the day you move, I'm probably gonna explode.

I'm in Brighton.

I realized I promised many things in my last post, promises I will not be able to keep. My computer is packed away, the computer cords are packed away in another place, my computer charger is packed in still one other place. So... Pictures will have to appear when I return to the states. Many apologies, darlings.

The last couple days at UEA and MCC and Norwich were lovely. We reminisced, we partied. We danced, we cooked. We took pictures and went out to dinner and out to breakfast. We turned flat one into a dance floor, flat four into a mess hall. I had a final cocktail at the Birdcage, my favorite pub. Joseph and I had a filling meal together at the Bell Hotel. I had planned to see a movie at Cinema City, a wonderful movie theater, but it fell through. We shopped. We had hot chocolate. I watched folks ice skate. I turned in my final assignments.

One final night at the UEA club was spent watching the Vengaboys, bumping cars on the dodge 'ems, getting twisted on the Twister. I had a vodka red bull, which happened to be just as bad idea as I imagined. Almost everyone from MCC went together, and I saw people from my courses and my clubs and we danced, and we shook, and we stomped. We sang along and clapped.

I kind of felt like it was the end of days, like we were dancing and eating and looking and hugging and crying as though this was it, the world was ending, goodbye earth, goodbye moon, goodbye stars. Of course it's a much nicer reality than that - as I was packing things haphazardly into my suitcase, saying goodbye to people and feeling a tightness in my stomach and in my throat, people were coming in to say goodbye, to gasp at my barren walls, to take final pictures... but it never felt final. At first I imagined it was because I didn't want to leave, didn't want to deal with the reality that everything was ending... but to be truthful, it's because I know I will see these people again. Patrick is easy, he's in San Diego. Jack and Joe have a year abroad, both of them near northern California. Alice loves traveling, I'm sure we could backpack someplace together. Hannah promised she'll teach me how she dances. Joseph is a SoCal kid at heart, he just has to come and visit me to realize how much he needs the sand and sun to live. All these lovely folks are not relegated to this period in my life. I am a good letter writer, a good facebook messager, a good email-er.

I am going to keep in touch.

But now I'm in Brighton with Joseph, spending our time walking through the shops but not buying anything, drinking mulled wine, being cooked for by his parents who are incredibly nice to me. It's making me very homesick. I want my parents. I want my home. I want mulled wine in my city... although I think I will have to make it somehow.

Home soon, and I doubt I will post before then. But good news... I'm going to keep this blog.

as you turn while wandering...

This is my last full day at Mary Chapman Court, and, in the larger sense, Norwich. I'm packing and going to some of my favorite places in the town, buying chocolate, trying to enjoy it.

But I'm really sad. I just said goodbye to Abbey, and Kaitlyn. More goodbyes to come.

I'm going to do a much more fulfilling post tomorrow, complete with pictures of me in a Santa beard, and me with a moustache. Lots of strange facial hair to look forward to.

I have not actually packed anything yet. It's all in the planning stages.

Why do I do this?

radio heart.

I have been doing nothing all day. Lethargy has used its limp, clammy grip and managed to wrap my brain in its disgusting, effortless grasp. I am not sick. I am just nothing.

Last night was fantastic and epic, cathartic and just plain ol' good fun. I was a paper boat floating in the atlantic ocean, or, in less poetic terms, a tall skinny kid in the middle of a Futureheads mosh pit. I think most of the time I just yelled what parts of the chorus I knew and danced and tried not to let anyone fall around me. Joseph and I emerged with our shirts a darker, sweat-stained color, smiling and pleased with the amount of pushing, pulling, and yelling we had accomplished.

I noticed that the parents of one of the opening bands was there. It was refreshing to see a 50 year old, bald man singing along, and then the singer giving his dad (this is all assumption by the way. for some reason, I just think that people of a more advanced age at concerts simply must be there because they are the parents of either the band or a fan) a smile.

I should get back to the nothing. I'm proud I blogged at all.

Is your bed made? Is your sweater on?

