I am currently sitting at my desk distraught and considering quitting my current degree and joining the circus, because my life is such a joke that I'd make a great clown. So, I figure what better to cheer me up but to write a post instead of actually trying to do the work that might pull me out of my rut.
Superbowl 44 baby! I love American football and actually stayed up on Sunday night to watch it here live on BBC. Well, ok, that might be an exaggeration. I stayed up until 2:30am, at which point the Colts (my team) lost their lead and I gave up and went to bed. Granted, I don't hate the Saints, and I've got to give it to Drew Brees who played a great game. But the most depressing part of the whole shebang is that BBC doesn't play commercials! I missed out on the commercials! WTF?!
So what did I do? I actually looked them up. What has the world come to? I actively searched YouTube to watch not one, but several commercials. All for crap I'm not going to buy!
At any rate, I've decided that this Doritos commercial was my favorite.
Amazing. I like that little boy already.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Catching Up
Yikes! I've done it again. I've disappeared from the blogosphere. It's because I'm trying my best to get caught up so that I can enjoy my week back home in the States next week.
Things I've recently done/need to catch up on before I leave:
*Submit a dissertation title. I've got something in the works, but have to meet with my supervisor tomorrow to work out the logistics. Either that, or she's going to tell me it's impossible and I fail at life.
*Pick Essay #2 Topic for Middle East Class. Yeah. Not really sure where to start here, but I'm hoping to do something along the lines of protest music used in the Iran elections, or otherwise politically charged music.
*Organize my Fieldwork Project. I've decided on a topic -- Soundscapes of the Coffee Houses on Edgware Road, London -- but now I need to figure out how to conduct research and gather some resources.
*Catch up on Arabic studying. My Arabic class is now up to Lesson 11, and I only know up to about Lesson 6. I have Lesson 7-11's vocab to learn, and need to revise and put together something so that I can effectively get some study done while I'm home.
*Catch up on reading. I have about 30 articles and at least two books that I would like to have read by the time Reading Week is over and I know I will get so little reading actually done when home, so I guess I've got the next few days to get that done.
I am trying really hard to breathe deep and refuse to be overwhelmed. Emphasis on the"trying."
Things I've recently done/need to catch up on before I leave:
*Submit a dissertation title. I've got something in the works, but have to meet with my supervisor tomorrow to work out the logistics. Either that, or she's going to tell me it's impossible and I fail at life.
*Pick Essay #2 Topic for Middle East Class. Yeah. Not really sure where to start here, but I'm hoping to do something along the lines of protest music used in the Iran elections, or otherwise politically charged music.
*Organize my Fieldwork Project. I've decided on a topic -- Soundscapes of the Coffee Houses on Edgware Road, London -- but now I need to figure out how to conduct research and gather some resources.
*Catch up on Arabic studying. My Arabic class is now up to Lesson 11, and I only know up to about Lesson 6. I have Lesson 7-11's vocab to learn, and need to revise and put together something so that I can effectively get some study done while I'm home.
*Catch up on reading. I have about 30 articles and at least two books that I would like to have read by the time Reading Week is over and I know I will get so little reading actually done when home, so I guess I've got the next few days to get that done.
I am trying really hard to breathe deep and refuse to be overwhelmed. Emphasis on the"trying."
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I'm in denial
So I think I've developed an allergy to red wine, and I died a little inside by saying that. I love red wine.
No.
Let me rephrase.
I FRIGGIN' LOOOOVE RED WINE!
However, every time I've had it recently, I get major headaches and pretty much pass out before the night is through. This is not cool when you're on the dance floor of a kick-ass club.
So I've decided to give myself some time away from it.
The thing making this the hardest? I had a full bottle of wine sitting right in front of me that I haven't broken into yet. It's just staring at me....begging to be had.
So, I've had a long day-- spent all day in Lincoln (which was great, but I forgot my camera, so I'm waiting for everyone else to post pictures so I can steal them before posting about it) and am absolutely exhausted. Meaning...I can go ahead and indulge myself on at least half this bottle and pass out, which I probably would have done without the help of wine. Plus, the plan is to pass out before the migraine kicks in. Foolproof.
Cheers!
No.
Let me rephrase.
I FRIGGIN' LOOOOVE RED WINE!
However, every time I've had it recently, I get major headaches and pretty much pass out before the night is through. This is not cool when you're on the dance floor of a kick-ass club.
So I've decided to give myself some time away from it.
The thing making this the hardest? I had a full bottle of wine sitting right in front of me that I haven't broken into yet. It's just staring at me....begging to be had.
