I forgot that I go to school...

in POLAND. So much for jump starting my day with a nice hot 6:15 (approx.) a.m. bath. This country is thought of as cold, because it's frigid on the inside not the outside.

Burp!

I have a tendency to eat my weekends and I don't think I've gobble up this one entirely yet - it's not even light on Sunday yet - it just makes me wonder where the time goes. It would be really nice to go somewhere warm like Greece or Italy and have mediterranean food - that's all I'm asking for is something that tastes good with a little bit of lemon.

Woah!

Sunday Morning, by Maroon 5 is JUST as good on a Saturday afternoon. I don't think I'll be leaving my room cause it's so comfortable now, so I will be reading some books and drinking tea or just falling back asleep.

I swear

there are wAY not enough social events taking place at like 10:30 in the morning. Because I am up at that our and I am feeling veryr social. Ekcept I just burnt my finger and I have nothing to do. I really wanteed to sleep atfeter my german tutorliaal but I'm kind of awake. Hmm ..s hould I go get some thing to eat? I would really like an egg beaters omelette with extra cheese, extratomaois and some onions not too many please? And then I would put some tobasco sauce on it but only on a small part and then I would eat it,,,I really miss the peach juice or pineaple juice or whatever that was good at the upper. I wish there were some party too go to now. My Romme is such a mess now I need to clean up my room soon. I know I 'mg oing to go to the art museum now. And they have a cafe there so I could get something too eat. I am so hunbgrty.

Hey Julie

Don't worry - help is on the way. I have a pretty good feeling if you all start sleeping more at night, and being awake more during the day, we can all drag the warmer weather and lighter sentiments kicking and screaming better than ever this year. Christmas was already a long time ago, so this is the good part.

Do Something Useful!

This week, for some reason, everyone is talking about their stances on animal cruelty. This has included warnings for a university riot/demonstration that will be taking place in Oxford at some point this weekend. I thought this picture was also especially au courant, because it also falls into the vein of something else that is very popular now: humanising celebrities. At least here Joanna Lumley is being productive, by helping this lamb. I am totally not in favour of this trend of putting celebrities (approx. 6) in a small German apartment together and forcing us to watch them on reality tv as they cook pasta and walk around in their pyjamas bitching at each other.

Working for the Weekend

I have so much work it's literally unbelievable: as in I myself, to dull the pain, am procrastinating in pretending I don't actually know I have so much work. This weekend will be VERY brief. This weekend will actually only be Friday day and Friday night, so I'm going to have to fit in some "gaga" time, a movie, drinking, dancing, and lots of transatlantic phone calls. I could be that really irritating person at the movies that seems to be doing all of these things at once, but seeing as there are NO interesting movies playing in this town at the moment, I might just have to deploy these all in the usual my room/park bench/bus/backstreets scenarios. And then, mark my words, Saturday and Sunday will be EXCLUSIVELY workdays, with 'gaga' time ONLY relegated to when I would be not working anyway. OK. Sorted.

I MISS YOU GUYS!

Remember in the 90s? When we watched television shows, at home, while we did our homework? When we had the time to envelop our interests in to the recurring dramas of California teenagers, as if they were the most important ongoing issues in our life? That's back when High School was Cool, and when just saying cool made us feel cool. What does it mean that from the time we start choosing for ourselves, how to spend our time, we have made conscious decisions to involve ourselves in fiction? The lives of television characters have taught us how one vision directs - overrides - pursuades the next generation of visions. I sure wish I were having a burger at the Peach Pit after a day of classes and surfing. I'd like to have a reunion with all of them, except for the one played by Tiffani Amber Thiessen. And I would make sure that Brenda came back from Minnesota or wherever she went, and TRY not to talk to the retarded one. And the one that got pregnant with Steve's baby, when she was in med school, and who works exclusively for Lifetime™ now. She could just stay home and take care of the kid. She was the shows, 'homewrecker' of sorts: having to deal with more mature issues, like pregnancy, was a huge step from dealing with Tori Spelling's learning disabilities, or even Luke Perry's, and later David's drug addictions. The girl was shorter than the original characters, not as fun and clearly not as savvy, for getting knocked up in the first place. Oh well.

When the Going Gets Tough...

A lot of people turn to crack. I had planned on doing so much homework this weekend, and once again, it's slipped through my fingers without leaving a trace.

When the Lights are too Bright

When you wake up in the evening after passing out/taking a nap in the mid afternoon, and it's already become dark - I hate that feeling as though you've wasted an entire day. In a sense I miss the routine of Saturday classes, at least then, I felt like someone else was wasting my time for me. I also find it pretty irritating that the batteries I bought on Wednesday at the covered market - 24 for £1.99 as opposed to 8 for £3.89 - were no real bargain at all, as I've already run through all of them at a rate of about 4 batteries per half hour.