I have had a pretty wonderful past couple of days. They have been laid back but festive, settled mostly but a bit frantic as well. I've written a story that I am proud of, first of all. That always puts me in a good mood. It needs a better ending, but overall I think it is a good one. Wanna read it? Let me know.

Secondarily, I have been going out again. I realize my last post was a bit doom and gloom. I am fully aware that I will keep in touch with everyone via e-mail, facebook, and in some cases, letters. I'm excited about that as well. It's just... I don't know. I know ties aren't severed, the rope is just getting a bit longer. Which is fine. I just know I'm going to miss here, just like I miss there. My goodness though, I'm back in less than two weeks! My heart pitter patters at the thought! Familiarity! Family! Friends! Festivity!

One of the nights out I've had recently was an indie dance night. I flailed and shook and all of the things that are (sort of) accepted as dance these days... I even got up to sing with one group called "the Little Ones." I learned a new dance as well. It's called "The New Jumper." I will show it to interested parties... the dance should be an international sensation, sweeping the world by 2009. Jack and Joe provided some music, and I must say, throwing my hands up and shouting to "Shout" along with Kaitlyn, Rachael, Sam, and Grace is one of my favorite memories. I have lots from Norwich.


The attire on the invitation said "Christmas Jumpers." Do you like mine? It's from Gap!

Last night, Hannah and I took a walk down to one of my new favorite places - the Fat Cat. Over 80 different choices of beer, all of them described in loving detail. I don't really know what "full-bodied" means for a beer. I also don't know what a "nice, hop-filled finish" means, exactly. I just know that Hannah had one that tasted of chocoalte, and I had one that tasted of a fruit bowl at first, ending in a nice, beer-y flavor.

Also, I had an absolutely miserable snack, called Pork Scratchings. Basically, it's pork grisle (grisel? griscle? grizel?) that has been fried up in salt and oil, and then put into a sealed bag and kept behind a bar for any number of years. There is no expiration date on the bag. That is suspect. I ate an entire bag. During this snacking, my sense of self worth took a nose dive. I was lucky to have a full-bodied, hop-filled finishing beer with hints of fruit and pine, really. Quite refreshing.

And somewhere in there was a cider with flatmates Harry, Sam and Alex. They wasted their pocket change on this horribly addicting trivia machine that will ask you which continent the United States are on at first, and then ends by asking you obscure bits of Malaysian political history. Sometimes, it lets you win a couple pounds, sending you into a frenzy of hope. But alas, the hope is for naught. Your sense of self-worth takes a nose dive. You walk home and the only thing to lift your spirits is a box of Mark and Spencer's chocolate cereal. I want to bring a box of this home.

And finally, it's glove weather in Norwich. Biting, bitter cold. I rode my bike to school in what I believe was sleet. But I only have to manage it for a week, so I'm grinning through the whole thing. Oh, Winter. I have never experienced you to this degree before.

I hope it snows.

I got time to hold my own.

I would like to wish you all a happy December. I thought I would miss the suburban lights almost immediately - one thing I love about USA Christmas (TM) is the "Gotta Beat the Johnsons" mentality of Christmas lights. But insead of that good ol' American display of I-care-less-about-my-electricity-bills-than-you-do, we have this:


This too (that color being projected actually changes. Not unlike the Disneyland castle.):


And this lovely string of lights as well:


Yessir, Christmas is coming. I miss my family and I have been spending the last couple of days doing little to nothing. I'm chipping away my play but it is nowhere near as fast a writing as when I wrote my play about superheroes. I wrote that play with super-speed. Ha! Honestly though, every year since I can remember... at least since I have been away at school... I have had a bit of winter ennui. I thought, perhaps, being in the United Kingdom would change that, but alas, no. I have to fight it to make myself get out of the house, to participate in things that I used to welcome with open arms. I don't know why, or how this happened, this particular form of seasonal social disorder, but it's happened and I'm fighting it. I'm going out when I can and I'm hanging out with folks. Poker is big right now, with cookies taking the place of money. Joseph is still ill, so sometimes we just converse in my room about things like television, musicals, and (as usual) the difference between the US and the UK.

