> tapioca world tour

I like how Nick writes about transitions, so instead of articulating the same sentiment in my own words, I will quote him:

> Moving this week. Things seem to be shifting a bit in this city, this burning old town. Sort of like how time slows when the ball is soaring towards your head.

I find it mildy hilarious that he and I no longer communicate via email or phone, but rather via static, subjective blog posts for other people to read. I like this global age in a lot of ways, I really do, but on many levels, it makes me sad. Is having a pseudo-connection with someone (i.e., via web communication), equal to or better than person-to-person communication? In terms of convenience, certainly. But I’m reaching a point now where I’d almost rather talk, write real letters or see the person rather than perpetuate a less sincere, less personal cyber relationship. You know what I mean?

Much how I feel about George, but that’s another story and I don’t feel like telling stories tonight.

In more mundane news, why is finding an affordable apartment proving to be the most difficult task I’ve ever undertaken? Seriously. The flats I’ve seen have been nice, but their inhabitants have been a new breed of weird. All of them. I was finally psyched to see a cheeeeeap, awesome-sounding setup near Kendall today, but I called and called and never got in touch with the chic who was supposed to meet me. She never called me, and she never emailed. Geeze!

However, it was a pretty glorious day, even with the overcast sky. It’s not like Manchester’s overcast; it’s lighter here, the humidity doesn’t permeate the skin. The clouds are thin here, and they glow a shy yellow. In Manch, the sky is rolling, always, with low blue-grey clouds that constantly threaten not to rain on you, but to beat you with their water. Boston is a gentler city, and I’m thankful for it.

Today I met up with my old conspirator Marcus Rhinelander to discuss, oh, the usual: his upcoming trip to Asia; business prospects and grant proposals; anthropology; interview techniques in fieldwork and videography; our varying career prospects; and possible collaborative business ventures we will or might or at some point contemplate beginning. It was nice seeing him. We met up first last night at MassArt’s Iron Pour Party (don’t ask), then this morning for the Red Sox parade, which he was photographing for pleasure, as opposed to business.

I feel like there’s gotta be some great reason why I know all these talented, creative, cultured, intelligent people. Why is it? What am I supposed to do with them? What are we supposed to do together? Throw your ideas my way, please. I’ll be here — in Ryan’s crowded room while he sings to prospective producers in other cities. Sheesh.

And their show tonight at the Paradise was the best show ever. EVER. EVER!!!!!

And I got a phone pic taken with Sarah and Gert!!!

And Autumn, since she manages bands, knew someone on the tour so we all got invited to party with the band in Days Inn after the show. But the show ended at 2a and Autumn was tired, so she said no thanks…..ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ryan’s been very nice to let me crash at his place til I’m resituated. So nice, in fact, that he doesn’t deserve to have annoying little me mess around on his computer while he’s playing a gig and upload funny glamour shots from his recent PR photo shoot. Sorry man, I couldn’t resist! They’re glamour shots! I can hear those 16-yr-old girls squealing right now…

But seriously, folks. For those of you in NYC, check him out at the Bowery Ballroom tomorrow night in Manhattan. Buy him a drink after the show and whisper: “Thanks for putting up the old woman while she’s homeless.” He’ll know what you mean.

I come home and look what happens: the Sox break the curse & win the series. I think this is definitely some kind of omen. Here are some photos I took with my new phone camera of the TV right before running into the streets of Davis Square to celebrate with Ryan and Brendan and Jason and a bunch of other guys. It’s been a good homecoming, lemme tell ya….

Why am I always leaving behind a good thing? Sure, Manchester hasn’t been great to me, and I get aggressively sexually harassed every single day when I walk through the park, or walk anywhere, but I couldn’t possibly have cooler roommates.

They just made a nice goodbye dinner tonight, and last night we had our wild costume party. But first,

Peter spent all day, and I do mean ALL DAY, making ceviche, a typical Peruvian dish with raw whitefish marinated in lemon and salt for 4 hours, served with parsley and chilli and onions and sweet potatoes. Me, who’s never eaten any seafood, let alone RAW fish, ate this very well-presented ceviche and actually really liked it. Thanks, Peter.

So we all decided to dress up as girls for the party. Here’s us helping Michel and Peter with makeup.

