> tapioca world tour

that’s according to the carpenter guy who works in my house everyday. i wake up later than the other housemates, since i have no classes this week, and i stumble downstairs to the bathroom, and every day since the house is still being renovated, i see this carpenter guy, his daughter, and his daugher’s boyfriend, another work guy. this morning i came downstairs and the carpenter yelled, “Good afternoon! No lessons in the morning for you?” and then i had to act awake and sociable and not annoyed that they’d made 8 cups of coffee and used up all my imported dark roast.

but anyway, today he asked me about my roommates. i explained we had a new irish girl, and an irish guy. and i joked that Declan, our irish guy, is quite the subtle lady’s man, having gone on four dates with four different girls in the past week. “that’s typical,” the carpenter’s daughter said. “they’re all like that. it’s the accent, it makes them irresistible.”

even to british people, who also have an accent?

“yes,” they told me, “they’re even irresistible to british people.”

“i went to the dentist one time,” the carpenter started. “and the dentist was a woman, she was quite a big lady, you know, but she opened her mouth and the instant she started talking i knew i’d love her, cause she was irish…”

so i’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick, have i? i’m ethnically a full-blooded irish girl but because of my american accent, i’m doomed to the mediocre status of “that american girl” instead of “that irresistible irish person.” not that i care or anything. i just didn’t know my cultural heritage was so steeped in charm and prowess. i thought all irish people were like my father and grandfather and great-grandfathers and uncle and great-uncles: alcohol-loving catholics with overly-sensitive skin who bang pots and pans when angry, are fiercely competitive and have a penchant for golf and trade union membership. who knew?

i just need to announce this:

i’m in the main computer lab at uni and the mousepad i’m using has a chart of STDs printed on it! i wish i could take a picture of this. it’s called: Below The Belt: A Young Persons Guide and it lists, in alphabetical order: Chlamydia (which i always thought would be such a beautiful name for a girl if it weren’t already the name of a terrible STD); Crabs; Gonorrhea; Hepatitis; Herpes; HIV; Syphilis; Thrush; Trichomonas; Warts.

you can tell i’m not making this up because all the diseases are spelled correctly. next to each name is a box explaining how the STI/STD is passed, an appropriate mode of prevention (mostly condoms), and the long-term effects if untreated.

pretty horrendous, but actually, printing this on university mousepads might make a few 18 yr-olds think twice. let’s hope, anyway…

For those of you not in school, here’s a reminder of what it’s like. This is a list of practise essay questions for my class, Anthropology of Globalisation and Development.

(UUSC people, look how relevant my studies are to human rights — particularly the last two):

1. What is the relationship between the restructuring of global capitalism since the Oil Crisis and neoliberalism? What can anthropologists contribute to the study of these processes?
2. Does Asian Capitalism offer an alternative model of development to that of the West?
3. Globalization spells social regression for the majority of humanity. Discuss with reference to Africa AND/OR Latin America.
4. Assess the consequences of economic changes since the 1980s for US urban society in general and immigrant and transmigrant populations in particular.
5. The economic, social and political order in Latin America is maintained by an uneasy equilibrium between “acceptable” levels of social exclusion and “acceptable” levels of violence. Discuss.
6. The current global food regime is good for transnational corporations and pretty bad for farmers, workers, consumers and Nature. Discuss.
7. The classic critiques of “Development” by Escobar and Ferguson are increasingly irrelevant to a much changed global situation, though the need for critical anthropological perspectives is undiminished. Discuss.
8. Can the “thickening of social capital” provide a way forward for poor people?
9. NGOs are essentially agents of cooptation and only grassroots social movements can achieve significant leverage against capitalist globalization. Discuss.
10. With reference to specific ethnographic cases, discuss the implications of devising specific policies targeted at women and/or indigenous peoples.

i just wrote a really long post, then clicked some button and it all got erased. don’t you hate when that happens? man, i hate it.

