Coming home!

Not looking forward to spending the next two days doing it, but coming.

Done, in all but name.

From this point, I progress at a rate of 1 lecture/tutorial a day to Thursday, when I have all my lectures and a tutorial, to Friday, when I get on a plane very early in the morning.

This last week has been absolutely insane. From Monday, when I handed in an essay, took a test, and opened my show, through the run of my show Mon-Wed, the run of Tis Pity Thurs-Sat, the after-party for Tis Pity, pulling an all-nighter-with-brief-nap, the unofficial Christmas Party in the annexe complete with homemade eggnog (they don't have it here), cookies, and presents, to the cast party/dinner for the Aeroplane Lands cast last night. My semester has followed traditional story structure. It starts with the reluctant hero who must come to grips with a new situation and complete various tasks, getting harder and harder, until the hardest of all, the climax, ends in triumph and allows him to rest in the conclusion. Only not quite so melodramatic.

The grass outside is frozen crunchy and the cars are all white with frost. People are slowly starting to leave halls. By Thursday meals with be a skeleton service. People manage to be exhausted, cranky, and happy all at once. Chocolate and alcohol become the 2 main food groups. I am looking forward to being home.

You know you're from California when...

...the ground is white and slippery and you think, "Who put chalk everywhere?"

wow, 2 consecutive days of posts

madness!

Essay in, done, not the greatest thing in the world, but more in line with what they want.

Stats test in Psychology done, didn't study hardly at all, but i think i did well.

But c'mon, on to what really matters--The Aeroplane Lands opened tonight! And didn't screw up badly at all! And people LAUGHED where it was funny! And my roommate got it (well, what there was to get)! And someone said "Mermaids needs more like that"...and some "Wow, you wrote thats?" in addition to the mandatory, "Right, so tell me what was going on?"

So I am happy.

Whew

12 hours of rehearsal (10-10...ahh reminds me of the AVPA) today running back and forth between Tis Pity and my show....and I think we are ready to open tomorrow! I'm trying to get a video camera to tape it all--wish us luck.

Once more...

Sorry for how infrequent these posts are. Really. Philosophy essay due Friday, International Relations due Monday, Freshers' Plays (what I'm directing) starting Monday running through Wednesday, Tis Pity Shee's a Whore (what I'm in) going Thursday through Saturday.

So, just signing on to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA! Love you.

And signing out.

Another (more and more) infrequent update

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog.

So. Rasin weekend. Finished all my homework Saturday. Had rehearsal Sunday morning, when we ran the whole show. It's going well. Then went to parties for the rest of the day, which involved drinking (of course), and various games/conversations/silliness. Bobbing for prizes in custard/flour/juice. A mock TV show. Trivial persuit.

The next day, got dressed up as a 300 Spartan for the foam fight in the quad. It was an almost festival atmosphere, with other students and most of the town turning up to watch. And, yes, it was cold. Freezing cold to be wearing not very much clothing. I got back and took a cold shower which felt very hot. Then at 2PM had my philosophy tutorial (can we really know anything exists? what do our senses tell us?) for which I was at least mostly conscious. Then at 4 turned in my psychology lab report and took the test, which I felt went pretty well. Multiple choice. Ahhhhh. Spent the rest of the day off hanging with people and playing World of Warcraft in the kitchen (because the kitchen picks up wireless from next door, and the university internet connection has a firewall which prevents online gaming).

Tuesday I had lectures and then squandered the afternoon trying to read 20 pages. At 6, I went to the Courier Debates. I had no idea what they were, but I knew they were in Perth--that we got free transport and dinner. Sold. Turns out it was a schools debate (basically middle school kids), which was fine but a bit boring. Dinner was exceptional. When I come home, we are eating soooooo much.

Lagging

Back into the week and absolute insanity. Rehearsals for my show, lectures, classes, the Freshers Debate (which I was involved in organizing) last night, and realizing "oh, right, its Rasin Weekend this weekend and I've got a lab writeup and Psychology exam on Monday".

Rasin Weekend is a tradition in which Sunday and Monday are absolutely crazy. 3rd and 4th years "adopt" 1st years to be their "academic children". They do various things with their kids (saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age with my "mum"'s side, been a lot of the debates and a play with my "dad"), which culminate in Rasin Weekend. On Sunday, you go to your mother's for "tea", often involving alcohol, and are given a "rasin string" to wear on your gown. After tea, your dad hosts a party and gives you your "rasin recipt", the largest, most cumbersome object they can find and write in Latin on. On Monday morning, lectures are cancelled and mothers wake you up around 8/9, dress you in costumes, and you carry your rasin recipt to the quad where there is a giant foam fight. Then, later that day, you turn in a psychology writeup and have an exam! Or maybe thats just me. Bitter? Nah.

But I'm really glad to get back into everything.

Saturday!

Cool day. Went to Glasgow for a debates competition. Placed 2nd in "we should we ban domestic flights" (ppl here seem obsessed with the idea that they are a serious detrement to the environment), 3rd in "we should cut all military funding to Pakistan until they hold democratic elections" (I was a bit pissed off about this one because we made really good arguments, despite the fact that I knew nothing about the current situation in Pakistan, but other teams confirmed that the judge was trying to screw St Andrews over) and 1st in "we should only allowed skilled imigrants". 1 point shy of getting into the finals, but St Andrews won, so it was all good.

Glasgow was cool, especially today, because Scotland played Italy in a historic match, as this is the first time they've gotten this far toward the world cup in a long time. They lost, but as early as 10 AM (when we arrived), the streets were flooded with people in kilts wearing Scotland flags as capes with painted faces--already shitfaced. The train back (busses had stopped running) was full of disheartened fans after Scotland lost.

