Stonehenge

At eleven this morning, I found myself shivering my way around the remains of Stonehenge as part of a trip hosted by USC to visit the colossal archaeological site and the nearby town of Salisbury. It was a great trip; the stones are pretty fascinating. Apparently the rocks used in their construction were brought from over two hundred miles away, and some of them weigh over fifty tons! And the whole structure took fifteen hundred years to build! And nobody knows why it was built! Just imagine how many generations of people were dedicated to erecting this structure! Apparently building began on Stonehenge as early as 3100 BC and the entire thing was completed around 1600 BC (and it went over budget. Hahahahaha). It was a very fascinating trip and our tour guide for the day used the words “mind-boggling” at least thirty times to describe the giant stones. But they were pretty mind-boggling, so I guess she wins this round.

Salisbury was also an experience. In the thirteenth century, the town, then known as Sarum, was located on the top of a hill near the town’s current location. The townspeople decided they wanted to move the town to the current location for easier water access and better protection from the wind, so they asked the town bishop if that would be okay, and he said it would, as long as the first thing they built in the new town was a church. So, today we visited the 700-year-old Salisbury Cathedral, and it was quite a sight. First of all, it was huge. It was at least one hundred yards long inside, and the vaulted ceiling rose high above our heads, ornate with pale stone decoration and flanked on either wall by beautiful, colorful stained-glass windows. We saw many interesting things in the cathedral, such as the oldest working clock in the world, which was a contraption of gears and pulleys which rang a bell to call the Salisburians to church. Curiously, the church is also the home of one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, an ancient document establishing fundamental civil rights. It was brought back by a famous knight who fought in the Crusades and was entrusted with a copy of this sacred document in 1215, or roughly 250 years before Columbus discovered America and 650 years before Abraham Lincoln would grant similar rights to African Americans. And that’s not even very old over here! Stonehenge is 5000 years old, and there are chunks of rock smattered around London which have been around since the Romans inhabited the city! It’s amazing! Isn’t it!?

More School

I’m having some more problems with my classes. For my design class, my teammates and I are each supposed to draw (technical drawing, mind you) two concepts for the project we are working on, a lightweight tower design. Now, I’d like to use an analogy. Completing a drawing which satisfies all of the teacher’s requirements is about as easy as finding a piece of hay in a needlestack. With a blindfold on. And balloons instead on hands. We received our packet back for the second time today, and received criticisms for the minutest of details. The drawings I spent four hours on did not include arrows at the end of the lines indicating where my measurements began and ended, so I got a nice bit of red pen on my careful drawings and now I get to draw them all over again, with arrows and all. Of course, if he had told me in the first place to include arrows, we wouldn’t have this problem. But that would make things less interesting. For our second packet, which we also received back today, we were simply told it was wrong and to do it over, and when we asked what the professor would like us to change, he either lacked sufficient English to tell us or avoids helping students because of the intense physical pain he associates with constructive criticism. It is frustrating, to say the least.

But as I’ve said before, I’m not here for the education. I’m here for the experiences, of which I have had many, both good and bad. I am broadening my horizons, there can be no doubt of that.

Architorture

I went on the first walking tour for my architecture class today, and we visited some old buildings in a swanky West End neighborhood. Many of the houses we visited were initially owned by artists. Interestingly, many of their studios had large windows facing north because a north-facing window allows for even light at all times of the day. These windows receive no direct light because the sun is always in the southern half of the sky, which I thought was pretty ingenious. Some of the artists built relatively small houses and spent their fortunes decorating the inside lavishly, so the interiors of many of the houses we visited are extravagant, to say the least. We didn’t get to go inside, but we saw pictures of rooms with every wall covered in ornate gold tiles. They were very busy-looking places, not necessarily pleasant to look at. I have to remember these houses for the slide test we’ll have at the end of the semester, so, just for practice, I'll recount the houses we saw today. We visited the Leighton House, the interior of which is dominated by black and peacock blue tiles, and which includes an addition called the Arab Wing where the artist stored the treasures he collected from the eastern world; the Tower House, also lavishly decorated and currently owned by Jimmy Page, the guitarist from Led Zeppelin; and the Bodenham House, which is covered on the outside with green and blue tiles. I've included pictures of this last house, Jimmy Page's house, and a pretty lamppost.

Rugby

There’s nothing like a good game of rugby to revitalize you after a tough night. I woke up shortly before the practice at one o’clock, groggy and lightheaded, but after jogging to the practice field and being steamrolled by some big British men, I felt much better. The weather was terrible; it was drizzling rain the whole time, so the field was very muddy, and so became my clothes, but the practice was fun overall. I’m beginning to understand the game better now, so I can almost play in a regular game without embarrassing myself. Almost. I earned a couple scrapes on my legs, and I accidentally bonked heads with another player about halfway through the practice. From experience, I have learned that my head is much sturdier than the average cranium and generally pretty indestructible, so unfortunately the other player came out on the short end of the stick, as they say, and seemed to be in a bit more pain than I after the collision.

But that’s not to say I escaped pain the whole practice. Once when I picked up the ball (I think it’s called a ball), I tried to run through a kid on the way to the goal and was promptly lifted off my feet for at least two seconds, while my legs still moved in a running motion and I wondered vaguely why I wasn’t advancing anymore, and dumped heavily onto my back. I didn’t come out on top of that one. Literally! Hahah! But I like the game, and I love having the opportunity to run into people again, so I’m happy.

Here's a picture of a tree and an orange peel shaped like an integral, for no particular reason.