And here’s the finished product.

When I said “we all,” I didn’t mean to include Ben. We tease him about working at Burger King, so he teased us back:

Here’s us girls, looking annoyed at Michel for taking 200 photos in a row.

House pal Reinhold came dressed in a blanket with a toilet paper face. It was awesome! He never removed it the entire night and had to drink out of straws!

Also, it occured to me I have never posted a photo of Declan, our seventh roommate, from Ireland. He had a football (soccer) match the next morning, so he abstained from drinking. This is us, being irish and sober but looking irish and inebriated.

Finally, my pal Cee came up to visit for the weekend from London and she brought along her boyfriend, Steve. Here’s them looking not-posed.

I can’t even begin to tell you how sad it is to leave…in 8 hours.
So I won’t.

I’ve rediscovered how deep those indy rock boys really are. In classic 8th-grade fashion, I’ve decided to name the world at large as the current theme song for the sitcom of my life.

And now that I think about it, “Float On” is right up there too, as is the entire first half of that album. Geeze, I’ve become so High Fidelity. How disturbingly male.

PS — sorry, I’ve disabled the “Comments” function due to some auto-programmed spam that keeps posting fortune cookie comments on this site. Why did spam ever come into existence? Why are people inspired to do mean things? I’ll never understand…

That’s right: us. Whaaaaaaaaat!

I am proud to announce I stayed up past 4am last night “watching” this game by following live-feed plays over the internet and listening to the streaming radio broadcast. Thank God for Johnny Damon, right? I fell asleep at the top of the eighth and woke up again at the bottom of the ninth, but there was barely any scoring in the second half anyway, as you all know.

WOOHOO! SOX!

Here are some more photos of all of us looking very happy and fun in 8 Ruskin Ave. I am so so so so sad about leaving my housemates, I can’t even tell you. Too bad Manchester is like the worst city ever.

One night last week, the street actually looked pretty at dusk.

Peter asked me to cut his hair. Later he decided I wasn’t the amazing stylist he hoped I’d be, but hey, I never promised perfection…

The other night, all roommates took over my room and became very silly. This is the boys, wearing my earrings and being inappropriate with one of their personal care items.

Here’s me pretending to be an assassin. Convincing?

The girls and I decided to hide under Peter’s bed as a surprise while Michel filmed us. We attacked them with perfume, then found out that Peter’s allergic to perfume. WHOOPS!

This is Shiva & Angeline & me wasting $8 each on pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Totally worth it, man.

And you’re all invited to our big huge costume party this Saturday. But I guess it might be kind of a hike. Too bad. You’ve no idea what you’re missing!

Get this: the Big Big head of all social sciences at the university has decided to FULLY REFUND ALL TUITION FEES for me & K, thanks to a very well-written letter she wrote regarding problems with the program. The guy who was mean even issued us a written apology. This is pretty cool. Too bad that Xmas flight I bought from London was non-refundable.

Now all I have to do is stop having anxiety dreams (they have switched from anxiety dreams about England and school to anxiety dreams about going back to Boston), and wait for this awful twitch to go away near my eye. It magically appeared during this turbulent era of freaking out, and it has yet to disappear completely. Maybe when I finally get home.

And speaking of “home”, or the concept of it, super props go out to Nayiri for hooking me up with her bachelorette pad while she practises living married life at her boyfriend’s place. I OWE YOU, GIRL! HOLLA!

Man, what a week it’s been! Just when you think situations couldn’t get uglier, that you couldn’t possible feel more stressed out or whatever, BAM! Crap flies across the room and hits you in the face, and part of it even gets in your mouth and because you already have to sneeze, you swallow it.

Had final final meetings, me & K, with the Big Boys in Visual and Social Anthropology. They’re both temp directors since the real directors are away on sabbatical. Unbelievable. They wouldn’t let us criticize anything, even constructively; they were aggressive and hostile and mean and nasty and the head guy snapped at me and growled, “YOU’RE basically saying my program is crap!” and then went off on K. The only support we got was from the departmental secretary and the head international financial lady (emphasis on LADIES, as if that’s a surprise), and a little support from some other students who ALSO agree this program is, to put it in the director’s words (not mine), “crap”, but are too afraid to admit it lest they get their heads bitten off also. Plus many of them are being funded or are paying less, so what have they got to lose from a program they feel is mediocre? Not too much. It’s so insane. It’s just been such a bad several days.