I'm still happy, though. Happy with a bit of sadness on the edges. It's kind of like present-wrapping, actually, to make a seasonal metaphor. Packages look absolutely incredible - they have appeared as if by magic, wrapped in boxes, with magic inside. A lovely seasonal guessing game. But there is a bit of sadness because eventually, that package will be ruined, the gift inside revealed, the glitzy paper off to the trash can. That's how I feel. I feel like every day is one of those packages. Happy but a bit futile.

The futility is from the fact that these people that I am with, who I have come to care about quite a bit, who I live with and share hot cocoa with, whose papers I help edit and distract from, who I walk to university with and get pints with in the evening... I will probably never see a large fraction of them ever again. Our futures all lie elsewhere. New Zealand, Germany, Serbia, Scotland, Canada. So while I love doing all these things, it feels impermanent and sad at the same time. Like the wrapped package.

Sigh. It's a complext emotion. Have I described it adequately enough? I think so.

Let's talk about Harry Potter! Tomorrow, the Harry Potter collection of fables comes out. I am incredibly excited! As far as I know, there is absolutely no plans for midnight parties or anything (as far as I know. I'm going to the bookstores today to find out.) But that's fine. I'm just excited to read something new from this universe. When I can't get to sleep in my little dorm room, I put on Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter 6 and eventually get lifted into a fantasy dreamworld and then sleep.

And, I'm sorry, but the UK version has a much better cover. Observe:

Totally vintage, as though it was on the shelf of a wizard. Compared to this thing:

I can't wait!

they made a wreck of you.

Happy December! Joseph and I are going to go buy an advent calendar. Chocolate helps count down days, were you aware of it?


Ready for this? Thanksgiving, England style. Patrick and I managed to have 18-20 people over, which was more than we bargained for. Both apartments contributed chairs from rooms and dining rooms, their dining room tables, and our tiny ovens, to concoct wonderful Thanksgiving staples like sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cauliflower smothered in cheese, roasted vegetables, fried parsnip, and two giant roast chickens. It was cheaper than Turkey.


It was incredibly heartwarming to be surrounded by so many loving, wonderful people, brought together to stuff themselves silly. Our table was fantastically multi-cultural, with only four people out of the 20 or so ever having experienced a Thanksgiving before. Sam insisted it was much more British because 53 pint cans of Strongbow Hard Cider were consumed. For some reason, Sam measures British-ness in drunkenness. This is not a universal measurement.


My favorite bit was saying what we were thankful for. So many people thanked us for their first thanksgiving, others thanked families that could probably hear them with heartstring connections, (I partook in that. Did you, family, hear it?) I also tthanked everyone for coming together and being like family - Patrick and Joseph like brothers of mine. Alice like a mom. That's about where the family metaphor ends, but the family connection is a lot stronger. We are a fantastic group.

Oh yes. My contribution was coconut tea cake, which was like pound cake. I don't understand why, in these autumn/winter months, you can buy coconuts in every single market, but pumpkin is completely scarce. Still though. It was delicious. I took this picture in the middle of dessert, remembering I didn't take a picture before this.


I called the family on Thanksgiving. It was a lovely conversation, and bittersweetly, it was the last time that I talked to Bill Foster. Bill Foster passed away on Sunday, and he will be missed. Losing family is one of the most surreal and terribly sad things that can happen when you are away - or at any time, really. He was a wonderful man and my best wishes and thoughts are with Aunt Annette and my cousins. My thoughts are always with my family at any given time, but even more so now.

You'll be one of us when the night comes.

So, Barcelona.

There's a song... hold on, I'll post it at the end of this post. I don't know why I told you to hold on... I guess this is what they call "live blogging". The blogosphere is totally lame. Do you realize how many cute cat blogs there are out there? Have you any clue?

What was I talking about?

Oh right, Barcelona.

I think Barcelona, as a city, singlehandedly caused the unraveling of what I call reality. Ever since my trip to this warm Spanish city, I have had trouble connecting the already disparate events of my life. Now I'm on ice floes, jumping from island to island, curious about where I'm going, where I came from and if the ice will hold.

