that some of her British friends apparently went out and got drunk every day of the week.  Like, really?

Some of you know my stance towards drinking, at least on my personal level, but if not, here it is: I drink because I like the taste of beer.  I don't need to drink more than, like, five beers (US terms) in a night (and usually never even close to five, more like one or two), nor am I actually drunk after a maximum of five beers.  There's a natural limit to how much people can drink, and it's there for a reason.  Your body is, well, a fragile vessel, so don't screw it up.  Of course, I'm in the minority when it comes to this, but honestly, if you need to black out or get drunk off your bum to have a good time, I feel like your approach to "having a good time" may not be a very smart or correct approach.

In this sense, I'm glad I have a lot of work, because while I certainly know that if I had a lot more time on my hands I wouldn't be going blackout drunk or anything all the time (not that I have, ever), but because I know I'm being busy and not, well, bored.  There's plenty to do, and there's not necessarily a terrible rush to get it all done within the first couple of weeks (what else can you do after that?), so putting them off to later (also, when it's warmer) is not a bad decision.  So the first few days were super boring with little to do.  But with work (and the procrastination that inevitably accompanies it), it's less boring.

/end rant

But this weekend was fun.  We visited the Tower of London, which has loads of stuff going on.  I like this "before entering" picture:

Much of the tour was the guide, a "beefeater," talking about various dignitaries that were held there and/or executed there, such as couple of Henry VIII's wives like Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, among others, like two child Princes whose murderers are still unknown to this day.  One thing I didn't know was apparently they raise official ravens of the Royal House there.  Yep, the Royal House of London raise ravens.  I'm going to assume that they used to be effective carriers of notes in the pre-iPhone age, hah.  But yes.

The Crown Jewels were shown there too, but, um, taking pictures of them amounts to treason, apparently.  I mean, it was a really tough call between pictures of the craziest headdresses and silverware known to man and being sentenced to death, so it really came down to a coin toss.

There were other exhibits, like the ones geared towards kids (about weaponry and being a knight back then) which I found incredibly amusing and enthralling.  Being kind of a weapon nut (from all sorts of video games in my youth), it was pretty sweet.

You can find photos on my Facebook or on my Flickr if you want to see more, but I do particularly like this photo of the Tower of London at dark the best:

After that we all went and got some food, wherein I had my first round of traditional British staple of "fish & chips," wherein there were fish bones when I certainly did not expect them.  I probably ate a couple of fish bones.

That was essentially my weekend, and classes have been keeping me busy otherwise, as in, I should really get back to work.

Cheers (this is apparently a commonplace British phrase),

-e.

NP: Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

The Next Thing They Charged Me For?

"I've come to the conclusion that they generally charge for almost everything over here.  Charged me for internet at the hotel, charged me for condiments...I wonder what's next."

I was charged 20p to use a public bathroom.  I mean, WHAT?  You're making me pay so I don't relieve myself in public and violate a ton of laws?  I should be PAID FOR THAT.

Oh well, I picked up some nifty Arsenal gear and some postcards while out shopping today, so maybe expect one.  Maybe, haha.

NP: Carole King - Tapestry

The Scientific Explanation for Tides Changing

...in relation to Saturday's post.

The way it works here is that you have your Spring Term AND your Summer Term treated as one US semester.  Spring Term, you get all your classes out of the way and in the Summer Term, you take the tests for them.

Spring Term ends late March, which is followed by an absurdly long break of one month.  Summer Term lasts for about a month, and them BOOM, done.  Since Spring Term ends March, it's about, hey, ten weeks long, so really I never left the quarter system, it just means that I get to test later than I thought I would.  So the same generous amount of coursework I have to complete is STILL there, required to be done in the SAME amount of time as it used to be.  Not exactly the change of pace I was aiming for, no?

But this week, once again, I have had Tuesday and Wednesday off (it's early Wednesday morning...well, 10AM).  Tuesday was spent slogging through homework, a bit of reading and a whole lot of staring at a terrible statistical program and trying to get it to behave.  I did get to walk around a bit which was great, but nowhere "new" per sé as I really only went out to try to find something to eat...which took a lot longer than it should.  I settled on some "halal" place halfway between my abode and the university, and, um, I got a burger.  It was pretty good.  But they charged me for condiments!  Just a little thing of BBQ, man, it costs you a dollar for the whole 100000pc box, just give me my condiments!

