Jason's Daily Notes

The pace of life in London is much faster than I'm used to. The people here walk really fast. Your personal space sometimes just doesn't exist. "Sorry"! My former flatmate was in an accident. She was riding her bike and got hit by a taxi. She broke her collar bone and was rushed to the A&E (hospital). I've visited her twice already, on Sunday and yesterday (Tuesday). It's amazing how quickly things can change in life. Glad she's ok, though! My cousin got married 2 weeks ago. Just thought I'd mention that. Ziva has been staying with us in London since last Friday. My first few days have been chill. Just settling in, and sleeping a lot! I've half-adjusted to the time difference, which means I sleep at a normal (London) time, say midnight, but I wake up at a North Carolina time, which would be around 11-12 London time. So 12 hours of sleep, not bad. My bed isn't that comfortable, though, and the noise from the road can be unbearable sometimes, but every night I've been really tired so it's ok. Everyone at LSE seems really stressed with exams. I haven't met anyone yet. :( I'm not even thinking about my exam, and I don't plan to until June (my one and only exam is on 6th June). I spent Monday in Cambridge. I found a post on CS from a guy (Ethan) that had 2 extra tickets to share. So I pounced on them and joined him (Ziva came too). We woke up early (before 7am) and headed to Victoria Coach Station, where Ethan met us. Ethan is from Taiwan, and he has been studying in Lille, France, for the last few months. The bus ride wasn't bad, it took over an hour just to get out of London. Luckily the bus was clean and there was a bathroom, which I enjoyed. Cambridge was pleasant, but there was much less to do than in London. You're not allowed to go into any of the colleges, which really sucks. For me, this ruins the destination. Thus, I do not recommend visiting Cambridge. The only other thing "to do" is to go punting on the river, and there are plenty of salesmen on the river to make you feel like a horrible tourist. I received my new SIM card on Monday. This meant that I should be able to finally use my iPhone in the UK. But, alas, if only things were that easy. I have to unlock the phone first. But it's still under contract with AT&T, and I'd have to pay the $300 cancellation fee to get it officially unlocked. So instead I could just jailbreak the phone and unlock it that way. However, there's no jailbreak yet for my version of the phone (technically, for the OS I'm running on my phone), but wait! There's supposed to be a new jailbreak released this week (Friday) that will work for my phone. SO BASICALLY I'm waiting for that to come out and I can finally get my phone working Friday. Hopefully. I'm pinning all my hopes on it. ARGH! Yesterday, after coming back with Swag from visiting Maria in the hospital, we decided against going to the movies as we had originally planned. Kristina ended up going by herself, with her friend Mandy (whom I met on Saturday at the O'Neills pub to watch the Champions League final).

I'm back in London. In fact, I've been back for 5 days already. And I haven't had much to do... but that doesn't mean that I haven't been doing much. Today's snapshot. London is cold and cloudy. It's about 13°C (55°F), and it's already the second half of May! I can see why people here complain about the weather. I belong someplace sunny and warm and dry. London is crowded. Really crowded. It's inconvenient. You can't even walk down the street. Going to McDonald's can be an ordeal in itself. London is exciting. There are so many things to do.

It's my birthday! Woot. I've been trying to put together a big celebration, but with everybody leaving Durham it's been hard to do. This past Saturday I joined 2 exchange mates and went to Carowinds, a theme park in Charlotte (actually on the NC/SC border!), and we had a blast! It was the first time on a roller coaster for one guy, which made it even more special. The rides, however, were not as big/extreme as those at Six Flags. Alas, I must be spoiled. Monday I had an eye exam in the morning. It was in North Durham. It was only a routine exam, but it took way too long, over 2 hours! And the doctor was warning me about a lot of things I had never heard before. It seems like she didn't know how to discern information well and was just repeating whatever news she had heard. Too bad that it took too long; I couldn't send Jonny and his girlfriend off to the airport. I did, however, have to sign over his car to the dealership so they can buy it on his behalf. Monday afternoon/evening was a pool party at the Belmont (Kristi and Claire's place). It was bittersweet to see all my exchange friends for one last time. Gaby was about to cry several times! The water in the pool was really cold. I ended up driving the Station 9 guys home.