All of this asserts and reasserts and double-validates my decision to leave. Each subsequent ugly interaction with a school administrator confirms that I’m doing the right thing. Instead of going home dejected, feeling a bit like a failure, I’m running home super-relieved that I got out before it was too late. Honestly, it’s just been unbelievable.

Granted, I don’t know what I’m going home to, but anything is better than this. And even though I’m not yet able to phone certain people without getting completely hysterical, at least I have [most of] my pride.

See y’all real soon.

Here’s the decision: am going home. Next Monday, the 25th. Start the party, kids.

We voiced our complaints to the director, but he was peeved. Everyone else in the school apologized for the bad program, including the financial lady and the visanth program assistant. She even admitted that the program was shoddy and in transition and not what it was advertised to be. We’re supposed to be relieved of paying for the classes we’ve already taken, since the program has been unorganized and not very challenging, etc. Now we have to make a list of all its problems, in case they ask us to turn in concrete complaints.

We wrote up a long list, with reasons ranging from a complete lack of complimentary facilities (darkroom, design computers or classes, practical classroom space for our doc class, even decent access to video editing suites), to not-so-challenging classes (we’re allowed to read whatever we want, or next to nothing, and just get assessed based on one essay at the end of the term), not very good video production tutorials (i ended up teaching my classmates photo/video basics during a session that the AV guy was supposed to be covering comprehensively), AND the fact that many American PhD programs won’t fully acknowledge this MA, since it’s a one-year program (in fact a girl getting her PhD from UMass was allowed to come here for one year but only on the condition that she take one masters-level year of classes at home first, even though this program is supposed to be a full masters program itself). Why spend 30k and a year here if we would have to repeat a masters program in the States if we want a PhD at home?

There were other reasons, but I’m not explaining everything. My biggest concern is return on investment, and the fact that the program does nothing in terms of career development (help you find an internship or even a volunteer position in the industry, or extensive networking opps) makes me nervous. I can’t afford to finish up here with no career plans or prospects. That said, UUSC looked pretty good, considering they agreed to pretty much fire the person they hired to replace me before she even started working. I have projects in Boston — in fact, I just found an ethnographic doc production company in Cambridge who accepts post-production volunteers — so I’m more and more happy about deciding to leave. But thanks for the devil’s advocacy, Jeau.

The only problem is leaving my current roommates. I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH! They are the coolest roommates EVER EVER EVER, and they’re in mourning that I’m leaving. It’s actually really cute. I’ve never felt so wanted before, except maybe at UUSC…Ben and Shiva randomly stop and hug me in the hallway or on the staircase, tell me I can quit school but I can’t quit living in Manchester with them; Peter has taken to throwing my hat and/or shoes and/or anything else he can get his hands on out the window or the front door. Or they’ll say, “Don’t leave. You can’t leave. You can’t leave! Don’t leave! Ahhh!” all of which makes me feel 50% happy and 50% terrible. But I’m in the process of finding a new person, so hopefully it’ll work out. And I have a week to collect the $1000+ in housing deposit owed to me by various people…hopefully I’ll get that cash back.

I can’t believe I’m throwing in the towel, but dude, if you were here (any of you), you would totally understand the dilemma.

Not to mention, Katie and I are the 6th and 7th people (out of 22) to drop out so far. That should tell you something. It should tell you, Jeau, to think of a really cool documentary we can make in New York, because now we can.

ROCK!

So I might quit school and come back to Boston. I’m trying to make a rational decision. This program would be great for, I dunno, maybe $5000; but $30,000? Holy crap! What was I thinking?

I’m not learning much in video production. The facilities aren’t great and our cameras are 5+ years old, though they’re ok. But dude…I could make a documentary at home. I could…I could…ugh…I hate to think I have tried and failed, although we all do that in life. Katie and I feel cheated; we didn’t know our famous director would be on sabbatical this year; that there’s only 3 staff members here; that there’s no help in getting internships or prep for real careers; this is all very troubling. We’ve been trying to stick it out. I made it through getting robbed, I love my new housemates, but…I have a day to decide whether to quit school; I can still pull the loan money out tomorrow.

