MULTITUDINOUS SIGHS TO ENSUE

Just yesterday I applied for an S2A2, grant to work at a nonprofit (Four Corners) for the summer.

Hello Cheryl,
Unfortunately we do not run a volunteer programme as we believe that no-one should work for free! Thank you for your interest in our organisation, however we have no current vacancies.
Kind Regards,
Four Corners.

MEETING ALUM #1

i met an alum yesterday for lunch at her apartment around primose hill. she had two friends over, a couple, so it was them, her, her partner, and me. she works for saatchi and saatchi, a multi-national advertising firm that i only know of because salman rushdie worked for it. and her partner is from south africa. they were mostly young professionals, except for the woman of the couple who works at a nonprofit? united international college? she had spent a summer volunteering at an orphange in kenya. anyway, they all seem to live pretty easy lives. lunch was a bit stressful for me b/c of the race, class and age differences and i was so concerned about making a good impression. i suspect i was also a bit uncomfortable in light of all the reading i've been doing on colonialism in africa in my classes. anyway, i really liked jane, the alum. incredibly intelligent, enthusiastic, genuine. she offered to look into the internship i want at saatchi and saatchi for the summer. my dad's been pushing me to go corporate b/c he respects the professionalism, but i'd like to stay away from bad politics, massive egos, and opportunistic people for as long as i can.

ADRIAN MADE IT ALL BETTA

went out with adrian friday night! picked up tickets to hear chris berry speak about chinese cinema from british film institute, had dimsum with champagne at ping pong by the southbank, went to see the clientele at buffalo bar, had fish and chips for the first time, and then stayed over at his place b/c the tube closes at midnight.

the clientele aren't well-known in their native country so they played in this tiny intimate basement that reminded adrian of olde club. at one point, a writer stepped up to read his short story with music in the background. i told the bassist his playing was very soulful at the end of their set and he replied that he was feeling a bit sad that night. and then adrian made me take a photo with him, aren't we considerate haha

BREAKING POINT

i've been really trying to like queen mary. even though they failed to inform me that i'd be missing orientation, even though they didn't register me for classes and then told me the classes i wanted were full, even though their technology is from the early nineties, even though their library is next to a cemetary and has lights that turn off every half hour, even though students here don't do shit except drink, i've been really trying to like queen mary.

but it's not working. there are limits to my patience. reason fails me when applied to this place. it's been a bad day, mostly b/c people here seem ridiculously immature and insubstantial. like today in my poco and ecology class when we were supposed to be talking about the ogongi people of nigeria, people were having conversations about nymphomaniacs and earning money. and like when i passed this group of boys, they began questioning whether i was a girl or not. srsly wtf are we still in junior high school here???

ugh i can't deal is this reality as terrible as i'm making it out to be

SUMMINGIT UP

the weight of my hair has been unbearable these days so i got a haircut at a korean salon off tottenham rd, cost me 30 pounds but was well worth it considering my satisfaction (and the living standard here). afterwards, i went to one of the libraries on the university of london campus by russell square. it took me forever to find the entrance! quite the maze. by the time i found the book i needed (literature, culture and society in postwar England, 1945-1965), i felt suffocated and started getting flash backs to mccabe. mccabe may feel like a prison with its slits as windows, but there are farrr worse prisons out there. like this one. imagine very low ceilings, dim lighting, an elevator the size of a closet, doors upon doors, etcetc. but seeing their campus made me feel a bit of regret that i didn't apply to schools there (like soas!). mile end's a bit rough at times. i texted adrian to see if he was in the hood, it turns out he was! but having tutorial so he couldn't get back to me in time :c i thought i'd get to see him before friday, but i guess not, how unfortch!

i did some grocery shopping at the markets around whitechapel before returning to my room. i'm always reminded of hong kong because they have the fruit and produce in set-price baskets for your choosing. i'm going to make an eggplant pork stirfry tonight, my cooking has been getting better! when i have trouble sleeping, i imagine myself preparing the next meal. these tasks are quite comforting.

last night i went to a screening of david lynch's eraserhead at the local cinema, genesis. ticket cost 3 pounds, 2 for 1 beer cost 2.8 pounds. the film was short but nonetheless scared me shitless. i'd been meaning to see it since it was suggested in my intro to film and media studies class for the week on sound. it's about a young man living in this industrial? town and his girlfriend leaves him to care for their child? except i wouldn't call it that since it looked more like a brain with a mouth and had a stem for a body. the film's horrifying, i wouldn't suggest seeing it alone like i did!