If I look angry in that picture in Barcelona, I wasn't. Not at all. In fact, even though I think the unsewing of the quilted patches of my life is a direct result of the eight hours I spent getting to the country, I found Barcelona to be a gorgeous, if confusing, city.

First of all, I don't speak Spanish, which everyone in Barcelona speaks. I also don't speak (much) French, which was the principal language that Ariane, Caroline and Fabien spoke. So the first night there, we drank these lovely drinks to get the whole situation a bit more lubricated:
It is called a Guarapita (I believe) and it is made from freshly squeezed passionfruit, rum, vodka, and another type of Spanish rum that I never think I heard properly. We drank those and we went from mildly talking and eating snails and calamari and squid and mussels to this:


Ha! See the good times? It was just odd, because they all spoke in French. So a lot of the time I spent in my head, describing the techno music mixing with the old architecture, and the seemingly endless amount of lovely squares hidden in the side streets there. The strange and interesting cultural difference of Barcelona to London is that London insists on planting grass and lovely plants and putting statues in the center, and Barcelona is content to put large slabs of concrete and let people skateboard. Also, there were many dog drinking fountains.

Here is the other interesting thing about Barcelona: Gaudi. The further segmenting of my reality can be blamed totally on the architecture of this man. Randomly strewn throughout the city are his works, like buildings amongst other buildings and park benches with his style of mosaic and then this monstrosity:

The Segrada Familia. Absolutely terrifying and amazing, and it was started in 1884. And it will be under construction forever, I think. It's just... never wanting to be finished. It's better that way, actually, if you ask me, because it's this strange and beautiful work and it stands as a testament to this man who was basically a little bit or a lot insane. That first picture, where I look perturbed (I'm not, by the way) I was in the park that he designed, and it's similarly deranged and beautiful. Let me see if I have a picture to illustrate that.


See that? Bizarre.

The other thing about Barcelona is they put all of their food in lots of butter, or chocolate. This is something I can get behind. Here are churros and chocolate, which was fantastic and went together quite well, if you ask me.



And then here is the best paella I think I will ever have. It's certainly the best paella I have ever had in my young life. There were crayfish, and mussels, and every bite of saffron rice had tiny shrimp. I had two helpings. This was gotten from the restaurant below Fabien's place, and we sat around the table talking (they talked a bit more than I did) and drank delicious red wine and I just wondered if suddenly, like a movie, I would understand french implicitly and then I could join in. I also wondered about other things, and I came to the conclusion that Barcelona is the way it is because it is basically a very international city, a concentration of lost souls, trying to party away their problems, eating collage foods in a city of mad construction projects and chasing pleasure and fruit.



Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just... strange. My last night and day there I spent by myself because Ariane and Caroline got a plane for the day before. I don't really know how that happened, but Fabien and I went out to a couple different bars drinking pretty bad beer that night, and we tried to communicate why we both felt a little bit at a loss for words. Have you ever tried to communicate a loss for words? It doesn't work.

And on that Monday, I just sort of wandered around with my clothes on my back and tried to figure out how to best amuse myself before I spent another day on planes, trains and automobiles. I ate fruit and drank a mango coconut smoothie in an incredible market where people shouted fast Spanish about their various fresh wares. And I went to that park where I took the lizard picture and I just felt completely lost in the world, too small and too insignificant and I tried to find people who were speaking English and failed, so I just sat and looked out at the whole city and wished for companionship. I felt oddly free and happy though, at the same time. So it was a happy loneliness, which is bittersweet. Popsicles were appropriate though, so I bought one of those and a cheese sandwich and eventually made my way home, via a taxi, a train, a subway, an airport van, a plane, another three connecting metros, and one final train. And my feet. You can't forget your feet.

Quite the winding path.

Barcelona is basically just a product of collages - putting things together and hoping it all works. That's why the band below works - they are 26 people and they are called I'm From Barcelona even though they are from Sweden. After a couple of those Guarapitas, me and Fabien sang this song as we walked the avenues and side streets.



I'm glad Ariane invited me. I hope I get to see her one more time before I head back to the states.

down to the ground.

Tomorrow: off to Barcelona.