Even if I didn’t go back to UUSC, maybe leaving here would be for the best. Not to mention I absolutely loathe Manchester. You can try to quell the perpetual sadness of just living here, but it’s so so hard. However, now that I’ve got a good home situation and I’ve been in classes a few weeks, I feel more apt to make a rational, well thought-out decision about staying or going. At least I didn’t pack up and give up when the first thing went wrong….I waited til 40 other things went wrong.

Katie and I met with our director to discuss. I ended up in tears, shockingly. I sat there, trying not to cry, choking on my own despair and anxiety, and I suddenly thought, dang. This isn’t me. What happened to me? I think I need to go home…

Man, who knows. I don’t think I’m gonna write in this blog anymore until I make a conclusive decision about what to do. If I decide to leave, I’m not going to announce it. I’m just gonna show up back in Boston or Philly or whatever and keep on keepin’ on. That’s how it goes, right? We certainly learn from every experience. This one’s been a whopper.

Julia, to answer your question, that’s what people from Manchester are called.

It is so grey today. I wish I could take a picture of the view from this 5th floor window of the social anthropology lounge in the Roscoe Building here on Brunswick Street. (Doesn’t everything sound so quaint? Well it’s not. Everything is dirty and wet and shoddy and full of 18-yr-olds in furry boots and short skirts. Not cute in the least.)

My veil of optimism (or tolerance) has begun to fade away. I’ll go home in exactly two months but it still feels like forever. I’m obsessed by the suggestions of what I might be missing right now at home: freelance video opportunities, professional networking, bike riding, hamburgers, George. But I know I’m here for a reason and it’s a good one and I’ve only got another 7.5 months to go with 7 weeks of vacation in between. “If we can get through these two terms,” Katie said yesterday, “we can get through anything. Any other situation, even a terrible job and crappy apartment when we return home, even that will feel excellent compared to this.”

She’s right, and I have to keep that in mind. Our moral support group is like my IV. That, and my supercool housemates, and my daily package of McVittie’s Digestives, a fabu graham cookie they sell here with dark chocolate on top.

More later. It’s cheese-and-avocado-sandwich time.

Thank God for Joe’s blog. If I didn’t read it everyday, I’d have no idea what’s going on in the world.

Being the commemorative day of our murderous colonial heritage AND the day we lost superman forever, I thought this photo most appropriate. (The silence can start now):

Dave told me once that everyone we see reminds us of someone else. I remember arguing that generalization, but now that I’m old and wise I can see that he wasn’t entirely wrong. Really, so many people I’ve met remind me in some way of people I already know:

Michel reminds me of Bud Durand from Emerson.

This girl Becca in my program reminds me of this girl Meredith from first grade — loud, with wild hair. Also I think the 80s clothes have something big to do with it.

The gay guys at Thompson’s all remind me of Emerson party boys.

Alberto, a young professor, has the same eyes as David Bernick.

Esteban, my editing teacher from the first week, reminds me of Roberto Arevalo, also a crazy videographer.

My landlord Steve, who’s my age, he reminds me of some bloke I went to high school with, though I can’t place exactly who…

Anyway. You get my point. Now for the interesting story of the week(end) regarding my housemates:
Angeline fainted. That’s the short of it; here’s the long of it: Michel dropped a knife in the kitchen. It happened to land on Angeline’s foot. This produced a small slice in the top of her foot. It required a band-aid. However, Angeline started freaking out.

“I can’t stand the sight of my own blood,” she said in her Donegal accent. “I think I’m going to faint.”

Yeah, whatever. Michel had gone out to buy band-aids at Pasha’s Food Store on the corner. Upon her request, I got Angeline some Coke and sugar water, but by the time I got to her on the sofa, she had slumped over. I tried to shake her. “Angeline!” I yelled, but to no avail. “Michel!” I yelled, not realizing he had popped out. “Micheeeeeeeel! Angeline fainted!”

Nothing. In a small house of seven people, suddenly no one was around.