over the weekend, joey came to visit from oxford. last i saw him was probably may? he arrived saturday morning and we walked north to bond st. to meet guleranna, who i met through carrie, and her friend dave. we had a pleasant lunch together, after which joey and i tried to go to the barbican, tried b/c none of the tube lines were stopping there, so we opted for the portobello street market. we got there around 4, which was late considering it closes at 5, but there were many people still about. all sorts of used goods were being sold, a few things caught my eye, but i didn't want to be too quick to buy anything since my criteria for consumption have changed (most importantly, would i be willing to pack it for carrying back to the states???).

we came back to mile end to drop off our things and get ready for dinner and gayclubbing at heaven, which didn't really live up to its name though it was quite the experience! shirtless gay men prancing about. i quickly got tired of the techno music, though joey was loving it, and it became more of a workout than anything else JKJK it was actually fun b/c they had rooms with different atmospheres and music. stayed till about 3 and it took an hr and a half on the 25 to get back. the bus ride was ridic, drunken people having drunken conversations. this one guy was hitting on a girl and it turned out that the girl knew his brother. fortunately for the rest of us, they decided to share this with their friends at the end of the bus so they started screaming across it! felt such relief to get back.

as far as the job searching has been going, i got a letter of rejection today from southbank centre :c. i herad back from kaplan two days ago about going in for an audition. if i pass the audition, then i get an interview. if i get the interview, then i get 15 hours of training before teaching yayyy. it's 14 pounds an hour, i'd only be doing it for the money. i'd prefer to have a fun non-paid internship that's relevant to what i want to do than relive those painful high school days of test preparation.

COOKING DISASTAH NUMBA ONE

aiya i'm trying my hand at the whole cooking thing and it's SO HARD. i cooked a tomato beef dish that was okay, but today i tried making a vegetable chicken stirfry but the chicken thigh was too difficult to cut so i just decided to cook it whole except it took forever and parts were burnt and i gave up. by the time i finished cleaning up, AN HOUR AND A HALF HAD PASSED. this won't do. i'll just have to be less ambitious. i ended up just making the vegetable stirfy which was fine. but in my discontent, i'm eating cereal.

at least in my tragic attempt at cooking, i got to hear about last night's drama. apparently it was the indian girl and her friends fighting with the russian girl about the noise level. the russian girl came into the kitchen at one point, in bathrobe of course except it wasn't tied tightly enough to cover what needed to be covered. aiya.

(CRAZY FLATMATES)

doors have been slamming every five seconds for the last ten minutes, WHAT IS GOING ON, WHO IS DOING THIS. the indian girl downstairs always has friends over who constantly ring the doorbell for no reason. the ukrainian girl who lives across me has a boyfriend who is in the ukrainian mafia and never leaves her room. the russian girl who is always wearing a bathrobe mostly keeps to herself and goes back to moscow every other weekend. rosalie and the other girl are not around. MAYBE THE UKRAINIAN MAFIA IS HERE.

FIRST/LAST WEEK

so rosalie and i went into central london last wednesday, she wanted shoes, i wanted books for classes. we went into selfridges and they had this ad campaign done by barbara krueger! i'm only familiar with her work as far as what i saw at the whitney (http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/original/0262112507-f30.jpg), she's a collage artist who layers photographs. it was quite witty and brilliantly self-referential. below is "i shop therefore i am" alongside others like "you want it, you buy it, you forget it."


i looked up the advertising agency that led it and it is mother (http://www.motherlondon.com/). ohhh what i would do to work there. since i have mondays and wednesdays off, i've been trying to find interesting and creative work to do in the city. ideally, i'd find something that's relevant towards the internships i want for next year (nytimes, moma, aperture, etc). barbican and southbank centre are accepting applications, but they're likely to be competitive, at this point i'll take anyyything because class hasn't exactly been enlightening and i'm dying to spend more time in the city.

the next night, we went to this panel on "the emerging artist" at photofusion, a photo gallery, as i had been wanting to check out london's photo scene. the panelists mostly focused on the general art scene in london and what it takes for an emerging artist to be successful. the discussion was really good, as they were very all very much experienced within the industry, i particularly enjoyed soraya rodriguez's comments about how art exists for itself and how all actors in the art world should really be in dialogue about where it's headed and what it should be used for. but the panel thoroughly scared me shitless because it got me thinking about the Future and how unprepared i am for it. i always think going to these events will help me figure things out, but this is never the case.

dad returned from prague on friday night, we went out for lobster noodles at mandarin kitchen!


saturday morning we went to roman road market off mile end but it was early so not many people were out. then we took a bus up to primose hill, which is just above camden. we decided to do a walk that included a place where engels had resided and abbey road. there was cool graffiti


its summit is supposed to have one of the best views of london, the anticipation was building as we walked up, but it was kinda for naught because it wasn't too impressive, i didn't even take a picture! made me miss nyc's skyline


we headed to southbank again, but this time walked westwards! <33333 british film institute, they've started programming for young filmmakers, there's going to be a future film festival for them that i might get involved with


parliament at twilight


he left yesterday morning and it finally hit me, i'm all by my lonesome!

