Jason's Daily Notes

Last weekend:
Saturday, 8 September
It was a warm and sunny day. Went to the park (London fields) to meet Maria and her friends for drinks and a picnic. It was crowded. Isabell was outgoing and friendly. Cotta and her Hungarian friend were there too.
Mike's brother, Roy, was visiting from the Netherlands. They went out to watch The Expendables 2, and really wanted me to join, but I chose not to. Instead, I went on a little adventure myself, taking the tube around to Euston and riding the bus back. Back in the flat, Roy and Mike had brought back Katie (Roy's friend who traveled with him in Australia) and her friend Christie. We stayed and had plenty of drinks, while the two boys tried to work their moves on the girls. I ended up playing some guitar, haha.

Sunday, 9 September
Went to see the London Paralympics marathon. There were not many people there at all (both viewers and marathon participants). Still, it was good to wear my flag one last time for the games. Mike and Roy were at football 7 a side at the Olympic park.
I went to Volleyball in Hyde Park again! There were more people (because the weather was really warm).
Met up with BJ (Maddie's boyfriend). Some friends joined me from the volleyball (Amanda, Craig, Marie, and Heidi from Finland). We searched for a cheap pub serving food, and ended up going to O'Neills by Chinatown. Then, parted ways, and BJ and I went to the south bank, where we met Mike and Roy to watch the fireworks. Fernanda was there but she didn't want to leave her spot to join us. The fireworks were very cool. BJ was very jet lagged.

Monday, 10 September
There was the victory parade for Team GB. No buses were running from Waterloo except for the 521.
I had a drinks meeting with Josephine from Sharehoods. It's a startup that I'm really interested in. I just want to work for some startup somewhere, so why not get experience here. We chatted at the George IV for some time, and I made plenty of suggestions regarding crowdsourcing and such. But I didn't get a job. Oh well.
I went to the boat party (organized by Kurt for the language exchange group). It was nice, although the boat was rocking. Swag was there with his friend Olga (who was in London last year but whom I never met). I ended up dancing with Fränzel and Lily.
Roy and Mike went to watch Ted.

Tuesday, 11 September
I slept in a little bit. Went out with Roy, as it was his last day in London (his flight was at 5pm). We walked across Tower Bridge, and we climbed the Monument. Then back across London Bridge, we eventually met Mike for lunch, at Borough Market. We finished our food at Southwark Cathedral, where a woman noticed my American accent and then asked if she could do an interview with me. She just wanted me to share my experiences of 9/11 since it was the anniversary. Oh man. Well, she wasn't actually a journalist, just a contributor to Audio Boo (you can find her recordings by searching "Delores").
Mike went back to work, and Roy grabbed his things from home and I showed him off (to keep his oyster card).
That evening, Amanda came over for dinner. I made an amazing batch of vegetarian chili (I credit the mix of bell peppers, celery, lentils, beans, cumin, frozen veggies, tomato paste, and chili powder - basically the whole recipe!) We discussed possibilities for staying in London with our visa (she's not being sponsored by her company) and started job searching together. By this point I had pretty much decided to stay in London.
We watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. I decided to call Mike "Swarley."

Wednesday, 12 September
I decided that it's primarily important for me to find a job, even before finding a flat. I somehow woke up early, drank coffee, and spent the morning browsing through job postings. I chatted with Jonathan for a bit on Gchat.
It was already the mid-afternoon before I went out. I didn't have an itinerary, just decided to go to Old Street and try to find the elusive Google Campus. I think I found it. It doesn't seem particularly impressive from the outside.
Returned home. No one was there. So I went for a walk to Stave Hill, which I realized is my favorite place in London. Cold War Kids' "Royal Blue" was playing on my iPhone as I climbed up. Perfect.
Mike and I grabbed a beer at the China Hall. We played pool. He was clearly more skilled than I was, but somehow I won 2 out of 3 games. (By default - he pocketed the 8 ball in the last game).