A few minutes passed. Angeline started shaking on her own, like spasms. She finally lifted her head up, opened her eyes wide, and it then became immediately apparent that she had no idea who I was or where she was. I kept trying to tell her she was alright and it was alright and what was going on, but it was no use.

Then she started puking. All over the floor. Suddenly Michel and Peter appeared and the three of us got to work trying to clean up the puke and repair Angeline’s foot without her noticing the cut. She lay on the floor for a while, then dragged herself outside for air. Five minutes later she appeared at the kicthen table for dinner, laughing “I’m fine!” in a sing-song voice.

Man, that was so stressful! Seriously, what drama! I was spooked.

“Get used to it,” she told me. “I faint when I’m hot and I faint when I see needles and I faint when I see my own blood.” This leads us to ask some very obvious, practical female questions, but we’ll just leave those unanswered for now.

I just got out of a class and I am sooooo starving. Last night George called (HURRAH! hurrah for phone calls from my own country!) and later Cee called from London. Smithies (Rosie) will be happy to know that Cee just got a very nice boyfriend and is living with very nice people who take her dancing every week. We made a phone date for tonight.

For those of you who haven’t already written it down, my mobile number is (011.44) 0790.170.3455. Because of the outragious rates here ($2/min), you can call me but I can’t call you.

Did you know? We had a bomb threat on campus last week and they had to rope off half the campus. And there was another one downtown over the weekend, cops everywhere, busting drug dealers and other random people. The cops here wear those big funny hats and neon yellow rain jackets. Here’s a picture which will give you an example (also pictured is one of the boys from Thompson’s):

In other news, ovens are called “cookers”.

I can’t wait until we have internet at home (5-10 days is the official word) and my bank account finally opens. I can’t wait to fly back home and ask George to please drive me from the airport to Brukowski’s or anywhere I can get a very large hamburger with bacon and lettuce and tomato and onion and avocado, with fries on the side. And then an EXTREMELY large ice cream sundae, which is impossible to get here since the ice cream costs between $8-10 a pint, I’m not even kidding. I’m going to get so fat between December 15 and January 15, I can’t freakin wait.

Happy (happy?) Columbus Day, everyone. Shockingly, I do not get the day off.

It’s times like this I reeeeeeally miss Boston…

George often works doing camera assistant stuff for Boston sports teams. He’s been doing a lot at Fenway this season, and wrote me with the following recap of the amazing game last night. (G, I hope you don’t mind my cut-and-paste):

This was by far the most exciting day Ive worked in Sports TV.
I was doing my normal thing, but on such an elaborate show
that my normal thing became less normal for me. There are
these little boxes where photographers and camera ops
can sit and shoot. These are literally on the field
right by home plate. You cannot buy these seats.
Anyway, ended up being the utility for the camera op
who was positioned there. I had to watch the whole
game from this amazing seat.

In addition, I was given a glove to wear during the
game so that if a foul ball came out way I could stop
it from hitting us, or the camera. So sure enough, I
had one big chance to save the day, and my reflexes
worked out perfectly. I was shocked. I caught this
ball in the glove that was headed right at us.
Apparently (they tell me this at the end of the game)
this was played, and then replayed…..so my little
snag got caught on national TV…..ok, so thats
interesting…..but then, the camera op tells me to
lean forward a bit and fake being a fan. So I did
that, and he filmed alot more of my face than I had
thought, with the game in the background. This shot
was on TV as well. I got text messages right
afterwards…..insane!

Finally, as the game ended in extra innings, with a
dramatic home run, my camera guy and I were in the
locker room waiting for the team to come back in and
scream and throw champagne on one another. Its was
crazy. Media everywhere in this not so big room, i got
literally doused with champange and beer. All the red
sox were wearing goggles, smoking cigars, and spraying
alcohol on each other. and I was getting stepped on
and caught in the crossfire. how nuts is that?

That’s right, folks; Scottish Lindsay and I took to the streets the other night, in search of transvestites to star in our 15 minute, in-camera-edited class-assigned process film. We sat for 2 hours in a bar filled with men-turned-women but couldn’t get up the guts to ask them to exploit themselves for our camera, so we finally left, feeling like failures…

But just then

we passed by Thompson’s Arms, a gay guy bar advertising some kind of show. We decided to ask if we could film backstage, and after talking to the nice bouncer and the nice bartender and the nice owner, we were introduced to DJ Cassie (who’s pictured on the website) who agreed to let us film him getting ready the next night. Score!

