It's been a Radiohead sort of days lately. In Rainbows mostly, but the occasional single has made its way into the mix every now and then. Thom Yorke should be studied in high school English classes.
One of my pet peeves is when people talk about how they never update their blogs.
I never update my blog.
It's been getting dark a lot earlier lately, and on top of the undesirable darkness it's been getting rainy and cold. On Tuesday I saw London fog for the first time. I'm pretty sure it covered the entire south side of England. We drove through it towards Cambridge for what felt like forever. But T.S. Eliot was wrong, it was grey and white, not yellow. Suck on that Prufrock.
I've been grading papers for my TA job. I hate it. I can really only do about 6 at a time before I have to start fighting the urge to light the pile on fire. If only I had a match. I've learned that I would probably hate being a teacher.
I heard some people talking on the tube tonight when the Bakerloo line went down due to a "person under the tracks." They said something like this:
"People keep dying on the Underground. I know this isn't funny, because they're real people with real pain and everything, but those people really DO muck things up for everyone around them. I mean, the LEAST they could do is jump into the Thames or something that doesn't cause so many hold ups. Their inconsiderate way of life is probably why people didn't like them when they were alive."
I haven't written much on my blog. I think I should probably describe what the BYU Study Abroad is like in London. I'll be listening to David Bowie while I write this to get the creative nectar oozing. Inspiration breeds inspiration, but sometimes the ground is infertile. We'll see how this goes.
Note: Upon editing this post, I decided to start it off with a David Bowie clip to ease the blow of the terrible clip art that is to come. I apologize beforehand. I mean honestly, who sits down and makes clip art. Enjoy the Bowie.
To begin with, my week, beginning Sunday and ending Saturday, usually goes as follows.
Sunday: Spend around 5 hours in the morning for church. I take the tube from Queensway to Liverpool Street where I get onto a train to Ilford. The church is a 7 minute walk from the train stop. The ward has a lot of cultural diversity. Few whites; mostly Africans and easterners, with a small group of Columbians. Rewind to get my journey back to the London Centre, where I usually eat something, go upstairs and talk to people online. Then I have dinner + dessert (only night we get dessert), fireside, and usually studying for Monday.
(It's a bit frightening how every picture that comes up when you type in Monday is of some kind of depression and destruction. Come on world. Mondays are fun. Get the eff over it.)
Monday: Sleep through breakfast (I'll just say, I ALWAYS sleep through breakfast) till class from 9-9:50. Then most of the girls sit through a Jane Austen class while Ben and I go upstairs and wait for the kitchen to open at 11 after Theresa finishes cleaning it. I have a quick bite then go back to class for Humanities. I'm the TA. And as good as the class is, sometimes I wish I didn't have to sit through them. Then I go on adventures in London. Which often includes eating the 2 pound meal at Tesco, which comes with a small sandwich, bag of crisps, and high fructose corn syrup mixed with chemicals named after colors. We don't have FHE because we don't believe in FHE.
They're right, by the way. Every little really does help.
Tuesday: This image might not look like Tuesday, but you'd be wrong. It's the Tuesday pancake race in London! To be completely truthful, I have no idea what the Tuesday pancake race in London actually is, but I guess it happened on a Tuesday in London. My Tuesdays are just class. Three classes that take up 4.5 hours with 5 minutes between each. I think next week I'm going to the pancake race though because I've had enough of Tuesday class.
Wednesday: "Wake up you sleepy head, put on some clothes shake off your bed." Yep, David Bowie knows what Wednesday mornings are like. Gotta get up really early go on our weekly pilgrimages through England.
I get it. Mecca isn't in England. Deal with it.
Thursday: Same classes as Monday. Which would mean that if I googled "Thursday" I should also expect google books to do a search for the Garfield collection. But to spare this blog post from more Garfield, I'll just direct you towards John. Thursday nights are also adventure nights. Good for London walks, pub haunting, or book stores. Charing Cross Road has the best book stores in the world. And a Chipotle.
Friday: My Christian rock band (thanks Kohl) goes on tour somewhere in London. And by that I mean our group visits a culturally relevant site in city. Like Keats' house or Kew Gardens or Saint Pauls'. I usually use the rest of the day to go to museums or get lost in different parts of the city. It's also a good day for good lunch, especially fish and chips, bangers and mash, and kebabs. Taza's has the best kebabs in the world.
Moving along...
Saturday: Saturday means either or both Belgian waffles with chocolate and creme or/and Borough market. I take the Central line from Queensway to St. Pauls, cross the Millennium Bridge (the one they blow up at the beginning of the Harry Potter 6 movie), walk along the Thames, passing the Globe till I get to the market. It's always crowded with hungry people. Borough market has the best meat sandwich things in the world. They grill meats that have been ground and marinated in sauces, often mixed with fruit or garlic or onions, and put it in a hefty cheesy roll with a salad type stuff, onions, green sauce, red sauce, and mayo. Words really are inadequate to describe how delicious those things are. So you can look at the stand instead.
Saint Pauls' Saturday with Sarah and Ben!
Most weeks are iterations of the previous with slight differences in where I go and what I do, but generally speaking, this is it.
I don't see the point in studying for religion classes. I thought that they might help me spiritually, but they usually just make me angry. So instead of thinking about the 8 hours I spent studying for a test that ended up being full of minutiae, I'm going to post some pictures (mostly because Jeff Laidlaw told me to and I have to obey.)
Ruins ruins ruins.
Something about this picture of Penny makes me really uncomfortable.
Jolly ol' St. Nick! Sort of.
Look up. Canterbury.
Leaves.
Here on these cliffs of Dover
I was a missionary for 2 years and a monk for 2 minutes. Good thing, too.
London means literature, and literature means everything. By this logic, literature also means Ireland, which, I have to admit, isn't London. But I think everyone should read this treasure of a tale by Frank O'Connor, if not for literary value, then for pleasure. You won't regret it, I promise.
I went to the Lake District two weeks ago. I went for a hike, I saw a cave, and I saw some birds and some trees. And I read some books and walked around York.
All the other birds were jealous, so they left Patrick alone this day.
Sometimes ducks stand in the shallow end and take breaks from the deep middle.
