dissonance

AND it's fucking freezing

Today is the last day of work for a lot of my old coworkers back in San Diego. My inbox this morning was full of goodbye emails.  And despite the fact that in a lot of cases I didn't even know the people who were sending them, I found my eyes smarting.  I almost did just fall apart when I read e-mails from friends.

And it isn't just about the dear friends in San Diego.  Like an avalanche, that was just the last snowflake to set it off. I think about all you beautiful friends, all up and down beautiful California and all the way to the beautiful east coast.  From the snippets of conversations at odd hours I learn about how all your lives are changing, with new jobs, new priorities, new goals and challenges.  Oh, the challenges you confess to me, and I can't be there to give you my full attention and a hug! (or a shot, whatever's more appropriate)

It's so strange... I wasn't as emotional when I was the one leaving.  But maybe that's just it. I was overcome with the excitement of facing my new future, there wasn't any room for regretting what I was leaving.  I think it's because I tricked myself into thinking what I left behind would always be there.  But now I know that's not true.

Friends are being thrown in different directions.  I'm scared we won't be able to keep up with each other now that we're not all where we used to be (physically and internally).  I haven't settled here yet, I can't have my anchors being flung about!

Please tell me that 8 hours, an ocean, a lot of land, and a helluvalot more change does not get in the way of friendship.  Please tell me I have nothing to fear.

Markedly independent, young, outgoing newcomer

I just read this and wondered if anyone else have heard of these phrases:

HEIDI's: Highly Educated Independent Degree-owning Individuals
TIFs: Technology Involved Females

I read about them in the context of a growing consumer group to consider in future marketing trends.  I don't know if they describe who I am (they just might) but would it be too much to ask that this doesn't just mean making gadgets pink?  Designing for the female consumer is not about making things pink, reminding us about our periods, or helping us find/catch/keep a guy. 

It means making things follow form and function, but not to the point of dumbing it down.  It's about personalization, because no one hates being pigeonholed more than we do.  And don't forget to enable communication.  We may make you want to pull your hair out sometimes but hey, at least we talk!

Ooh, and if whatever it is could have some sort of GPRS locator for Jake Gyllenhaal's whereabouts that would be sweet, mmmkaythanxmwah!

EESL

Welcome to English English as a Second Language (as compared to normal English. Y'all know what I'm talkinbout. Yeehaw.)

Lesson One:

Hi = Cheers
Bye = Cheers
Thank you = Cheers
You're welcome = Cheers
No problem = Cheers
Cool = Cheers
I understand = Cheers
That was funny = Cheers
I just got totally moded (molded!) but I'm a good sport about it = Cheers
Cheers = Cheers

Sometimes Jim if Jack's not around

I finally spent an entire weekend in Reading (been going to London for the last 4 weeks!) and most of it was occupied by the discovery of the neighborhood bars and restaurants.  They varied from the chi-chi to the college-y and all of them within a stumbling distance from the flat.  Awesome.

Now anyone who's gone out with me knows that I'm a vodka tonic kind of chica.  Love the stuff.  It can be strong but still totally drinkable and if you stick to it all night, the next day is virtually hangover free.  And if you find that special place (ie Landlord Jim's) you're pretty set without breaking the bank.

But here?  There are no heavy hands for pouring.  That is, every single alcoholic drink is measured exactly per shot or pint.  You can tip all you want, there's still going to be 25mL of vodka with a bottle of tonic. (Maybe that's why people don't tip here, hrmph)  After about 4 I realize I'm

1) Sober
2) Gassy
3) Broke

I've employed a new strategy to adjust to this restrictive lifestyle:  Jack on the rocks with a twist of lemon.

4 oughta do it.

'Bout freaking time

Hurrah, reunited with the camera cable so now I can give you some visual goodies!
Peruse at your leisure pictures from my first couple of weeks in England.

When I first uploaded pictures, that's all I thought I had, but I had completely forgotten about my last couple of days in the states.  Or maybe I purposely forgot because I have to admit that viewing these other ones have given me my first pangs of homesickiness.

But no time for that.  I need to figure out how I'm going to fit this...

... into this:

At least the accents were cool

A couple of nights ago I went out with my new flatmate (hehe, flatmate!).  There's some sort of Comedy Festival going on and so on Tuesday they had amateur comedy night in a pub at the town hall.

Out of about 7 acts, the first guy was merely passable but that could be my American opinion because he didn't even get honorable mention at the end.  A part of his bit was to talk about Transformers and he made these cardboard cutouts of robots and we had to guess who they were.  You know, robots in disguise and all.  For example, Robocop was disguised as a pirate.  Ok, isn't that funny or was that the Guiness?  Somehow I don't think it was the Guiness because I kept drinking and contrary to intuition, the acts got worse and worse.  By the end it was just gibberish.

It's possible I'm still learning about British culture and couldn't quite get to grips with the humor.  The "comedian" (I use the term very loosely) would say something like, "... and then Colin shows up right square away and bugger bloody oi aye Queen Big Brother arse.  Bwahahahaah!"

Or something like that.

The point being that a lot of it went straight over my head. But my flatmate assured me that they weren't funny at all and lack of comprehension wasn't much of a disadvantage.

Can't be arsed for a title

I wish I was able to update yesterday because...

I've been living in England for exactly one month!

The time has just flown by.

Unforseen complications in billing addresses have come up due to my move to another country and Bank of America being complete idiots about address formatting so my Typepad account was suspended for awhile.

I had so much to share and blab about but now I'll have to resort to bullet points because I just can't be arsed to go into details.

"Can't be arsed" is currently my favorite saying here.  It's so eloquent and gets the point across without getting personal.  It says "it isn't because of you that I will not go out and party, I just cannot be arsed right now."

Recent UK adventures include:

• I am thrilled to have found better than just decent asian food at Wagamama and only 5 minutes walk away!  Mexican food is still alluding me.  I should really just give up and just gorge on it whenever I take a trip back to the states.
• I found a knitting group!  I spent a really nice evening with them knitting away while munching on scones and drinking tea. For reals, you can't make this shit up folks.
• I'm still getting used to the fact that our fridge is about the size of the one I used to have in my college dorm.  As a result, I'm going grocery shopping about 4 times a week.
• They have really good cheese here and I've become a lot more adventurous with my sandwich making. My latest obsession is made up of: watercress, spinach, and rocket greens, some sort of English cheddar (white not orange) and some sort of carrot or cranberry compote (ie chunky jam).  YUMMERS! Food blog to be updated by next month as soon as I get my kitchen supplies and camera cable. In the meantime, you guessed it, I can't be arsed.
• This past weekend I made another trip to London to watch Maximo Park at Brixton Academy.  Both the band and the venue were bloody brilliant.
• TopShop is madness.  A heavenly, overwhelming, confusing, sublime, madness.
• But for all the hype of TopShop, my current favorite designer that I've come across is All Saints, which I discovered at Selfridges.  I want to make a special effort to visit their store in Soho.
• I've tried about 5 different kinds of English beer and so far, I have to admit that I love Guiness best.

Still no proper pictures, but I do have one from my phone that I took this weekend in London:

Wish you were here!