Travel Advisory:

I am a big fan of the Southwest, but have never been to Rancho Tampico. But I would have to say, that bad enough living in a town of population 8, it's all the more worse to always be on the lookout for a CHUPACABRAS! I've long followed the myth/legend of the Chupacabra - it's Central America's equivalent to the Lochness monster in Scotland. As the name suggests - "goat sucker" - it's a hybrid vampire goat that plagues many a flock of sheep in the night and at the top of the Mexican farmer's least favourite things to happen list. Given that they look like this and unlike the Lochness monster, which remains unconfirmed, the Chupacapra is an animal that definitely exists, but is just especially endangered), I can't imagine that Rancho Tampico is really that much fun, having only 8 potentially interesting people to meet there, and the constant threat of running into a Chupacabra.

Three Gorges? Damn!

Last night I ate WAY TOO MUCH food! I had been very health all day - After my German translation tutorial, I had taken a slight nap, then cooked some Sainsbury's "Just Cook" chicken in the oven for like 30 mins, and made an awesome salad. Not ONLY should you put excessive dollops of Maille(tm?) whole grain mustard into your cruet, but what I discovered is that sticking wedges of mandarin organges(tm?) into your salad dressing bottle and giving it a good shake, gives you an unresolved wave of tang. To say it is unresolved is that being citrus, it strives at preconceived notions of lemon or grapefruit, but since it's only really a mandarin orange(tm?) at the end of the day, the taste it leaves you with is rather more gentle and watery. It sort of raises a wave of expecting bitter, which disappears before the end of the bite. Where does it go? I have no idea. In any case, I then went to the gym, earlier than usual because a dear friend from primary school had called requesting dinner and dancing in London in the evening. We started by going on a lovely romantic walk through St. James' Park near the royal stable's gate by the little boat house. For some reason, we were all of a sudden really hungry and headed towards Soho for dinner. Oh wait. I keep forgetting, that was AFTER we ate Pizza in Soho. So then we go to an Indian restaurant and everything was so spicy!!! So to cool the throat, Chinese food was much needed. I ended up gorging THREE TIMES last night and didn't even feel disgusting about it. Is this an accomplishment? Disgusting behaviour? In any case, getting back to Oxford I was proud to support Fair Trade with two bars of white chocolate and collapsing in bed.

Conspicuous Consumption: Sin or Just a Bit of Fin?

I've never been particularly religious so I've come to this realisation/conception in kind of a roundabout way. My favorite food for a long time has been Pad Thai, as you know, an literally mouth watering conglomeration of noodles, shrimp spring onions, peanuts and those little bean shoots that are very pale and seem more like an afterthought, but balance well with the crunchiness of the peanuts on top. I have also found, that the best Pad Thai I am able to find anywhere has been at Rod Dee, quite likely the tastiest and best value restaurant in Boston. In anycase, I was browsing Google image search this morning, in search of something shocking to post, and under the search word "disgusting," I came across a picture of a Shrimp, and not less than several websites about the sin of consuming crustaceans and other sea dwelling creatures with exoskeletons. Let's get the terminology right: the citation that incriminates eating shrimp as a worldly sin is Leviticus 11:9-12, and while this remains the first time I've ever had to cite Leviticus or any part of the Bible IN MY LIFE, I do so because I believe the issues the passage raises for not eating shrimp (or anything that hath not scales of fins...) are interesting. The issue does highlight the fact that a shrimp is more likely to talk to a COCKROACH [one of it's closer cousins] at a party than a seared tuna steak - and when I remember dissecting grasshoppers in eighth grade bio, I remember learnining that it's closest relative was a lobster (also clearly a sin). I've never liked Maine or Maine culture, so I'm glad to hear it's well on its way to digging it's own grave, should this all have any resonance in a world beyond. But where does this leave me? I would not stop eating Pad Thai on religious grounds because I've never functioned like that - but the distinction made higlighting the shrimp as a disgusting scuttly insect kind makes me think. Don't you remember in the rhetoric of late 80s to mid 90s television, how having shrimp at a party was indicative of status? Murphy Brown is what immediately springs to mind.

warte nur balde

I know it isn't anywhere near Summer yet, which - if you ask me, is a good thing, because I'm so disorganised that I couldn't deal with Summer yet - it IS almost the end of Second Week. Which on the one hand is encouraging cause I think I'm being productive this term and am therefore satisfied with the time that's already passed, but on the other hand is kind of irritating cause where is all the fun going to? In any case, this picture of summer is just nice I thought.

Skandal!