Today: wrote some of my play, watched Wall-e. Twice, maybe. I absolutely love this movie. Maybe I can relate... the traveler, in a new place, trying to tie himself to something he knows.

Wall-E had Eve on the Axiom. I guess I have... well. I used to have an iPod, which was a lot like Eve. Oh iPod! I miss you so! You were a lovely, lovely iPod, and now I have nothing to listen to.


That's like me, dreaming of my iPod.

Now all I have to listen to is the dreary, cold world.

I feel loads better. Today was what I needed. Wall-e, water, excedrin, soup, and salami sandwiches are great healers. But my mouth is all burnt from all the hot soup. I need some sort of spoon that has a heat senser that tells me if my mouth will be happy with the heat. Does such a spoon exist?

Christmas is coming. They finally turned on the lights around town. I'll take pictures when I get back and wow you all. It's like a Christmas card, but real life!

(oh, and no comments on the last post? have I lost you all with my long vacation betwen posts?)

i wouldnt like death if death was good.

What am I doing here?

Perhaps the point in travel isn't to ask that question.

Or, if you do ask it, to answer in a paraphrase of Edmund Hillary.

"Because it's here."

under new management.

Would you read a story about a energetic traveler and a Lewis Carrol character cavorting through Cambridge, punting on canals and seeking out first editions, fiendish for Parsnip soup? The same characters would then catch a girl group time traveled from the sixties, and the energetic traveler's heart would grow four sizes as they hugged him. The next day would then be All Hallow's Eve, and the energetic traveler would transform into a silver and blue tinseled moon monster, ready to go scare-mongering with a red tinseled ghoul. They would scare their way through the evening, until the moon monster, transmogrified, would leave with four mismatched friends to visit the sin drenched city of Amsterdam. Transfixed with crooked buildings, misty bike rides, chocolate covered waffles, the tragedy of Anne Frank, the beauty of Van Gogh, and a pink tinged red light district, he would reconsider how he feels about life and his place in the universe. Oh, and the zealousness for parsnip soup would be replaced with pumpkin flavor. The energetic traveler, now weary, would have a leisurely boat ride back, sleeping through synchronized girl group dreams, ready for a day of rest before another rocketspeed adventure to London, and Paris.

Would you read that story?

I'm trying to live it, if at all possible.

chasing dragons through echo park.

It started with that Knickerbocker Glory. Those of you up on your Harry Potter references will know that in the second chapter of the first book (Philosopher's Stone) Harry decides his day out for Dudley's birthday isn't so bad because he got to have the rest of Dudley's second Knickerbocker Glory. Faced with the choice of this strange treat on a menu, I had to have it. And it was delicious. It's going to be a bi-monthly treat I think, because the cafe is in the Sainsbury center, which is where my art class is, and where I like to sort of... meditate, I suppose. That's the best word for it.

From that fantastic feat of fructose-laden frozen feast, Tuesday to Sunday has been a gag reel of good moments. Like... a caffeine-driven first draft of my play in an evening. Coming out even on the electronic pub quiz with Joseph, Sam and Jonny. Accidentally delicious red-wine sauce pasta. British comedy until 2 am, coffee chats about london and weather, gin and tonic after terrible cinema, pints of cider after halfway decent cinema.

It's difficult to describe the time I'm spending, and I realize that when I leave it this long between telling you all what I'm doing, I make these long highlight reel-esque posts where I don't really explain the fine moments of everything. So here goes:

The sun came out on Thursday, and I found myself on campus with Kaitlyn, faced with a decision. Do I allow her to continue studying and outlining whatever it was she was doing, or do I lure her out of her library tomb to visit the lake. Everytime I see it as I walk to class I think of it as the Hogwarts Lake (named the Black Lake in the fourth film, but I'm not convinced. Those of you truly astute, however, will know that Slytherin's common room is below the Black Lake. Interesting.)

So we ventured, and I had a profound feeling of peace and tranquility along with intense literary triumph for I got to, once again, pretend I was in Harry Potter. I also pretended I was in the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh and Piglet at some points, and at others I pretended I was with Toad and Mole along the Thames. But at all points, I was supremely happy. In this photo, I am taking the road less traveled by, which led to horses. Fat ones.