Debates is something I don't know if I'll be able to continue into next year, simply because I imagine the motions get really repetive after a while, but as long as I'm learning something new I'm happy. And St Andrews sends people to Euro's debates in all sorts of exotic places and pays for food/accomidation, so why not!

Friday of Reading Week

Sick Wednesday night, have had a quiet few days. Lots of films--an old version of "Casanova", very surreal and lovable for old over-the-top movie acting, with interesting, somewhat haunting images and things to say. "The Remains of the Day", both finished the book and watched the movie. Books are always better, and though it took me a good 70 pages to get past the snotty upper-crusty Brittishness, in the end I thought the book was spectacular. For once, I was not all that impressed with Anthony Hopkins in the movie version-like the first Harry Potters, too faithful, to representative, too "tell, not show".

I watched a famous anime movie called "Metropolis", interesting steam-punk world, thinking-robots-slaves-to-humans kinda thing, but honestly as much as I appreciate the art I can't get that into anime. Might be as simple as the people who do the English voices.

Then, yesterday and today, two excellent movies. "Moulin Rouge", which I'd seen before a long time ago. Now I recognized the pop songs, and, while the energy of it got heavy and my attention sank slightly, for such a simple story its one of the most inspirational I've seen. The Bohemian cry to "be passionate!" was a welcome wake-up call of a sort, because I detatched to come here and have not reatached terribly much as of yet...it would be nice to have a cause. Ah well.

Today, "Dancer in the Dark". What a fucking depressing movie. How amazing is Bjork? Amazing. I feel like the play I'm writing is bubblegum after that. Betrayal is the hardest thing to watch, and Bjork manages somehow to make her "can't catch me!" persona work being gritty and down to earth.

Tommorow I'm going to go to a debate competition in, I think, Glasgow. Should be fun--even if I do have to wake up at 6:45 to get on a 7 AM bus.

Low key

It's pretty dead here. The highlights of these last few days have been cooking a whole chicken on Sunday, a game of Risk that stretched into 7 or 8 hours over two days, and buying boots yesterday. I've been reading more on free will for my philosophy essay and some articles just for my IR tutorial. Life goes on....today has been singularly unexceptional, but the past two days have been mostly fun.

...or not.

So, no Egypt. Beurocratic stuff we didn't know about. Now we do. We will be so much the wiser.

I did have a great ride up watching the Scottish countryside, read pretty much the entirety of a novel required for IR, and wandered around Edinburgh for 40 minutes while waiting for a bus back. Not a complete waste....actually probably more productive than if I had stayed here.

What now? Maybe see if Robbie can show me around Glasgow--that'd be fun. Hang out in St Andrews. I do get the impression that I will be meeting people and making closer friendships staying here, since the student population is down by probably over half. William insists that I will meet the love of my life in this next week, and all because of not getting on that plane!

EGYYYYYYPT

Last post for a while. This next week is "reading week", so we don't have lectures. I will get my reading done on a plane, which I will hopefully get on. Going to Egypt. Shawn is doing a semester there, and its EGYPT. So. That's that.

Got all the info/stuff finally worked out. Ill be going to the airport around 10 for a 1:40 flight, so i should have loads of time to go through and make sure I have everything worked out. From Edinburgh I'll fly to Frankfurt, where I'll hopefully catch a connection around 4 hours later (no "getting lost" excuse) at 10:25 to Egypt, and I'll get there at 3:30 AM on Sunday. Gods willing. From there I have an address and instructions on how much to pay a cab to get to Shawn's. Then he takes over and the next thing I have to worry about is how to get back. Ahhhh. I do have a flight Friday afternoon, so we'll hope that stays clear and keep fingers crossed.

Love everyone, blog you in a week! I'd better have stooooories....

Procrastination

is a wonderful thing. What I should be doing? Reading about international institutions for tommorow's tutorial.

What exciting new things have happened since Monday? Yesterday I was scattered and meant to go take part in a psychology experiment for £££...but forgot. Meant to go to a public speaking workshop at 7.30...but forgot. And not the "I should be doing something, I wonder what?" forgetting--no, this was blissful, straight-ahead, full-steam, "I'm doing my thing and am not going to bother checking my diary (calander...they call it diary here)" forgetting. Ah well.

Last night felt lonely. Felt like I don't know that many people, don't have any really solid friendships here.

Today went to classes as usual, went to a debates training thing from 2-5. Debated the merits and demerits of making the morning-after pill perscription only, and on banning ransom payments for hostages. I never think I'll enjoy it, and then I do. And, even though its just a bunch of windbags going off, I always feel like I've learned something. It's interesting also...I get the feeling that a lot of the people in debating are "public school" (what they call private school in England) conservatives, but they all know how to sound nice and PC, so I'm the one who comes up with outrageous propositions that make them squeal because they're not padded with political correctness. Today it was "ransoms give value to the lives of hostages" and "demanding ransoms is at least a means and a channel of communication".

Tonight I sat with William during dinner, a 3rd year phsyics guy who is older (around 26 I think) and very into philosophy...he lent me a book for my essay and has asked me a couple times if he can read the essay, which I sent him tonight. After dinner gave more people from the annex a tour of the robottle. Then sat and discussed life with Katie, my play with Chris (the usual writer who doesn't write, but he has ideas, he's just got to sit down and go for it), and psychology with Katie. She had a question/experiment idea, so we e-mailed one of the psych professors about office hours to go in and see what he thought of it. I read a proposal on Marginal Revolution (I think) a while back that undergrads would be well served to try to get to know one professor a semester. First for intellectual stimulation/interest/nice person-ness, and second because that means that by the end of 4 years you will know 8 professors. This means knowing prominent members of various fields who can give you reccomendations/ideas/suggestions/references/whatever. This was partly what I had in mind with the Christian lunch I never made it to, and I think that if I can let that ideal override any intimidation I may feel it will be worthwhile.