I’ll try to sum up: Thompson’s Arms is awesome, and Lee (DJ Cassie’s real name) is a really nice, 24-yr-old guy. We hung out with him and his pal Steve, another gay guy who used to be married and worked for the Church of England, and about whom we might make a film, since his mission this year is to bring religion (an accepting religion) to the gay community, hopefully cutting back its trends of promiscuity and drug abuse, etc.

They wanted to talk politics with me the whole time.
What’s up with Bush? Didn’t you guys, like, not elect him?
Um…technically, right. We didn’t.
Then why…
Ugh. Don’t ask.

The process film went pretty well, minus some minor sound problems. We got Lee putting on all his crazy drag makeup, and then he came out in full costume, and this Sunday we’re going back to film him singing on stage, then we’re going out at 2am with him and his pals. They’re really a great, friendly bunch of guys. We get free drinks (imported ginger ale for me) and the best part is, we can dance around and have fun but not get hit on by skanky hetero British men! (Which, by the way, can be a big problem in general clubs here.) It’s awesome, and we’re going to continue filming all year, most likely editing promos for the club and/or performers and/or producing a short documentary for Steve’s quest to bring God to the community.

So things are fun and decent in Manchester, shockingly enough. Despite the fact that my UK bank account is STILL not opened and I STILL haven’t been able to pay for school or access much money, things are moving along ok. It’s a partially-sunny day today, and I’m going to go home and eat a sandwich.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

They still have milkmen here. Isn’t that unbelievable? And just like Santa, they come in the night. Amazing. Really, truly amazing.

In other news, I finally bought the Economist. I think I mentioned that yesterday. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
- East Coast hurricanes have caused personal and property insurance to inflate exponentially
- China is a Nation To Be Watched in terms of economic potential and development
- A rebel group has cropped up in Niger and oil investors abroad (like the US) think it might become a real threat, therefore oil prices for trade have jumped to $50/gallon, or something ridiculous
- New Jersey might go to Bush; in fact everything might go to Bush, although democraphic trends indicate that next election will be blue (dem blue) in a landslide
- Karl Rove’s strategy this term has been to gain the votes of born-again Christians…and although many of them don’t actually turn up to vote, he’s got 90% of born-again Americans already in Bush’s pocket…

You know what’s interesting? Anthropology of globalisation and development. It’s a class where my professor goes off about American capitalism, economic trend-setting, and most of all, neoliberalism. Did you know, we have completed the stage of “roll-back” neoliberalism where, broadly speaking, the power of the government is rolled back to allow for more power in the private sector, a la Michael Moore’s The Big One? And now, in 2004, we’ve entered a new stage: “roll-out” neoliberalism, where state intervention is replaced by policies in favor of not just private companies, but transnational private companies.

I go to this class, and I listen as my leftist (and socialist) professor tells me about my own country and its policies within the context of Europe-as-victim, or England-as-economic-follower. He rolls his eyes when he talks about “Mister Bush” and “Mister Blair”, obviously quite miffed that his own country has to waddle in the shadows of US actions, economic or political or otherwise. We talk (he talks) a lot about neoliberal trends in terms of how they affect personhood, which is a very haughty anthropological theme, but practically speaking, it’s all very interesting: that as a market economy we’re encouraged to be market-oriented, market-socialized, our individualist ideas based on the market, with consumer culture at the root of everything. It’s quite a system they’ve developed all these years, particularly Mister Ford and his car company, and quite a mainstream family structure they’ve advocated for and continue to advocate for today.

Think about it: Bush wants all Americans in church and out shooting squirrels and married by 23. Heck, Britney Spears is already married, why aren’t the rest of us? Where are our family values? Who cares if you get divorced two years later, it’s perfectly fine to be permiscuous and irresponsible and drug-addicted and goal-less, so long as we wear glittery wedding rings on our fingers and refuse to fraternize with those tree-hugging, sign-hanging, WTO-hating, God-ignoring, free-loving neo-hippie kids and their damn academic classes. Academia is ruining America! What we need is less education (via astronomical interest rates on student loans — REPREZENT! 13% on 30k this year alone!) and higher ed funding opportunities and academic programs, so the pesky nerdy kids will have to move to other continents to get their degrees — to countries with terrible food and constant rain, for example….you know, just as an example of a country where an American would have to move to get her degree…ahem.