Confessions

I saw a woman walking her pet ferret today, and that’s not a figure of speech. She had a ferret on a leash, and at the moment I saw her I realized how weird the world is on Saturday morning and decided I would never again wake up before ten on the weekend to go grocery shopping. It was a very worthwhile trip though (here’s where you’re thinking, “He’s not actually going to tell me all the stuff he bought at the grocery store, is he? I mean, he’s in Europe, surrounded by thousands of years of culture and history, and he’s going to tell me about how his groceries all have weird names, like ‘Frosties’ instead of ‘Frosted Flakes’). If that is indeed what you were thinking, you were right! And it’s remarkable that you knew the name of the Frosted-Flakes-like cereal over here, because they are called Frosties! And they have Tony the Tiger and everything!

I won’t tell you everything I bought, but I will tell you that the chocolate-covered digestive biscuits, which I first thought were for old people, and later realized were delicious and good for you, are not actually good for you. When they were first invented, they were meant to relieve flatulence, but they failed miserably and just turned into an inaccurately-named cookie. Which means, while I eat them three at time, I can’t pretend I’m doing it for the health benefits. The truth is painful sometimes.

After putting away my groceries, I took a short, one-stop tube trip to Stratford to scout out some hotels my parents may patronize when they come to visit me in March. The Stratford tube station is a very grand place. The station is very modern with high ceilings and railways going every which way. There is some type of major bus depot outside also, with information kiosks and fancy bus stops and all kinds of nonsense. It’s all very impressive. I was pretty impressed with Stratford as a whole, actually. It’s a very clean area (like much of London) with a large shopping centre (notice the British spelling), a gorgeous church and a small, friendly commercial district. The hotel my parents should patronize is right across the street from the church. It’s in a great location, only about a quarter of a mile from the tube station.

You won’t believe what happened to me tonight. I got stuck in an elevator for about an hour. I was stuck in between floors one and two in my own building, and it was only due to the incessant company of my new friends that I kept from going insane in that enclosed space. You may not want to know this, but I peed in a bottle. I had no choice. I had to go very badly, and unfortunately I was stuck in an elevator. So yes, I peed in a bottle. It was a strange experience, to be sure. But I still can’t believe it happened. My friends on the outside of the elevator played the blues on harmonica and guitar while I sang the “Elevator Blues” to keep from losing my mind. It was actually a pretty enjoyable experience, and definitely one I will remember for a long time to come.

Boiling Heart Love

I went rock climbing today at the gym nearby. It’s a very nice facility. It has six or seven different rooms dedicated to different aspects of climbing and all of them are very fun. One is known as the monkey room and has holds attached to all the walls and ceiling so you can climb anywhere you want to. I went with my flatmate and a friend from upstairs, and all of us came back to Queen Mary with sore hands and arms, but the experience was definitely fun. I would certainly like to make a habit of climbing there.

I might start trying to consolidate blog posts. Today wasn’t very interesting really; I just went to a couple of classes and went to the climbing wall. I’m not going to remain necessarily dedicated to posting every day; I will post a blog only when I have something entertaining to share. I think the posts will be much better that way, and when I really just want to go to bed, like right now, I don’t have to feel obligated to writing a daily post. Thanks again to everyone who reads all this stuff. I’m very fortunate to have so many people who care about what I’m doing, and I can say with complete honesty and certainty that everyone who reads this blog holds a spot in my heart, in my deepest boiling cauldrons of love, right next to the artery clogged with all those free burgers we got a couple weeks ago and adjacent to the empty lot where my old blanky, capers, and Pokemon cards have all had brief stays. It’s prime real estate.

California Dreamin'

I was a little bit sick today, which was unfortunate because I am supposed to attend six hours of lectures on Thursdays. I made it through the first four, from one to five, but I skipped the session from six to eight. I feel bad, but it was my Spanish class which I’m not actually signed up for. I just decided I’m in it because I want to learn Spanish. I don’t get a grade or anything. I skipped because much of the class is interacting with other students and I was very sniffly and sneezy, so I thought it would be a very unpleasant two hours. Hopefully, my sickness will go away tonight. It has subsided a little bit, so I am hopeful.

I met some more British people tonight. There sure are a lot of them in this country, I don’t know why. One of the people I met had a jacket with a flashy logo which said, ‘California.’ California is treated like a mythical land over here. I told a girl tonight I was from Oregon, and she said, “Oh, is that on the east coast?” but she knew exactly where it was when I said it was directly above California. Almost all of them have plans to visit California, and some of them wonder why I would ever leave such a wonderful place. I laugh and tell them I’m beginning to wonder myself; but I am enjoying myself here. I hope to travel to the Netherlands in a couple weeks. Next weekend (not this coming one, but the one after), I’m going to Stonehenge with USC for a day. My flatmate is pretty keen on traveling as well, so I’m sure we’ll make some weekend trips to various places around Europe.

Ermm….I’m supposed to end with something witty….I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing.

Exciting Day

At present, I’m working through a peanut butter, Nutella and jelly sandwich. It’s very tasty. I coated half of one slice of bread with Nutella, and the other half with peanut butter, and put it together with another slice covered in jelly. I like it.

I spent lots of money today, so it must have been a very exciting day. First, I went to give the study abroad advisor forty pounds for a ticket to the world-class soccer match between Brazil and Italy. I wavered for quite a while on whether or not I wanted to spend that much money on a ticket to a soccer game, but I think the cultural experience will be worth it.

I went downtown to Tottenham Road with my flatmate in the afternoon. We found a sports store which was going out of business. I bought rugby cleats, two pairs of shorts, a rugby ball, a pair of socks, a mouthguard, and a basketball for roughly seventy dollars. I can’t wait to use all my new stuff. I’m sure it will all be covered in mud after the rugby practice on Sunday. Well maybe not the basketball. Unless I play with it afterward without washing my hands or clothes.