I feel much less lonely tonight. I also feel like I'd better start reading and answering these questions. But its only 11.30. The night is young!

Remember remember the 5th of November...

Guy Fawkes day! And they celebrate it! People have been setting off fireworks for the entire week, and tonight is going to be mental.

Good day overall. Handed in my IR essay, and I feel alright about it. Philosophy and psychology as usual. I suprisingly really enjoyed my philosophy tutorial today...same people, tutor as before--but we were talking about Descartes and "cogito ero sum" and his training in philosophy of languae got to kick in. When he knows what he's talking about, hes an alright guy.

Speaking of which: Mom, you did Latin...cogito, as in cognition, cognecer, etc. Ergo, ergo. Sum....is the direct translation really "I am"? "Sum" if its the "sum" of summation and summary and sums seems to carry a connotation of bringing things together, making many things one, concise. I might be full of shit, though.

Spent 30 minutes of my life watching the same fucking 3 minute video clip of babies over and OVER again my pschology lab as part of a professor's experiment that we are subjects for and are going to write lab reports on. Woo hoo. I may stab myself.

And next, there's dinner.

Hey William...

This is a bit of an odd way of sending a message, but my parents have said there is all kinds of crazy going on on your front, and I know you read the blog sooooo.....

"Reading Week" is a short break we get between the 10th and 18th of Novemeber, so starting next weekend. I'd really to take advantage of being on this side of the world and go somewhere--specifically, Egype, as I've got a friend who is doing a semester abroad there who I can stay with. What is your situation/opinion? Is this doable?

Hope it was alright posting this here (private message in semi-public space ughhh)--I can edit it out after you reply.

Things here are good. Printed out and turned in Philosophy essay yesterday morning and did about half of my IR essay in the afternoon. Went and saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Dammit Cate Blanchet is amazing, but the movie itself was a bit cheesy and Hollywood. Interesting seeing it with a load of Britts....some didn't even know the Protestand/Catholic schism, some were pointing out historical innacuracies, and some just said "Ah yes, the defeat of the Spanish Armada. More proof that God is English." After that went and hung around in a pub. Today I've got my rehearsal at 2 and nothing else, so I'm hoping to finish up the IR essay. Tommorow I've got rehearsal at 2 again and--don't freak out--lunch with a bunch of students and a math professor and his wife who I met last Sunday in the church. I have not argued with Christians in far too long, but I'm really going for the professor. Since we change lecturers every week or two, and because classes are fairly large, you don't really get to know the professors, which I think is probably part of the whole point of university. So I've informed them of my (un)religious beliefs, and they say "come", and I say non-hall food at the cost of conversion is a price that must be paid!

UPDATE: I woke up late on Sunday. No lunch with Christians. I cried for nearly four hours. Then I told myself "there is no God" and that cheered me up.

Procrastinating!

I should be writing my IR essay.

Today has been fucking hectic. Woke up, went to breakfast, came back, worked on essay. Went to IR at 10, Philosophy at 11, Psychology at 12 (more fucking babies...), lunch at 1, a Mermaids meeting all directors have to be at at 1:15 (technically started at 1), my rehearsal for my own show at 2, back to the dorm to work more on essays at 3, IR tutorial at 4, library at 5, dinner at 6. Whew. Now I'm doing laundry, working on essay. Next I'll head to the library and see if I can set up the wireless internet and if I can't print my first essay off from there (I think every student gets 50 free pages? I'll find out).

So.

Tommorow, I have one class at 12. No rehearsal. No commitments until 5 PM. Whew.

Happy Birthday!

Hi Dad, you will have just gone to bed. But when you wake up, and drink coffee, and start the cogs going: Happy Birthday!

The week in summary

Is not terribly epic, but it's been good.

I just got back from lunch--potato, haggis, and baked beans. Yup.

I've mainly just been working on my essays/work...went out last night to the union and the beach. William, I have updated my personal info on Facebook so that in the categoy for "Religion:" it says "nuke gay baby whales for jesus". You are my God. Dammit, now I have to update it again. Would I be a Williamist or a Williaman?

Tonight's Halloween. What will I be up to? I honestly haven't a clue.

Thats all for now.

UPDATE: Just had rehearsal. Interesting. I'm getting a couple of things evolving. It will probably be a family piece, where there are two major events which loom over the family. First of all, the invalid father upstairs. Second, what has happened to one of the daughters. I'm writing out scenes now to see how they work, feeding them to the actors during rehearsals.

The Weekend

Another weekend gone...ah well. Next weekend I'll be frantically writing my IR essay. This one I took a bit of a break from essays in general (just focused on coursework reading)...Robbie's away again, in Stirling visiting his girlfriend (He gave me instructions that his parents were not to know. Lovin it.), so I have had the room to myself. Yesterday was mostly taken up with rehearsals--for my show and (finally) for the one I'm in. I'm feeling pretty good about it all. Then Saturday night I went out with people from the main hall who I knew a bit, but had never done anything with before, so that was a good change of pace.

Today has been interesting. The annexe and the main hall sandwich a Scottish Episcopaleal Church, whose yard I go through at least 3 times a day for meals. And, call me crazy, but I thought, "what the hell, I've been to a mosque, I've never been to a regular church service," so I talked to some Christians and went. I'm afraid I'm a bit more culturally familiar with churches so this post won't be as long or full of me being suprised and interested...to be honest, it was a bit dull. Right. You could have told me that. But it was fascinating in a few respects. Numero Uno: Jesus. Poor kid. Is he God's son or God incarnate or what? I listened to a really good lecture on the evolution of Christianity on iTunes U, where the guy said that, originally, Christians were far more "God" centric, and it was later on, through the Renaissance that the focus turned to Jesus. The duality (trinity) of God/Jesus must make sense somehow.