So, I've had a long day-- spent all day in Lincoln (which was great, but I forgot my camera, so I'm waiting for everyone else to post pictures so I can steal them before posting about it) and am absolutely exhausted. Meaning...I can go ahead and indulge myself on at least half this bottle and pass out, which I probably would have done without the help of wine. Plus, the plan is to pass out before the migraine kicks in. Foolproof.
Cheers!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I'm still alive, I promise!
So, I've found myself with shoddy internet the past few days and haven't been able to find enough time to write. The internet at my dorm is non-existant it seems and on campus I get kicked offline everything 2 minutes or so.
I didn't think much about it until I realized my last post was pretty pathetic. So, I mainly just wanted to let everyone know that no, I did not go become a hermit living in the woods with 23 cats (all named Kitty I, Kitty II, and so on) and a shot-gun in an attempt to get over men.
I'm still around, just can't get on the interwebs.
However, I will take this time to tell you a story I had meant tell you before my love life drama:
Friday night, I was scheduled to help out with a concert SOAS was putting hosting of the group El-Andaluz. The group was an Arabic and Andalusian fusion. I had heard they were really good, and we were expecting a decent crowd for the concert. The concerts are free, so it's a first-come-first-serve basis. We hand out tickets so that we can count how many people go in and once it's full, we can't let anyone else in.
This particular group took their sweet time with the sound check, and even though the concert was scheduled to start at 7:00pm, we couldn't open the doors until about quarter to 7:00. Once we opened the doors, we were greeted by a lobby FULL of people. We started handing out the tickets and letting people in one-by-one. Of course, we got complaints from those who were some of the first to be let in: "You should have let us in earlier," "We were waiting forever," etc etc.
Generally at these concerts, there's a surge of people at the beginning which quickly thins out. This time-- not so. We had a constant stream of people until we ran out of room in the concert hall. At this point, we still had any where between 100 to 200 people still queuing (this concert hall only holds 275 or so to begin with).
This is when the fun started. It's amazing how carnal people become in this situations. Shortly, I had to shut the door for the concert to start and hold people off. I physically had to play bouncer at points during the night and deal with stupid requests:
-"Just open the door so we can listen."
-"My friend's in there, she saved me a seat." "No, ma'am, I'm sorry no one was allowed to save seats." "But she's in there." "Too bad."
-"I was waiting longer than that lady you just let in"
For normal people, this would be hell. For me, my opportunity to shine! I love being a bitch and there's no quicker way to make me bitchier than to try and bully me. And, these people actually thought that bullying me would work. Little did they know.
I throughly enjoyed myself shouting at the crowd:
"BACK UP! YOU WILL NOT GET IN ANY QUICKER BY CRUSHING THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU"
"NO! YOU CANNOT GO IN."
"EVERYONE STEP BACK AND STOP PUSHING!"
I might as well have played The Incredible Hulk.
The whining and nastiness did not end. In fact, my boss gave up and decided that we would leave the doors open so everyone could listen from the hallway. After shouting for awhile, we had a peaceful moment while people in the lobby listened.
...That lasted a whole two minutes before the fire alarm went off.
I almost peed myself I was laughing so hard. Of course, the fire alarm would go off. Best part? Nobody moved. All the people in the audience turned to the two of us working and starting shouting "SHUT THE DOORS!" The other girl and I were completely taken aback and I was afriad we were getting close to mob mentality. I mean the ENTIRE audience was yelling at us. All we could do is shrug because it wasn't the doors causing the alarms to go off.
Well, it so happens that the brand new director of SOAS was at this concert and he soon was on his feet saying "We have to evacuate the building. People, please evacuate the building."
It probably took us 30 minutes to get everyone out. And of course, I had people yelling at me for that too.
"Please, ma'am, this is not a drill. I have to ask you to get up out of the seat and evacuate the building."
"Don't bully me. Why are you picking on me?"
"I'm not picking on you, I'm asking everyone to leave the building."
"You didn't ask that man over there. Don't think I didn't see that!"
"Ma'am, I haven't made my way over there yet. I'm trying to get everyone out of the building!"
So another 15 or so minutes were spent outside while the firemen showed up. Turns out nothign was wrong, and we had to bolt back down to the auditorium before the mod rushed in.
We didn't make it.
There were already people in seats and we once again had to go through the trouble of getting everyone in. After another 10-15 minutes of seating people, the musicians were back on stage ready to play. Just before they started, a large man blocked the door and started yelling about us not letting him in. This of course caused the entire audience and musicians to stop and stare while we had to eventually call the police to help remove this large man.
All in all, I'm not sure anything else could have possibly gone wrong. It goes without saying that the few of us working that night went out directly afterwards for a few stiff drinks.