When we returned, we decided to go check out a climbing gym located within a five-minute walk of campus. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but it certainly is much. There is a huge room for bouldering (climbing without a rope) with several walls of all different shapes, a room with a high ceiling dedicated to belay climbing, and apparently there is another room which I didn’t see meant for climbing along the ceiling. I didn’t climb today, but I think I’ll probably end up buying a monthly membership there and try to go a few times a week.

I cooked some steaks tonight, of which I am decidedly proud. You can only do so much with salt, but I was satisfied. If anyone has simple, delicious, cheap recipes which can be prepared with one pot, one pan, one bowl, one spoon, one fork and one knife, I would be much obliged. Oh, and salt. I have salt, too.

Lost

I got lost tonight, and it was almost scary. My plan was simple: I wanted to go to a bar which had free jazz concerts every Tuesday night. The place was on Kennington Street. I used the TFL (Transport for London) website to figure out which subways to take to get there, and tonight I followed the directions exactly and ended up at Kennington Street. The only problem was that Kennington Street is a big place. I looked around for the bar for awhile, and eventually decided to explore. I walked for a couple miles down Old Kent Street, a wide, main road with buses running up and down it. All of London’s seedier neighborhoods, which I seem to be individually touring, have the same assortment of tiny, dirty shops. On any given block, there will be about twenty tiny shops. Ten of them will be selling fried chicken. Three of them will be boarded up. One or two will be selling some exotic food, like Thai or Chinese, and the other five will be electronics shops. I walked through different variations of this theme for an hour or so before deciding I’d had enough. I wanted to take a bus back.

The only problem was that the regular buses stop running at ten, so I was left with the night buses, which are far less frequent. I waited at a bus stop for about fifteen minutes before one showed up, and I jumped on. I had looked at the bus map and thought it would take me downtown, where I could take the tube back to Mile End and the QM campus, but instead I ended up kicked off into the cold at the far southern end of the bus route. As soon as I got off, I knocked on the door and asked the bus driver where the closest tube station was. He realized I was lost and told me to get back on the bus. An hour later I was back on campus, a little wiser and a little warier. As much fun as it is to use public transportation (you get to sit quietly and avoid eye contact with the other passengers, it’s one of my favorite things to do), I think I’d like to avoid the situation in the future.

I received in the mail a card from Grandma Rosemary today (thank you, Grandma, it was very nice). It gave me proof that my wacky mailing address is functional. I don’t have a street number, like 1720, followed by a street. Instead I have the name of a house and the name of a street. I don’t really understand the system, but as long as my mailman does I guess I’m in good shape.

School and Eggs

I had a busy day! Now that I know where and when all my classes are, I have to go to them. It’s not as much fun as playing the lecture hide-and-seek I was involved in during the first two weeks. I did some homework today too, for my thermodynamics course, which seems as if it will be challenging, but worthwhile.

I have made scrambled eggs for my last two breakfast meals. I have been pretty proud of them, though both batches were speckled with little black spots which I eventually recognized as paint/metal scraped from the bottom of my cooking pan during the “scrambling” part of making scrambled eggs. If only I had that beautiful cooking pan my dad got me for Christmas. That sure was a great present. At any rate, the paint doesn’t seem to be poisonous. Of course, if I keeled over right now, it could be from those paint/metal chips, salmonella, internal bleeding from rugby yesterday, or a combination of all three. It would be an interesting autopsy.

Rugby

Rugby is a violent game. I realized this today at my first practice with the Queen Mary Rugby Football Club. It took place in Victoria Park, a park (imagine that) about a mile from campus. The field was muddy. We did a few drills to practice certain aspects of the game, and eventually we began a game of scrimmage, fifteen players on each team.

The other players were friendly and explained various aspects of the game to me as we played. I won’t try to describe the game here because I’ll just confuse you, but I think I’m starting to understand it. There’s a lot of tackling, and a lot of yelling, and a lot of falling over and getting muddy. So far, I love it. There is an away game against another university this Wednesday, but I don’t think I’ll be going. I don’t have cleats or the right shorts or shirt, and I don’t know all the rules. I think I’ll sit this one out, but I’m looking forward to getting a chance to play.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

Recently, my cooking skills have increased dramatically. Yesterday, I made chicken. That’s right, just chicken, with a little bit of salt. Considering my repertoire last week consisted of nothing more than cold cereal and PB&J sandwiches, chicken was a big step. It was delicious, and I think I would have a few symptoms by now if I had salmonella, so the meal was a complete success. Pasta is a regular meal for me now (not just macaroni and cheese, but the real pasta that you have to boil and stuff), and I bought some eggs tonight so I can try to fry them tomorrow morning. If I keep improving at my current speed, I should be at a fourth-grade cooking level by sometime in the middle of the semester.

I went for a very long walk today. Starting at the Queen Mary, I walked along the main road to the west until the tall buildings in the distance had grown up around me. The banking district is the easternmost section of downtown London, and it was a surreal place as I walked through it. Nearly everything was closed for the weekend and the few other people walking through the area grasped cameras and wandered with their heads craned upward. I love to walk through an empty city. In the absence of their weekday traffic of eager businesspeople, the buildings are more easily appreciated. Normally, buildings are backdrops for society. You don’t really see them until you are alone with them and you are allowed to have a dialogue. As you walk around and discover patterns and shades and symmetries in a building, you begin to appreciate the creativity involved in designing it, and when you see the countless rivets and imagine how heavy the thing must be, you appreciate the labor committed to constructing it. When you understand the building is a direct result of hard work from hundreds of people, it becomes beautiful, because it becomes a symbol of the greatness of our society. (Disclaimer: When I said you “have a dialogue” with the building, I didn’t mean it literally. I neither advocate nor condone speaking to buildings, nor am I in any way responsible for any injuries and/or deaths suffered as a direct result of yelling obscenities at sensitive office buildings.)

