FULL RECOVERY

i managed to see waldean and pinky a few times this week since waldean was visiting from denmark on break. friday night we walked around city to look at the financial buildings since waldean's doing engineering and has an eye for architectural things. we went for dinner around covent garden and spotted the father from home alone at the table behind us! waldean and pinky were ecstatic and could hardly sustain conversation for all their excitement, and i just sat back laughing at them because they were so giddy. at the end of dinner, they approached him to confirm whether it was actually him (it was) and asked to take a photo with him. he seemed a bit disgruntled, but his wife was kind and smiled about it. our dinner went a bit past midnight so i had to 25 it back.

saturday night, waldean and pinky were going to come with me and adrian to fabric, but waldean decided against it. i stopped by pinky's room in lse's dorms and we had tequila shots in honor of his visit. i quickly dashed to fabric afterwards and met up with adrian. though i had some idea of what to expect, i don't think i was quite prepared for it, but having been, i don't think anyone could prepare themselves for the experience that is fabric. we had gone in earlier so we didn't have to wait too long, there was adequate time for adrian and i to get inebriated for the dj we wanted to see, akiko kiyama. she's from berlin and spins minimal techno (which is the most techno i can take at best). the place was fully packed and i was groped at more times than i can count. this middle aged man started saying lei ho ma to me, which i was surprised by because i usually get ni hao ma, so we gave him a glance that showed we were impressed. adrian started talking to this couple from russia and the woman was hilarious when she asked my name and i told her cheryl, and then she asked for my chinese name. ahh how quickly those four hours went! kiyama's set was really good and we took a few photos to remember the night. it was daylight savings so we had lost an hour without knowing it. got back at six in the morning and woke up with a massive hangover. it's never been this bad!

but now i've recovered and must get on with all the work i have. oi oi oi.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

classes end this week, which is a bit disappointing because i've only just begun to feel somewhat integrated into the classes. i still don't care much for the british film and culture classes (the kids are particularly cliquish in those), but i will miss my postcolonial film and lit classes. despite that the quality of discussion is not as high as it would be at swarthmore, outside of those classes, these discussions would not happen at all. getting feedback from my images of otherness instructor has made me quite confused as to what i want to do professionally. we had a conversation about my work, my experience at queen mary, my future. she seemed genuinely encouraging that i go on to get a masters in the field, as she felt my performance in the class was at that level. sophomore year i had considered going into academia when prof. ezawa helped me write a research grant proposal for my summer in hong kong, but i had dispelled the notion thinking i wasn't passionate enough for it. studying at queen mary has made me realize that there still remains a need for socially conscious educators, so once again i've beginning to imagine a different future for myself.

also, i'm fairly certain that i will be returning to NYC a week earlier, possibly may 28th, since uncle will be in the states, i will be turning 21 on may 30th, graduation is on june 1st, m.i.a. is playing june 6th, and i start work june 9th. i'll have time to properly get over jetlag and enjoy some freedom in the city. this return is slightly nerve-wrecking for me as i haven't really been at home for two years. to go from complete independence to family bondage just might make my head explode.

(the ukrainian/russian girls are shrieking right now, i am afraid to leave my room)

EIGHT DAYS TILL PARIS

in the last two days i've had to watch five films in preparation for class, sequence analyses, and final essays. my thoughts have been totally consumed by these films, a testament to the staying power of the image (for me at the least). i really enjoyed watching haneke's code inconnu/code unknown again, since it fairly encapsulates multicultural paris in all its complexity. as of now though, i'm not really enjoying having to write this essay on antonioni's blowup in the framework of swinging london during the sixties. i certainly like the film enough for examining constructions of reality, but he didn't choose a sequence that addresses this, noo he had to choose one that asks for us to rehash all the cliches of the era, cliches that i'm sure attracted all those blonde girls from cali to london. i'm so tired of this pedantic regurgitation that i might actually regurgitate. it's midnight and i haven't worked on it since this afternoon, kill me nowwww.

adrian called tonight! which got me motivated or just somewhat anxious about my last year of study at swarthmore. ahh i'll have to get myself intellectually up to speed over the summer since i'm taking women in literature (honors seminar). nat anderson's already emailed the few of us about having class at her house, asking about cat allergies. there'll probably be about five of us in the course so i'll have to prepare like mad if we're going to discuss for hours at length. i should also give literature and film a rest if i'm going to stay engaged...still haven't taken an economics or political science class, so i'll give those two a go.

ahhh my mind feels too saturated to write this essay, it's thinking of paris instead. last tuesday at the british film institute, i saw a delightful film by taiwanese director hsiao-hsien hou, le voyage du ballon rouge/the voyage of the red balloon. it got me romanticizing my visit there. this is the last shot of the film!

