Thursday, October 26, 2006

I'm amazed that I function in society at all

Today I rode on the top floor of a double-decker bus for the first time. What's more amazing is that I did it all by myself and managed to get off at the correct stop; I had only ridden a city bus here once, and that was in a haze of post-Eddie giddiness. For some reason I can't handle above-ground public transportation, here or in Boston. Bus maps terrify me. They even call them spider maps on the tube website; way to make them even scarier! But no, I figured out which bus I needed to get on, I found a bus stop at which this bus stops, and I knew where to get off. Sitting on the top floor also means that you have to hoof it downstairs before the bus actually stops so you can get off in time, and it is no easy feat to walk down stairs while the stairs are moving. I'm happy to report that I did not fall on my face (though that might have made for a more interesting post).

The entire reason I took a bus was to pick up my ticket to the performance of Paul McCartney's new classical album, Ecce Cor Meum at the one and only ROYAL ALBERT HALL! Seeing a performance in this building is another pilgrimage for me since it's mentioned in "A Day in the Life" and is the venue where the Concert for George took place. Yes, I'm a Beatles fan of pathetic epic proportions, and although I haven't been to Abbey Road yet, I do have a white jacket to wear if I want to pretend to be John. And don't think I didn't spot a poster for this bad boy.

Anyway, this could be my big opportunity to actually meet Paul. They say he is not performing but perhaps he will be there anyway, and dateless at that! Despite my seat in the nosebleed section, there is always the hope that I will run into in the foyer or, more likely, spot him sitting in the front row and rush down to casually mosey up to him as everyone is filing out. Besides, this is a classical concert, so the hordes of crazy fans will be sophisticated and won't mob him before I do.

I got my hair cut yesterday, despite my best efforts to hold off until I returned to a country in which I can count on the presence of a Sears Hair Studio. I'm pleased with the results (as well I should, for £31 aka SIXTY-TWO GEORGE WASHINGTONS) but man, it was looking bleak for a while. I asked for something that would accentuate the waves in my hair, rather than just my standard few layers. The stylist asked if I ever scrunched my hair, and I said no, and then after she cut it she blow-dried it with a diffuser with my head between my legs WHILE SCRUNCHING. Anyone who knows me also knows that with this fabulous package comes a head of hair that could possibly rival the total amount of hair on Robin Williams' body plus a couple of yetis. Needless to say, the result approximately resembled what Hermione Granger's hair woud look like, if she was a real person and if she stuck her finger into an electrical socket first. Calmly, politely (despite the panic mode setting in), I requested the style be somewhat less enormous, and it turned out fine. I think she just wanted to freak me out. Those crazy Brits and their crazy sense of humor.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Pass the Kool-Aid

I've had Windows Media Player on shuffle most of the time, and out of 2500 possible song choices, it seems to really like landing on the Who's 'Rael 1' or 'Rael 2.' I think my computer has joined a cult and hasn't told me about it. I'll probably start getting error messages that say 'This program has performed an illegal operation and will soon be dealt with by the Elohim. Watch your back or we won't clone you.'

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Just because I talk about poop sometimes does not mean I am devoid of culture

Today, in an effort to appear more sophisticated than I actually am, I went to see the ballet Coppelia with the other kids on the program. I still have no idea what the plot was, but I was vaguely aware of giant mechanical dolls coming to life, an old man that I suspect was somewhat misunderstood, and a wedding at the end. And lots of dancing, naturally. Next stop: the opera. And naturally that means shopping for opera-appropriate clothing sometime this week. I'm sure you all can guess how annoyed I am that I have to go buy clothes. God. Next time why don't you just force me to eat my vegetables or something.

Also, for those interested, the weight loss program I recommend is the 'I'm a student in a foreign country and I'm too cheap to pay £1.50 (aka THREE DOLLARS) for the tube so I walk everywhere and I am SO SICK OF EATING PASTA' diet. Throw in a bowl of granola each morning and you've even got regularity covered.

Oh, and counting the one that occurred only moments ago, this dorm has had four fire alarms in one month. Four! The alarms do excellent impressions of feral cats and will startle at anything -- burnt popcorn, cigarette smoke, warm breath -- so when you factor in the inexperience of budding young chefs (or more likely those who can't make beans on toast without burning the toast), plus the fact that the kitchen has exactly zero ventilation, without forgetting the general idiots who let out their sexual frustrations by pulling the alarm for fun, your result is a fire alarm at least once a week. The fire brigade always sends at least two trucks, too, which baffles me because they've gotta know that when they get an alarm from a college dorm that it's not likely to be anything that can't be taken care of with a glass of water. I'm impressed they even come at all anymore. They need one of those easy buttons from Staples that will shut off the alarm and relocate the culprit to Abu Dhabi. I'll bring one back from Christmas break.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Obviously my sense of humor hasn't come very far

When I was in high school, I wrote a column in the school paper for which I researched bizarre facts of dubious factuality and wrote snide comments about each one. It's what I do best in life (shoddy research and snark, that is). One of my very first columns contained a fact that went something like, "Americans are more likely to crumple their toilet paper before using it, while the British tend to fold theirs." Fast forward to October 2006: I still don't know if that's true, but if it is, I can believe it. British toilet paper, even the cheapy Tesco brand, is about twenty-five times thicker than any American toilet paper. I can use one (one!) sheet at a time without even laughing at myself. You can't even get enough paper together to crumple without clogging the toilet. American toilet paper just begs to be crumpled; otherwise you sit there forever trying to arrange ten feet of paper in order to make your folded wad thick enough to use.