Look at that, and the one below. Lovely!



I think it's a testament to the wonderful friends that I have when I have no shortage of people to see bad films (Ghost Town, Eagle Eye) or have a cup of coffee with. Another sign of excellent friend choice was yesterday, in the cold breeze of Norwich amidst smatterings of drizzle, Hannah, Joseph, Alex and I saw a poster for a Book Fair and then spent a good, long time finding it.

That's not Hannah, by the way. In the middle of creepily smiling Joseph and I is lake buddy and all around wonderful companion, Kaitlyn. That was pre-Ghost Town, which is just an awful movie.

Go see it though.

But perhaps the most profound thing of note recently is that I finally have the ability to lose myself in a good book again. This was a difficult thing when I first got here because of all the things that I was seeing/experiencing for the first time. But now I'm settling into life here, for better or for worse, and although I'm not taking Norwich for granted, I no longer stop and skip on the cobblestones. At least, not everyday. On the bus, I get lost in this:


It's really bizarre. Take a look, though, if you like secondhand books, because that's basically what the story is about.

Cheerio, pip pip and all that nonsense.

why did I never tell you?

(Pretend it's Monday, please. Not Tuesday. Monday I was exhausted and Finding Nemo was on.)
Okay so I'm not crazy.

Well, I'm a little crazy.

But not as crazy as you may think.

My baby dragon, named Pierre, joined me on my cavorting around London-town. It was lovely, and the coat was mostly not needed, but it definitely made me look like a tough, grizzled detective. And perhaps, in low tones, I narrated the whole trip to Pierre as though we were a team of detectives. And perhaps I pretended like Pierre was like a french Ned, and we were bringing statues to life to tell what happened at the crime scene.

Perhaps.

Here's Ned... I mean, Pierre, making friends with Ben.

This was after a winner's breakfast of water and a lemon meringue tart. This was in a coffee shop in Soho that had a broken coffee machine.

Chelsea and I met up, and she took me to a Democrats Abroad Obama rally. Pierre approved! "Oui, Monsieur Obama!" he said.


Pierre and I went to a 3d movie at the Scien?e [sic] museum. I inferred (that's science talk for guessed) that they did not have any 3d glasses that were his size. He enjoyed it anyway, because Kate Winslet narrated.


Chelsea and I took Pierre to see Spamalot! which was in a different type of 3d. LIFE 3d. It was hilarious and a lot of fun and in this picture it looks like Pierre is going to break down the Palace theater, Godzilla style.


Perhaps one of the best things I did was walk around the Kensington gardens. Pierre was sleeping in my pocket when I finally found the Peter Pan statue. If I look scruffy to you, it's because I AM scruffy. I haven't shaved in over two weeks.


I also took Pierre to get right and cultured after being lost all over London. We found the British Museum eventually and I finally got to take off my coat. That museum is absolutely one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. Ever, literally. I spent five and a half hours in there, and a lot of them were spent in the Chinese Jade room. Jade is as hard as diamonds apparently, but people still work it into amazing things.


Pierre was really interested in the Rosetta stone. So interested that this picture is super blurry.


Not pictured, because the pictures aren't as good as these ones and blogger is starting to fail on me: me and Pierre reading in a pub, Pierre taking over Trafalgar square, me and Pierre asleep in our hostel beds, eating Indian food, shopping at Harrods, learning how to survive, checking out modern art, meeting a finger puppet Van Gogh, and debating art at the Tate.

My trip to London was fantastic. Sometimes it was lonely though, because I am small and London is quite, quite large. My last day, when I was completely lost and my phone was badly in need of topping up and I had a bug bite on my leg from my hostel beds and my hair was in need of a washing and my bag was starting to feel as though I had accidentally switched my clothes for bricks... I had this moment where all I wanted to do was sit in a cafe and read.

And that's exactly what I did, and three hours later, when my book was finished, it was time for my train back to Norwich.

Most of London wasn't like that though. It was 95 percent fantastic, with fantastic art (National Gallery, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert), incredible museum pieces (British Museum, Science Museum, Natural History museum), great entertainment (Spamalot, street musicians along the Thames, conversations with Pierre), and a whole lot of time to think.