OMGOMGOMGOMGZOZZZZ

i've been in conversation with the executive director of Center for International Art in Community that links community art to international social justice and he's given me a conditional ok until our skype meeting early april!!!!!!!!!!!! he wants me to meet the managing director who will actually be in london for a bit to discuss their programs over the summer. they also have a few international programs and will be out of office so i might be traveling over the summer as well! i've had my heart set on this organization for awhile now because of its global and local approaches as a platform for art to create social change. also i can't remember being this excited for any position and connecting so strongly with the org's mission. ahhhh i'm crying with joy!

ST PADDY'S IN DUBLIN

so justine had the crazy notion of going to ireland for st. paddy's. we went last monday expecting a world class parade celebrating irishness and people blacking out left and right. i'm pretty sure half our flight was other americans expecting the same. instead we got this parade celebrating energy and diversity with animal balloons and sikh dancing and mythical creatures. the drinking was relatively moderate, but we found ourselves chatting about ireland with these drunken fourteen year olds on the bathroom line.


kiss my butt


the weather was bizarre, but the sun was out most of the time.


we mostly attended the festivities happening around town that day since most places were closed. all the touristy things we packed into the second day. below is the spire, a monument in the center of town. it looks so streamlined and elegant, it's definitely one of my favs.


we passed the courts on our way to jameson's whiskey distillery.


justine the alchie was the first to volunteer for the whiskey tasting.


we went to the irish museum of modern art that used to be a hospital, there was an amusing exhibit on cyanotypes.


we also went to the guinness storehouse which was...quite the experience. brilliant idea really, charging customers to be indoctrinated for consumption of guinness. fascinating for those interested in branding, i certain found it to be so! we had guinnesses at their "gravity bar," the highest point in dublin. here's justine looking like she's up to no good.


me double-fisting.


we got about three hours of sleep our last night since we had to leave superearly for our flight in the morning. the traveling was exhausting but being with justine made it betta. i already miss her!

NOTHING SEZ EASTER LIKE SNOW

i decided against the sunrise easter service at st. paul's because i didn't want to take the bus at such an early hour with crazies on the streets of mile end. woke up to find snow falling upon the city! it would've been a terrible day to rise from the dead, but i managed to get to st. paul's. for now, i've properly sequestered myself in my room, there'll be no leaving this flat until i see the sun again.

anyway, not to disrupt the linearity of this blog's narrative, but i'll take this moment to recount last sunday with justine. the weather was similarly wet and cold, so we went to harrod's for lunch and general consumption. we bought a mix of delectable items, salmon tartare with a layer of asparagus paste on top, meat pies with berries, quiche, etcetc. since we weren't allowed to eat at harrod's, we went across to a starbucks.


we later went for korean bbq around holborn for dinner. i'd been craving korean for awhile but eating korean bbq alone is hardly fun. i've been thinking a lot about food lately, prompted by rath's flatmate phil who mentioned a class he was taking on food in performance art and encouraged by justine, once founder/prez of les gourmands at stuy high. perhaps my thoughts are an extension of discourse i've heard around identity as performative and how identity is so inextricably related to consumption, how may consumption be performative? as i've been increasingly exposed to more ethnic cuisines (nepalese anyone?), i wonder what the implications are of sampling all these global flavors produced by diasporic communities. suppose i'll have to wait until swarthmore to continue this conversation!

