MY THOUGHTZ

Wow, what an great title for this post.  Awesome.

First of all, “shalom” and “a sweet new year” to my fellow Jews.  I’m not actually celebrating this year (not that I ever do, to be honest), but I’m reading The Merchant of Venice for class and thus thinking of you.

Brighton was very nice.  The town itself was a little whatever–I was expecting the archtypal tacky British beach town, but Brighton is basically classy and thus a little dull–but the beach was nice.  It’s a rock beach, which doesn’t mean pebbles, it means big old ROCKS that hurt to walk on.  The water was freezing cold, too, but the Brits were walking on the rocks in bare feet and swimming around in bathing suits like it was no thing.  I walked on the rocks and waded a little in the water.  It was really uncomfortable but also invigorating, like a spa treatment.  I don’t have any interesting pictures.

Anyway, just wanted to say internet-hello.  A longer post is coming soon, but I have some “real” writing to do tonight.

seething with jealousy

Two of my roommates are going to Oktoberfest this weekend and they are staying someplace called The Hangover Hospital, which is run by a man who calls himself “Doc Love.”  Doc Love sent them an email with the salutation “Hello patience [sic]” reminding them that they owed a fifty euro deposit and assuring them that they would enjoy themselves in Munich.  Needless to say, I am SO JEALOUS.  Can you even imagine the insane medical jokes Doc Love and his cohorts are going to make? Can you imagine checking into a hotel and having a German man with a stethoscope take your temperature and say, “Just as I suspected—sixty nine degrees!”  CAN YOU?  BECAUSE I CAN, BUT I WON’T BE EXPERIENCING IT BECAUSE I’LL BE IN BRIGHTON LOOKING AT THE FUCKING OCEAN.

predictable whinging; boz

This morning I woke up and scared the bejeesus out of myself by reading this article by Naomi Woolf.  I tried to make myself feel better by looking at Open Left to see poll analysis in favor of Obama or something, but all they had was an article about how Obama is going to fuck up in the debates.  This concerned me, but I’m trying to hope that this is just a case of people in the media over-analyzing the way something is delivered versus the actual message.  You know what I mean?  Like they’ll talk about how good Sarah Palin is at insulting community organizers  instead of focusing on how her actual, psychotically anti-women positions will actually play with voters.

Feeling apprehensive, I called the Abroad office to see if my absentee ballot had arrived.  It hadn’t.  It will probably never arrive.  No, I’m being too cynical: it will arrive, but it will just be a piece of paper that says JOHN MCCAIN WILL SET YOU FREE above a picture of Karl Rove’s head on an eagle’s body.  Someone will probably steal my tax returns just for writing that.

I went out after that.  I was trying to get to a neighborhood described in my guidebook as “the ground zero of cool,” but I got turned around and wound up at the Charles Dickens museum.  It cost five pounds for a ticket, so I was like, what the hell.  It’s basically a townhouse he used to live in crammed to the brim with Dicken’s paraphenalia.  It seemed strange to me because security was really minimal and a lot of the stuff was just sitting out.  Like, you could probably touch it if you were so inclined (I was not).  I felt a little guilty because I’ve never read any of his books except for, like, five pages of “Sketches By Boz” for a class.

There was a video about Dicken’s life.  Notable: his parents were thrown into a debtor’s prison when he was 12, leaving him to wander the streets alone; he loved the theatre and enjoyed acting in plays; when he came to America, he apparently bitched us out because we didn’t have copyright laws, which seems dickish to me.

I ate a sandwich made on “organic, wheat-free bread” and took a bus home.  Pubic transportation in London is efficient and easy to use.  Sandwiches are gross and usually rife with suspicious condiments.

I’m going to Brighton on Saturday so maybe I’ll finally have some interesting pictures.

ugh

Yesterday, I went out and about downtown, on the other side of the river.  I went to Southwark Cathedral and the Tate Modern.  Both were very beautiful and moving.  Southwark Cathedral is especially amazing—-it was built in the 12th century and has so many beautiful pictures of Jesus and his friends.  And the Tate Modern’s very cool.  By far my favorite thing was a model the Polish sculptor Pawel Althamer had made of his studio.  It was so intricate yet folksy and poignant.  I wish I could have taken a picture, but there’s no photography in the galleries.  Downgrade!

Last night, I had such an annoyingly typical “Anti-American” experience that it made me want to nuke this entire fucking island (no offense).  Some of my flatmates and I were sitting at a table outside our local pub after finding it so crowded that we couldn’t sit down or even get to the bar for a drink.  We were deciding what to do when a very drunk 17-year-old (I must reiterate: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY TEENAGERS?) came up to us and asked, “Oh, are you all Americans?  Where in America are you from?”

I don’t mind when people approach me about being American or ask where I’m from.  It’s certainly what I’d do if I encountered a British person in the U.S.  That said, it does sort of feel like being a slightly washed-up celebrity in a restaurant where a fellow customer keeps asking you to “do the catchphrase!” and telling you he loves the episode where Iggy Pop guest-starred.  Drunk Teenage Briton proceeded to mack on two of the more receptive females I was with while my other flatmates and I decided where to go next.

“People don’t realize that America is more than New York and California and Florida,” I heard Drunk Teenage Briton say.  Why the fuck are British people so obsessed with Florida?  No one will give me a satisfactory answer.  Furthermore, why is this kid STILL talking to us about America?  It’s not like we are relaxing with drinks and trying to “meet people.”

Conversation continues.  Should we go to the bar down the road?