I also saw a very ugly renovation of a building today. See if you can pick out which one it is.

I continued my walk, heading downhill to the Thames. I crossed at the London Bridge and am happy to report it seemed in fine structural condition and was not falling down, as so many grade-school children insist in their little songs. I took a secondhand photo of it, meaning I took a picture of someone else taking a picture of their friend in front of the bridge. I walked down to the Tower Bridge and walked across it to regain the north side of the river. I ended up at the Tower of London and decided I was lost and tired, so I took the tube back to Mile End.

I took a few pictures for you again. I hope you realize how painful a procedure it is to take out your camera in front of a crowd of Londoners and snap a picture of something mundane. You can really alienate yourself by doing that. I definitely got a sneer from a man today who saw me take a picture of a sign which read, “Humped Pelican Crossing,” which I still insist makes a valid and worthwhile picture.

As soon as they see the camera, they just treat you differently. It’s as if you’re revealing an awkward secret about yourself which nobody really gets upset about, but they just see you in a different light, as if it explains so many things about you. I imagine it could ruin potential friendships with British people, because there will always be that question in the back of their minds: “Is he going to try to take a picture of me? Does he have some peculiar interest in my history?” It will be awkward. I just don’t want to seem like a tourist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Cookies

To be brief, all the good stuff I was hoping would happen today in regards to my classes, happened. Dropping my physics class and adding the course about the architecture in London both went off without a hitch, which made for a good start to my day.

I have a wisdom tooth coming in, which I’m hoping will help me with courses this semester, but I’m not sure it’s worth it because it’s been very painful. That’s very corny, I’m sorry, I’m running out of material….

Oh, this is interesting. Today, my two other male flatmates and I were sitting in the kitchen having one of our many meals. This one came between lunch and dinner. We haven’t named this particular meal yet, but we’re open to suggestions. Anyways, we were eating cookies, which in Britain are known as biscuits. The best (and cheapest) kind to buy come in a roll at the supermarket entitled “Digestive Biscuits,” which I at first perceived as a product for either old people or dogs, no offense to either party. But in fact, they turned out to be delicious chocolate-covered cookies. Anyways, we were sitting around the table, and I said, “I think I’ll get another cookie.” My British flatmate looked at me and said, “I think you mean a biscuit, you wanker,” and the French flatmate, who doesn’t speak English very well yet, just looked confused until I came back with a cookie in my hand and he said, “Oh! You mean a cake!” We all thought it was pretty funny, and certainly a story worth sharing. I hope you enjoyed it, because that’s about the only worthwhile thing that happened today. That’s all you get, so read it again, and savor it this time.

Logistics

I attended six hours of class today. It was great. Three hours of the six in a thrilling lecture and discussion about the field of design, my most interesting and appealing class. Today I met the seven other people who compose the group I will be working with for the next ten weeks. We were placed together because, out of the four possible project choices, we chose to work on the same project: the creation of a tower which is both lighter and stronger than the one created in a class last semester. I chose this project because I have a strong background in building structures with DI and it interested me, especially after just finishing a course in Statics, a field which will be very applicable to this project. I’m very excited about the class and plan to ask the teacher about possible design internship possibilities around London.

My last class was titled Higher-Further Spanish, and it is the second most advanced Spanish class offered by Queen Mary. I felt overwhelmed at first, but at the end of the class I decided it was the right level for me: it is difficult, which means I will learn quickly, but not so difficult that I have no clue what’s going on. Unfortunately, since I’ve decided to stick with this class, I will have six hours of class every Thursday.

Tomorrow is an important day, because tomorrow is the last day to change courses and I still need to drop my physics class and add a different class. Sadly, the Scriptwriting course in which I was interested is full, so I am left with only one obvious option: a class for tourists entitled “Architecture in London.” I will go talk to the department counselor tomorrow to see if I can squeeze into one of the two available sections, and if not, I have a problem on my hands. I’ll have to find another course I’m interested in here at Queen Mary, talk to the appropriate counselor about its availability, hope that the answer is positive, and fill out my course amendment sheet with the required information to alter my schedule. Things are infinitely easier with USC’s online system, and I am experiencing painful longing, sentimental feelings for it right now, possibly marking the first time anyone has ever felt genuine affection for a computer system.

[Insert Witty Title Here]

Today, miraculously, I got through the whole day without spending any money. It is the first day I was able to accomplish this feat of mental strength, but hopefully not the last.

As a direct result of not spending any money, the total fun I had today, measured in decibels, was zero. Well, very close to zero. I fell well short of my daily quota of 9746 decibels of fun, anyway.

Before I left Los Angeles, I never thought I would miss it, but I’m afraid I am in that oxymoronic position. Things are different here. The sun doesn’t shine very often. The girls don’t often walk around scantily clad. I don’t get to play Smash on weekends. I don’t get to drive my car. My parents and my home aren’t a short, 13-hour drive away. I think part of the problem stems from my surplus of free time. That’s right, I’m complaining because I have too much free time. It gives me too much time to sit in my room and relax when I should be stressed out, doing homework. Oh, how I miss being stressed out.