in boring personal news, i’m skipping our informationless information session today, entitled “Plagiarism and Ethics”. i would go to the gym, but the school gym costs a whopping $60/mo so i’ve opted for walking as my only form of exercise, not to mention my only form of transportation. i walk about 10 miles a day, mostly out of necessity. the city center is a few miles down the road.

in political news, i read an article yesterday written by an american but published in a manchester newspaper that announced what all the dems are afraid to admit: kerry is going to lose. he’s going to LOSE! oh my good god, somebody do something! joe?

in documentary news, mohan gave me an interesting suggestion for my final film project:

you should do one on radical young conservatives. challenge the meaning of the word “radical”–does it really belong to the left? many people believe that the 1960’s was a time of radical leftism, but actually the opposite is true–many of the key players during the Reagan years were trained intellectually and developed during the 60’s. maybe you could find a small group, maybe even the young republicans club (I’ll let you borrow my “California is for Commies” and “I love Capitalism” t-shirts) and then do some background info.

my friends are so smart.
i’m still collecting ideas, though, so don’t be shy!

so, georg and george and beth will be happy to know, i’ve been successful at teaching myself Adobe Premiere Pro. before my camcorder got jacked, i digitized a tape’s worth of footage and have been editing as much as possible. now i’ve just gotta learn EncoreDVD and AfterEffects and InDesign and Illustrator and the entire Macromedia MX Suite, and i’ll have accomplished all my computer goals for the year. one step at a time…

as soon as i get internet at home (cough cough), i’ll upload an attractive little photo tour of my house. i knew that webcam would come in handy. and, once i join the amateur photographers group next tuesday, i’ll upload some actual photos of manchester in all its grey glory.

meanwhile, eat a burrito for me, ok people? i want everyone who reads this to eat a burrito today. thankyouverymuch.

here i am looking deceptively happy in the old house….

so, because my program is cool but extremely administratively disorganized, i’m required to pitch ideas for my final thesis paper + short documentary film, both of which will be created in the US this summer, at the first meeting with my director in about a month from now.

HELP! I NEED IDEAS!

dewayne said to make a documentary on civil liberties/protesters’ rights in the US. mohan said that’s a cool theme but it’s being “done to death right now”, and i agree it would be hard think of some innovative angle to let it stand out from the others. any other ideas? i’m allowed to do, for example, a piece on an organization, a person, an institution, an event, a movement, really anything at all. ideas? ideas?? my themes are politics and urbanism and social welfare and art. how bourgeois, non?

anyway, what is cool is that i’m allowed to collaborate with friends in the research and/or production of my documentary, so long as i credit them in the final project, and so long as most of the research and all the video editing is my own. my goal is to shoot substantial footage, edit that down into a 15-minute documentary to supplement my written thesis, and then after that’s all turned in and i get my masters, go back and expand the film into a longer, maybe 30 minute documentary.

who’s with me? randazzo is with me. dewayne. mohan. george, i assume. where my AV/politico people at? East coast reprezent, yo!

HOLLA AT ME! Holla back!

so manchester is one of the most diverse areas i’ve ever seen. you’ve got people from all over the world living in one [crappy] place, and it’s been a cool anthropological process of observation. what i’ve found is that there’s actually stronger prejudices between all the groups, it’s just quiet. there’s a huge muslim/hindu population in genereal around the city, and a large east- and southeast asian population among university students.

but everybody hates eachother!

“the chinese cook too much pork and don’t clean up”
“the arabs steal”
“the indians smell”
“the americans are loud”
“the brits are stupid”
“the germans/french are snobby”

and on and on. i’ve heard it all since coming here. what’s interesting is that everyone sticks to their own groups. i’ve always thought that’s dumb, but so far the pals i’ve made are american, german, scottish, irish and canadian. they’re white people. there’s many non-white people around, but the percentage is small among my classmates or my roommates. there are a lot of trust issues here. hmm.

more updates later. i sent in my absentee ballot voter application today. go dems!!!

i will miss chorlton. not the theives who smash my windows and steal stuff, but the big brick houses…the swaying green trees…the organic supermarkets…and, especially, Barbakan Bakery. they have the best bagels, loaves of bread, imported cheese and chicken coronation sandwiches on the island. and quiche, apparently.