Um, am I the only one who puts this much thought into cross-cultural TP comparisons? Clearly I need something else to occupy my time.

In other news, it's [finally] becoming chillier, though the gods seem reluctant to let the temperature drop below 60 degrees. But to this downward trend I say it's about time! I might be in the minority on this one but I'd be perfectly happy if the outside temperature never rose above 65 degrees ever again. And so it's been lately, but that means I have to keep the window shut more often, and to get the oxygen/CO2 cycling I bought an aloe plant which in a fit of silliness I named Mabel. In addition to keeping my lungs happy, it will also be handy if (when) I burn myself cooking, and I think aloe is hard to kill so I won't be convicted for yet another count of plantslaughter due to my brown, wilted thumb. Naming it was probably a poor choice, though, because now if (when) I do kill it it's going to be like that time when I named all my Oregon Trail characters after my family and then Oregon Trail Dad died of dysentery. The guilt! It nearly killed my 9-year-old soul.

Oh, and someone told me today that wintertime in London means this:

Sunrise: 8:30 am
Sunset: 3:30 pm

Seasonal Affective Disorder, thy name is Britain.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

I'm making my way up in the world

So. Thursday night (or early Friday morning), I met the man, the genius, the god that is Eddie Izzard. R and I went to his work in progress show at the Soho Theatre, which was small and intimate (we were in the fourth row and still only about 15 feet from him). He did his show in man-gear, and without heels he's actually quite small, only about two inches taller than I am. He was amazing of course, and I nearly peed myself laughing but didn't out of respect for the nice employees of the theatre. They had enough on their hands with all the drunk people and their random mid-show shoutouts. Maybe I have to go to AA meetings to understand Drunkese but all I could make out were "silverfish" and something about a cat in a puddle. Eddie did his show with an "Intelligent Design" theme and the presence of these folks probably did nothing to improve his opinion of it. So I suppose that's a good thing.

After the show, R and I decided on a whim to try to find the elusive stage door, through which, we assumed, Eddie would exit to avoid crazed fans like ourselves. We rounded the block searching for unimportant-looking doors, to no avail, and were regrouping on a streetcorner, trying not to look like confused tourists or modestly dressed prostitutes, when who walks out the regular old front doors of the theatre but Eddie! To whom we spoke! We apologized for hailing from the country with the highest percentage of general idiots and asked him to sign our tickets, which he did WITH MY HEALTH SERVICES PEN WHICH I WILL TREASURE FOREVER AND WHICH PROBABLY STILL HAS HIS FINGERPRINTS ON IT AHHHHHH! For about two minutes, the little dots that say "Christina" and "Eddie" on the Marauder's Map of the world were only THIIIIIIIS far apart. We're like, total BFFs now.

Then waiting for the bus home, after several hundred "OH MY GOD"s and a slightly delirious phone call to my equally-Eddie-obsessed brother, we discovered a window decal on the inside of the bus shelter that said "Is Justin doing Christina?" which of course topped off the night with just the right amount of absurdity. (And the answer is "not to my knowledge" if you were wondering.)

Friday, October 13, 2006

I can go home now

OH MY GOD I MET EDDIE IZZARD!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAN'T...THINK...STRAIGHT....OXYGEN...DEFICIT....

(Better post when I can form complete sentences)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Hand me that screwdriver, wink wink

In an effort to be social and to try something new with the built-in escape route of "if it doesn't work out, I'm leaving in a year anyway," I joined the backstage theatre crew here. These last few days have been taken up with hours of training in sound, lighting, and, naturally, the general backstage workings of a theatre. The fact that I, Commitmentphobius Clubflakeus, have gone to more than two meetings of any one society is reason to wonder about the tap water here. On the other hand, the people running the meetings have accents that make me want to sit there all evening, even if I have not understood a word about amps or which knobs do what on the sound board. I paid attention today, though, because being taught to climb a vertical ladder several times the height of my house requires a bit more concentration and a bit less guesswork as to the geographic origins of the speaker's accent.

So I fully plan to return to the States* a Techie Goddess, with calloused hands and a working knowledge of a sound board and lights and other electrical things, though my lexicon of construction-related words will be mostly comprised of British tool names, so I can't even brag without consulting Wikipedia for the American translation.

In other news, tomorrow is EDDIE! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


* Let me just say that my frequent and unthinking use of the somewhat pretentious term "the States" both amuses and disgusts me.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

My own worldliness astounds me


Today our group went to Salisbury and Stonehenge, which was a triple pilgrimage for me: besides the obvious touristy reasons for wanting to see Stonehenge, Eddie Izzard does a bit about it and the Beatles perform there in the movie Help!, of which I held a screening in my room this evening to celebrate our new perspective on the world. I even [rather pretentiously] tried to figure out the angle at which it was filmed, with little success. I'm not sure the highway had been built in 1965.