I've come to the conclusion that they generally charge for almost everything over here.  Charged me for internet at the hotel, charged me for condiments...I wonder what's next.

To make up for my lack of being able to do tourist stuff recently, today I'll be going onto a Duck tour (those amphibious vehicles from, like, WWII) with a bunch of other Affiliate Economics students (and by Affiliate Economics students it also basically means "all American students abroad studying Economics").  I'll have pictures up soon.

But my sly parenthetical brings up something interesting that I've come across.  UCL is 30% international students.  But it seems, still, every single person I've ever met is, well, American.  Perhaps it's because the number of courses offered to Affiliates are limited, so it's overloaded with Affiliates (probably mostly American, likely because it's really, really expensive to study over here).  Perhaps British people don't like the courses offered to Affiliates, or maybe I'm just not in the right set of classes.  Whatever it is, it's slightly a bummer 'cause my goal of really getting to know some British kids is not really, ya know, getting off to a great start.

Well, I gotta go, I have to go back to the damn statistical program and see if it will behave for me this time.  I'll update with Duck Tour stuff soon.

-e.

NP: Eluvium - Life Through Bombardment

Basically a comp of all Eluvium has done so far.  Ambient music, so put it on in the back while work gets done!

O, how the tides have changed!

From:

"Hey, this is going to be awesome, no work, no classes!"

to

"Hey, I'm pretty much fucked."

in the span of two days.

Let me explain.  Thursday, History class.  I go in, and I'm actually jumping in to the second half of a year-long course.  Teacher tells me it'd probably be good to at least be familiar with the first half.  This means, hey, 250 or so pages of reading.  AWESOME.  This is in addition to all the stuff I gotta do for the class on a normal basis.

Then Friday, Economic Development, I've already got a problem set due next Thursday, and I gotta use a stats program I've never heard of before.  JOLLY GOOD.  And then, I still gotta do readings too.  Yikes.

But in other events not related to me suddenly being swamped with work before I even go to my fourth class (didn't meet last week), Tuesday I walked around Regent's Park.  Here's my favorite photo:

That rock with the inscription was strange to me, so I took a photo of it!  The snow was still around as you can figure out, which made for a not-as-fulfilling walking trip, but I was really bored enough to walk 40 minutes to a park.

But this past week has largely been nothing.  Without my other classes starting (those Thursday and Friday ones) I was left without much to do.  And I didn't really spend it outside of my dorm.  This is explainable through the handy-dandy Study Abroad guide that OIA gave me awhiles back, and it's a phenomena known as homesickness.  I think it's great here (outside of the poopy weather and dark-by-4-to-5 dealio), but man, it's weird to not really be able to talk to all my friends on a consistent basis, and my family a little less so (talk to them almost daily in some capacity).

Of course, yesterday I went out though, because as I reasoned to myself, I would be extremelyyyy lame if it was a Friday spent inside, largely.  So we went out to this nice bar/pub place known as the Rocket.  Not too bad.  I tried a Guinness Red, which I really didn't like.  Should always stick with the regular Guinness.  Lesson learned, I suppose.

This week was fairly boring, so not a lot.  I'll update you all soon.

-e.

NP: Alex Cline - Continuation

 

A really good jazz record.  Alex Cline is Nels Cline's twin brother, which guarantees goodness as they both have beyond crazy loads of talent.

Ah, the meaningless first day of classes...

So meaningless.  But I also love it.  One class of mine didn't even meet today and so doesn't meet until next week.  The other class, the lecturer was super disorganized.  He was also Argentinian, which made for some funny moments.

The best part about today was probably the 99 Pence store.  Everything in the store is 99p.  So I picked up hangers that I had sorely been lacking for the last week, basically.  Now, everything is organized, which is most excellent.

Class registration is a peculiar beast here in the UK, as registration for classes opened, well, three days ago and closes basically in four days.  So it's a bit of a hassle and a major inconvenience to organize the schedule, but luckily for me it's gone rather swimmingly.  My class today was ECON3004, which is regarding International Trade.  It doesn't seem to be a terribly difficult class in the least, which is quite a relief.