i moved into 8 Ruskin Ave, Rusholme, Manchester, M14 4DQ yesterday. just, you know, kind of packed and left. it was a warmer day for this freezing city — probably lower 60s — and after calling 20 cab places, someone finally agreed to move my stuff.

the driver, though perfectly harmless, immediately started hitting on me:

“so, you have boyfriend?”

i should have quickly switched my grandmother’s wedding ring from my right hand to my left and held up my finger, but i thought just telling him i had a boyfriend would be enough. it wasn’t.

“but why not have another boyfriend here?”
oh god. i don’t do that, i said.
“why not?” he persisted. “i bet your boyfriend already has another girlfriend.”
he can see whoever he wants, i said. as long as i don’t know about it. if i knew about it, i’d have to kill her.
“oh, i’m sure he has many girlfriends. that’s the way of guys. you know, they go to club, they drink, they meet women…”
stop! stop it! can we please stop talking about this?

we drove on for a little while, silent except for his stiffled chuckling. soon we hit rusholme, on the border of moss side, my new neighborhood.

“oh my god,” he said. “you’re moving HERE? are you crazy? this is the worst area of manchester.”
thanks, i said. i was already robbed in the posh part of town. i think i’ll be fine here.
“no,” he continued. “this is where all the drug dealers live!”
whatever.
[i did come to find out, however, that our neighbors directly across the narrow street are in fact some big players in the drug underworld, as evidenced by the yelling and screaming mob of questionable persons who form a queue outside the house every morning.]
“my friend got robbed here the other night!” he said. ” i got robbed here a month ago! you’re crazy. don’t ever walk alone.”

you know what? if i can survive manchester, i can survive anything. despite the misery my congenial taxi driver tried to inspire in me, i kept my chin up and moved right in. peter from germany, who’s in his mid-thirties and has spent the past 3 years integrating technology in tiny villages in peru, let me in, helped carry my stuff, and set up my bed with me. he and i share the third floor, which i think was an attic at one point. i just wanted to be high up. he’s going to be a great neighbor, since he’s quiet but not shy, owns the entire Macromedia MX Suite for PCs and is not afraid to share all his applications. he’s unfortunately a chain-smoker, and the smoke seeps through my walls all day, but c’est la vie. a little tobacco never killed anyone, right?

so that’s my move-in story and i’m sticking to it. my 12×10 room is just lovely. i went to the pub last night with peter and ben and michel’s girlfriend, who’s visiting from canada, and a friend of hers from liverpool. do you know, the pubs here all shut down at 11p? if you want to drink or hang out after that, you have to go to a CLUB! a club, where you pay to get in, and where skanky girls/guys come up to you, smashed, and try to dance with you. um…no thank you. and all the pool tables here are tiny, i mean tiny, and the balls are also tiny and they’re only red and yellow.

peter and i have bonded over lack: the lack of decent bread and pastries from good bakeries (the new ghetto neighborhood hasn’t a bakery in miles), the lack of late-night pubs, curry with vegetables, affordable sports facilities, and sun.

i miss you all, but please don’t come to visit me because it would never be worth the investment, and i couldn’t bare to see any of you subjected to the horrors, anticlimactic though they may be, of this sad wet city.

happy sunday!

…it just drizzles. consistently. like that in-between stage where it’s not actually a hard rain but it’s a little bit more than drizzle, so half the people have their umbrellas up (the wimpy ones), and half haven’t put their umbrellas up (the rugged and/or stupid ones).

except today. today it’s weirdly sunny. we still have to wear jackets and scarves because it’s cold, but it’s sunny. it’s sunny! my italian pals, the two valentinas who miss the sun more than the rest of us, they want to be outside all day. i hope it lasts more than 6 hours…

i have nothing interesting to write about, so i’ll wait until after i’ve moved in the new place and i have more to talk about. meanwhile, i feel so disconnected to the world, not reading much news or hearing anything about the US. what’s going on at home? kidnappings and executions in iraq? that much i’ve heard about. what else? should i be grateful i’m far away right now? i hope everyone votes. please, everyone, oh please vote!!