It was really interesting comparing it to my mosque visit. There, everyone sits and stands and prays in a big open area facing Mecca (Well, approximately. Also: the earth being a globe means anywhere you turn is facing Mecca), and the call to prayer and general worship is very communal with everyone facing the same direction, doing the same thing and seemingly united in purpose. Two people stood out--the man who chanted the call to prayer (facing the same direction as everyone) and the guy who gave the 30 minute sermon. In the church, on the other hand, the pews reminded me of a stage. Lots of individuals from the congregation came forward to read--a very Western "spotlight" on the individual. There was a choir onstage who knew the songs and, while everyone "sang", they were really the "performers". I suppose the reason the Mosque surprised me as much as it did is because this is what I expect religion to be. Duh. It's what's in movies, it's what I hear about.

A couple fairly stereotypical elements gave me the sense that the church was certainly an entity designed for community as much as worship. There was some hand-shaking-of-neighbors-and-saying-"God-be-with-you", and coffee afterwards (hall coffee is disgusting, I needed it) with lots of friendly, only slightly creepy people. One question I did ask a few people was, "what is your/British attitude towards fundamentalist Christians in the US? What do you think of Bush talking about God openly?" I think it made them uncomfortable, although of course overriding hatred for Bush won out. But talking to them I just thought..."Some people have Rugby. Some people have music. Some people (me) have theater/debate, etc, etc, some people have religion." Whatever it takes to meet people.

Afterward I went to a playwriting workshop, which focused mainly on character but gave me some interesting ideas to try out in my piece. I cooked myself what ended up being a Korean-looking dinner. Got a pack of "chinese stir fry" fresh veggies and a some chicken, cooked them in a wok with lots of water, some sugar, some honey, and some soy sauce. It was a little bland, so I just ate it with the flavoured water as a soup. Not bad for my first time *really* cooking for myself.

Now I've got callbacks for the schools improv troupe, "Blind Mirth". I doubt I'll get in (not a tradgedy either way...although maybe I should really give imrov a try outside of a CCHS context), but it should be a laugh. And then tommorow is a new week.

Saturday Morning Update

Not too busy over the last couple days...lectures, tutorials, further writing for Philosophy/planning for IR--I've got essays in each. On Wednsday night went to a lecture by the head of the economics department about unusual uses for economics....and slept through it. That post-dinner, pre-night period is still the very bottom of my body cycle. Apparently he talked about single children staying closer to home (hah!) and pressures around being with parents as they got older, and how the government is going to have to pay more for health care etc etc. Tying economics into "everything," sure, but a bit boring for an ''event' lecture.

Thursday night I went with some of my academic family to see a play called "Only The Men" at the Byre, about a man who comes back to the farm he was raised on to tackle his past, particularly his thorny relationship with his father. Very play-ish, with 2 characters, dead father and son, and all sorts of dramatic angst, but done professionaly and quite good.

Then last night my hall had a Halloween party, which was the usual dress-up-and-get-free-booze event. I had no costume until dinner, when Jesse suggested a cereal killer, which I hadn't (consciously) seen or heard before and thought was brilliant. So I came in my long black coat with big spoons in my pockets and ripped boxes of cereal. Hillariously done-before. So that was alright.

Before the party I had a really good rehearsal. In my room, for lack of another space, but my room's big enough that it worked pretty perfectly. We started talking about responsiblity (which is coming up in IR and Philosophy right now and which is a subject I've never given terribly much thought to--what does it mean to be responsible for something or someone?), then I had them walk, examining objects in the room. I wanted to get words into it, so i started having them read outloud out of books I had around so that their reading was overlapping, which had a cool effect. They did various things with the books in terms of reading, and from there I had it split off with people telling stories without reading. I gave them very simple first instructions: "tell a story starting with a description of a glass of water." "There are a mother and daughter in a market in Deli. Go." (this to the Indian girl). The stories and the books then got interwoven into the broader context of physical action and "story arc" of the rehearsal. And at the end, I wasn't completely exhausted.

Exhausting

God holding rehearsals is exhausting. Directors must have them at night usually so that they can go home and sleep. Cheolseung....how? That is all.

Today wasn't bad. Missing one person, just played improv games for an hour--about the right length of time, although it could've been 30 minutes longer. Started with group stories (each person contributes a sentence, then a version where each person can only contribute one word). Then did debates (2 people, each given arbitrary opposing positions--baldness and hair--argue in short speeches the merits of their position). Then zip zap zop and soundball to get energy up a bit. Then a few basic improv games...Freeze Tag (short 2 person scenes, players can freeze the actors and take their places to start a new scene at any time), Taxi (a taxi picks up various characters and everyone in the taxi has to become that character--usually boils down to stereotypes, and its really interesting seeing what the stereotypes here are), Dubbing (two actors pantomime a scene, two others provide the words), and Panel of Experts (another character one, this time in the format of a TV show). Some interesting results but nothing too great...next rehearsal I think I'll return to Cheolseung style, and go back and forth between rehearsals...might even try to do a bit of both in one. We'll see.

Nothing too exciting today. Philosophy and IR lectures. Writing an essay on personal identity. Etc.

Realization

Had my philosphy tutorial again just now with a different tutor because the regular one is off doing something or other, and I came to a realization. I don't hate the tutorial entirely because of the tutor; no, its the other student's fault too! So now, for my own sadistic pleasure, I'd like to try and draw a caracature of the other students:

1: "Hi, Oim American and I believe in Freedom! With a capital F! And enthusiasm! Besides, I look and sound like a cartoon animal!"