I love being wherever I am, almost all the time.

Emerson, they got you too?

So this is all a grand experiment. There are many working parts to it, but the main hypothesis is that I can cut out an existence for myself in a foreign country that is not only livable but possibly fantastic - in other words, that I and (by slippery slope logic) most of humanity, can live just about anywhere and be happy.

So far, the hypothesis is true. Let's work backwards.

Last night was the penultimate night of Fresher's week - fresher's week is (as one can probably infer) the week where there are many mixers and icebreakers designed at getting the student population to know each other better. The official drink at this sort of event is red bull and vodka, and the official music usually consists of the usual hip hop and r&b, but everyone dances and sings along to Mr. Brightside by the Killers, Banquet by Bloc Party and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor by the Arctic Monkeys.

I don't know why everyone drinks red bull and voda. Mixing caffeine with alcohol is bad for your heart.

Last night they added to the mix of dancing plus alcohol a bizarre trio of beatboxers that could get the crowd dancing but didn't seem to care to keep them dancing for longer than 30 seconds. Also included were Fairground rides and a hypnotist that I didn't watch. Patrick and I went with my flatmate Grace and her boyfriend, and an OC obsessed girl who goes by the name created by her initials, Cem.

Patrick was my roommate while I roomed in London, by the way. He is hilariously awkward and is enjoying this experience in a similar fashion that I am - big wide eyes and excitement at even the smallest things: "Is that a british library? Let's become members!"

It was the last in a long series of going out and dancing with people I only mildly know, and it was excellent. I think what really strikes me at all of these things is how I end up tirelessly yelling a conversation with someone that I have just met midway between the dancefloor or bar. It proves to me perhaps what I already knew: I love talking, and the people make a place.




The day that preceded night was a birthday celebration seaside trip to Great Yarmouth for Jonny. Fifteen of us went down and had fish and chips at the seaside and wasted a pound or two at the two pence machines - awful gambling games that you literally feed money into in hopes that it will push more money out. I got a keychain. We ate ice cream and made a sandcastle version of our halls of residence.

The night before, the flat two floors above us made curry and invited anyone who answered their door to come up and talk with one another. Abbey, who lives up there, is a kindred spirit. She likes Pushing Daisies and even though she lives in England, seems significantly impressed and excited by everything she comes across. These are the type of people I really strive to keep around, in case my interest lags for some unknown reason.

Okay.

Now a word on classes.

I had my three classes - one of which is in the museum donated to our school by Sainsbury's, which is a chain of supermarkets. Both creative writing classes - drama and prose - are a step backward for me. They are more like the intro and intermediate versions, respectively, that I took back at UCSC... therefore, their use is going to be the same use as everything else occuring here: meet more people! Talk to them! I am expected to turn in at the end of the semester a 2500 word story and a 20 minute play. These are things I can do.

My playwriting class is loads more witty than the one back at UCSC though. Our first assignment is to write a 3 page scene from a reimagining of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I hope we get to read them aloud... british accents saying the words I wrote is going to make me smile.

Onward:

Zane Lowe is a dj that is treated like a god, and I saw him and danced with strangers to him. I went to an ISS mixer where I met people from 22 different countries, but ended up talking to a girl upstairs from Brussels for most of the evening. She told me she felt she was betraying her country because she didn't like beer. Every other conversation was the standard five questions - what's your name, where are you from, where are you living now, what are you studying, and then one free for all, usually "what's that you're drinking?"

The days here are filled with all sorts of things - Joseph and I play music for one another and eat sausages and "brown sauce" that we bought at the Tesco's up the way. I talk to Hannah from canada who is in my creative writing class about the relationship of poetry and fiction and why when they are melded, like in Jonathan Safran Foer, it is quite stunning. I have purchased a bike for myself which I am scared to ride because of my unfamiliarity with roundabouts, but I am still alive. We eat bacon rolls and pasta, we read our required reading. I am still exploring Norwich and meeting people - the phone that I bought here is filling with numbers of people that I am texting randomly to meet for a shared candy bar or a walk around the lake.