despite what you might think, it’s not too late to reroute all those packages of extra peppermint stick gum you’ve sent me! here’s my new and hopefully year-long address:

8 Ruskin Ave.
Rusholme
Manchester, M14 4DQ
United Kingdom

[phone number forthcoming as of next week]

and, just like tooth whitening solution, you see results within 24 hours!

that’s how long i gave myself yesterday to decide whether or not to stay in england. (no, to answer questions, my stolen camcorder/cables weren’t insured, but it’s better than having a laptop stolen.) anyway. everything was riding on sam, right? well here’s what happened:

sam doesn’t speak english so well. every payphone call i make costs $4. i called sam about 9 times yesterday, negotiating where he was to pick me up. skip ahead a few hours of me in the rain in downtown manchester. i finally find sam. he’s 28, a bouncer and a data entry person and a student. his voice sounds small, but he’s a big guy. we drive an hour away to oldham, and we pull up to some housing projects, more or less. gradually i begin to see that sam is running a big scam: he’s nice, but he’s lied — he doesn’t own his place, he rents; he doesn’t have a two-bedroom apt, he has a one bedroom; and he secretly rents out his own bedroom and sleeps in his living room. i was very cordial, smiled, then got a ride back to rusholme (near campus) and slumped in a phone booth, nearly in tears. this was my last chance to stay in england, but now i had to turn around and cash in my chips and quit school and go back to boston with nothing but a laptop and A LOT of debt.

and then i thought of michel.

pronounced “michelle”, though the beatles weren’t singing about a french-canadian guy, this dude had posted an ad about a 7-bedroom flat with 4 available rooms that afternoon. i had called earlier, and he told me to call back the next day and maybe i could see it. it was 8pm the night before, but i was desperate. he was in a bar, but picked up anyway.

“michel,” i said. “i’m really sorry to bother you about this, but is there any possible way in hell you can show me your place tonight? i just got robbed, i’m supposed to sign a housing contract, and i can’t go home until i’ve found a new place.” he was super nice, left the bar, jumped on his bike, and met me in rusholme, which is the indian section of town (curry mile) about a 15 minute walk from campus. in rusholme, almost all the houses are brick rowhouses, quite nasty inside. but michel’s landlord, steve, is 26 and is completely redoing the whole place — including new floors, windows, kitchen appliances, washer, dryer, and new double beds, desks, lamps, closet things and dressers in every room. AND broadband in every room. it was almost too funny. the place is still torn up but will be all done construction by next week, and people can move in whenever. michel and his roommate, a nice guy named ben from france, live there currently with peter, a german guy who’s in lima, peru visiting his girlfriend right now, or something.

anyway.

long story short: this place was so perfect it was a little too ironic. at the eleventh hour, when you’ve lost all hope in a decent human solution, BOOM! something tends to work out. there was a knock at the door. a young french couple came in, neighbors with a broken stove. they cooked spaghetti and left some for all of us to eat. then another knock on the door. steve, the landlord who’s my age, came in, and agreed i could move in on saturday. i just have to sign a year’s contract with the 3 other new people who i’ll meet tonight, and i’m allowed to leave in june so long as i find someone to sublet my room. voila!

everyone in the house will be mid-to-late-20s and is from a different country. apparently, we’ll be representing canada, the US, france, germany, finland, ireland, and britain, respectively. and we’ll each have our own internet connection. woohooo! rent for this place is equivalent to $400/mo, and since it’s close to campus, i don’t even need to buy a bus pass.

for those of you who tease me about my great karma, i guess you know me better than i know myself. except, friends, i don’t believe in karma. good and bad outcomes aren’t handed out at random. life is not a casino. if it is, well maybe i’ve still lost because i haven’t received my loan money yet, hence i cannot yet pay for this new flat, but dude, that stuff works out. i’ve got another week for that to work out. at school they’re letting me have a temporary registration until my bank problems sort out. and, as my literary mentor sarah dewey reith says,