2: "Like, oh my god, I'm the only girl in this clath. I fulfill every thtereotype of American airhead that there is. Determinithm? Totally deep!"

3: "Hi. I talk slowly. Forgive me. I'm a theology major. I'd rather be talking about God. Really, I just took philosophy because I thought it was like theology. My mistake."

4: "I'm chronically bored. I know determinism is the answer, so why are we talking about it?"

5: "Hello! I'm just too posh to live. Daddy certainly has a lot of money. God philosophy is deep. I actually might be somewhat intelligent, but I'd really rather just be posh instead. Do you like my (entire) wardrobe of pink shirts and sweater vests?"

6: Me.

So that's that.

Little weekend update as well: Saturday I spent all day at a debate thing, Sunday I squandered luxuriously! The debates were between 4 teams consisting of an experienced debater paired with a new student--20 teams total, 4 debates. We debated 1. "Should Britain directly elect Prime Ministers?" 2. "Should dentists be forced to practice under the NHS?" 3. "Should we boycott the Bejing Olympics?" and 4. "Should Britain have manditory military service?" Aside from an always appreciated chance to argue and a bit of an activity, doing debating here has set me in good stead as far as current affairs and Brittish politics go, which is nice if I'm to be living here.

Ah well, off to my psychology lab.

1st Rehearsal

Ahhh today. I only had psychology, but then is afternoon I went along and looked at props/costumes that they have avaliable (not that much, or possibly just not that well organized), auditioned for the improv troupe (they do auditions the same way they do for plays where you walk into the room, they sit there, one of them does 2 improv games with you, they say "thanks very much, we'll send you an e-mail about callbacks." Huh.). Then I went and signed up to be treasurer for the Fresher's debate, which is basically a debate run and organized by Freshers. I've got £100 for my show, I want to see more money! Basically the job is arranging payment for guest speakers' flights and accomidations, which I figure will be really useful and interesting experience without TOO much work.

But onto the title. My first rehearsal was good, I felt, an hour long total, which was about right for me and for Friday night. My cast came in within the space of about ten minutes, and we chatted a bit as they came in--just the usual "what are you studying? what hall are you in?" crap. When everyone was in I felt a bit odd springing wierdness on them all at once, so I started with two "starter" games I found online. I had them line up (they had naturally formed a line anyways) in order of height, shoe size, age, health (physical and mental) and hygiene. Then I had one start walking, another follow trying to walk the same way. Gradually got everyone in there, started music, and began the Cheolseung-ness. Had various actions, eventually culminating in the group of six forming three pairs each doing independent actions. Ended up with a little mini love story, and a story of persecution, again in good Cheolseung fashion. Love story was easy enough, the persecution one started with me asking them individually to make a face at the others and giving the others different reactions. The ending was good, and then I had them circle up and talk a little. One girl has done a "movement-based modern piece which didn't turn out too well" and was very cynical (funnly enough, also the best one), and one guy is, just from how he acts, a bit skeptical of it all, but it's good enough.

Next rehearsal I'm going to turn this one on its head and spend the entire time playing comedy improv games. Then the one after that I want to pair them up and have them do groupwork. I've got an interesting mix...an english girl and guy, a scotish girl and guy, a german girl, and an indian girl. Good stuff. We'll see how we all get along.

But it's Friday night. So...

Busy, busy

God this is just turning into a journal, isn't it.

Three classes and two tutorials today, all really good. Mostly Marx in IR, randomness (non-determinism) of subatomic particles in philosophy, lusting after your parents like a good Freudian in psychology. So that's that.

Afterward I went with my academic dad to "Question Time Europe", a debate with five guys from various parties in either the Brittish or European Parliment talking about Brittish-interest topics in Europe ranging from the Euro to Turkey to the new European "constitutional" document (can't remember the name), to the effects of Scottish independence. Brittish politicians are more vicious, funnier, just as old and about as slimy with a pinch of added pomp. But very educational, I feel the full weight of my america-centric worldview's ignorance when I have to do a mental check of a map to remember where a country is, or learn a new fact (Turkey is occupying Cyprus? What? Since when? Where, exactly, is Cyprus again?). I hope to continue to go to things like this and have some clue in hell as to what is going on in the world.

After that I went and had tea and biscuts (read--candy bars) with my academic dad and we talked about the debate, the world's current political/military standing, and a lot of military history. He's a fourth year modern history major with an emphasis on World War military, and my god he can talk about them forever. So, at this point, I'm feeling very in- and out-of-class educated.

One thing that was true in the US and is giving me an edge here are my efforts through this last year to learn about Islam and the bits I've picked up about Asia, as well as Latin America tidbits. Although Europe seems to be very general knowledge for everyone here, beyond it is almost as much of a mystery as anything outside the US is for people in the US. Someone in my IR tutorial suggested "a secular government" as a solution for conflict in Iraq, and I just buried my head in my hands.

Now that I'm elsewhere I'm listening to a series of Berkeley lectures on iTunes U about American History since the Civil War, which so far I'm finding really interesting. I realize that with all the conceptual stuff in IR and Philosophy I'm missing some of the clear (or muddled) narrative history can provide, though I think I can get that out of the lecture theatre easily here. I'd also like to visit some of the churches here, since there are about 5, and there all about 200 years old at least, and I walk across one's front yard to get to meals every day anyways. I figure if I've been to a mosque once, I should go to a church for a regular service once. Fair treatment.

I've got my first rehearsal tommorow night and I honestly don't know what I'm gonna have the actors do. Ah, well.