But given that school has now started, fun things must be curtailed a bit as school takes over.  The difference here is that given minimal lecturing (1-2hrs a week), the student is burdened with keeping up with the reading, unlike the US where most of it is simply taught in lectures (i.e. the UK courses merely fill holes or expand on core material).  So, falling behind in the UK is suicide, basically...which must be avoided.  Given my natural tendency to procrastinate a whole bunch, this will be a particularly interesting challenge.

My apartment-style living is probably most comparable to the Worthington apartment complex on OSU campus.  I've got a bedroom to myself, though, and the kitchen is a separate room unlike at OSU.  The spaces are not as large, which was expected given that space is scarce in London (and likely overall in Britain).  It's been a gift since I have my own room, and I can finally cook since I have time on my hands, which saves me money, which will also be a scarcity here in London (EXPENSIVE!!!!!).  The proof is in the pudding: my first set of groceries costed £50 about, which amounts to about $80.  Yeah.  But I don't think it will be that much down the road, as the first set is always the most expensive.

Rewind a bit, and go to yesterday.  Yesterday I went to Camden Market with some friends and visited the open-air markets there.  They're loaded with stuff.  The one I spent the most time at had a bunch of vinyl which I thumbed through.  Stocked there were ORIGINAL BEATLES VINYLS, which totally geeked me out, and I wanted to get one really bad.  They all started from £25 and went up to £40 for an original pressing of Revolver, which made it not really worth it (I don't think original pressings of Revolver go for over $60).  I did, however, settle quite nicely with what looks to be an original pressing of David Bowie's Low record which I love to death (and waxed eloquent on in my sister blog), and it was only £10, which is a deal I can go for.

Back to other stuff, I do wish that all the doors in our apartment complex thing didn't slam shut all the time.  Apparently (and it's fair, I suppose) fires are a major hazard around here, so all the doors swing shut to obviously prevent fires from spreading.  But it prevents people from going around and meeting each other, which was one of the things I expected from living in this manner.  I have resorted to propping my door open with a chair (it used to be my luggage until I organized everything today).  But obviously this only really applies to my flat-mates, as no one can get in the flat to begin with.  It would have been really nice had a sense of awesome friendliness.  Alas, I can't have everything...

See you all soon.

NP: Ringo Starr - Ringo

 

Super massive update for all the days I didn't have internet.

Update!  Awesome, right?

As for the last week or so (sans internet, whoa!), here’s how it’s boiled down.  Pretty much I sat down and wrote a bit each night, which makes for fun:

2010.01.02

I spent the Saturday with members of Tzu Chi in London.  The family that hosted the event (who also essentially entertained me for the day) for the day were really kind, and it was an all-around good day.  Food, some Scrabble, and getting to know people.  Granted, I don’t think actively participating in Tzu Chi is in my plans for my time in London, but it was nice to see how they operated in comparison to the branch that I was previously involved in back in Ohio, which is very active (and much larger, in fact).

2010.01.03

This day was reserved for wandering around Westminster.  It was awesome.  Got off the Tube at Green Park and wandered down through St. James’s Park and around Buckingham Palace.  It’s a huge area, and it’s quite breathtaking.  From the Buckingham Palace stuff, this picture of the gold angel on the very top of the fountain (if I remember correctly) was really neat looking:

Afterwards, I essentially wandered around the park to arrive in Westminster.  Unfortunately, my camera batteries were suffering greatly at this point and therefore there are pictures few and far between at this point.  But walking around, this ivy-covered wall was especially interesting:

In attempting to alleviate the “dead camera batteries” problem, I ventured around Westminster itself to see if I could pick them up for cheap.  The answer is no, not at all.  £6.00 around for a set of four AA batteries.  A total rip off.  I went into one store and asked their price.  I was told around £6.00.  I looked unconvinced.  And then he pressed and said another cheap set was £6.00 for eight.  Still, that’s ridiculously expensive.  Still looking unconvinced, the clerk pressed me and said, “Well, what are you buying?” and to fend him off I just said, “I’m just looking, thanks,” and left.  So a mental note: convenience store clerks will aggressively get you to cave in and spend loads of money on cheap stuff.  DON’T DO IT.  Do not become Andy Bernard selling his Xterra to Dwight for $1500 (or whatever it was...grossly undervalued).  I figure that these clerks or whatnot know a tourist and try to pick on them, so do not do that.