You can’t go all the way across the water for a program, and not even see if it’s any good! Rally, Bon, rally! You’d feel like an ass forever if you didn’t even go to the first few weeks of class. You’ve been depressed in Boston, too, remember? Being a student over here is like living on another planet; why not in England?

she’s a brilliant friend, but to this i say, because manchester, england is poopoo. you don’t get your hand held at uni here. it’s like going into a supermarket with your mom and getting lost in aisle 8. you’re lost for hours in the international food section, and you try to remember what you’re told: if you don’t know where you are, just stand still. someone will find you and help you.

nope, that wisdom does not apply in the UK. you have to go around to the produce section, walk to the deli, bang on the fake glass that separates customers from the guys who chop up meat, and you have to yell, “help me! help me, i’m lost!” but they can’t hear you, and, even though you’re only four years old, you have to leave the supermarket altogether, dance on the sidewalk until you’ve made $10, then catch a taxi home and jimmy your bedroom window open with a stick because all this time your mom’s been in the pharmacy by the customer service area, waiting for a particular kind of imported ointment to be cleared for coverage by her insurance company.

that’s exactly what england’s like.

cheerio.

seriously. who’s playing all these tricks on me? mortal existence never ceases to amaze me with its limitless badness. just when i think a situation can’t get worse, it graduates to a new, ridiculous level of awfulness — which just proves to me that this can’t be all there is to life.

i got burglarized last night. just before coming home. some dude smashed my window and made off with my camcorder, firewire cord and some other cables. fortunately he couldn’t take my laptop since, being the little genius i am, i’d locked it to the table. he tried to bust the lock but couldn’t. woohoo! and fortunately i’d also packed up my external hard drive and had it hidden in a bag he couldn’t get to. but, still, i didn’t like what had happened.

here’s the irony: first, chorlton, the area where i live, is posh and professional and supposedly the safest area of manchester. there’s even a neighborhood watch on my street. but the cops said that, even with our alarm system, my window had been broken into before in the past few years. great, that’s just great. so, my landlord came to board up the window and i ran and hid upstairs. i didn’t want him to meet me, since i’m intending on moving out asap. needless to say, he badgered the housemate about my housing contract, wanting to know when i’ll sign it, and wanting her to sign some other census-type form about the house, putting my name down that i’m the new resident there. she told him she’d do it tomorrow (which is today), and suggested to me that i just sign the 9-month housing contract now, then break it in december and find someone to sublet my room.

call me crazy, but why would i want to sign a legally/financially-binding contract to a place i know i want to leave, where i don’t even get a bed, that someone’s already broken into and made off with my stuff? and then find someone to secretly sublet from me without the landlord knowing? no way, man. how is it i lived in the crossfire section of roxbury for nearly three years, where several people were shot up and one man actually died on my street, and yet i never had any safety or security problems at all?

the down-side is, without signing this contract, i think i’ll need to jump ship asap. but where? i’m praying the sam situation works out. i’m praying in general.

i called george last night for probably a million dollars. i thought burglary was a pretty good excuse to finally call. i hadn’t spoken to anyone i know, and he’s always a good voice of reason. he can’t quite possibly get any cooler than he already is.

honestly, if my masters program weren’t incredibly perfect, which, all administrative red tape aside, it is, i would be on literally the next flight back to boston. if the red tape doesn’t sort out, if i do have to go back to boston, back to my job, defeated, would you all bow your heads and please pretend this experience never happened? if that’s what goes down, i’ll apply for a fullbright to do my own documentary project next year. i might even apply for the fullbright regardless.

anyway, i am trying to keep my chin up, despite the robbery and the intense, consistent cold and rain, and the financial bla bla bla, and the fact that us americans are on a hunger strike because the food is too pricey, and i think we’ve all lost at least 5 pounds since arriving. “bon,” rosie wrote from san fran, “my coworker from london says manchester is the armpit of england.” yeah, i’ve heard that before. it would actually be an ok city if it weren’t for the weather and the general fact that it’s in britain. as it stands, though, it seems like a godless, grey, sad place. but i’ll have to work on reversing that.