Thursday, 13 September
An exhausting day of flat searching! I responded to ads in the morning, set off around noon to visit as many agencies as I could, starting around Bermondsey, and I signed up with each of them. At Tower Bridge, the agent said that he's holding a viewing of a flat by Bermondsey in an hour, so I joined him for that, and I invited Mike to come over too. The flat was very nice, exactly what we wanted. But it did not include bills in the price, which made it too much for us.
Back home, then I pulled myself over to Old Street for a quasi-agency that had no rooms for us but offered us to live in their basement (?!). Took the bus to Whitechapel, where I had a viewing for a dirty and small ex-council flat on the 5th floor with no lift. (Obviously, no deal.) At least the girl, Tina from Bulgaria, was nice and helpful.
I then walked toward Shadwell to view the next flat at 5:30. There was a group of people outside, at least 10. As I waited for my turn, more people kept arriving, bringing the total number of prospective tenants to over 25! And it was only 1 room available! I asked if they had any properties with 2 bedrooms available, and there was one in Shoreditch, and the guy drove me over there straight away! It felt weird to be in a car in London. All this time, I was chatting via WhatsApp with Ragnhild and Kristi and Mike. The Shoreditch flat had an amazing location, a respectable price, but a measly kitchen and a smelly staircase. No, sorry, I wanted something nicer. So I guess we'll have to search farther afield.
I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got on the Overground home. Swag had gotten a citation for biking on the pavement in the construction zone. Mike tried to scare him from behind the window. I made ghetto lasagna. Chieh was texting me via Viber. She was clearly interested in me and wanted me to come over asap.
I called home, since it had been so long. Only my uncle was there.

That's it for now. Whew, things are going by so fast! Let's hope this chaos settles down now.

Thursday, 30 August 2012. Ok, it hasn't really been a horrible day, but just a lot of things weren't going my way today: I couldn't sleep well last night, largely due to an unexpected caffeine overdose and my resulting desire to just get out of the house (and to just get lost).

I was awaken by loud hammering coming from my ceiling. It sounded like the neighbors upstairs were nailing all of their furniture to the ground. The sound itself was only somewhat annoying, but made worse by the fact that I had an alcohol and caffeine hangover. I forced myself drowsily up.

I simply could not go for my usual jog. My body would not let me. Because I was going to the paralympics in the evening, it was important that I had my US flag with me. But it was still dirty, so I put it in the laundry with a set of clothes. And, on schedule, it started raining. So I hung them out to dry in the damp air. I just missed the bus to take me to the tube station. No big deal, except that I had just checked for a bus from my window 20 seconds prior! The Jubilee Line was experiencing delays due to an alert at Bond Street. Thus, when I got on the tube at 12:30-ish, instead of being mostly empty as it usually is, the train was packed, and there were a lot of people boarding at each station too. Grumble grumble.

I could not make any progress on my dissertation. I proofread a couple paragraphs and read through a few WSJ articles and a research report. But no luck otherwise. Which is not good, considering my self-imposed deadline of tomorrow to get all my writing done! The weather has changed. The air now feels wintry. I can smell the crispness of autumn in the air. Well, here's hoping that my evening is better - sitting volleyball at the paralympics. It should be fun - I hope!

I set a self-imposed deadline for my dissertation: This Friday (tomorrow)! To make this deadline stronger, I've planned a big Monopoly Pub Crawl on Saturday. Making it public helps to enforce the deadline. I have been very diligent about working on my dissertation; I'm becoming more productive each day. Yesterday, I drank a cup of coffee (just one!) that kept me up and focused all day (even though I was still wired and jittery in the evening). In fact, as I was leaving the library, I ejected my flash drive, but it wasn't in the computer! I started to panic, not being able to find it anywhere, and I even thought someone had stolen it... BUT turns out, I was looking in the wrong computer the whole time, it was really plugged into the computer terminal on my right! So my brain is pretty fried in the evenings. Last night was also the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. I watched bits of it online, but the connection kept pausing and there were commercials too (because it's on Channel 4, not BBC). Tonight! I'm going to watch paralympics sitting volleyball with Mike. It should be fun, even though I've never seen a paralympics event in my life. Mike is cool too, he's enthusiastic to hang around (or maybe I'm just enthusiastic to hang around?). He apparently is running his own PR/social media consultancy with his brother. So I'm honestly kind of impressed and inspired by him. Anyway, the games tonight will be Egypt vs. Morocco and Iran vs. Rwanda. I think I'll be the only American cheering for Iran :) Our bathroom drain is still clogged. I emailed Brian, and he says that it's the council's responsibility because they manage the external drainage, where people seem to dump a lot of their rubbish. The weather has suddenly gotten colder. Last night, it was genuinely chilly as I was walking back home. Summer looks like it's ending already! :(

I was up early today. I had told everyone that I was going to go to Notting Hill Carnival today, so I had planned to wake up early, go to the library, and then meet Fernanda and her coworkers/friends around lunchtime there. So was the plan. But honestly, I just didn't feel like it, so I decided to go my own way.