Decent Day

Good lectures this morning. My psychology professor continues to get really excited everytime he mentions torture. In IR we talked about Machiavelli and Hobbes with regards to their views on power.

Went again to the debate training this afternoon. Not so great for me this time--the topic was "This house believes that parents should be allowed to vote for their children while their children are minors". I was arguing against, trying to point out which parents this would further enfranchise. I was trying to say that lower class people are likely to have more kids but be more negligent of them, while the middle and upper classes have fewer kids but would be more likely to vote. Aaaaaand apparently "lower class" is one of those phrases you just DON'T use here, because as soon as I said it everyone ghasped and made out as if I had argued for taking the vote away from the lower class. So it's okay to make fun of "neds," "chavs," and "the working class" to a degree, but not to say the word "LOWER class". That would be unaristocratic of us!

Hah. But enough of that.

Tonight has been good. I cast my show and got £250. Hooray. The £250 was from a scholarship reception which I went to tonight, and the callbacks were tonight as well. I'm quite happy with my cast, as I took all the people who others didn't love as "actors" and I loved because they weren't actors. My first rehearsal will be Friday, so hopefully that goes well. I've got to figure out what I want them to do. Ah, and I get £100 pounds to spend on the show. Since I'm not exactly planning on set/props, I figure it'll go for cast meals/drinks. Hooray!

P.S. William, thank you for "The Castle". I had to struggle a bit to get through "The Trial", but I think "The Castle" may just be the best book I've ever read. Maybe--I'm only halfway through. But I did that in one sitting, in which I usually read about 20 pages.

Bad Day

Today has been my worst day so far. We had a bit of a party last night in our room, and this morning my keys, which had been on my bedside table, were gone. My chapstick was knocked under the bed, but the keys are nowhere to be found. I'm hopeful that someone picked them up by mistake and will return them--but probably not. So thats a headache.

Then, being the utter genius that I am, I figured that, until I get replacement keys, I could just prop the window to my room open a tiny bit, open it from the outside, and crawl in that way. While rigging the thing I put it up as high as it would go and discovered, to the vast amusement of my hand, that it doesn't lock in place at the top. Fwoosh.

One thumb later (it's still swolen, but entirely usable now), I headed off for my tutorials today.

Make that yesterday.

Somehow, I had imprinted firmly in my mind that my Monday tutorials were on Tuesday. I had it written down correctly in my planner, but even in the e-mail with work I sent my tutor last Friday I said "see you Tuesday!" I've e-mailed both tutors and, since tutorials happen through the week, I can attend another one, but that's not to say I didn't completely panic.

So this afternoon, which I thought I would spend in tutorials, I've spent icing my hand and reading "The Remains of the Day," a novel required for IR about a godawful horrible English butler whose life is slightly more interesting than bread mold on buttered toast, but has a worse aftertaste.

Dinner will hopefully be a non-disaster, and I can succeed in going to the one of a few talks on tonight and the philosophy society meeting without a one ton anvil falling from the sky onto my head, I will have reason to be thankful.

UPDATE: Alisdair took my keys! Thought they were his until he tried to open his room door. Caught. So I've got those back. And no anvils as of yet.

Fiction!

I finished my homework early this weekend, so ive had some time to read fiction!

I went to bed early-ish last night and for whatever god-forsaken reason got up at 5:30 this morning. I finished Murakami's "The Elephant Vanishes", went for a walk, and read a hundred pages into Kafka's "The Castle". I can see why people would call it and "The Trial" companion pieces, for the idea of the helpless individual in mutant beaurocracy.

In a strange way, I see Murakami, Kafka, and Keroac (I've been reading "On the Road" at a slow but steady pace) as very similar authors in some way--"sharing the table" as Cheolseung describes it. All three deal with the strangeness and utter inexplicability of life, albeit in very different ways. Keroac seems to have an approach that is almost "Fight Club" in its chaotic, destructive enjoyment of life, the complete submission and celebration of its arbitratiness. For Kafka, on the other hand, it's a terrifying thing, a weight of mindless beaurocratic, machine-like inhumanity that destroys his characters, as optimistic and full of fight as they try to be. Murakami is both the most complicated and simplest. He does not revel in the strangeness, nor does it destroy him. He rather has an uneasy truce with it, an uncomfortable comfort like a man sitting at a fireside reading a newspaper who realizes that his dog at his feet is actually a wolf--but a full wolf.

This weekend has been nice and laid back, and I'm looking forward to classes starting again.

Guess I haven't updated in a while...

But everyone's off watching the rugby right now (England v. France...awkward. The English contingent will be supporting England, the Scots will all support France, since they're playing against England, and the Scots support ANYONE who plays against England.) and I figured I might as well update.

Nothing of significance continues to occur. I really like my IR tutorial--extremely confident, dark-humored female Russian PhD student teaching it, very interesting. I am disgustingly on top of my work and feel like I should be doing more. I'm sure that won't last long.

We've had two days of auditions and seen lots of people who should be good to work with. Callbacks were supposed to be today but the e-mail failed to send so we waited for an hour while no one showed up and went back home. Ah well. There's a bonfire tonight after the rugby, so that should be good.

Robbie's away in Glasgow this weekend getting stuff sorted out, so I've got my room to myself. It's honestly a bit lonely, seeing how big the room is.

I've been making an effort to meet people from other halls, which has been going fairly well. Earlier this week I was quite discontented with the shallow relationships everyone has, but I'm getting over that (the shallowness, and the discontent...). So...

So far...

Lectures this week are really good, in general. We are actually talking psychology in Psychology, from human nature (lots of fun pictures of torture...) to, now, how we can quantify a persons personality. Hooray for the objectification of everything that is real and good!