more later. enjoy your sunny days, despite those awful floods…

(nick, your place in brooklyn is fabu compared to 90% of the poo-poo places i’ve seen in manchester, and in all of them, you pee on your feet and shower and shave at the same time. i really didn’t think places could be so nasty until i’ve seen places around here; i’d trade it all for 57 herbert street any day.)

so while we’re on the subject, allow me to describe the jail cell i visited today. it was supposed to be privately rented student accomodation by salford university, which is about 20 minutes from my school. however, after a 20 minute bus ride and a 25 minute walk over the rainiest, windiest highway overpass you’ve ever seen, i get to a petrol station. next to that, wedged between a home for the mentally disabled and a halfway house “where the naughty big boys go”, there’s salford hall, which you have to get beeped through several gates before entering. if you can imagine the sketchiest-looking motel in the heart of texas, then multiply it by 10 and add a few hardened english accents, that would be salford hall. the “warden”, keith, liked me cause i was white. he didn’t want to put me in “chinatown”, the end of the hall where the chinese kids live. instead he recommended, if i wanted to move in, that i wait for a few more weeks, when a room opens in “the more…european section, shall we say…”

needless to say, i started choking on my own spit and am continuing to fight the good fight to find a new room asap. i told the roommies last night that, simply stated, my funds won’t cover their place and i cannot open a bank account and pay for school until new housing gets settled. i blamed that all on the uni, and frankly, it kind of is their fault. everything is very disorganized this year, since my uni has merged with another.

anyway. a pal from my program, also from massachusetts, needs a room and she might be able to take my current one. i’m bringing her home tonight to see the room. and tomorrow i’m driving an hour away with sam, the possibly-sketchy possibly-indian guy who owns one or two rooms in oldham, a few light years away from my campus, but at a whopping $280/mo, quite possibly the cheapest room i’ve ever heard of.

thanks for tuning in, guys, and i hope my drab complaining isn’t too tedious or self-absorbed. i recognize you can find better reading material at the back of a Ragu jar, so i do appreciate your visit to my little blog and your support in general. yes, especially your support.

i’ll tell you all about how and why the british are insane tomorrow, when i select the lesser of the four evil living situations i have seen this week.

i love you all, i really do. i really really do, i really love you all! bahhhhhhhh!

very informative:
http://www.howtofoldashirt.net/

problem: i have to register for classes a week from today. but in order to register, i first have to pay. but in order to pay, i first have to deposit my stafford loans in a UK bank account. but i can’t open a bank account without showing them the housing contract of wherever i live to prove to the bank that i’m going to be here all year. which is where the problem comes in…

have i mentioned, flats in manchester are NASTY? i’ve been looking around. they’re all crappier than the crappiest dorm rooms in UMass. i know i’ve got to suck it up and deal, but grrrrr…. isn’t there some mature, clean person out there who wants to give me an embarassingly cheap room immediately?

yes, there is. and his name is sam.

sam lives in oldham, alone. he’s 28 and wants to rent out his extra bedroom for an embarassingly cheap price, all bills included. here’s the catch: first, i haven’t met sam yet, or seen his place. we’re negotiating those details now. second:

if anyone could find a posh, huge, beautiful room in a nice big house on a charming, tree-lined street, 15 minutes from the uni, and ditch it all for a tiny flat with some sketchy guy who lives about 2 million miles away from the uni, that person would be me.

here’s my reasoning: if i weren’t getting my masters in manchester right now, i’d be getting some other masters or working or both in new york. most students in new york struggle financially. many live in queens, commute to school in manhattan, and often work in brooklyn. so i’ve applied this analogy to my situation here: it’ll be like living in queens and commuting to manhattan. i mean why pay for a good location when i can spend 1-2 hours on a bus everyday (which is similar to sitting on the subway), and commute to my flat, where i live with only one other working housemate instead of 6 young students who don’t know how to do their dishes or wipe pee off the toilet seat?