I had an experience this evening, that at this point, seems rather commonplace. I go to the grocery store, my local Coop without the slightest idea of what I want to by, but with the knowledge that I am very hungry. The Coop, like most grocery stores is circular in shape, and starting at the cash register by the door, you can walk past the bread, down the aisle of refrigerated thngs, along a wall of ready-meals that are disgusting (I tried a lot of them LAST year, the year of shameful behaviour, not this year) and then taking a left down the vegetable aisle you get back to the £££ cash register. I go/went around in this circle like 4 times slowly tonight not being able to find anything that I wanted/need. SO: I walked all the way to my Sainsbury's local. Sainsbury's vs. Coop = no contest. I only go to Coop cause it's across the street. If you think about it, it's more expensive, smells bad and Robots Ramon and Rhonda sometimes have an attitude that I can't deal with. Whatever. Now you know where I get my groceries. Good night.

Ok - once more for argument's sake/fun:

Italian cool:


German Cool:

An ad with penguin in it.

Torn

One of the really important things in my life right now is sorting where I have to go for my recquired (ugghhh) year abroad next year. It's so close, so I can't say yet whether I prefer beautiful...

Germany:


or Italy:


Well if it hadn't been for the rampant displays of lewdness in German Burger Kings(tm?) that I read about here, maybe the decision wouldn't be so easy.

Much Needed Chaser

to help swallow the last disgusting photograph.
(even these hyenas were grossed out)

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

I would usually want image and text to speak for themselves and make their own connexions, but this one deserves a bit of an explanation. These are some German people in a Burger King(tm?) in Berlin in the Summertime. Though this does not needing pointing out, but notice the mullet. And this photo was taken in Berlin THIS summer. I guess they take "Have it Your Way" a little too literally, and to mean something along the lines of "Do Whatever the Hell You Want." Now you know why the Oktoberfest is so much more popular than the Augustfest. At least they're WEARING the Lederhosen, not slapping you with them for some thing they call Das Fetischwhopper...

Day and Night Nurse

I think the only time in my life that I have been sicker was when I was in Mexico and started bequeathing my worldly posessions on the back of an Aeroméxico vomit bag. Somehow I got Influenza A, or not really somehow, no because I was too lazy to get a FLU SHOT last term. I seem to have lost two entire days of being in bed coughing and sneezing wishing I were in some cushy bed eating pad thai and watching the Golden Girls. I scraped up enough energy last night (yesterday I could not see or walk properly) to buy some Tropicana(tm) orange juice with lots of pulp, or 'with juicy bits,' as it is called here, and discovered in my very friendly pharmacy on Woodstock Road, "GSK Day&Night Nurse" which had me feeling better and I don't know how. I am still unbelievably weak but I am going to try and make it to the gym to see if the steam room and pool are helpful. They could be very bad for me, but I need to leave my room and get some fresh air. I also plan to purchase a scented candle, so my room can smell really nice. But, if you REALLY hate someone, I have come up with several things that can ruin their lives temporarily: a) flood their house, b) give them carpet moths (or clothes mothes), c) give them the flu, d) give their names to the LDS people, who will not leave them alone for a very long time. I know this last one for a fact to be true cause I once did it to a teacher, whom I adore, and I meant it as a joke, but they are REALLY persistent so things got out of hand.

"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys."

"What is that?"

"Disillusion."

Damn straight. I just finished reading the Picture of Dorian Gray, which, to the extent to which it is a famous book, and everyone like's to say it's their favourite, it was kind of a yawn. It would've been far better if he had developed, um...maybe DORIAN GRAY'S character a bit more? I understand that the narrator wasn't asking us to sympathise with the guy, but at least he should have brought it up to the point where we actually cared what happened to him by the end of the book.

Invalid

So today was the day that I was going to get a lot of work done, because yesterday I set aside work for doing all the things I needed to do which weren't academic so I could get them out of the way. These included buying a lot of lettuce, some salad dressing, lots of batteries, organising my room and getting my computer set up again. Someone, who is nameless, but obviously stayed in my room over break for the admissions interviews week, made off with my ethernet(tm?) cord. I sure hope such a thing as karma exists, cause that poor idiot is not coming here next year if it does. So what I should have been banking on was that naturally, the first day back in Oxford that I can work and get things accomplished, is the day I get sick. Also the day I get assigned my first Petrarch essay due tuesday. I imagine the people here don't bathe as much as other places. Why is a normal person's immune system conditioned such that every single time they come back to a place for the first time in a while, it is the only time and place that that person gets sick? The streets are small here and the whole city is people living in condensed, albeit very comfortable accomodation, but still, couldn't the NHS throw them a bone, or mandatory bar of Dove(tm), in this case?