IR is good as well, good lecturer this week (they change every week). We're mainly just talking about ideas of sovereignty, the nation-state, and globalization. This is especially interesting with tensions on all sides running high about Scottish independence--while its all very conceptual, it does feel like a turning point.

Philosophy is moving on to free will/determinism next week, which is great because I'm fed up with identity. More on that later, maybe. Suffice it to say I feel like everyone is talking about different things and formal logic is just miring it all down in a cess pool.

Tonight I have my tutorial for IR, which will hopefully be good, and get to audition people for the Freshers Play. I look forward to passing judgement from on high.

Until later,
Me.

Meh

Not a great day, but not bad. Good morning--didn't have class until 11, but still got up at 8 for breakfast and spent the rest of the time reading and talking on IM. Both classes today were excellent, getting in-depth in philosophy and a new lecture with something of a torture fetish in psychology (who starts their lecture with slides of abu grabe? Well, it got our attention.). Then a bad lunch and my first philosophy tutorial, with two other americans, three english guys, and a dutch grad student who is one of *those people* who gives very wordy explanations which don't answer your origional question. Great. Then I got really lost on the way to my psychology lab (all statistics/experimental methods at the moment, but a good lecturer, this time from Denmark) and arrived 20 minutes late. Now I'm off to dinner. Hooray food as a mood alterer!

Weekend

Just a couple things:

I got into "Tis a Pity She's a Whore". The Friar's part, which is what they had me read for the most--good fire and brimestone and " no, thou shalt not fuck thy sister"-ing. Should be fun.

Last night (parents shudder!) a group of us hopped the fence by the sea and roamed around the castle (first built circa 700AD, this incarnation is mostly from the 1500's though). So there's my risk taking behavior for a little bit. And really, if one is going to go places one shoudln't, a medieval castle is not a bad place to go. Who hasn't wanted to storm a castle in the dead of night? Just thought that was soooo cool that I needed to share that.

The weekend is about to end and next week should be full-on classes and tutorials (seminars, which we havent had before). I've got two monday (philosophy and a psychology lab), and IR on thursday. Then the end of this week is auditions for the Fresher's Play, and I'll get to see how it is to sit on the other end of an audition table. I expect it to be satisfyingly sadistic, or sadistically satisfying, or something.

Just another post

300 is far less impressive on a laptop screen. Disappointing. Friday night has been utterly calm.

Which is not a bad thing, seeing as I woke up with no voice. And did an a capella group audition with said lack of voice. Interesting....

Only had one class, so I woke up late-ish and just ate the apple and cheese I liberated from the cafeteria earlier this week. In the afternoon I took a nap, went to the audition, and fished in the library for a bit. Took out a psychology book on beauty/aestheics to see if I could get some experimental stuff on it. I've skimmed it, but I continue to be disgusted by anything psychological to do with creativity/beauty/anything really subjective. Also picked up a philosophy book on possible worlds, which looks to be interesting and also talks about identity, which we are currently talking about in terms not quite to my taste in class. If anyone has recommendations for reading that denies the existence of the human consciousness or reality of the world independent to it, or the idea of identity as a social construct, I would be greatful. Or just something interesting and not so mind-body oriented a definition.

So, bed. Ahhhhh.

Thursday

Thursday is the day I have all 3 classes, at 10, 11, and 12, and then lunch at 1, all on opposite sides of the town, so that's a bit stressful.

Whats been going on? I just got all my books for International Relations and Philosophy on Amazon for around £30 pounds ($60, probably half the price the three would have been in the store. Parents, moneda por favor. Just kidding.) The last couple days have been cool. Classes are beginning to get interesting after lots of introductory stuff. Two cool things yesterday: I met with the theater fund about being one of the directors for the "Fresher's Play", which is a few freshman directors and all freshman cast in 20-30 minute shows. We've got quite a long time to put them up, and unless a one act play miraculously lands in my lap, I'm gonna work with the cast to create an origional piece. Should be interesting, and hopefully not absolutely horrible.

Last night I went with my roomate and academic dad (a sort of odd tradition which basically just involves calling half the student body family) to the school debate, which was in "Lower Parliment Hall." So named because at one point under Mary Queen of Scots the parliment met there! AMAZING room with a practical throne, and the debating society is ancient so there are all sorts of interesting/fun rituals. The peace-keeper guy carries a sword. They serve port before the debates. When the audience approves, it says "here, here" and when it doesn't approve, it says "shame". As people are speaking. When voting on issues, when hands are raised in abstention, everyone says, "liberals!". In the end as the debaters file out everyone sings a song in Latin.

Ahhh being in this place....

It's interesting. European politics are far more liberal than US politics. But I'm finding this place very tradition-bound (both a good and bad thing) as well as LOTS of hardcore Christians. As an ancient priest college with strong theology and divinity programs I guess it makes sense, as well as the fact that all universities in the UK are government run, whereas in the US you'd have specific religious colleges where you'd get the nuts and then other schools for the real people. Ouch.

Tonight

Today is "Boozeday Tuesday" when pubs sell just about everything for £1, BUT I seem to be a bit feverish and am staying indoors, in bed, recovering. It makes me feel so damn smug. I've been sleeping, now I'm computering, then I'll sleep again. Lectures today continue to be good. The world continues to rotate. I auditioned for a show (Tis a Pity She's a Whore) and an a capella group today, and would have done two more tonight if I felt a bit better--but no matter, auditions go on all week. I figure I'm not going to commit to any more than 1 show and 1 group, at least at this point in the semester until I figure out how many hours a day I need to be working outside of classes. I read Murakami's "Slow Boat to China" and, while the story itself did not astound me, it touched me. Also another chapter of Kerouac's "On the Road," which I have been away from for too long. I think I may go read some more of it now actually...

