LEISURE/PLEASURE

the past few days and nights have been more or less exciting. friday night was guleraana's 25th birthday/quarter of a century celebration. cut copy was playing at fabric, but they had sold out and we didn't feel like waiting on standby when the line had no end in sight. i met her other friends, some of whom she stayed for a year in rio with about two years ago, so they knew carrie as well! determined to have a good night out, we went to brick lane and ended up spending most of our time at a bar called exit. we discovered that the bouncer was from staten island! and he even promised to just let us by the next time we visited.

on saturday afternoon, i hung out with eweh, whom i had met at ccil. she's from sweden and on her gap year to take classes in london and work. she came last september with a few of her friends to do a short photo program and then decided to stay when it was over after three months. her friends have left though, so she's sort of alone like i am. we met up at the photographer's gallery by leicester square for a curator's tour of four prizewinners. i especially liked the work of Fazal Sheikh, his images were starkly soft and quite beautiful. there was also a finnish hunter who photographed animals in color, he insisted that the frames be connected to each other.



rosie had invited me to a show that night hosted by platforms, an online magazine founded by one of her friends from high school. i took a look at the magazine and they had interviewed akron/family, guillemots, etc. so i had high hopes but it was a terrible show. the first band was from california and the female lead sang a song about bakersfield, california called "slow death." she even tap danced during the last song wtf. i wanted to kill her except her parents were at the table next to us and that wouldn't have been too nice. before i wanted to cut my ears off, i enjoyed some time spent with rosie's boyfriend andy and her friend emma. on the tube ride back to east london though, andy mistakened me for rosie when he reached back to hold her hand as we were walking down the platform. this is the second time that a friend's boyfriend has mistakened me for that friend. i am especially pained when this occurs due to my singlehood. most people i know here are in relationships! that most of them are younger than me only makes me feel like i will die alone.

on sunday, i went to two film screenings. one in the afternoon at cine lumiere of the french institute in south ken called silence of the palace, a tunisian film. the director was there for a question and answer, so our professor of "images of otherness in french and francophone cinema" organized the trip. the second film screening i went to was of still life, jia zhangke's latest work, at british film institute. i went alone, but managed to chat with a man next to me by the end of it. i didn't get back until eleven thirty or so, and didn't begin writing the 1,500 word essay i had due the next day at 4:00pm until about 1:00am. i do believe this is the first time i've felt comfortable slacking off. this would never ever happen at swarthmore as the sheer thought of handing in something i didn't feel was my best could be enough to make me vomit. i got it done to my satisfaction by around 3, though I only had about five hours of sleep.

anyway! these are my tentative traveling plans until i leave for new york, which i am now 80% sure i want to do (such mental calculations will be explained at a later post).

march: amsterdam and dublin for st. patty's when justine visits
april: paris for a week and a half to visit magali and michelle
early may: barcelona, valencia, madrid, and other stops for ten days alone because everyone i know who's going to spain is doing so with their boyfriends or meeting future boyfriends ughhhh
late may: berlin, prague, budapest, and vienna for ten days if magali joins me (but i might be desperate enough to see these places and go alone even though it would be dangerous, damnit why am i female)