Because I don’t have anything interesting to say today, I’ve attached a couple of interesting photographs to make up for it. There is one of a graveyard, located in the middle of campus (I don't know why it's there, but it's pretty cool). There are a couple curious yellow caution signs I've seen around town, and I included a picture of a T.Rex skull from my trip to the Natural History Museum.

Spooky Stuff

Today I achieved my greatest culinary masterpiece to date: succulent pasta, smothered in succulent Ragu pasta sauce, oozing with succulent mild English cheddar and oscillating with succulent pieces of a pork patty I scavenged from our dwindling stack of leftover free sandwiches. The meal radiated succulency, and it was delicious.

In other news, I'll be trying my hand (and probably the rest of my body) at rugby this semester. During a trip to the gym today, I met and spoke with the captain of the Queen Mary Rugby Team, who said he would be happy to have me play. Most matches are on Wednesdays, practices are Sunday, and the season will be over before the month-long spring break in April, so it sounds perfect. Tomorrow I’ll go to a social event to meet the rest of the team.

I successfully attended two out of two courses today: Differential Equations and Thermodynamics. Very exciting stuff.

This evening, I went with a few other Americans on a free walking tour of London bearing the ominous title, “Ghost Tour.” A white-haired Scottish man led us through the city for a couple hours and shared with us the various tales of ghosts who haunt places in London. We heard about Anne Boleyn and Sweeney Todd, among other people, and visited remnants of many historic places in London, including a church which showed damage from World War I, and many pieces of buildings much older than that, like the remnants of the first church in London, founded by the Romans over two thousand years ago.

We took the tube back to our neck of the woods. We waited for the train with this very sketchy young man eating a bag of chips. His eyes were bloodshot and it looked like he needed some sleep. We got on the train, and after he finished his bag of chips, he took out a pencil and wrote on the train wall:

1690

UVF

NO SURRENDER

and got off the train at the next stop. I searched online and discovered that the UVF is an acronym for the Ulster Volunteer Force, described by Wikipedia as “a Loyalist group in Northern Ireland…and a designated terrorist organization in the United Kingdom.” This spooked me a little bit. I couldn’t figure out what the 1690 meant.

Time Keeps on Ticking

Things are hazy…I don’t know why…that is to say, I do know why, but in a blog which is perused daily by several of my closest relatives, I’m hesitant to state explicitly that I had a bit too much to drink tonight. Whoops! No, it’s not that bad, I only had a few pints.

I saw rain today for the first time since I’ve been in London. It was just a light drizzle on a warm winter day. The weather for the past two days has been as abnormally warm as the previous two were cold. It is now one in the morning here and the London temperature reading on my desktop tells me it’s 48 degrees outside, a hardly believable temperature compared to the daytime highs of 25 degrees three days ago.

I still have a lot of downtime. Maybe not a good sign, but I’ve only been assigned one piece of homework in the classes I’ve been to so far. The course load will definitely be lighter here than it was at USC, but I’m afraid it will take me at least until next week to develop a schedule for homework and classes and all that. I was sent away from an academic office today because they didn’t have any more copies of the form I needed, and I am supposed to return tomorrow to see if they have taken the necessary thirty seconds out of their busy schedules to make a few more copies of the quite essential course amendment form, used to make changes to your scheduled classes. I’m planning on dropping my Electricity and Magnetism course in favor of either “Arcitecture in London,” or “Screenwriting,” I haven’t decided which. The Electricity and Magnetism course is being taught a bit sloppily this year by a first-year professor, and, as painful as it will be at USC, I think it would be a good idea to have a solid foundation in this particular area, so I will wait until I return to California to take the course.

My other professors seem very competent and wise, though. The teacher of my Thermodynamics course clearly loves the subject and is confident and enthusiastic about teaching it, two traits which are very desirable in a good teacher. My Engineering Design teacher also seems very friendly and capable, so I am excited about taking these two courses. If only I could find two more classes to be excited about, I would be a happy camper. Not to say that I’m camping over here. I live in a dormitory. I put pictures of it up a few days ago. It’s just a figure of speech.

The eight-hour time difference between London and the west coast makes real-time communication very difficult. For example, while you citizens of the west coast are asleep, roughly from midnight to eight in the morning, I have woken up at eight in the morning London-time and gone to courses until four o’clock. Now, you go to work for eight hours or so, until roughly four o’clock PST. During this interval, I have eaten dinner and gone on some highfalutin adventure which I want to call and talk about, but by the time anyone is available to talk, it’s midnight or one o’clock in the morning here and I go to sleep while all you Oregonians, Californians (and one Washingtonian) are having fun after work. It’s not a good system. I am thankful for this blog, which transcends these problems, and for communication like email and Facebook so I can keep in touch without staying awake all night or waking someone up at five in the morning.

Anyways, I had better go now, I want to finish watching Star Wars: Episode V before I go to bed. Brutal life I’m living over here.

Free(dom) Food

My day was shortened today by a deep slumber I only broke out of at 1:40 pm, I’m happy to say. A Sunday morning well spent.

I went to the kitchen after waking up, and my flatmate told me about some free food which had been dropped off in front of each residence hall earlier that morning, and asked me if I wanted to go commandeer some. I told him that commandeering free food was one of the few sources of real joy in my life, so we went outside to get some. Immediately, I was struck by how warm it was outside. Today was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit; a beautiful day, and perfect conditions for food commandeering. We walked over to the pile of free microwaveable rib, beef and chicken sandwiches (each of these meats had their own respective sandwich, though the prospect of combining all three into one "sandwich to rule them all" is very intriguing) and took a couple boxes for ourselves. On the way back, we noticed the large stack of sandwiches in front of our own dorm which we had walked within two feet of and somehow managed not to notice, so we took a couple more from that stack.

