Jason's Daily Notes

It's the 4th of July and I'm in London. Nothing new here, really. Last year I celebrated (if you could call it that) the 4th of July while couchsurfing in York. For the past few days I thought that I might be able to have a bigger celebration here in London too, but it seems like, once again on schedule, everything is aligning against me (and frankly it's making today a bad day for me):

• I woke up early so that I could call home (it had been a while since I had called, so I thought it prudent to catch up). It's actually pretty remarkable that I woke up, because for the first night in a long time, I wore my ear plugs to bed and closed all the curtains. This shut out all the street noise from outside, which really helped me sleep better - I had a vibrant dream and felt well-rested.
• So at 6:30 I was up and connected to home. Shortly thereafter I had taken a quick shower (actually more of a rinse) and proceeded to work on my startup business (idea). I posted online, asking for advice about starting a business.
• Made breakfast. My latest (and really delicious) addiction is to cook an omelet of sorts with grilled onions and peppers and a dash of curry powder to really bring out the flavor. It's amazing. Today I made it with potatoes, which were good but cooked too long so they became mushy. This all took almost an hour in total.
• Since it's the 4th of July, I wanted to customize my facebook to look cool with an Independence Day themed cover photo; however, I couldn't find any that satisfied me (one of my friends already has the aliens blowing up the White House, and I don't want to copy him). Instead, I posted a quote from President Bill Pullman on my wall. I also distracted myself searching for things to do in London for the 4th of July, and came up mostly empty-handed. There's only one vaguely American thing going on tonight, and it's at a bar that is sponsoring a hot dog eating contest. C'mon!
• Oh yeah, and all of this "research" took up a couple hours of my morning.
• For some reason I've been having a weird headache. It feels like blood is rushing to my head and making me feel flushed. It's not "ache-y" as I'm used to, slightly more "throbby" if anything, as if I'm wearing my glasses too tightly, but I'm not really wearing my glasses. I suspect that it may be due to staring at a computer screen for too many hours.
• My plan for the afternoon was to have a 4th of July barbecue in our yard. This was dependent on the weather being nice and sunny. Around 11am it began to rain (the weather forecast had only called for clouds). Looks like no barbecue today.
• Finally around 12:30 I headed to campus. The Jubilee Line was part suspended between Waterloo and Finchley Road, and my train was moving very slow. At Bermondsey it seemed like it'd be sitting there for a while, so I got off and took the bus to campus.
• The computer lab that I liked to work in was closed. I had to walk to the NAB (where you have to swipe with you ID to enter) to find a computer.
• Ugh. Small things really make or break your day. And today I feel like I'm breaking.

I've shyed away from blogging recently. I just didn't feel like doing it. I guess the novelty has worn off. It seems that the novelty has worn off of many things in my life. In the past month I've spent more time dwelling on the frustrations and inconveniences of living in London than on the benefits and excitement here. But maybe if I reflect on the past month in London, it'll seem better. Maybe.

Quick summary: Jubilee, persistent cold and rain, one exam, naked people, Euro 2012, Stonehenge, France?, Wimbledon, "so call me maybe"!

The month started off with the Queen's Jubilee weekend, celebrating Her Majesty being queen for 60 years. London was festooned with the Union Jack. Swag went to Berlin for the long weekend, using up his Schengen visa the best he could. I listed many recommendations for him to visit (and eat) in Berlin. I hosted Ria, a friend of Swag, who was visiting London for the weekend from Oxford. She has traveled thoroughly, from Japan to Slovakia to Nepal and Africa. She dumpster dives when she can, and she made some simple but delicious mushroom soup for us. My friend Phil was also visiting from Austria, along with his girlfriend Assma. They were very nice, but (as always when a guy friend becomes committed to a girl) he wasn't nearly as crazy or excited as he was before. They arrived at Gatwick in the evening, and their train took them to London Bridge just as the tube stopped running. On the night bus home a girl vomited on the floor.

1 June. Friday. When I'm bored in London, I go exploring, and today was one of those days. I headed west, ending up in Acton Town, which is a pleasant area of London that could easily play any suburban British area (and which I think it did on some TV shows or movies, maybe?)... Either way, there's nothing particularly glamourous about it on the surface.