Battle of Hastings

Hopefully this £10.66 will proove to be a historical event in my life - my first receipt back in England:

You were served by Robot Ramon

VALPOLICCELLA/RED £3.19
STEAK CRISPS £1.49
SUNSILK £2.09
AA/BATTERIES £3.89

BALANCE DUE £10.66
Items Purchased 4
Cash £11
Change £0.34

In case you are wondering, Robot Ramon is one of the three self checkout machines at the Coop. I forget which one he is, he's never formally introduced himself. I know that the one closest to the door is called Rhonda, and is usually most unhelpful beacause she can't deal with all butter croissants, cause they don't scan and require extra authorisation from the Indian woman at the till. Whatever. The wine was really bad, but it was cheap and helped me to get on schedule for my first night of horrible jet lag. The chips or "STEAK CRISPS" are the WEIRDEST things because they actually do taste like a steak. I suppose I reationalised that sort of gorging after a day on the back of a plane. Thanks American Airlines. My new term's resolution is to completely organise my life, and put all other priorities AFTER that one. So far so good but I already have a cold.

Best Kept Secrets in Boston

Last night Emily and I were watching a really good show, which is this multipart series on BBC America that is called the Canterbury Tales, that presents believe it or not, the Canterbury Tales. I loved the Canterbury Tales when I read them in high school for humanities, and I think it was for the Pardoner's tale that I wrote my first essay, for which I enjoyed looking stuff up. Anyways, the Wife of Bath's tale was finishing and I looked over at Emily and said "I'm hungry, do you want to go get some Pizza?" There is a pizza place here called the Upper Crust which is really good, but unfortunately really expensive. So just after eleven, my sister and I went out to the back of it, and did what we've started doing, which is liberating still warm boxes of delicious pizzas of every flavour from the dumpster. On our walk home my sister said to me "We're eating pizza out of a dumpster!" I just think it's funny that we had to finish the pizza before it even occurred to us that we were eating from the dumpster. There were and still are no qualms about it. Because it's four and a half hours till closing time, and I don't know if I'll be hungry or not.

Also, another too well kept secret of the savvy Bostonian is - Green or Red line out or inbound from Park Street station. Take the gimp elevator from the corner of Winter and Tremont streets, and PUSH the gate when you get down to the lower level. It LOOKs like you're trapped in a steel cage, and it TELLS you that you need to ring for assistance getting out (presumably you'd be in a wheelchair, remember?) But as the nice lady who lives in the intercom told me, all you need to do is push. The door ISN'T EVEN LOCKED. Thanks for reading. That'll be $11 for the pizza and $1.25 for the ride...

Maybe they're messing with the figures...

but in respective transatlantic informercials, i've been told that in Britain, the leading cause of house fires is, [sic] chip fires (as squalid as it sounds, if ten mansions in Belsize Park go up in flames, like six of them will be from chip fires. Right...) And that in America, the leading cause of house fires is dryer fires - meaning the ones that start from not cleaning out the lint compartment in before you load the machine. But what does this mean? You'd think the Americans would get into more trouble for deep frying all the time, and the British that eat and fry chips in their own houses and who really don't seem to care how they leave the house looking would appear to be more conscientious about reading the care labels on their clothes. I watched the weakest link today and did laundry, so maybe that's what they do over there. It certainly provides enough brakes in which to go and check lint build up.

It's when you look at all of the wonderful things you've ammassed in your life, that you are stuck with amazing sadness at realising how much time you've already spent collecting.

How Time Flies!

I haven't been on in forever, because the Brookline wing of the Tsunami passed through our living room while we were in Washington, exploding our house via frozen pipes. It was a real intoperspectiveputter, in light of how bunk I had thought the antidiluvian part of my vacation had been going. What really crushes me is that since the house froze, and though thankfully nothing really important was damaged, I'm most lamenting the loss of a certain rubber tree plant. My mother had gotten it for me in my second week of high school at a Manchester, New Hampshire home depot or something and I had forgotten to take it into my dorm, so it had ended up in the living room in Boston for - jeez - five and a half years?! It sat next to the door to the balcony, so you always had to walk past it whenever you were in the living room and it is sorely missed. But the leaves had turned brown in the cold and the branches were all wilty and oozy even when the house got warm again. It literally crushed me when I cut off its arms to fit it into the trash, one by one, and then lifted the crock it had been sitting on, out of the bronze planter. Underneath it all there was a Friday December 15th 2000 New York Times. Priced one dollar, the cover reads: "House Leader Differs With Bush On Across-the-Board Tax Cuts and has a picture of George and Laura. Even THEY look more innocent back then. The other leading story is "AOL AND TIME WARNER GAIN APPROVAL FOR HUGE MERGER BUT WITH STRICT CONDITIONS" I NEVER read the newspaper, but even I remember that story. So much has changed since December 15th 2000! I think the world's a lot rougher - or at least I've realised that it's rougher than I had thought as a freshman. I think one of my resolutions this year is to read the newspaper, whichever one that is, more. I've already broken the one I had so much wanted to keep. My biggest resolution this year is though, that I'm not going to try and impress people anymore. Well whatever. The ticking crocodile is coming soon to get us all so I'm going to have fun with my hook until then.