Shall We Dance?

As it begins, so it ends. Packing, rushing, cleaning. Now I look at my room threadbare again, check out, and take the tube to Heathrow.

Don't really know what say except to quote a comment Drew said at the beginning of my blog:

"The first few days are tough (lots of emotional and a good dose of physical/mental pain), but you'll get through them and then you'll be all badass and wonder how things could ever have seemed as rough as you described them when you wrote them here."

"Can You Tell Me Where My Country Lies?"

All packed, just need to fit 5 more things into my luggage....I hope it works and I don't get charged for overweight. Today, the fact I'm leaving really struck me (I guess the alcohol had clouded that last night.

Don't really know what to say, I hope tomorrow I can say it. For now, a paean to Britishness, "Dancing With The Moonlit Night" by Genesis:

"Can you tell me where my country lies?"
said the unifaun to his true love's eyes.
"It lies with me!" cried the Queen of Maybe
- for her merchandise, he traded in his prize.

"Paper late!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"Old man dies!" The note he left was signed 'Old Father Thames'
- it seems he's drowned;
Selling England By The Pound.

Citizens of Hope & Glory,
Time goes by - it's "the time of your life".
Easy now, sit you down.
Chewing through your Wimpey dreams,
they eat without a sound;
digesting england by the pound.

Young man says "you are what you eat" - eat well.
Old man says "you are what you wear" - wear well.
You know what you are, you don't give a damn;
bursting your belt that is your homemade sham.

The Captain leads his dance right on through the night
- join the dance...
Follow on! Till the Grail sun sets in the mould.
Follow on! Till the gold is cold.
Dancing out with the moonlit knight,
Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout.

There's a fat old lady outside the saloon;
laying out the credit cards she plays Fortune.
The deck is uneven right from the start;
and all of their hands are playing apart.

The Captain leads his dance right on through the night
- join the dance...
Follow on! A Round Table-talking down we go.
You're the show!
Off we go with - You play the hobbyhorse,
I'll play the fool.
We'll tease the bull
ringing round & loud, loud & round.

Follow on! With a twist of the world we go.
Follow on! Till the gold is cold.
Dancing out with the moonlit knight,
Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout.

Day After Day

Jess left this morning after we had been to a last hurrah BBQ the night before. I almost got trapped in Hackney all by myself at 3 in the morning because I took the N38 night bus the wrong way. PECO finished relatively well, though I was bored and antsy before and through the final haha! I had checked out a few days earlier I think, oops.

But yes, my well laid plans to see everything in London have sort of fallen apart. I just guess I'll need to come back. Today I was going to go to the famous cemetery in the Regency area and take cool photos, but I think I will need to scale it down to going to Notting Hill to buy an obligatory gift for those obligatory gift givers (you know who they are) and buying LSE trademark clothing so my existing stuff won't run out on me down the line.

I can't believe it's nearly over. More thoughts tomorrow before the flight.

The Fellowship is Broken!

...and we overlook the edge of New Jersey--I mean Mordor. I couldn't find a better picture online of everyone's favorite Fellowship breaking up. Well I should say second favorite: ours over here has already splintered. Yes a few people have left already but this is bigger. Last night/yesterday I made the great choice of going around on a pub crawl with Stefan and Sessa. After me getting inebriated and saying reprehensible, shocking, and ballsy things, we finally met everyone on the South bank for one last hurrah: that's because JP flew out today from Heathrow. I almost missed mailing his stuff out because I crashed as soon as I got back and fell asleep and didn't answer my room phone. oops. So now we'll no longer be able to have our foursome lunches at 'spoons and other fun revelries; well at least not in London anymore. The end is really near.

(FYI he called because I had to mail a box for him: came out to 137 quid. Ouch, I need to mail stuff as well)

And I have one last final in PECO which I can't bring myself to study because it is complete and utter bullshit. Seriously, this class has been such a waste, I can't begin to explain. But because it is so messed up, I'm going to end up having to study for it so the bizarreness of it doesn't throw me.

The picture I posted I uploaded first: this is because all these retard space cadets kept finding my blog on Google because of the HP Lovecraft drawing of an Old One. I changed that so it shouldn't be a problem anymore. Random people visiting this blog is ok...to a point. Well better get back to trying to study. Hopefully I'll focus and get into the books so you won't hear from me until after the final. Until then.

One Week Addendum

Oh my God, it's one week left. This just dawned on me as I was taking a shower after the night out. JP is leaving on Monday in 2 days. Have not much to study and then the final comes. Then I myself wrap up and head out.

I guess the gravity of it hit me now and I'm thinking of what it will be like to uproot myself and go back to the States. It's not like I built up a community here of Britons I know, but I built up an existence, a mode of living, a lifestyle, a way, and now I'm going to have to leave that. London will always be here, but the way I did it won't.

Also some other things came into my mind. Hopefully I will make some good posts with this stuff on my mind as I count down to departure.

Oh yeah, so then will I continue my blog after London? I think you will have to wait for another post for the answer to that.