I need to go home and eat some tortellini now. I hope I’ve give you all some good hard bits of socio-political thoughts to chew on. After all, if I’m forced to be here and take classes, well, you’re forced to learn what I learn.

We’ll move on to video production after the weekend. I’m shooting a process film on transvestites with Lindsay from Scotland! ROCK!

Here’s a photo I took on my webcam, so it’s worse quality. It’s me trying to duck so you all can see my room, then realizing all you can see is the background glare on the mirror — whoops.

Meanwhile…
I bought the Economist today, for three quid. I need to get socio-political ideas for my thesis + film, not that your suggestions haven’t been wonderful. Oh and I got some grainy photos back from crappy Foto-Save, which I know would have come out great if (a) I’d developed them in a professional place and not a convenience store, and (b) I hadn’t taken the half-used film through the X-ray machine in the airport. Really, who needs these X-ray machines anyway? “The terrorists” are smuggling bombs into their shoes these days, isn’t Homeland Security aware of that? Cmon, people! Ditch the X-ray machines and quit damaging my film.

In other news…
It’s turned out to be quite a luvly afternoon in Manchester. The sun has come out of its month-long hibernation and now all us little students are running around campus in our funny-looking Euro boots and insufficiently-insulating scarves. Also,

obviously George and Ryan like me more than anyone else, since both of them sent me packages of Extra light blue peppermint gum. If I ration the packs appropriately, they should last all semester. George also sent mini-DV tapes. ROCK!! I ate my cheese-avocado-and-spinach sandwich sitting next to Ben on the couch, only to realize when I was nearly done that George’s package had been sitting there the whole time.

“Oh my God!” I yelled. “I got a package! Oh my God, I got a package from George! It came today? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

The French girls were over. Shiva made a lot of international friends during her week of orientation, mostly French and German girls. They travel in packs and this afternoon a big huge pack of them had all marched over for quesadillas. They looked up at me, holding my previously unnoticed package gleefully.

“Oh, I taught you knew,” said Ben in his French accent. “I taught you saw eet dare da whole time…”

Anyway, packages are awesome, so as soon as I find interesting things to send to you people in the States, I swear I will. Who wants a coaster? Some biscuits? Is there anything England has that the US doesn’t have? If you think of anything, lemme know…

Ok people, here is a virtual tour of my house and housemates, courtesy of Michel’s camera. We’ll jump right in. I took a few liberties joining photos together in Photoshop, so sorry if they’re not all entirely to scale…

This is our street, as seen from Peter’s skylight window at night. All the houses in the neighborhood, being rowhouses, look the same. So this is where we live. (Notice the “it just rained” ambience. That’s how it always is.)

Michel’s room is right next to the front door. This is him pre-haircut.

Here’s Peter and Ben in the living room. Peter’s the techy German with a lot of hair; Ben is the French guy, clutching his red wine…

This is Shiva. She’s from New York and is finishing her last year at UMass Amherst. She doesn’t like it when I take intrusive close-ups of her face…

Here’s a wide shot of our kitchen table, with Ben and Angelina.

This is our kitchen, and that’s Angelina from Ireland protesting that I please not take her picture. Whoops…

Ok, moving right along…So here are the steps leading up to the second floor. Our house, keep in mind, is still under construction.

Here’s the dirty hallway, once you climb those stairs…

And here are the stairs to the third floor, where I live. They’re very creaky, especially late at night when you have to go downstairs to use the bathroom.

Oh look, now we’re entering my room…

And here’s a 3D representation, to the best of my ability, of all sides of my room.

And here’s me in the mirror. DEFEND AMERICA. DEFEAT BUSH!

Notice the alarm clocks in this photo — I brought two accidentally, so one I set to UK time, and the other I kept on US time, just so I could always know what time it is at home. In this photo, it was 11.47p in England and 6.47p at home.

I’ll put up more of Manchester once I take them. Ciao.