Also, I picked up a cell phone.  It’s a ridiculously cheap and poopy £5 phone.  In the interest of maintaining phone privacy on a very public internet, I can give it to you if you so desire.  It’s free for me to receive calls, so call!  Or something like that.

Somehow I was extremely tired at about 2pm, and after a quick lunch I called it a day and returned to the hotel.  That itself was an absurdly long journey, lasting two hours just to return.

But this day was significant in one respect.  For those of you who know me, I loves me some Wilco.  But recently I had not really ever pulled out any of their records and listened to it coming out totally enraptured by the experience.  That changed today when I put on A Ghost Is Born and walked around Buckingham Palace and St. James’s Palace.  I was just pretty blown away by the combination of both the music and the view.  And yea, it verily came to pass that I am back in cahoots with Wilco.

2010.01.04

Finally, this day I got to meet Arcadia people.  It’s been a strange experience, I suppose.  Not in the sense that the people are terrible, but the realization is that if I’m by myself, I better be making friends, and historically that has never been easy for me.  But in some sense most people are in a similar boat as mine, so it’s gone over well.  This day mostly consisted of wandering around the area around the hotel (before and after the initial Arcadia meeting) and going to a pub for the first time.  Well, for me, I went twice, once for lunch and once after dinner (for a beer).  You really can’t go wrong with a Guinness...let’s be perfectly honest.  Just a sort of relaxing night.  Given that nighttime comes early, though, that also means the nights end early.  Like, let’s say, before 9pm on the whole.

2010.01.05

This day was more of the bread and butter regarding orientation.  There was a general culture orientation.  Here’s the crazy thing:

Milky Way bars as we know them in the States are Mars bars here in the UK.  Three Musketeers bars as we know them in the States are Milky Way bars in the UK.  Why?  Because the Brits hate the French.  That’s it.  A “Three Musketeers” bar would apparently never sell well here in the UK.  It’s just weird.  I feel as if the US doesn’t really hate the French.  The US just feels like the French are a load of pansies.  There’s no real hatred there in actuality, though.

After that, everyone broke for lunch.  After a quick lunch, me among a group of people went and stopped by the Natural History museum they have.  If you thought the Natural History museum in the US was legit, wait until you see England’s.  It blows it out of the water, and that’s only after seeing a couple of the exhibits.  More specimens, more species, more everything.  It’s just that impressive.  Also, the other thing: except for the odd museum, they’re all FREE.  So, totally awesome, a great free way to kill an afternoon.  With regards to the Natural History museum, I think that taking a week to knock it all off is not really out of the question.

Then there was a meeting with two MPs (members of Parliament): one from the House of Commons and one from the House of Lords.  Both of them were, to compare them to here, left of center.  The House of Commons representative was from the Labour Party, so that approximates to a Democrat.  The House of Lords representative was from the Liberal Democrats Party, which approximates to slightly right of left, but reasonably close to the center.  The Conservative Party, which is exactly what it sounds like, conspicuously did not have a representative of this session.  The meeting was altogether nifty, the system differences are quite great (the UK does not have a written Constitution, though some call for it).  And there’s a watershed election coming up, apparently.  The Labour Party may become the minority party to the Conservatives.  There do exist more than two parties in the UK, which is significantly different from the US.

After that was a walk around a bit of Westminster which led us to the Globe Theatre.  The older versions of it hosted Shakespeare’s plays before facing the wrath of higher powers and burning down.  The new one, which is a hardcore recreation of the oldest one, is cool, and to see a Shakespeare play there (the current one does mostly Shakespeare) would be awesome.  There would have been a great amount of picture-taking, but I was not aware of the sightseeing and did not have it handy, so I suppose I must come back some other time.