The sandwiches were being given away because most of them were intended to be eaten by today’s date, so presumably they will grow intense amounts of mold as soon as the clock strikes twelve midnight. I did my best to remedy the situation by consuming four of the delicacies over the course of the last eight hours, but we still have a bit of a problem on our hands, since twenty-five sandwiches remain uneaten. It’s a monstrous problem, for which I see no easy solution, so I have trouble keeping despair at bay as I shove the delicious rib sandwiches down my throat. It’s just one thing after another. One sandwich, that is.

I went to the gym with my flatmate and worked on my upper body with him for a couple hours. It was nice to lift again, and we are of similar strength, so we make good lifting partners. Later, I headed back out to the gym to try out for the Queen Mary basketball team. We began the tryout with a fitness test called the Beep Test, which is apparently pretty common in England. It is an endurance test. With about twenty other kids, I ran back and forth on the gym floor for about ten minutes, gradually raising the pace every fifth length. It was a difficult test, but I think I passed. I scored a ten, which was what the coach told us to aim for. There is another tryout practice on Wednesday I'm supposed to go to in order to make the team.

The rest of the practice, we ran a three-on-two, two-on-one drill, tested our vertical jumps and scrimmaged for a little while. I played pretty typical Kevin basketball, which, for those of you who haven’t experienced the phenomenon, is well-described by my performance today. The first incidence occurred on a down-and-back. I ran to the far end of the court, turned around and pushed off to run back and immediately leveled another kid trying out for the team. He fell flat on his back and I yelled an apology as I ran off. The second incidence occurred during the three-on-two, two-on-one drill when a kid tried to steal a pass directed towards me. Our arms interlocked and I nearly unintentionally ripped his out of the socket going for the ball, which I quickly apologized for. The third (count ‘em, three) incidence occurred during the scrimmage when, in the mysterious way I have, I jabbed a kid in the hip with my elbow and he excused himself for several plays to limp around on the sidelines. I may not be a basketball player, but if they need a battering ram, I think I’m first in line.

I think I can make the team, but I’m not sure if I want to play even if I do make it. If I were to play a sport, I would prefer rugby, and I may not even play that because I don’t want to be tied down in case I would like to travel on the weekends. Decisions, decisions….

Anyways, I just finished up my fifth rib sandwich of the day and feel an urgent need to lie down. If I wake up in the morning, I’m sure you’ll hear from me again tomorrow.

History...It's Natural!

I had to skip a day to keep my promise of not updating my blog every day, so yesterday there was no blog. But today there is!

Today was the first day of my first full weekend here and I finally got a chance to have fun. I met a few friends on campus and we all took the tube down to South Kensington to visit the Natural History Museum, one of the many beautiful, fascinating and completely free museums in London. Today was possibly the coldest day since I’ve been here. The temperature was at about -4 degrees Celsius (which is about 25 degrees Fahrenheit for you Yankees). It doesn’t sound very cold, but the humidity is high here, so the cold really strikes you. We hurried inside the museum, walking past the showcase of the first annual London Ice Sculpture Competition on the way to the front door. In the main showroom stood a life-size replica of a Brontosaurus, stretching the entire length of the handsome, high-ceilinged room. I’ve included a couple exterior and interior pictures of the museum, which is a gorgeous place.

We wandered through the rooms, visiting first the dinosaur exhibit, where we took pictures growling like dinosaurs in front of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Afterward we moved on to the Mammals room, which showcased the bone structure and a life-size replica of a blue whale, which filled the entire room. We just finished the Creepy Crawlers exhibit, which focused on insects, when we were told we needed to leave because the museum was closing, so we hopped back on the tube and rode back to our neck of the woods, getting off a little before our regular stop to go to a grocery store.

So far, I’ve tried to be pretty judicious about spending money on what I consider unnecessary items, so at the moment I walked into the grocery store, the total inventory of my cooking utensils included only a butter knife, a spoon, a fork, and a Tupperware container I had bought to use as a bowl. I eat cereal out of it. What more could I need? Well, in order to cook real food, which is something I’ve never done before, I was forced to purchase a flimsy pot and pan for about three pounds each, which I was thoroughly upset about until I got home and used them to cook myself a dinner which included more than cold cereal and a granola bar. I’m pretty happy with my purchase, but I think I’ll keep using the Tupperware.

Thanks for all the support on the blog.

Helpful Teachers

I discovered my physics class, Electricity and Magnetism, which I thought was going to be taught by a David Berman, a very intelligent, accomplished man, will actually be taught by a tedious, dim-witted young man who lectured about vectors today about as well as I could have, which is to say very poorly. We had a conversation after class:

“Hi, my name’s Kevin. I’m an associate student.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, I’m new.”

“Well I’m from the United States.”

“Oh, how wonderful!”

A pause.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. When and where are lectures held?”

“Oh! Well there are three lectures held in three different rooms throughout the week. I would tell you where and when they are, but I enjoy being vague, ambiguous and unhelpful about essential details regarding your education here, just like all the other administrative faculty at this university. It will be much more fun to wait and see if you can find the lectures by yourself than for me to tell you anything about them.”

Another pause.

“Thank you for your help.”

“Oh jolly good, ‘twas nothing, cheerio!”

Another pause.

“Ok. Goodbye.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how the conversation went.