if i were to rate the level of panic regarding my housing situation in accordance with the bush administration’s color-coded homeland security chart, i’d say we’ve reached orange alert here in manchester.

do me a favor: go home tonight and look around your place. take it all in: the running water, the working toilet, the furniture, the heat, the pots and pans, the fact that you’re living in america…and be grateful for it, for just a minute, for my sake.

thanks

i’ve never had much respect for people who lie. i think it shows weakness in character. i think, if you’re a mature and ethical person, there is never a situation where you can’t be straight-forward or politely assertive.

that said,

i am trying to figure out how to formulate the lie i will tell to my housemates about why i need to leave. sure, i haven’t found a new place yet, but i’ve been emailing people, so within a week i think i might be able to move. and what do i tell the roommies? they’ve tried their best to be nice to me, and to hook me up with this room after i begged for it. the only way i’ve ever been able to lie is by basing it on some large aspect of the truth.

example: “my loans haven’t worked out yet and i’m not sure i’ll get the money i need to pay for rent next semester. i don’t want to sign a rent contract and then have to bail.”
(true part = i haven’t actually received my loan money yet, and in theory, it would barely cover my rent at this house for the whole year.)

then there’s the “i’m really doing you a favor” lie.

example: “you guys want someone who’ll stay permanently. i thought i’d be here a full year, but my program director just told us we’re allowed to go home for a month each break, and then leave in mid-may. it would probably be easier for you to find someone else now, so they can move in and stay longer than i would.”
(true part = i won’t stay permanently. minus the breaks, i’ll only physically be in manchester about 6 months.)

then there’s the passive-aggressive “you screwed me over but i’m being nice about it” angle.

example: “well, also, i mean, the landlord was supposed to provide a bed, but now you say he won’t. and there’s still no internet here, but in this new place, there’a already broadband. and i didn’t realize i’d have to sign a rent contract, but now you say i do…”
(true part = i’m not the only liar. withholding the truth is also a lie. therefore you lied about me having a bed, and you lied about getting internet soon, and you withheld rent contract information. f- this, man! i’m outtie!”)

and, finally, there’s the outright “you don’t know the real truth so whatever i make up might very well be the truth” lie.

example: “someone from school knows this dude who has this room…it’s only [x] pounds a month and it includes all bills, as well as broadband, and it’s fully furnished, including a bed, and i can leave in may, and it’s right near campus. so, you know, it just makes sense for me…”
(true part = this is a very possible future scenario. in a perfect world, which this sometimes is, it’s almost probable.)

i just realized this post is very lame. if you’ve read this far, then you’ve a good idea of how crazy i’ve really become here, rehearsing what i will say. it’s just that i hate not being honest, but if i were truly truly outrightly honest in this situation, i’d risk really pissing people off, and there’s nothing worse than having to live for a few more weeks with people you’ve already pissed off. am i right?

so. will update the wild adventures as they continue. ciao ciao for now.

or down, i don’t care. i just need to move. asap. parting is such sweet sorrow, right, but not when you don’t have a bed and the rent is too high and the roommates don’t want you there and the bus is like 70 bucks a month.

dude, man, what the f, you know?

but a big shout-out to dewayne for tuning in!

i don’t know why i started with that. i guess because my temporary production teachers have just gone back to london, and all the students have gone away for the weekend. my roommates have emailed me an invite to a club they’ll be at tonight, but i just want to go home later and go to sleep….

oh wait, i don’t have a bed.

but i won’t talk about that just yet. however, thanks to scottish lindsay and her mum, i ordered the high-frequency spider repellent machine from the internet. i won’t tell you how much it cost, because it was way too expensive, but if it prevents the urchins from climbing over my face while i’m sleeping, then heck, why not…

i’ve come up with another ingenious plan regarding making life more bareable here: it involves moving. out of my place in december. into a new, cheaper, probably crappier place in mid-january, after break. that is, if i can find something. it was brought to my attention by my classmates that the rent and bill money i’m paying is too high. and, being without a bed and all, and being far from school, well i think i should bail. there’s nothing available in this city right now, what with 40,000 students around, but next semester, hopefully someone will vacate.