After a traditional English dinner where I had sausages and mash (“Oh, I forgot, in the colonies you call it a ‘sausage in the mouth’”), me and some other abroad students going to UCL went wandering around for a bit.  We walked across the Millennium Bridge which was awesome (if you don’t know what it is, just think of the sixth Harry Potter movie where in the beginning the Death Eaters destroy a bridge.  It’s that one, I’m almost certain).  We ended up around St. Paul’s Cathedral, but obviously being late we did not observe.  Around there is a financial district.  The goal was to find a ratty and mangy pub, but being in a business district is not quite conducive.  We did find a quaint, small pub known as Nicholson’s, where I tried some ale known as Mandle, if I remember correctly.  It was not bad at all.  It was about equivalent to Blue Moon, so in the “ale” category of beers.

Of course, we were back by 9 o’clock or so, since still no one’s body clock is currently matched up in the least.  So that was that day.

2010.01.06

More Arcadia meetings.  Apparently professors don’t command the same respect in the classroom in the UK than in the US.  In the UK, kids blab on all day, text all day, and all sorts of shenanigans rather than listening to lecturers.  That’s totally weird.  Also, less time spent in class.  This is exciting, but it also implies that procrastinating will get me killed much, much worse here than back home.

And then I moved in to my real location.  For those of you with my address, it turns out a room number is NOT necessary (mail is sorted by last name), the address given is good enough, so mail me something awesome.  Or not.  I’ve been put up into a flat, which is basically a hallway with adjoining rooms and then a kitchen and a couple of bathrooms coming off of it.  The bedrooms are rather small, but I should not have expected anything less.  I need to organize it, though.  Like, I need to be very womanly and get containers to organize my clothes because I wasn’t given a dresser.  There’s not enough room for one, really, so I’ve got to improvise.  But here’s my room:

Not a whole lot going on.  The rest of the night consisted of going around to the local supermarket and picking up some necessary stuff.  Still...not done yet.  Watching my wallet get lighter will not be a particularly pleasant experience.

Tomorrow, UCL orientation starts!  Cool, ya know.

2010.01.07

Alright.  So while it’s still fresh in my head, here’s how today boiled down to...

Orientation started at 1330 but I arrived at 1230 to wander around a bit and see if I could use the library computers and get internet as a guest.  The answer is no, sadly.  Of course, at Thompson Library, I would have been able to access internet as a guest, but alas, not meant to be.

But orientation for international students happened, and it was a whole lot of talking, but it definitely appears like there are a whole lot of opportunities that I can take advantage of to make my time here as awesome as it will ever be.  Like, uh, Harry Potter tours and the ilk.

After orientation was an orientation reception at the Phineas Bar, which is in UCLU (UCL Union).  Here’s what I’ve learned about the whole thing, as it sounds incredibly strange:

Quite obviously, you only need to be 18 to buy alcohol in the UK.
The campus bars are subsidized by taxpayers in the UK.

This means cheaper beer, and hopefully providing a safe environment for alcohol consumption.  Of course, given Americans and the need to “rebel” or just get supremely hammered, this isn’t necessarily the case.

I did, however, meet a ton of people.  Granted, I hardly remember any their names, but my guess is that is really the pub or bar atmosphere.  You kind of drink a bit, meet loads of people, but contact is never really on a substantive level, really.  There was free wine at the orientation reception, which could explain the particularly cheery atmosphere.

After that, a whole bunch of people (myself included) went to a bar and/or pub place, whose name I never really learned, though it is on the corner of Tottenham Ct. and University St., which is about as good as I can give you.  It was cool, meeting a ton of other international students, in addition to a few locals and getting to chat with them.  With British people, it’s quite interesting as many of them enjoy meeting Americans and learning about them and the culture.  As an American, I’m slightly surprised by this turn of events as American culture is sort of like a cesspool at the moment (at least in my opinion, though there are many bright spots).

But after that, it was done.  It’s currently 2345 as I finish this day’s entry.  I didn’t drink a whole lot tonight, my estimation is two pints of Guinness plus some free wine, which put me in a perfect state with which to not be totally sober and curmudgeonly, but not enough to be drunk in the least and embarrassing then.  Tomorrow is the day that my internet problems are resolved, so there will not be such mega-entries like this one.

See you soon (contact me!).

NP: Bob Dylan - Modern Times