As seems to be the trend these days, I started having a much better time after my classes may or may not have been over. Tonight I was supposed to meet some friends under the Tower of London, but we didn’t connect, so I ended up strolling through the streets of London unabated for a couple of hours. I got completely lost in a seedy neighborhood, so I grabbed a bus to a stop which had a tube station, hopped onto the subway and ended up right back in my neighborhood. It was amazing, and I think I’ll do it again. I loved the feeling of arriving at an intersection and not caring which direction I walked. It was exploration at its finest.

For the past five days, I’ve worn the same pair of jeans and at least three layers. Usually four.

I haven’t seen a drop of rain since I’ve been here. I’ve seen evidence of rain, but no actual rain.

Back to the Drawing Board

Today I had problems.

The plan was simple: two classes, one at 11, one at 12. This is where things got a little weird. The first class, which I suspected to be in a place called the Physics Lecture Theatre, was actually scheduled in a place called BLT on this random sheet of paper I found (this is how things are done in Europe. Your best bet of finding the right classroom for your lecture is to take advice from a sheet of paper you find on the ground.). Anyways, I was in a real pickle. I decided to go find out where the second class would be held and go from there. I suspected it would be in Drapers Lecture Theatre, so I headed there. I walked in the door and was confronted with a staircase and a sign pointing me in the direction of Drapers Lecture Theatre. Now you’re thinking, well at least there’s a sign clearly indicating the direction in which to find Drapers Lecture Theatre. True, there was a sign, but of the two available directional choices (UP or DOWN), the sign pointed straight. I stared at it for awhile and decided I was just being paranoid, the lecture hall was clearly upstairs because the sign was posted on the side of the upstairs staircase. Needless to say, the lecture hall was actually downstairs or I wouldn’t be telling this story.

Pretty exciting story so far. So, Drapers was closed this week for construction, so classes would be held on the Whitechapel campus, a twenty-minute walk away. My second class would be held in Bearsted Lecture Theatre, a BLT, just like the one I thought my Physics class might be held in. I had to make a decision. I could either stay on campus and see if the first class was going to be in the Physics Lecture Theatre, or make my way down to Whitechapel, where I suspected I would at least have one class during the day, and see if there was anything there.

I walked down to Whitechapel to find an empty classroom. Clearly, my physics class was meeting back on campus, now a twenty-minute walk away. I decided I had lost the battle for my first class and decided to hang around for my second class. I walked over to the British version of Walmart and bought some pillows and some kiwis and some dish soap which cost the equivalent of fifty cents, with the slogan “Cleans. No added promises” on it, and made my way back to Bearsted Lecture Theatre just in time to realize the teacher had reminded us all class would be cancelled today because the regular lecture hall was under construction. I walked back to campus a defeated man. I'm determined to learn one of these days. They can’t keep me out of class forever!

ANYWAYS, the rest of the day was nice. Tonight I went on a boat tour of London. A large group of American study abroad students boarded a large, three-story ship with a dance floor and ate dinner and danced the night away. We floated past Big Ben and under Tower Bridge and past the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, which is signified with a bright green laser beam. It was really great and I’m meeting some really cool people from all over the place.

I've attached some pictures of some stuff. The grassy castley picture is what used to be part of a moat around the Tower of London. There's one of the Tower Bridge (it's the one with a bridge and some towers) , and one of the Prime Meridian, and one of the boat we took with some of the more modern London buildings behind it.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the blog. Just let me know when you get tired of reading about the tiniest minutia of my life and I'll spare you my cheeky journal entries.

Victory is Mine

Today was a very exciting day because today, I tracked down one of my classes. After emailing the professor, I discovered the first class was held today and I went to it, and now my life is a success.

The thermodynamics professor Theodosios Alexander is a very friendly, entertaining and smart Greek man. About halfway through class, he asked the two international students to identify themselves, so I and another girl raised our hands. Throughout the rest of the class, he asked me several questions (in front of the whole class) about whether or not I had found out how to do this, or whether I had this set up. Everyone was very (appropriately) amazed that a textbook could cost upwards of 200 dollars in the US. The thermo book cost thirty pounds.

Tonight I went out with John Sharkey, the UK-USC study abroad coordinator, and the rest of the USC Queen Mary study abroad students. We went to a nice Asian restaurant in downtown, and after we’d found out there was no limit on how much of USC’s money we spent on our meal, I had a pretty hefty meal. I had duck dumplings, a teriyaki steak served with noodles, an exotic fruit drink, a large glass bottle of very expensive water, a large Tiger beer (for Dad, because I know he loves them), some sake and a delicious piece of chocolate cake for dessert. I probably spent about 35 pounds on dinner, but it was worth it.

After dinner, we went to the play 39 Steps, which was a lot of fun. The theater probably held about two hundred people, so it was nice and small. There were only four performers who filled about fifteen roles, and the play was very funny.

I walked around downtown for a little while with some other students after the play was over. We walked down to Leicester Square and the two fountains there were frozen, which was apparently a pretty rare sight. We were ushered into a club a bit later by a very aggressive man in the street who gave us all complimentary tickets, probably worth about ten pounds each (we were two guys and three girls; I guess it pays to be heavy on the females. Well not heavy females. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that). Anyways, we showed our IDs and were each felt up for weapons and walked through a metal detector, and we walked downstairs to find an empty club. It was clearly a very nice place, but nobody was there. I went to the bathroom to find a sink counter covered in cologne bottles, at least a hundred, all there for our use. There was a bathroom attendant who pushed the water for me and squeezed soap onto my hands and handed me some paper towels, and then told me and the other USC student about all his sexual exploits and gave us advice about women. I learned a lot.