CLASS AT LAST

today i had an english lit class, british culture in the 1950s which lasted two hours, 3-5pm. it took awhile to find the classroom because the location was so obscure. on my search, i met an interesting nigerian student, i had trouble listening with his accent, but he was friendly and even asked for my email! i'm not as excited for this class as much as i thought i'd be, the course convenor/instructor has a soothing voice though so it's pleasant to listen. the british accent is slowly growing on me and beginning to affect my intonations. i've never really had a definite speaking voice or pattern. whenever i speak english after speaking cantonese for some time, my words are somewhat slurred or not as enunciated. the inclination is just to be understood!

i made a friend! his name is sado and he goes to a school near washington, d.c.? he is an american student as well, an english major too! neither of us can quite believe how light the work load is compared to our respective schools. a girl in our class was actually concerned about how much work this class would be. students here don't seem very stressed about work, which is...different. i met another flatmate today, she's quite nice. i've been hearing a lot of brilliant, cheers, no worries mate, etcetc. another flatmate has invited me to go into central london with her and a friend tomorrow so i'll be doing that. as well as some of my own exploring. people have been screaming outside my window for the past three nights now, but it has started to rain so they've stopped. kbye!

HERE TO STAY

so i've finally settled in! somewhat. it took forever between heathrow and mile end, the two stops are pretty much on the opposite sides of london, west and east respectively. the neighborhood reminds me of queens, mostly residential and diverse. there's a large indian muslim population here, you can tell from the stores that sell halal meat and the people walking through the streets. their markets take over the sidewalk in front of the sainsbury, a supermarket megastore that i've been to three times already. my room is tiny but cozy. it is one of six singles in a suite/apartment with a kitchen we all share. i've only met two girls thus far. this is a view from my room window:


sometimes it is creepy to leave my curtains open because i can see people in their kitchens and they can see me. queen mary's about triple swarthmore's size! it's quite an adjustment as information is not as accessible or available. i had to go to individual departments today just to find the room numbers for the classes i'm taking!

first night i arrived, i slept 14 hours. dad arrived in the morning and we went to hyde park to meet with span b/c she had a long layover on her way to south africa. turns out we missed her by just 15 minutes! meeting in a foreign country is hard. we hung around for some time before going to this underground modern dimsum place that dad had been before. then we walked down oxford street which was like suicide because it was a saturday afternoon and maddd sales were going on. we hit the british museum and the tate modern. he may be a little over fifty years old but dad's such a beast when it comes to traveling.





next day we went to see the london symphony orhcestra at the barbican for film night, they played quite a few scores from star wars, indiana jones, titanic, out of africa, etc. it was cool to hear a orchestra of that caliber play such popular tunes. patrick doyle (lord of the rings) and david arnold (independence day, james bond) made surprise appearances, the pink panther too. dad got wayy too excited for the star wars.


so he left this morning for prague and will be returning friday night to check up on me again before leaving sunday morning for nyc. it's been nice having him around to help me buy things i need and keep me company, but the criticisms were getting to be a little too much (uh UM i should eat more red meat so i can be more aggressive? WHERE IS THE LOGIC?) i'm liking the independence now, but it's a bit lonely. people keep thinking i'm from china/hong kong because i suppose most of the chinese students here are from china/hong kong but even when i speak to chinese international students using their dialect to explain that i'm actually from the states they get confused or disappointed? anyways, i guess i'm just the exception. or exceptional. hahhh.

if my time table ends up being what i've planned, i won't have class on mondays and wednesdays, but my thursdays and fridays will be full. i think the most difficult adjustment i've had to make is cooking my meals. i am nowhere near creative enough to decide what i want to eat. this is why the food network is my default channel. also. cooking for one is no fun. no more dwelling/ruminating, time for sleep! just one class tomorrow, my goal/hope is to make one friend. so sad!

COUNTDOWN TO 2K6!!!!

these were my days before london:




jan 2: moma with dheeeraj, shopping with toto
jan 1: movie at chichi's


dec 31: dinner with justine, cherie, gaby, and then partying with gaby, nicole, and adam


dec 30: lunch with meagan at lovely day, and then new museum
dec 29: dimsum with tobes, lily, xtina mui, and chendy, general hanging out, and then dinner and hookah with sofia, greg, and dheeraj
dec 28: lunch with nams, xtina, esther, wini, and jenn, bryant park, and then shopping at bloomingdales
dec 26: shopping at roosevelt fields



dec 25: xmas at the au's
dec 24: xmas eve service
dec 23: xmas shopping with nami at union square, strand, cider donuts


dec 22: send off yeon, haircut in chinatown, partay at the ng's
dec 21: return to queens