One Week

OK that was waaaaay too fast since I posted two weeks 7 days ago. Wednesday is my last final in Political Economy, which will be ridiculous because the course is very...hmm don't know the word. Out there? Useless? Bizarre? I don't know I think you need to witness Ronny in action to know what I mean.

I went to The Globe (of Shakespeare fame) finally with a group of friends and we saw A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was actually pretty good and pretty funny. Jono said something funny; he said we were seeing a "Romantic Comedy" I didn't think of it that way but I chuckled on the inside. But yes The Globe: very impressive. Built as an exact replica. All started because some rich Yankee came to London int he 80s, asked to see Shakespeare's Globe, was met with empty stares, and told it didn't exist anymore. So he set to it to see it was rebuilt. And despite him and the chief architect passing away before it was finished, they managed to complete the project. I still find it funny it took an indignant American to reinstate a historical part of English culture. I guess the Brits just don't care as much?

Afterwards we went to the Blue Maid for a pint (Jess: "random") and then I mentioned how I had been in a pub, I forget the name, but it was fun even though I went to the bathroom and people were doing coke right there. One bloke even thold me of his friend who ODed and died on 1 kilo of coke. Wasn't really sure what to believe, but I zipped up my pants and got out of the loo. I said there was a hostel right there and my friends said that sounds like Dover Castle and that place was sketchy as hell. I thought it was fine and fun and described the interior and they confirmed that it was it. Then when we were done at the Blue Maid we walked by it and they confirmed it for me. I still think it was fun and fine (Jess: "They can't handle the SOWF EAST!!!") Yeah, we're hardcore.

Talk about doing something wrong for a year and getting away with it. So from that night I come back to the hall and stick in my keycard as usual and open the door and go towards the elevators. Then I hear a door open and a voice behind me say "Mate, you can't just pull open the door, you need to use your keycard!" I knew that was the security guard, so I turned around and told him "No I used it, let me show you" So we both went there and I showed him, and in fact my keycard had not been working! For a whole year I had been somehow managing to yank open the door. Well at least for the last week I'll get it right.

I'M FREE...and freedom tastes of reality...

WHEW! HOO-HA! Two exams in 6 hours in one day. Grueling but at least now I am 3/4's done with my finals. One more on the 11th and I feel great. Not much hanging over my head anymore, even with one final, it feels so much better. Trying to get out to Greenwich tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain: it has been rainy and in the 50s for my recent memory. Well, I guess I got my wish for not hot weather...

Sessa is here to see Stefan. Didn't realize he was coming so early. This is going to be ridiculous: in Istanbul they were so drunk they were talking in gibberish to each other---and understood each other! It's going to be a shitshow!

Mmmm cursing...with strange words! Good thing my parents don't read this. Once I tried to explain to them the concept/meaning of "badass" and "gangsta" and then 10 minutes later I had made no ground whatsoever and jsut gave up. God! I hope I'm not like that when I go over the hill!

Two Weeks

It's Sunday, June 1st. In two weeks, I fly back to my homeland of New Jersey. I didn't think either of those two previous sentences seemed real in my mind for most of the year. It seemed like one distant memory: "Yeah I'll be heading home in June, God knows when that will come around!" Well here it is and time is running out. Better get chopping on my last minute stuff. Except for that damned thing called finals! Turns out I needed to hunker down and study more than I thought I would. The heat is sort of on when it is the only grade you get for the year that counts.

Since it is June 1st that also means the alcohol ban is in effect on public transportation in London. So we spent yesterday on the Circle Line celebrating an historic end of an era: but drinking ourselves senseless on the last car of a Circle Line train. It got really packed: it was estimated before the day that 10,000 people were going to do this. Our car was packed; it was rowdy; it was loud; it was fun. I'll put up a picture to show the pandemonium. At one stop, I saw a lady transit worker approach and everyone else did too and I think everyone took pause for a moment. I couldn't hear what she was saying and so I asked Ben from the Isle of Wight Society (yes this was an official society event) if she was threatening us and telling us to stop. He said she actually was asking us what we were drinking, told one person that she wanted to see his drink finished more quickly, and cheered us on! At another stop, there were two bobbies on the platform and the car hushed itself as they approached the open door and shouted "Listen up! This is bordering on public disorder! This has to stop!" We all hushed and averted our eyes and looked down at the floor. Then what seemed like an eternity, the doors closed and the train started to pull away. The bobbies had turned around and were walking away and as we saw we were safe from their reach we all screamed and shouted and banged on the walls and ceilings. I can just imagine the bobbies' look of disgust or anger or fist waving at our train as we left the station.

One's bladder can only hold so much alcohol so we had to make a stop back at the Temple tube stop after making it around once. Also the fresh cool air was a relief: the car got pretty hot.
Once on again, there were not as many Circle Line trains running. Competing claims of "normal weekend service delays", passenger disruptions due to us, and TFL actively trying to shut down our party were circulating about. Eventually we got on another Circle Line train going the other direction and we ended up getting off at Kings Cross/St Pancras because everything I think was going to pot as the authorities were trying to maintain control.

I was part of history! And if this level of excitement keeps up and I manage to do some more good things before I go, this will be a two weeks definitely to remember.