Strange Goings On

I had a traditional English breakfast this morning at a restaurant nearby. No more free food from Queen Mary. Now I have to fend for myself in this cruel British world. The food wasn’t that bad though. It cost four pounds for an egg, some bacon, a sausage, some baked beans (which the English commonly eat with breakfast), four pieces of toast and a hot, steamy cup of tea, which was bland, but drinkable.

I took a picture of some British money and my dorm room to share. The gold coin on the left is one pound; from there, it goes fifty pence, twenty pence, ten pence, five pence, two pence and one penny. I think there’s also a two-pound coin, but I haven’t found it yet. The bills are twenty pounds, ten pounds and five pounds.

The room is small, but it’s okay because I don’t have to share it with anyone. I have a sink in here, and then I share one and a half bath with five other people who live in my flat.

It snowed very lightly today and everybody got very excited. It’s been very cold, apparently colder than normal.

I’m pretty sure I was supposed to go to class today, but the online system is so confusing that I wasn’t sure what sessions I was supposed to go to. Here’s an example of the information provided for one of the classes I’m taking.

Timetable: Lec: Wednesday 9-10am,Thursday 10-11am, 3-4pm; Tut: Monday 9-10am and 10-11am,

Tuesday 9-10am, Friday 12-1pm

Am I supposed to go to all the lectures? Am I supposed to go to all of the tutorials? There are two lectures on Thursday? And on top of all of this, where in the world are the classes located? It never mentions where I should go to class. So in an act of good old fashioned American civil disobedience, I didn’t go to the classes I may or may not have had today.

Over here, sometimes you need to do something special to exit a building as well as enter it. In my building, you have to push a button to release the door so you can leave, but more often than not the button doesn’t work. I’ve probably left the building less than ten times since I’ve been here, and I would guess that I’ve punched that button over fifty times. I went over to the engineering building and followed someone through the card-access front door. When I tried to leave, my card wouldn’t open the door back up. I couldn’t leave, and I just stood there dumbfounded, trying to think of a single good reason to only allow authorized persons to exit the engineering building. I’m still thinking.

I ordered my first beer. And my second, ad my third, adn ym fourht....

Today I had a registration meeting for study abroad students, and in the afternoon we went on a bus tour of London. We drove downtown with a tour guide who told us all about the different parts of the city. He pointed out important buildings, and we stopped at the Tower Bridge and at Buckingham Palace. I took a picture with one of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was weird. I fell asleep on the ride back to Queen Mary. I must still not be used to the time difference here; I was pretty tired today. This evening I went out with a few people I met to a bar called H-something. We watched the Dolphins play the Ravens and I ordered a deal for a burger and a beer for £3.50, or roughly five dollars. London is supposed to be very expensive, but because the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar is so good right now, the trip should be more reasonable. Right now, the pound is worth about $1.45, comparable to about two dollars when I applied for the program, so I definitely got lucky.

P.S. I promise I'm not going to update this thing every day.

En Route to Londontown

I’m on an airplane flying at 937 km/hr (or 584 miles per hour) 3430 miles away from Frankfort, Germany, at an altitude of 37000 feet. The outside temperature is -63 degrees Fahrenheit.

Already I feel out of my element. For one thing, the stewardesses serve me alcohol; a definite plus. This airplane is outstanding. I am sitting in a window seat at the front of one of the three sections in the plane, so I have ample leg room. The ceilings are high and each person has a personal television which folds up from underneath their seat. I’ve had some white wine and some Bailey’s, and a turkey dinner with mashed pumpkin. So far the trip is much to my liking.

There is a monitor directly in front of me which alternately displays a map of the world which shows the plane’s location, the distance to Frankfort, the time until we arrive, the local time in Frankfort and maybe a few other things I haven’t noticed yet. It’s interesting to watch the distance count down. About every three seconds, a mile/kilometer ticks off the total of over 3000 miles to go. It’s an incomprehensible distance, and I think for the first time I’m starting to realize I’m in for quite an adventure.

When I came through the security checkpoint, one of the TSA officers tried to speak to me in German and I just stared at him for a little while before telling him I was connecting to England and I didn’t speak German.

The flight is still scheduled to last another six hours and forty-eight minutes, so this is going to be a long letter.

I watched Wall-E, which was a very entertaining movie. I enjoyed it a lot.

When we were flying over Canada, I looked out the window at a landscape of hundreds of snow-dusted mountains. It was a beautiful view. Unfortunately, I’m seated on the wing, so it’s a little bit difficult to look at the ground from my window, but I’m doing my best. It’s dark right now, and the map shows that we are between the Hudson Bay and the Baffin Islands right now. I wish I could see what is below us. Earlier I was able to catch a glimpse of a frozen ocean, a sight which was probably the Hudson Bay.

I still haven’t grasped the full implications of my trip. I keep thinking that I will be in England for over five months, a longer period of time than the semester I just finished, in a land I know almost nothing about, but the effect of that knowledge still hasn’t hit me. I don’t know why. I feel only a little bit excited and apprehensive. It’s strange. I think it’s because I don’t know how to think about it. I’ve never been to Europe, or even out of the US very much, so I don’t know what to expect or look forward to. I have nothing to think about it because I don’t know anything about it, so the only thing in my mind is the vague excitement associated with adventure and mystery.

The plane has three rows; one in the middle and one on either side. All told, there are seven people in a row and three different classes, though you wouldn’t know you were seated in Economy Class if you didn’t have to walk through First Class to get here. It’s spacious and comfortable. Of course, we’ll see how I feel in about four hours.

Ready to Go, Kind Of

It's four in the morning. I've been packing since one, and I'm not done yet. I got sidetracked and created a blog. Nothing exciting has happened with my trip to London yet because I haven't left. More on that later.