The Ruminations

Ah yes, so what was some of what I was thinking about that I alluded to very briefly? (this is the selected, not the collected, thoughts!) I realize as I write this that I should probably go to sleep, but sometimes you have to run with your thoughts and the Chi and feel and be in the moment or else you lose the magic. If you don't like this, fuck off.

My roommate once told me that once someone has self-pity, you almost find comfort and enjoy continually putting and keeping yourself in that place. It is a dangerous path to go down and you have to be aware of it, because even the most astute people can fall prey to it.

But what is difference between artificial self-pity and seriously feeling unhappy about yourself? Unhappy might be too strong a word, but what else can be used to describe the following. You have two choices of opportunity and both have the potential to be great but they cannot be followed completely and simultaneously. One can be followed but then prevents the other from being followed or the other can be followed yet it causes quite a problem of development, continuity, and continuation in the one.

It's agonizing because you want both things, yet you cannot. And you wish for things to be the best, and God only knows what will be. Are we like leaves thrown into the wind, there to grit our teeth at unfortunate circumstance that come our way and throw up our hands in defeat? Are we in vain struggling to hold back a torrent of events and causes and effects that are beyond our control and comprehension? Will everything turn out for the better? If you are strong, optimistic, positive, and successful, do you need to fear utter annihilation? What will come of our actions, will they just fade away "like tears in the rain"? Are people really so small that we wring our hands and bite our knuckles and worry ourselves to death because we are too short to see over the next hill the new and improved things that are to come our way and make us laugh in retrospect at how we worried ourselves so silly? Or do you wish you had never wanted to see over the hill in the first place?

I probably threw out a bunch of rhetorical questions and stale stereotypical philosophy? But what else are you do when events in your life tear you apart in opposite directions and all you want is a look, subtle sign of body language, and a little smile that says everything and more than words could have ever done.

Maybe I have cracked. Or maybe I'm just saying what we always thought.

kam

FUBAR

Well the insanity continues but I have just stepped out of a nice well-deserved hot shower and I think I have come to a point where I can be somewhat coherent, entertaining, and not clinically insane.

I will direct you to Jess's most recent blog post http://gitnerblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/multi-tasking.html and my comments. I guess I could repeat them here, but eh, I think the point has been made. I'll make a slightly more coherent retelling.

Didn't get much sleep on the plane, had a real hellish trip from Heathrow to Holborn by tube because my other checked bag would not fit ont he one with wheels, so I had to carry it, strap over my shoulder. And it weighed 70 pounds. Ouch.

So then I get to my dorm, meet my really nice flat mates and then proceed to make an even better impression by frying my 120-volt surge protector and killing some of my flatmates' power for a while.

But all through this, it really seems much more complicated and overwhelming to move in. I have only found one "general store" (Argos) where you look the item up in a giant catalog, and then give the item number to order and it is brought up to you. Neat, except it costs an arm and a leg and I am looking to cut back on costs and maybe get some ultra-cheapo hangers (anyone, any ideas? Please?) And then only one Food Store which seems decent but I want to see the best. The food store is not so important, but I want to go to a store where I can buy all the non-food supplies I need and not get ripped off. And I need to get them now, have no experience, and if I get ripped off now, that lasts for the year.

As it is, I am being a frugal as possible and I am haemorrhaging money like no tomorrow on God knows what, because my room is as bear as a pauper's. Also after frying my surge protector and having to get a replacement, as I unpacked my clothes, I realized LSE was kind enough to give me the smallest furniture possible, even a desk with the least amount of drawers possible, so now it seems like, unless I have a bright idea, and even with that bright idea, I will have to be living out of piece of luggage or two for the rest of the year.

All this while, thank God I was bumming around with JP getting food or finding our way or meeting people, but I don't think I slept at all on the flight over. I entered near sleep a few times but can't remember going into sleep at all.

Just to give you an idea of how tired I was, Kristen surprise Skyped me, which was nice but at the end, I was talking to her and my eyes began to close and I would babble utter nonsense. It happened twice to the best of my efforts not to. So I said good bye and took my mom's skype and explained my situation. Of course my parents said I looked really tired and asked if I was alright.

They tell you at orientation for study abroad that you may panic and feel homesick at first. You laugh it off like it could never happen to you: you're all revved up to go, you know others more worried than you, you're all prepared, etc Then you get there and all Hell and pandaemonium breaks loose and you wish things could be simpler like at Georgetown.

Like eating. Here, there is no meal plan: fend for yourself. But 3 of the people in my flat are Britons and one got here earlier in September from Hong Kong, so they all staked claims with food and cabinet space for their cooking utensils. Which leads me as the odd one who came in with nothing. So now I need to worry about getting all this stuff. It seems a waste to buy and throw at the end of the year, but since everyone bought stuff already, I would feel like a mooching douchebag if I asked to borrow cooking gear. Guess I will need to sort that one out.

For not a few times today, I wished this could be as easy as moving in to Georgetown. At least, thank God, I have this week to buy what I need and get myself settled, I hope.

PS- Jess if you read this, tell me how you made your banner and the links on the side. I am proabbly missing something very obvious here...