2 June. Saturday. It was the start of the Jubilee weekend and it was pleasant, not raining for once. While Phil and Assma explored Oxford Street, I bought guitar strings (for my new guitar) on Denmark Street and walked around Soho, discovering a cool festival at Carnaby Street, where I took them afterwards. We had some meat pies at a pleasant pub (the Windmill), then checked out Hamley's (mega toy store) before returning to Carnaby Street to enjoy the free strawberries and cream and juice spritzers they were giving out.

So it's Monday morning. I have been in London for a month and 10 days now. Also, it's six months to Christmas. For the past week I've been hosting a French girl, Alice, who is on her way home from a 1-year adventure - mostly in Australia but bits in Southeast Asia. She's the hitchhiking, free-spirited type, which I quite admire. Since Friday Alice's friend, Solen also stayed with us. The housing transition. On the 21st (Thursday) started another quarter of our apartment lease. It also meant that Kristina was to move out. Thus, Swag and I have been (at different levels of franticness) looking for a new flatmate to move in. Gumtree was not very effective, and neither was Craigslist. We got a couple responses from CouchSurfing, and even more from Spareroom.co.uk. Nevertheless, by Thursday we still had no flatmate. But I advanced the money to make the rent payment. There was one guy from Switzerland who was interested, and was willing to commit to the room sight unseen but he only wanted the room for 2 months, which wasn't best for us. (We wanted someone for either 1 month, so we could sublease during the Olympics, or 3 months.) I have a habit of imagining the worst things possible to happen. Weird, I know. But I guess it makes real life seem much less... horrible?

Why does this always happen to me? I'm not enjoying myself in London. I did my laundry today, then hung my clothes out to dry. A few hours later, in the evening, it starts to rain! My clothes will take 3 days to dry in this weather! And now they're gonna smell bad. I wasted all day playing Civ V and watching YouTube videos of "Call Me Maybe". All I ate was a can of beans & sausage and a can of lentil & bacon soup. Yum. Not. My new desk chair arrived today (and which was the reason I stayed at home all day). I starte to assemble it, then realized that I don't have a screwdriver so I dinka just gave up halfway. We don't have a replacement flatmate for Kristina yet. She moves out next Friday. And we have to pay rent. I'm feeling like I'm getting sick. I saw a picture of myself with my shirt off. God, I have an ugly body. And I'm fat. This makes me sad. Which makes me want to eat more. Dammit. 5 friends have their birthday today. Too bad I don't feel like celebrating. Ugh, now my eyes hurt from starting at the computer screen all day. Yuck.

Short week. What have I been doing? Pretty much nothing. You'd think it feels good to be completely done with exams and everything... and it does. But I don't really have anything to make me get up in the morning. And I don't have many other connections in London to meet up with either. Life just seems really dull. Today I woke up at 8:30am and instead of going for a job, I decided to go out [I had decided that the earlier I do things, the more productive each day would be.]. I wanted to explore more parts of London, so I headed to Westminster at 9am. It wasn't too crowded, and I walked around the Houses of Parliament to Lambeth bridge and further south to the Tate Britain. But it was closed. So much for that plan. So I walked over to Vauxhall, and it began to rain. Sidebar: The weather has been absolutely horrible the last week or so. It's been raining almost everyday, and chilly and windy too. Today, it was especially windy and rain would spurt on every 30 minutes or so. Umbrellas were useless. I took a bus from Vauxhall to Peckham, with a goal of going to Primark to buy a couple things. Sitting behind me on the bus were two loud, shallow sounding American girls, they seemed to be around my age, and they were talking about all of their friends who were now getting married. I resisted the urge to talk to them and just pretended that I wasn't American. I made it to Peckham, and it was still cold and raining. I walked over to Primark, making sure to check in on Foursquare (I was doing that the whole morning. Guess I'm going through that overuse/addiction phase with it now. And it's a way to satisfy my urge to constantly use my iPhone while trying to limit the amount of data I use [I'm still on data roaming in the UK]. The Primark wasn't very crowded, not surprising considering it was 10:30am, and I was able to find some cheap undershirts easily. I also bought a cheap long-sleeve shirt, just because. [And also partially because I feel really underdressed in London. I'm trying to not let the peer pressure get to me, but it's hard. They have a different style here and you can't help but notice. I miss the really casual laid-back attitude of Americans in general.] Anyway, I had noticed that the P12 bus stopped right there in Peckham, so I waited for a few minutes for it, getting pelted with a strong wind and waves of rain showers that soaked my Primark shopping bag. The bus was filled mainly with older people and it took me all the way home in 20 minutes.

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.