ENTRY LONG DUE

the past two weeks have gone by like a whirlwind. i finally met old friends that i had expected to meet months ago. two sundays ago, rachel rath and i went for coffee to get reacquainted and deliberated for a bit on how it was possible that our lives were so tangentially related (u.s. history class, mutual friends, two younger siblings who are friends at stuy, similar obsessions with jarvis, mile end). we soon left for a pub that had cats with ruffle collars where her flatmate joined us. the cat was sans ruffle collar but we were just as amused by the portraits of cats found on the walls. i was going to meet dana that night at 93 feet east so when night arrived, we headed over. we hadn't eaten and made a quick stop at that 24 hr bagel place that i've been hearing about foreverrr, the bagel was disappointing but food is food especially in a stomach that's swelled with ale.

seeing dana was comforting in a way that i had forgotten could be felt. as much as i'd like to disown the notion of needing some sense of shared past or obvious connection to relate to another person, i really do miss having that sense of history and familiarity with others. so there was catching up with dana (whose birthday was fast approaching!) during which i got to hear about her life in london as well as more horror stories about mile end. we relocated to old blue last where her bfriend and his producer joined us. i do believe that night marked my longest drinking record, seven hours of feeling properly buzzed.

the next night joey came over since his moms was coming the next day to london. we went out with adrian to the end for durrr's monday night party. i'd been talking about them meeting for ages so i was glad it finally happened! there was a considerable amount of people there on a monday night, we ended it with fish and chips from dionysus in a phone booth where we had to stare at ads for post-op trannies.

thennn justine arrived in the morning from nyc! air canada lost her luggage so she arrived much later than i thought she would. we went for curry around bricklane and walked up to old street so she could see east london. it'd been raining (still is), so there was little motivation to explore. there was some sun the next day so we went around central london (british museum, lunch on charlotte st, trafalgar square, covent garden, leicester square). we also got tickets to see wicked which was good fun.



we didn't sleep that night since our flight for amsterdam was at six in the morning. we headed out at three but missed our flight by five minutes! we couldn't find a bus to gatwick and by the time we caught the train we were cutting it too close. there was another flight in three hours but we had to pay fees.

we finally got to amsterdam after a few hours, we hit the supermarket nearby and they had kitty crackers! cats are all over amsterdam, we found one in our hostel, one outside a museum, one in our restaurant. the city is definitely a haven for felines. they actually have a cat museum called the katten kabinet, but we didn't go.


the rijksmuseum where rembrandt's the night watch is exhibited


some square


up-and-coming de pijp


cute side street in jordaan


it was the weekend so everyone was sitting in cafes around the canals, i couldn't stop taking fotos of the canals and narrow houses!


though we walked around the red light district for a bit and went in a few coffeeshops, we didn't really go for the wild experience that the city can be known for. justine kept getting hit on and there was even a man who grabbed her hand as we were walking! so creepy. by the third day, we had our fair share of the place. but we did leave missing how things were spelled in dutch.

we got back last saturday night, spent sunday in london, and went for two days to dublin for st. paddy's. another post will come!

SO BEGINS MONTH THREE

i only have four more weeks of classes left! two months have passed, yet i feel like i've done very little. had to stay up till five thirty in the morning for my essay last friday, so i spent the weekend recovering by walking around camden for the first time and watching hours of miami vice. i think i have a newfound appreciation for cop shows. or just really smart eyewear, the sound of synthesizers, and terribly overdone dialogue. camden market was aight, it reminded me a lot of bangkok's weekend market. people were selling many different sorts of goods (vintage clothing, records, jewelry), but i didn't see anything that you couldn't find at a street fair. walking along the canal and eating yummy food from the stalls were the most fun for me. i ate so much toffee because i couldn't resist all the flavors and had some takoyaki (dough balls that are a local specialty in osaka). i stole a picture from someone else's blog for you to imagine the scrumptiousness.


i had brought along my film camera with telephoto lens so i could photograph people. i was going to photograph these shoes hanging from the ceiling of a stall when i was yelled at by a black woman who told me i should've been thankful that she didn't punch me. how kind.

i've recently been getting into astrology. and by that, i only mean that i've been googling zodiac signs and reading up on the respective personality traits, etcetc. i've never given them much thought, as my feeling has been that people will believe anything they read, but perhaps i've been a bit presumptuous as i find myself very nearly fitting the gemini descriptions! these oversimplifications have been comforting in a way because i suppose they somewhat affirm what i already think of myself and make me feel less alone in my neuroses.

went to church today and was reminded that it's mother's day! yesterday i was walking to the mile end station when i overheard a girl saying "mum, it's only twenty to two in the afternoon and you're already drunk!" ahh to motherhood!