Bitter then Tired Post

After frying my floor's circuit breaker due to sleep deprivation and then having dark slightly sad ruminations on the plane, and now dealing with the Chaos that is unpacking into a room that does not have enough drawer and closet space, buying cooking utensils, food, and a cell phone plan and then meeting new people and learning a new city, I would say I am pretty beat and out of my mind. I will post later if I am more sane/lucid.

Leap of Faith

Here I go on my 7:40PM flight out of JFK. I get into Heathrow on the 30th at 7:40 in the morning. Good luck, fare thee well, see you on the other side if my flight doesn't crash first...or get hijacked. Ciao!

Hopping Across The Pond

2 days until launch time from JFK. Yep, the has come. Last weekend I was down at Georgetown for an extended weekend with a special someone. It was really great: I'll miss her. But as I say to everyone, including myself, I will be back in two and half months! Wipe away those tears everyone, including me! I feel I will miss the Hilltop, the atmosphere, the people, the visual reminders, all of it.

But London is going to be tons of fun. I just got an email about a "Fresher" cruise for 4 hours on the Thames with food and two alcoholic beverages--for free, compliments of LSE trying to get us to socialize. Nice. Also there is some tour company that is offering us LSE newcomers 50% on great fun touristy things like riding the Eye or taking the Jack the Ripper tour at night. Awesome. I only hope my bank account of summer job money and parental subsidies can take the punishment.

Status: wrapping up my life Stateside, transferring email over, reminiscing, being hopelessly nostalgic and romantic, entertaining myself on 1963 Doctor Who, listening to music and reading, and waiting for a Mr JP Medved to get his butt into Jersey so we can fly away to Heathrow on a red-eye. (NOT packing because I already finished: thanks Mom for badgering me, even if I was rude and ungrateful like a college age kid)

PS- is anyone remotely entertained? At the least, this blog is personal therapy

"Cultural Imersion"

I think the only thing I remember about those stupid online tutorials and essays we had to do for OIP was all the stuff pertaining to culture shock and the culture differences at the sites we were studying at. Today, I helped remedy the potential culture shock that will hit me as I step off the plane Heathrow: I watched the first episodes of the 1st season Doctor Who--from 1963! Wikipedia calls is culturally significant and a "national institution" Maybe this will help me reveal how Britons and their culture operate!

A picture of the first good Doctor, William Hartnell


Here is a music video to the Original Theme. Knock yourself out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzA9MejOOE

Life's a Bitch, and then you die!

Since some of the readers were wondering what a Modest Hyperbole is, it is quite simply just a funny oxymoron I came up with in my head. Maybe it parallels my life, who knows.

As I mentioned to a friend I messaged on Facebook, my stay here seems really long and timeless. It doesn't feel like a long time, yet it's hard to imagine my friends at college have already been back for half a month, seems like it was yesterday they were here. At the same time, however, August into September has seemed, I guess the only way to put it is "timeless" and epic because I've done and seen so much, covered so many days, and even now covered the change between the seasons.

Thursday, I am going back to The Hilltop to tie up some loose strings. That could be both good and bad depending on what happens. I'll let you know when it does.

Luckily my mom bitched me out to pack last week, and sure enough it worked! Now I have very little to do and surprisingly, I will fit into 2 checked pieces, 1 carry-on, and a backpack for my laptop. I expect at the end of the year to accumulate so much crap and not to pack as well as i did going over, that I will need another checked bag when I return at the end of LSE. We'll see. Right now, I am reading, watching movies, surfing the net, going back to Swift Potomac's Lovely daughter and then off off and away.

PS- if anyone has suggestions what to do about voltage converters/plug adapters and UK cell phone providers, do let me know.

Stopping the Sloth--Maybe

Today, I was outside a little after 5PM. It was a little more brisk than it has been for a while and the Sun was sooner than I remembered it hiding behind the trees in front of the house. That means only one thing: Fall is upon us. Autumnal colour and then grey will soon be here. I'm going to miss the foliage and the dramatic change that Fall brings when I am LSE. I was talking with a friend of mine who goes to NYU about missing the Fall and he said I will have it in Britain. I told him he was right, but seeing it happen in your old stomping grounds is something very different. He assented and said he felt the same thing (of missing Fall unfold) when he was in The City and not back home in Jersey.

So what does this have to do with anything? Yes, I realized Summer is over and I better get moving on my blog or everything will think I post nothing. And then they won't read it when I do write when I am across the Pond. Or I might get even more inertia and not write when I get there. So I'll write and entertain you and maybe if I am lucky I will entertain myself. Or maybe the luck is in entertaining you. Either way, hopefully this blog will be of some interest.

Last night, a shipment from some sketchy online retailer arrived and what did it have, but 2 ultra-cheapo webcams for me and my parental units. Considering they were under $20 they are really good and even the luddites that my parents are were able to Skype without any problem! I was afraid I would have to write out directions or something pain-in-the-arse like that. So yes, I have Skype. You know my name, look me up and I'll add you. If you facebook message or Gmail me in advance, I can work out something so we can talk and the 6 hour time difference can be mitigated. So do Skype: everybody's doing it (As my mom noted, "Skype" sounds like some horrible disease)

I would write everything down right now, but then I would have nothing to write for the future and nothing to entice you back. Oh yeah here is a cliffhanger: why "Modest Hyperbole"?