I jogged, showered, and had a veggie chicken burger before heading out at 11:00. Swag was still asleep, and Mike had gone to Tesco. I was itching to get out of the house anyway. (I think jogging everyday has finally given me more energy!)

I took the tube to Notting Hill Gate, which was exit-only today for the carnival, and rightfully so - it was a mad mess trying to get out through the station. I followed the crowds down a few blocks until loud booms of music could be heard. Really loud. There was a DJ playing reggae mixes on the street, and there were food stalls everywhere. Smoke rose from the myriad Caribbean food stalls. I didn't realize what kind of festival this would be - I thought it was just a small, random parade fitting with the posh nature of Notting Hill. But it was a full-on Jamaican/Caribbean celebration. Even though I was there early, the streets were filling up and half of the people were drinking cans of beer (Red Stripe, obviously, being the popular choice).

I strolled around and thought, "what the hell," and I bought a plate of jerk chicken with rice. It was yummy, and I paid with all the change in my wallet (which meant that I paid £6.94 instead of £7.00 - saving £0.06; haha, deal!). I walked, trying to eat at the same time, and turned the corner just beyond the Notting Hill Bookstore. There was a crowd gathered around a group that was emerging from a church. Some people were on stilts, some were banging drums, some were holding giant towering costumes, and they were all dressed in flowy, colorful outfits with their faces painted. It was random but cool. I finished my chicken and walked around some more, turning north and discovering another center of activity, where the Trinidad and Tobago truck was rolling through and there were more festively dressed partiers. I took some more pictures, then started walking back to Holland Park station, where I caught the tube to LSE.

I ran into Ankit on the staircase in the library, and we caught up briefly. There, at my go-to computer area, was Elena. And so here I am, working on my dissertation, tying to get it organized into something coherent and acceptable!

August is flying by really quickly. I can't believe that I now have less than 1 month left in London!

Saturday, 18 August. Last weekend was warm. On Saturday, the sun was out and the temperatures were up. I was firmly planted in the library. In fact, having arrived there early, I was having one of the most productive days working on my dissertation this summer. Chilango in Angel was giving away free burritos, so I went there at 15:00 to meet Swag. But Swag was at Camden Beach, and Maria was on her way there too. I was hungry so I just ate alone and went back to the library; I didn't want to waste my productivity. I couldn't sleep. Thanks to Trycho and Mike McCartney.

Sunday, 19 August. I was on a bus early in the morning, like 6, which was interesting to see all the muslims going to their morning prayers. I rested a bit and was soon out again, this time to the riverside, by Bermondsey, to again enjoy the day. Swag left his keys in a bag, which he left on a bus! So, he and I are sharing my set of keys for the week at least.

Monday, 20 August. Swag awoke me to tell me that Bridget and Alessio were moving out in 2 days. What?! So I began posting on Craigslist, Gumtree, Spareroom, and Couchsurfing. How annoying. One girl viewed the flat in the evening, but I was out meeting a cousin who was visiting London. I returned to the LSE library (as usual) to make more progress on my dissertation, which didn't really happen. I was browsing Olympics apparel on eBay. But I was distracted anyway: My cousin Aaron was in London (for now at least), so I met up with him and his friend Dan on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral at 17:00. We grabbed a drink at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, where their friend/host Nick (or Mike? Wow, I'm horrible with names) met us. We then traveled over to Marylebone to have fish and chips at The Golden Hind. There were a lot of tourists there, but the fish was really good, crunchy and fresh. It lives up to the hype, even though I don't like fish in general. After that, we headed to Liverpool Street, and we went to a speakeasy, hidden in the basement of the Breakfast Club. We had old fashioneds, which took the bartender like 20 minutes to make as he just kept stirring it, but they were delicious!

Tuesday, 21 August. The search for a new flatmate continues. The dissertation continues. I returned back to Canada Water around 15:30, took the bus all the way. Gary was around.