have i talked about teeth yet?
everyone else has non-braces teeth as well! it just got so normal in the US, seeing people with perfect teeth all the time. then i come here and everyone has the teeth god gave them! ha!!! so i fit right in, eh? it’s stupid, just a little psychological thing, but somehow it makes me feel a bit better.

have i talked about style?
man, the kids around here are so styley. these brits are not afraid of the funk, that’s for sure. they sport some crazy outfits and haircuts, for rizzo. it’s like being in williamsburg at 2am. you hate it, but you love it, and you’ve gotta stare at them because 1) they look funny, and 2) you’ve gotta respect their fashion effort. my roommate paula is especially punked out, but in a quasi-professional kind of way. i definitely feel a bit boring with my patagonia rain jacket and timberlands, but then i remember that i’m american, first of all, plus i’m old enough to be a mom, which means i’m allowed to act like a mom if i want to. and moms, often enough, buy clothing that lasts before buying clothing that looks tremendously funky. if the mom is cool, she manages to do both. but i’l'l work on that once i’m gainfully employed.

so it’s the weekend now, and i’m terrified of the boredom that’s inevitable. because that leads to thinking, and thinking leads to memory, and memory leads to wanting to email people, and that makes me remember i STILL do not have internet at home, and then i just get depressed for myriad reasons and end up eating dutch cookies instead of dinner. fortunately, my pal american kate is experiencing the same fear of solitude, so together in our misery we’ve planned to hang out in town this weekend. i have been instructed to stay at home tomorrow til she calls me.

it’s so interesting, this need for immediate friendship. it’s a substitute for the real relationships you’ve left behind. it’s like a drug. it helps you to forget that really, you’re very much alone.

and with that, off i go…

so. it’s another grey day in luvly manchester, but guess who’s going home in 12 weeks? guess? THAT’S RIGHT: ME!

for one entire month. dec 16-jan 15.
london-manchester-boston-nyc-philly-nyc-boston-london-manchester

so fire up the grill, kids. i now have something tangible to look forward to. this vacation has been sponsored in part by UUSC, my former employer, with their surprise last paycheck that direct-deposited today.

now, what to tell. i’m still waiting for my own bed and a bike and internet. but i’m hardly ever home now, and with classes and hopefully a PT job, i’ll never be home. the dorms were completely overbooked, so i guess i’m grateful i found a house, even if i don’t love it. mostly because of the coldness and the spiders.

apparently, though, there’s some apparatus that sends high frequency signals to scare away large spiders. has anyone heard of this? it’s available on the internet somewhere. i need to order several, ASAP! if anyone has any leads, do let me know….

there was so much i meant to write about, but now i’m going all blank. the days are becoming slightly routine, my pals are all internationals (representing glasgow, chicago, berlin, italy, and indonesia) so hopefully if the season continues like this it’ll be december before i know it.

please keep in touch. and enjoy the warm weather — we’re all wearing scarves and hats here. ugh!

give or take a few.

i counted it up, both semesters. kate and i almost dropped out of school today, worried about the details of the program here which weren’t clear, worried we’d have to stay in manchester all summer, worried we were getting ourselves into debt for bad reasons. but our director admitted we can leave when second term ends in may, and NOT have to come back. oh my god, by my b-day i’ll be back in the states! and then i have the summer to do fieldwork and make a short short film and write a long long thesis, and i can mail it in by mid-Sept.

the kids in my program are cool. we haven’t met our professors yet. classes don’t start for another 2 weeks, this production week is just an extra thing to get us up to speed with cameras and editing.

i just want my masters fast. i want it faaaaaaaaast!

and julia, darling, no matter what you say: britain is NOT cool. it’s dull. london is fun, or will be someday when i’m a millionaire.

ta ta ~