oh my god

I cannot believe the Philadelphia Phillies just won the World Series.

 

(I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Italy.  See you in a week!)

british eccentricity #42069

Weirdly familiar salutations: the prevalence of “xx” as a way of ending text messages, my advisor signing all his e-mails to me “Yours ever” (which I’m sure is just the British equivalent of “sincerely,” but is still jarring).

SO SORRY

Hey everybody.  First of all, I just want to say that if you’ve recently sent me an email or a facebook message and I haven’t replied, sorry.  It’s not personal; I’ve been really bad at keeping in contact with everyone.  Why am I such a stupid failure?!!?!?!?!?

Not much to report here.  My flatmates and I are leaving Friday for a week in Italy, where I am sure hilarity will ensue.  I think I might have to buy one of those ridiculous Euro tourist backpacks because I can’t drag a little suitcase around and I don’t think I can leave it in the hostel.  Ugh.

Went to the area around Spitalfields Market (is this Clerkenwell?  I don’t know anymore) and Brick Lane yesterday.  This is where I was trying to get when I accidentally went to the Charles Dickens museum and it was pretty fun.  It’s sort of a way-less-intense Lower East side: a former immigrant neighborhood that now has lots of boutiques.  It also has London’s only real bagel (or “beigel” as they prefer to spell it) place.  It was a decent enough bagel.  You could tell they used a “real” bagel-making technique, but it was nothing that would garner much enthusiasm in New York.  The Brits were like orgasming, though, because you can’t get moderately-priced food that tastes good in this city.

Speaking of New York, my friend Molly Jane (who does not like London) told me before I left that London is like “the worst parts of Manhattan.”  While I do not entirely agree with this, it is actually a good way of understanding what I’ve found to be the most disappointing aspect of London life.  You know when you’re not in a “cool” neighborhood in NYC and the only thing around are giant franchises of national chain stores?  Like, all you see is the biggest Gap you’ve ever seen, an enormous Starbucks, a bunch of businessmen running around?  Most of London is like that.  If the American small business is threatened, the British (or at least the London one) is extinct.  If “bohemian” life is becoming less possible in New York, all traces of it have been erased over here.  I can’t speak to the immigrant neighborhoods, where I’m told life is much different, but “mainstream” London often seems a little faceless.  

Finally, I’m growing out my bangs and they’re at a really bad length right now.  But next time you see me, you will also see my forehead.

keswick

This weekend I went to Keswick, which is a beautiful area in the Lake District National Park.  Like any vacation you might go on, I found there were both pros and cons.  For example, a pro was that I have never seen so many sheep in one place at my life.  A con was that I had to go on an intense hike in jeans and Chuck Taylors and I fell in a puddle.

There was no internet or cell phone reception so I got a lot of reading done.  It was sponsored by the liason program I used to go abroad, and thus there were American students from all over London, including the less-prestigious universities for people who went abroad without so much as Google-searching “England” (I’m not exaggerating.  Some of these people are fucking idiots).  Therefore, many of my fellow guests were terrifying preps who got really drunk at the bar and played Spin The Bottle (wow, “adult” party games.  Sexy?).

I had the opportunity to go to Dove Cottage, the one-time home of William Wordsworth.  I was kind of like “whatever” on the way there, but it was actually wonderful.  The house was beautiful and the whole center was staffed by really serious scholars of Romantic poetry, including my tour guide who became visibly embarrassed when discussing one of Wordsworth’s “lovers,” with whom he had an illegitimate child.  Very inspiring, overall.

Oh, yeah, and I assume you all saw this piece of trash:

SIT THE FUCK DOWN.  ”Joe Biden is the third most LIBERAL senator in Congress.  LIBERAL LIBERAL LIBERAL.  Have you guys noticed that Barack Obama is BLACK?  Anti-American, Anti-American.  Blah blah blah, more bullshit that is offensive to people with real problems.”   

While I get that unleashing this Frances-McDormand-in-Fargo-esque monster is Karl Rove’s last-ditch effort to get Grandpa McCain elected, THIS IS TOO FAR.  Seriously.  This country is in trouble and doesn’t need your thinly-veiled race-baiting all up in its TV screens.  Chris Matthews, you hate women.  Why didn’t you smack a bitch?

The confounding thing about all (I mean, apart from the shockingly regressive anti-intellectualism and  blatant witchhunting) is that BARACK OBAMA IS NOT EVEN SCARY.  He is honestly one of the most boring, vanilla politicians around.  Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing him speak and I obviously agree with most of his platform, but he is TOTALLY BORING.  Compare him to Joe Biden (that anti-American socialist who is the third most LIBERAL senator).  Even Joe Biden makes gaffes and says weird shit (bragging about his IQ, the whole “Obama is clean and articulate” remark).  Barack Obama is just like, “Mmm, that’s a great question, Jim.  Let me go think about it in my study for eight hours while pensively spinning a globe.”

Well, that’s all, kids.  Lock your doors at night so Bill Ayers doesn’t come snatch you in your sleep.  He’s, uh, pretty scary.  Yep.  Former member of Weather Underground turned education activist….I’m…genuinely horrified.

in which i get served.

Today, as I walked back from class, I put on my iPod and turned on some Johnny Cash.  ”I love Johnny Cash,” I thought to myself as I made my way across an intersection.  ”Johnny Cash is great.  How can so many people hate on American culture when we have Johnny Cash?”  At that moment, a ponytailed man in a Mudvayne shirt walked past me and I was like, “Good point, universe.”

SO TERRIBLE

Today, I went into a high-end pet shop in Primrose Hill and there weren’t even any fucking animals.  How long do you think I complained about this?  If you said, “throughout lunch and for most of the rest of the afternoon,” you are correct.