We also lunched on Cornish pasties and I am curious as to how to pronounce this word. The woman who gave me my pasty said "PASS-ty" so I imagine I ought to trust the locals. Pasties, at any rate, are egg-glazed, hand-held pies with usually savory filling and usually all kinds of delicious. Given that I don't eat fish and I hate beer, so far this has been my favorite British food. And who wouldn't love what is essentially a Hot Pocket that has been elevated to deity status?

In the states, it's Columbus Day weekend and I'm missing out on our annual camping trip in the White Mountains. This kills me a little bit inside because I love me some Lincoln Craft Fair and Cannon Mountain tram ride. And so far I haven't seen any leaves turn colors here so these British leaves had better get crankin'.

Oh, also, while being awesome all over the south of England, I ran across a medieval toilet and was appropriately thrilled. Here is photographic evidence of my obsession with bathroom humor in all its manifestations.


Friday, October 06, 2006

Those Americans, they think they're so entitled

Yesterday morning at precisely 7:41 am, the staff of my residence hall decided it was high time they gave these American wusses something to complain about. All the [intentional] fire drills I've ever experienced at my home university came around 10 at night while people were studying or otherwise futzing around the dorm. They'd yawn, mosey out in their flip flops and then the RD would get mad that it took longer than x number of minutes for everyone to exit the building. Well, let me tell you, do the Brits ever know how to do a fire drill. Being thrust into quasi-alertness in the wee hours to that uniquely urgent British alarm sound (WEEEEE OOOOOOO WEEEEE OOOOOOO as opposed to the flat American ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnn) causes one to wonder if perhaps this fire drill isn't a drill at all. My floormates and I were appropriately flustered, running down the stairs in our slippers at a pretty good clip for having been fast asleep about 90 seconds ago. We were so groggy, in fact, that we paused at the fire exit at the bottom of the stairs because it said it was alarmed. Of course, once we hit daylight and the 45-degree gust of air, the groggy urgency immediately vanished and was replaced by groggy crankiness.

And that, my friends, is how you make college kids care about a fire drill.

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Allegedly we are also not allowed to have posters in our rooms except as affixed to the tiny bulletin board provided, a rule which baffles me (yet again with the bafflement) because stickytack doesn't pull off the paint or hurt anyone or stink the place up, like SMOKING IN YOUR ROOM does (which IS allowed). I am actively disregarding this rule (the posters, not the smoking), and as they have recently posted signs indicating that room inspections will be taking place soon, I am torn between sneakiness and defiance. Should I hide them for two weeks while the inspections occur, or leave them up and possibly get charged? Someone also said that they heard that we weren't allowed to have bedside lamps, which is ridiculous considering the room's fabulous dungeon impression, but the poster I read just said no nightlights, which fortunately isn't a problem for me (though we were cutting it close for a few years there). I have till Thursday to decide whether I spring for cowardice or rebellion.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Wherever I go, the word "baffled" always seems to apply

This weekend I encountered a Tube employee who, upon learning that my group and I were "from Boston" (as we say to most people who ask, despite not actually being from Boston itself), broke out into a rousing rendition of "Massachusetts" by the Bee Gees. He then did impressions of Louis Armstrong, Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash. Employees of public transportation seem to be rather polar in their attitudes toward the public; they tend to be either comatose or REALLY EXCITED TO BE AT WORK OMG YAY!, both at home and abroad. So thank you, Peter at Mansion House station; you rival the likes of The Occasional Wiseacre Conductors on the Green Line, and those are some tough shoes to fill.

Today I learned that you can't get hydrogen peroxide here without asking for it from the pharmacy counter. I'm not sure why the UK likes to take this precaution. What has H2O2 ever done to you guys? It just wants to have a little fun, you know, fizz a little, disinfect a little. I will say, though, I learned in the same trip that one thing England totally has on America is its veggie chicken nuggets. I bought some on sale today and they were the Nuggets of the Gods (subtitled If Zeus Ate Soy Products). I am looking forward to buying out this whole foods place.

Embarrassing Moment of the Day: I went to the bank to deposit some money for the first time, and I was completely stumped by the deposit envelope. The sticky part was on the envelope rather than on the flap, and the flap was detachable but shouldn't have been detached, though I didn't realize this until I had sacrificed several envelopes and apparently looked pathetic enough to merit a visit by an inquiring bank employee, bless his helpful soul. I mean, I don't speak Bank Language in the US, nevermind here, but one would think I could figure out how to seal an envelope on both sides of the Atlantic. I seriously don't deserve a degree anymore.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

My work here is done

AHHHH I GOT EDDIE IZZARD TICKETS!!!

In a stroke of luck, the magnitude of which I have never seen and will never see again, not only did I get tickets to see Eddie Izzard, but less than 24 hours later I snagged myself a seat at the performance of Paul McCartney's classical album at Royal Albert Hall. I'm willing to bet Paul will be there so I'll try to be classy and contain my Beatlemaniacal tendencies.

Eddie and Paul in the same month. My life is complete. Now I can go home.