I didn't think much about it until I realized my last post was pretty pathetic. So, I mainly just wanted to let everyone know that no, I did not go become a hermit living in the woods with 23 cats (all named Kitty I, Kitty II, and so on) and a shot-gun in an attempt to get over men.
I'm still around, just can't get on the interwebs.
However, I will take this time to tell you a story I had meant tell you before my love life drama:
Friday night, I was scheduled to help out with a concert SOAS was putting hosting of the group El-Andaluz. The group was an Arabic and Andalusian fusion. I had heard they were really good, and we were expecting a decent crowd for the concert. The concerts are free, so it's a first-come-first-serve basis. We hand out tickets so that we can count how many people go in and once it's full, we can't let anyone else in.
This particular group took their sweet time with the sound check, and even though the concert was scheduled to start at 7:00pm, we couldn't open the doors until about quarter to 7:00. Once we opened the doors, we were greeted by a lobby FULL of people. We started handing out the tickets and letting people in one-by-one. Of course, we got complaints from those who were some of the first to be let in: "You should have let us in earlier," "We were waiting forever," etc etc.
Generally at these concerts, there's a surge of people at the beginning which quickly thins out. This time-- not so. We had a constant stream of people until we ran out of room in the concert hall. At this point, we still had any where between 100 to 200 people still queuing (this concert hall only holds 275 or so to begin with).
This is when the fun started. It's amazing how carnal people become in this situations. Shortly, I had to shut the door for the concert to start and hold people off. I physically had to play bouncer at points during the night and deal with stupid requests:
-"Just open the door so we can listen."
-"My friend's in there, she saved me a seat." "No, ma'am, I'm sorry no one was allowed to save seats." "But she's in there." "Too bad."
-"I was waiting longer than that lady you just let in"
For normal people, this would be hell. For me, my opportunity to shine! I love being a bitch and there's no quicker way to make me bitchier than to try and bully me. And, these people actually thought that bullying me would work. Little did they know.
I throughly enjoyed myself shouting at the crowd:
"BACK UP! YOU WILL NOT GET IN ANY QUICKER BY CRUSHING THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU"
"NO! YOU CANNOT GO IN."
"EVERYONE STEP BACK AND STOP PUSHING!"
I might as well have played The Incredible Hulk.
The whining and nastiness did not end. In fact, my boss gave up and decided that we would leave the doors open so everyone could listen from the hallway. After shouting for awhile, we had a peaceful moment while people in the lobby listened.
...That lasted a whole two minutes before the fire alarm went off.
I almost peed myself I was laughing so hard. Of course, the fire alarm would go off. Best part? Nobody moved. All the people in the audience turned to the two of us working and starting shouting "SHUT THE DOORS!" The other girl and I were completely taken aback and I was afriad we were getting close to mob mentality. I mean the ENTIRE audience was yelling at us. All we could do is shrug because it wasn't the doors causing the alarms to go off.
Well, it so happens that the brand new director of SOAS was at this concert and he soon was on his feet saying "We have to evacuate the building. People, please evacuate the building."
It probably took us 30 minutes to get everyone out. And of course, I had people yelling at me for that too.
"Please, ma'am, this is not a drill. I have to ask you to get up out of the seat and evacuate the building."
"Don't bully me. Why are you picking on me?"
"I'm not picking on you, I'm asking everyone to leave the building."
"You didn't ask that man over there. Don't think I didn't see that!"
"Ma'am, I haven't made my way over there yet. I'm trying to get everyone out of the building!"
So another 15 or so minutes were spent outside while the firemen showed up. Turns out nothign was wrong, and we had to bolt back down to the auditorium before the mod rushed in.
We didn't make it.
There were already people in seats and we once again had to go through the trouble of getting everyone in. After another 10-15 minutes of seating people, the musicians were back on stage ready to play. Just before they started, a large man blocked the door and started yelling about us not letting him in. This of course caused the entire audience and musicians to stop and stare while we had to eventually call the police to help remove this large man.
All in all, I'm not sure anything else could have possibly gone wrong. It goes without saying that the few of us working that night went out directly afterwards for a few stiff drinks.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
And so it happens again
I was going to write a post about the crazy Arabic concert I worked at on Friday, but instead, today, I'm going to be a bit out of character. This is not meant as a self-pity post, but a lot of you have asked for SJF stories. Here's the final one:
Things were going really well. We had fun, laughed, and unfortunately I allowed myself to loosen up and fall in love. Last night, started out like any other night. Then, as we got more drunk, SJF started throwing some girly fits. At one point, for no reason I can discern, he picked up my phone and tossed it in my drink, which (it goes without saying) broke my phone. Then, we had walked to China Town because SJF was craving Chinese. After we were sat at a table, a waitress spill drink on him and he got really upset. He didn't say much, but sat there stewing.
