> tapioca world tour

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…