I had a really funny idea for “performance art” today, which may be a sign I need psychiatric intervention.

Also, this blog layout is dumb.  I know I said I wanted a “beautiful and relaxing water theme,” but it just gets worse everytime I look at it.

briefly.

Walk through Camden Town: ehhhh.  Didn’t see Amy Winehouse, though she apparently lives there.

Also, to the gnarly cold sore growing on my lip: YOU’RE NOT OKAY.

pub crawls.

Yesterday was my friend Gavin’s 21st birthday!  Happy birthday, Gavin!  Since Gavin is generally a baller/an alcoholic (he went to Oktoberfest), he decided he would ring in this most joyous occasion with a pub crawl, in particular, the Circle Line pub crawl.  I can’t find a good map on the internet, but the Circle Line is a tube line that goes in a circle (duh) around what is roughly most of central london.  It is composed of 27 stops and Gavin and our other friend Courtney (who also went to Oktoberfest) hit them all.  They started at ten in the morning and got home at roughly eleven at night.

Now, I didn’t get to do the whole thing, seeing as I, um, had to go to class, but I did join in at the end from about 5-9.  This turned out to be a good thing because it meant that I got to see everybody in their hilariously alcohol-soaked state yet also remain sober enough to herd the drunkest ones along.  Everyone was in a good place, though, especially Gavin, who lay down on the ground at various junctures in the evening and kept calling me “Emily” to piss me off. Gavin also screamed: “We’re getting off–THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!” and “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, BITCH!” on a crowded Tube.  A frightened man handed me his newspaper.  It was awesome.

Overall, the Circle Line Pub Crawl: Recommended.

Also, had a vaguely Twilight Zone moment with the leader of my seminar (like a discussion section).  He asked me where I went to university in the States and I said I went to a school called Brandeis University.  He said, “Oh, yes, Brandeis.  Isn’t that the one in Annie Hall?” and then proceeded to quote the entire “You’re like a New York, Jewish, Left-Wing, Liberal, Intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, Socialist summer camps, and the father with the Ben Shahn drawings” monologue so beloved to Brandeis students.  I was like, damn.  Well done.

Some observations, in bullet form.

• My fellow students in the English department are overwhelmingly female.  Additionaly, they’re generally very beautiful and have that almost toothy-sounding posh accent (think Keira Knightley in Atonement).
• I went back to the British museum and took pictures of the Assyrian man-goat idols.  Most museums are free here, plus the streets are so clean I can’t tell when I’m in a dodgy neighborhood, and the parks are really well-maintained.  I guess this is what happens when you pay higher taxes?  Good show.
• People are always making a fuss about “unlicensed T.V.s” and I was like WTF?  Why would you have to have a license for a T.V.?  Turns out when you buy the license, you fund the BBC, so owning a T.V. without a license is essentially pirating.
• As douchey as it looks when an American wears one of those ridiculous AA “Legalize LA” t-shirts, it looks even douchier when a British person does it because you know there is NO WAY they care about American immigration issues.
• People over here often wear Converse-type canvas shoes but theirs are always very white.  It goes without saying that, in America, nothing is more embarrassing than wearing clean Chuck Taylors.  I knew people who would get a new pair and immediately run them over with a car (I’m not kidding).
• Anti-Americanism watch: drunk guy screaming “fascists!” at us; drunk guy asking my friend Courtney if she was racist; sober guy telling my friend Ellis it was her fault that the bus they were riding was diverted because of a bomb threat; drunk guy blaming Britain’s shitty economy on America’s shitty economy.  My take on all this?  It’s getting kind of fucking annoying.  Like, if an Iraqi wanted to roll up to me and scream “Fuck you, fascist!” at me, I’d be like, “Fair enough.  Sorry about all the illegal imprisonment/torture.”  But these Blackadder-looking middle-aged men need to knock it the fuck off.  First of all, if I wasn’t talking to you in the first place, I probably don’t want you to come up to me and start spewing really obvious talking points about Israel (“Wait…you’re saying that America thinks it might politically benefit from having a Western presence in the Middle East?  Call the John F. Kennedy School of Government!  This man is a genius!”).  And, second of all, STOP WHINING.  Your bus got diverted?  Aww….  Inflation got you down?  Aww…. Why don’t you go down to New Orleans and talk to some of the folks down there?  Or maybe you’d like to talk to some of the Americans who’ve lost their jobs since Bush got elected?  Or low-income women of color who–oh, what’s that?  You don’t want to talk to those people because they’ve actually suffered because of the policies of this administration and you’re a whining pansy who’s mad because he’s not “scoring” with any of the 19-year-olds in this bar?  Well, if you’re sure….
• That said, I sent in my absentee ballot yesterday and the man at the post office was very friendly and sweet.  And I had a very kind waitress yesterday, too.  Tipped her 25 percent.  What can I say?  I’m a big spender.

no more kings!

So my friend Courtney, who’s also an affiliate from the U.S., is taking a class called Colonization.  It requires an oral presentation for its final and the topic assigned to her was “Were the American colonies were treated fairly or unfairly by the British Parliament?”

I’m going to let you fill in your own joke here.

Also, if you just can’t get enough of my “kicky observational humor,” my first overseas piece is up in The Hoot (Brandeis campus newspaper, in case any non-Brandeisians are reading this). Anyway, something is wrong with the html on the site and it makes it look like every sentence is a separate paragraph and I did recycle a couple of jokes from this blog, but check out those cartoons! I don’t know who did them but I love the Guinness glass. Very cute.