A guy at the table next to us asked us if we wanted some kind of food. SJF proceeded to yell at him telling him to mind his own business. Of course, this set that group of drunk guys off and I just asked SJF to settle down and ignore it. Well, SJF translated this to mean that I was "on that guy's side" and threw a strop. We stormed out of the restaurant and after I followed him out, said "We're done" and walked off.
He then refused to answer my calls, sending me a few nasty text messages. Then this morning, he still refused to answer.
The worst part of all this: I was actually upset. I should of just said "Fuck you" and left it. But I couldn't. I had finally allowed myself to open up to someone, and didn't want to loose that yet. SJF was the first serious relationship I've had since my last one two and a half years ago. Though that was a 4+ year relationship, it ended in much the same way-- the guy getting drunk, and sending me nasty text messages even though I had done nothing wrong. Anyone standing outside of this relationship would have hypothetically left him in a milli-second, but being the pussy that I am, I just couldn't do it.
I just wanted him to answer my calls and say he was sorry.
Then, in my upset stupor, I passed out and took a nap. I dreamt dream after dream of him telling me how sorry he was and things working out.
My phone woke me up. It was him calling.
He called to say he was sorry, and I finally grew balls and said it was over. I'm glad I man'ed up, but I feel pretty sick with hurt right now. He's not someone I'll ever run into and he doesn't want to be friends. Meaning last night, after chasing him down to Piccadilly Circus, that moment he broke my heart by saying we're done and that he never wanted to see me anymore will be the last time either of us see each other again.
Things were going really well. We had fun, laughed, and unfortunately I allowed myself to loosen up and fall in love. Last night, started out like any other night. Then, as we got more drunk, SJF started throwing some girly fits. At one point, for no reason I can discern, he picked up my phone and tossed it in my drink, which (it goes without saying) broke my phone. Then, we had walked to China Town because SJF was craving Chinese. After we were sat at a table, a waitress spill drink on him and he got really upset. He didn't say much, but sat there stewing.
A guy at the table next to us asked us if we wanted some kind of food. SJF proceeded to yell at him telling him to mind his own business. Of course, this set that group of drunk guys off and I just asked SJF to settle down and ignore it. Well, SJF translated this to mean that I was "on that guy's side" and threw a strop. We stormed out of the restaurant and after I followed him out, said "We're done" and walked off.
He then refused to answer my calls, sending me a few nasty text messages. Then this morning, he still refused to answer.
The worst part of all this: I was actually upset. I should of just said "Fuck you" and left it. But I couldn't. I had finally allowed myself to open up to someone, and didn't want to loose that yet. SJF was the first serious relationship I've had since my last one two and a half years ago. Though that was a 4+ year relationship, it ended in much the same way-- the guy getting drunk, and sending me nasty text messages even though I had done nothing wrong. Anyone standing outside of this relationship would have hypothetically left him in a milli-second, but being the pussy that I am, I just couldn't do it.
I just wanted him to answer my calls and say he was sorry.
Then, in my upset stupor, I passed out and took a nap. I dreamt dream after dream of him telling me how sorry he was and things working out.
My phone woke me up. It was him calling.
He called to say he was sorry, and I finally grew balls and said it was over. I'm glad I man'ed up, but I feel pretty sick with hurt right now. He's not someone I'll ever run into and he doesn't want to be friends. Meaning last night, after chasing him down to Piccadilly Circus, that moment he broke my heart by saying we're done and that he never wanted to see me anymore will be the last time either of us see each other again.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
I didn't think it was THAT bad.
Anxiously awaiting the return of the essays that almost killed me the past few weeks, I can't help but laugh.
If only I had a cat that was so concerned with my academic endeavors.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Probably the best, but you might find better elsewhere.
I couldn't help but laugh and snap a photo as I passed this kebab place on my way home from Archway the other day.
If you can't read it, it says: "Archway Kebab House: Probably the Best Kebab in the UK." No need to commit, because you never know-- it might not actually be the best.
I came across this sign the other day after an day trip to Greenwich with my exchange students. It unfortunately wasn't the prettiest day for a trip to Greenwich, but we still enjoyed ourselves with the Painted Hall and of course a visit to the Greenwich market. You may be surprised to learn that I did not buy anything. Yay me!
If you can't read it, it says: "Archway Kebab House: Probably the Best Kebab in the UK." No need to commit, because you never know-- it might not actually be the best.
I came across this sign the other day after an day trip to Greenwich with my exchange students. It unfortunately wasn't the prettiest day for a trip to Greenwich, but we still enjoyed ourselves with the Painted Hall and of course a visit to the Greenwich market. You may be surprised to learn that I did not buy anything. Yay me!
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