Wednesday, 22 August. THERE WAS A FREE BLOC PARTY SHOW IN DALSTON. It was a "secret gig" that was just made public last night. I went there with Louise, who was back in London for a week or so before she moves to Paris. We got to the queue around 5, guessing that we were around number 200 in the queue, and within half an hour or so a man announced that all the wristbands had been given out and that no one else would get in. Shame. Anyway, we signed up to an email list. Then, we headed to the Big Chill (by King's Cross) for free cocktails and free burgers, but there were way too many people there; it would've taken ages for us to get served. So we headed to Camden Beach to catch the rest of happy hour. We edged in and made the acquaintance of a nice Italian woman named Anna. We split the 2-for-1 cocktails with her. It was apparently the last day for Camden Beach too, so we were very lucky! Louise's friend from Germany was with us, and I befriended the girl who was trying to squeeze in a drink order next to us. Back home, Alessio's bike had been stolen, and this was his and Bridget's last night in the flat. I was gone, so I missed the police coming to file a report for the bike. (But honestly, there is so much negativity between us now, that I don't really care to see either of them much at all.) The same night, while I was also gone, we had another guy view the room, Mike from the Netherlands.

Thursday, 23 August. Had veggie burgers for breakfast. Then headed, as usual, to the library. They had replaced the chairs in the library, so now they were ergonomic and new, instead of the hard painted wooden chairs that were there before. Mike (from the Netherlands) came over to pay for the room - DONE, booyah! Swag and I went to Tesco to stock up on some essentials. We also bought drain cleaner, because our shower and sink drains have had an inexplicable block. The dran-o didn't really work

Friday, 24 August. Went jogging in the morning. Made eggs for me and Swag. Spent the day at the library, staring into a computer screen. I met up with Fernanda who was having drinks with coworkers in Canary Wharf. They are all young and international. I only remember some of their names, Larissa (from Austria), Rafael (from Brazil), Jennifer (from Austria), Alexandra (from Poland). They tried to pass me off as one of their coworkers too, because they have such a fast turnover that hardly anyone knows anyone else in the company.

Saturday, 25 August. The email list we signed up for (see Wednesday) provided us with a free ticket to a Bloc Party show in February! Awesome. Guess I have to return to London for this. Spent the afternoon at the library, working on my dissertation as usual. It rained in spurts of downpours, heavy thunderstorms. Claps of thunder erupted above the library throughout the afternoon. It was a very unusual weather pattern. I thought I was lucky to go home in a dry spell, but as I emerged from the tube station, the rain was pouring down heavier than ever. I trudged through with my umbrella, but it was useless. The rain had drenched my jeans and my shoes, all the way through to my socks. Yuck! Swag cooked spicy chicken, soya sauce, vinegar and chilies. It's almost like chicken adobo. Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his Tour de France wins as a result of doping controversy. Neil Armstrong died.

I stayed home today. I'm in the midst of hosting a bunch of different people through Airbnb, and since Swag left for Italy late Tuesday night we have a second bedroom to rent out. Tai and Rebekah were here for three days, until today. Tai was Vietnamese-German, and we spoke in German. Rebekah was mostly silent and seemed to be aloof and uninterested in interacting with me (or anyone in the flat for that matter). And this wore off on Tai: They cooked their own food, they went to the bathroom together, and they browsed the internet together while barely acknowledging my presence. (This is the main reason why I prefer Couchsurfers to Airbnb guests - they actually are interested in you!). Around 11 this morning, the French people arrived - Eden and Jerome. They seem nice and were friendly to talk to. They were also tired, so I pumped up the bed and let them have a nap, while I relocated to Swag's empty room. I tried to get some work done on my dissertation, but it's really slow going. Really. I could barely eek out a paragraph. (I just need to break this inertia and get some momentum going.) But it's also sooo hard to concentrate with all the Olympic excitement going on! Eden and Jerome left in the afternoon, Tai and Rebekah stopped by again, then left to finalize a few things. I decided to cook a big pot of chili, making use of all the lentils we had and being able to feed all our guests (it's a simple recipe and hard to mess up)! The Germans returned to cook (they had bought a lot of food from Tesco, and they cooked it all and took it with them instead of sharing it with me), pick up their stuff and leave. It was a curt and odd goodbye. I watched some Olympics swimming, watched another episode Breaking Bad (my current obsession), and spent nearly an hour talking with my mom and uncle (I had just bought my flight back to LA!). Now I'm just waiting for Eden and Jerome to return, and for Tiziano and Carlotta to arrive (probably will be around 2am).