“The NRA is one of the stupidest ideas ever,” I heard Drunk Teenage Briton assert.  I roll my eyes. I like talking politics with the Brits because they’re generally knowledgeable and funny and understand that you don’t like Bush either, but there’s a time and place.

“Who said it was a good idea for people to have the right to own a gun?” Well, it’s complicated, Drunk Teenage Briton, but, frankly, no one here owns a gun, so you’re playing to the wrong crowd.  More discussion between us about whether it’s worth it to find another place or just go home.

Then came the kicker: DTB said, “I don’t mean to sound nasty, but most of you Americans are really stupid.”

I take the opportunity to shoot a bitchface in his direction.  Shit just got too real.  Good natured ribbing about the American tendency to snub intellectualism is one thing, blanket insults is another.  And anyway, what does “most Americans are dumb” even mean?  Most Americans are uneducated?  Most Americans are genetically stupider than other people?  Seriously, what does that even mean?  Because I have the feeling that it’s an unfounded, slightly classist generalization.  And I didn’t even want to talk about the United States in the first place.

DTB goes on to cite Sarah Palin as an example of our stupidity, even though we all support Obama and the one kid who initially supported McCain switched sides when he heard about Palin.

Anyway, we had finally decided to leave.  My flatmate asked DTB if he knew of any place that would be less crowded.

“Naw, it’s a Saturday night,” he said.  ”Every place is crowded.  Unless…well, are you rich?”

At that point, everybody shot him a bitchface.

“Are you rich?” he asked again.  ”If you’re loaded, have a lot of money, there’s places in Leicester Square….”

I could no longer take it.  ”I’m rich,” I answered.  ”I’m rich and I’m really dumb and I’m carrying a handgun.”

DTB ignored me (CAN’T HANDLE THE PHILLY REALNESS, CAN YOU, DTB?).  I went home and I think my friends left with DTB.  I hope they had fun.  They enjoy partying more than I do.  I always thought I loved partying because everyone always treats me like I have a drinking problem, but it turns out I actually don’t.  

Anyway.  Sorry for ranting.  It was just so annoying.  I was like, “Hell’s Bells.”

realized with growing horror

Within a week of my leaving the country, the stock market crashed and David Foster Wallace died.

reunited with internet

Well, it took me a long time, but I finally have access to the internet again (I did have to pay a somewhat inordinate sum of money for it—-one good thing about super-expensive US universities is that they’ll always throw you a bone with some free wireless).  So much has happened, gentle readers.  I don’t have any pictures, but as soon as I do, I will post them.  I went to the British museum (personal favorite: Assyrian man-goat idols), saw a Harold Pinter play and strolled along the river Thames.  But I assume you don’t come here to read What I Did On My Summer Vacation.  I don’t have any searing observations into British culture yet, but it may interest you to know that I went to a “club” the other night.  It was my roommates’ (excuse me, flatmates’) idea and I was reluctant because, you know, it’s a nightclub, but the cover was free before midnight so I couldn’t really refuse.  I thought they might turn me away because I was wearing a cardigan and boat shoes, but they didn’t and the next thing I knew, I was inside.

Okay, you guys.  I’m not lying: no one in this nightclub was over the age of 16, except for a few sporadic and very creepy 30-year-olds.  It looked like a high school dance.  The weird thing is, they had ID’ed my friends and me (probably because we were American), so I really wasn’t expecting to be hanging out with the cast of Degrassi.  But even more bizarre was the music selection: they exclusively played rap-rock from the late 90s and early 00s.  And it’s really hard to just bob along to the music when it’s Limp Bizkit—-it feels wrong, spiritually.  But the Brits were so into it.  It was mystifying.  I felt like Borat.

My friend told me she heard early millennial rap-rock in a different club.  Is it a cultural thing?  I thought Britain had a huge music press and, as a result, everyone liked really cool bands.  I mean, it was a cheesy nightclub and I’ve heard people in other countries don’t listen to as much hip-hop as Americans, but WTF?  I don’t get it, but I do recommend seeking out one of these Hot Topic nights, both for pure spectacle and a reminder that not all Anglophone countries are the same.

offensive things i plan on saying to my british friends

Hello, readers.  Welcome to my first real blog post.  Are you enjoying the relaxing and beautiful water theme?  I hope so.

So I fly out tomorrow and I found out today that I’ll be living in British student housing instead of privately-owned rooms for American students.  This is good because it’s much cheaper and also because it will help me become immersed in London culture.  However, I am worried that my roommates, etc. won’t like me because I’m American and Americans sometimes enjoy acting like imperialist pigs.  I voiced these concerns to my mother and she said that my roommates will like me because I’m not an “ugly American” (I believe this expression refers to ugliness of the spirit, not of the visage–they are not that judgemental).  Still, I have decided to brainstorm some of the most offensive things I could say to my British amigos and write them here in my blog so I’m not tempted to say them out loud:

• “I will apologize for the misdeeds of my country when you apologize for the Stamp Act.”
• “I know what a fiasco your legal system is, I’ve seen A Fish Called Wanda.”
• “My people invented liberty.”
• “I’m drunker than Winston Churchill right now.”
• “Why the fuck do you all look so inbred?” 

I feel much better now.  Wish me luck. I hate flying.

GET EXCITED 2!

“I’ve got my dad’s short legs and long back. My mom, my sister, and my brother all have blonde hair and blue eyes. I’m the only one like this. My sister’s very tall and beautiful. But then again, I’m talented and rich.”  –British chanteuse Lily Allen

WE CAN LEARN SO MUCH FROM THESE PEOPLE.

GET EXCITED

The Young Ones and Motorhead getting ready for a stint on University Challenge…well done on all counts, Britain!