Societies I joined:
Smoothie society
Cocktail society
Creative Writing society
Archery Society
Rowing society
Ballroom dancing society

I need to not put such a long time between blog posts - things are happening every day that I can't even begin to articulate. I feel very close to my flatmates. They are lovely, interesting people who seem to like me back. I love going out at night with all of these fresh and different people and talking to them about... well... anything. Universality. Obama. French pop music. Guy Ritchie films. Facial hair. Cough syrup.

The hypothesis, revised from above, is that I can live anywhere and be happy. Seems to be true. I am quite happy. I miss the U.S.A. and walks with Anthony and time with Erin and coffee with Audrey and bothering Max and sometimes I even miss selling shoes. But my goodness I love England.

With alacrity, I sink.

I remain incredibly moved by timely handclaps.

Two nights ago it was brought on by a synthesized voice asking to put up your hands and clap, while strobes and spinning beams of light pushed us closer together. As I clapped and danced next to other EAP chums I wondered if my heart was beating fast and hard or if the bass was just that strong.

Last night handclaps were asked for (and received, albeit a bit off beat and drunken) by a British cover band while they sped up versions of Video Killed the Radio Star and Yellow, sung in a gruff voice probably fueled by too much Guiness and, of course, cigarettes.

And just a few hours ago it was in complete joyous unison at the Globe Theater, as the characters of The Merry Wives of Windsor took their bow and sang about being merry. Shakespeare was meant to be performed. I contest reading his words in books. But, honestly... Falstaff got what he deserved.

The energy in this group of EAP kids is electric and a little bit off kilter - a group of 20 somethings right on the precipice of a few months away from what they know. We cling to each other in pubs, follow one another down wrong pathways just because it is difficult to be a leader. A lot of laughter, though. A lot.

I did, however, manage to see Kensington gardens at leisure with an excellent group, posing ridiculous for a photo scavenger hunt in front of a robo-t-rex, a Princess Diana memorial fountain, and other various/sundry bits of interest. And I faux psycho-analyzed an entire table of us at the Naked Chef's british retaurant while eating delicious polenta atop mushrooms and ragu.

I want to storytell like the beefeaters at the London Tower. I want to have the comic timing of Messr. Ford in Merry Wives. But most of all I want to settle in tomorrow and see what lies in store at the hallowed halls of UEA.

People pull the bags under their eyes here.

Last night, I ate a hamburger with a fork and a knife while debating the english-ness of occassion versus opportunity. Caroline had used occassion, Ariane corrected her. I can't remember the sentence, but I thought both worked. And who is the expert?

We talked about other things but I think I had a stronger sense of the fact that no matter how much you travel, your thoughts come with you. Your ghosts stay firmly in the pockets of your jacket, ready to be brought out accidentally while you search for a 2 euro coin. Cobbled streets and cafés on every corner are not eternal sunshine for spotless minds, they are just new places to think about them.

The only thing that manages to make those ghosts more opaque are new people. Like Caroline, who likes to make faces while she does impressions and should quit her job (apparently). And Julien who has had a bad year but an excellent apartment and looks a bit like a model.

Yesterday we went to a self-indulgent art exhibit on dreams which I enjoyed for all of its post post post modernism, and got to play a bit of bad guitar. And then Ariane took me to the canals which reminded me of the part in Amelie when she drops (litters) her empty fishbowl.

Lovely, for a Tuesday.

And Wednesday was another trip to that creperie that made me a believer in flat food covered in sugar and citrus (I was just a little bit skeptical before).

And then... Le Louvre. With La Jocund and Victoire à Samonthrace and a (painting of a) table covered in hacked open seafood being set upon by a barking seal, and egyptian hieroglyphics (in two places). Lots of art. Arty things. We were breezy, talking about anatomy depiction and the strange inability of dutch painters to paint interesting things, and the sheer ugliness of most women and babies in nearly all paintings. Sara: I'm afraid some of the art was lost upon a philistine like me, but I still had an excellent time.

Tonight: Be Happy!

That's the movie we are seeing and a general directive.