I read my Spotlight, Mom. I read your letter, Cheolseung. Thank you.

It is very late and I should be in bed.

As per the title.

Had my first day of lectures...sort of. Mostly giving out ciriculums and the like. Woke up for breakfast for the second time ever (hooray!) and went out to lectures. I think I'm going to enjoy it...International Relations makes me feel like I'm in the US there are so many Americans taking it. Psychology the lecturer is just good fun. Philosophy we started with a question about two people switching minds and bodies. I think Art and William would be proud that I vehemently disagree that this can be done--that the sort of mind-body duality is complete rubbish and even if you transplanted a person's brain you are fundamentally CHANGING who that person is. So all great there.

Rushed back in time for lunch, then off to sign off for tutorials (basically seminars) and wander about, then back to read a little, drink a little, and go to the Mermaids Theater Society meeting, which sounds like it should be fun. There is a "fresher's play" which they are looking for actors and directors for, so I volunteered to direct. There are also a capella/play auditions through the week which I'll do. I'd also like to try shinty, which is a bit like Hockey, a bit like hitting things with sticks, a bit of drinking, and a lot of really funny posters at the sports day. I think theres a "give it a go" day on wednesday.

I'm getting a bit of the flavour (oooh fancy spelling!) of the British psyche. Lots of Christians. LOTS. I went down to the beach with a couple people from my hall and we were talking about what made us happy. It comes to one girl and she immediately said, "God." So we argued theology for about an hour, which was utterly exhausiting but I think good for me as a once-a-week/month/year binge thing, and then I went back to where the guys outside my dorm were discussing "posh people" and where people shop and where their accents are from and how bad their neighborhoods were (Glasgow does seem like it can get rough, but I have a hard time envisioning being scared of little white people with little knives).

This is such an experience. Things have settled down a bit and now the real learning should begin.

Matriculated!

So, I've gotten a little card that I can use for ID at the student union and pubs and a couple pieces of paper. I'm now officially part of the university.

And somehow...I actually feel different. Like things are starting to come together, like the panicky excitement of the first week has receded. I can walk by the thousand year old church without gawping, I can go down the street at sunset without staring at the sky. I can tell if someone is from Glasgow or Dundee by their accent. Classes start on Monday, at 10, 11, and 12 in a neat little block that should exhaust me just in time for lunch. Today there is a Philosophy reception at 4:30 which should be good, on Sunday there is a Societies Fayre (thats how they spell it here!) where I need to do what I've been desperately neglecting and check out the arts programs here. So. Life is good. Now that I'm a REAL student I feel pretty in control. And then classes will start. But I've got a couple days until then.

I love you all.

Awake.

I did indeed wake up from my nap. And good call Art--eager to begin SCHOOL, the drinking has been going on for a while.

Today is a bit of an empty day, but tommorow I meet my advisor and finalize subjects. I'm going to take Mind and Reality in philosophy, and then Introduction to International Relations and Psychology 1. I was going to do economics with psychology, but psychology is taught as a hard science with lots of labs and instruction in statistics, and economics apparently isnt a great department and on top of that is all calculus, SO. Everyone and their mother does International Relations, but it does sound interesting!

I got academic parents last night (a tradition, essentially, where 3rd or 4th years "adopt" 1st years...and there are a bunch of activities but its mostly an excuse to befried older people who know the system, and, as with everything, drink). Not yesterday but the day before I went and listened to professors talk about their subjects (in some of the areas I was intersted in) which got me quite fired up.....engaging speakers without acting like they are selling you a product.

I'm off to brush my teeth, take a shower and start the day. God it's cold.

St Andrews

Just a quick post to update you all: I've arrived in St Andrews and am all settled into the residence halls. My parents leave tommorow, and I'm about to catch a quick nap before going out to dinner with them. So, St Andrews. Quite spiffy. The history and beauty of the place that originally attracted me are just as impressive and even more so when I think that I'm living here. My roomates a good Scot, as are most people in my hall. Cool people, and there's a mutual curiosity that is probably quite healthy. Everything seems very "authentic," whatever that means. The culture of drinking is certainly not a myth (my roomates mom packed him off with a bottle of Smirnoff and a few six packs of cider), and everyone is quite eager to begin.

So, I'm off to my nap.

Musings

Not yet in St Andrews, but feeling philisophical so what the hell.

Suppose you want to blow up a rock. No good reason, you just have a stick of dynamite and want to blow something up. There are two rocks in front of you. One is very large, the other is smaller. The stick of dynamite would blow either one up. Which SHOULD you blow up? Who cares! The size of the rock makes no difference, neither, probably, does the type of rock or its history. The rocks are so far away from human you probably couldn't tell one from the other looking at pictures. So, rocks are all the same. Rocks shouldn't matter, and it shouldn't matter which rock you blow to smithereens, or even if you blow multiple rocks to smithereens. As far as we know, the rocks don't mind.

So what makes people any different? Becuase we are a single species we have a level of common empathy, but take that away and how is a human different from a rock. "Thought" and "awareness" and "consciousness" and "life." Rocks may have something just as special which we do not know about. Even if we did, would we start saying that blowing up rocks was a crime? Perhaps killing is a bad example because we have a perception that killing is the worst crime and should only be practiced in self defense when no other recourses are left (I think this must be something like the argument for imprisonment being more humane than torture. Would you rather go through an almost normal life missing a hand, or spend your entire life rotting away in prison? But that's another subject). Still, what makes "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" valid? Sure, it sounds good. But WHY? Why not "the greatest happiness for me?" That's almost patriotic! But seriously, we don't say, "we should treat rocks in such a way that the treatment of each individual rock does the most good for the world's population of rocks as a whole." And on a fundamental level, what is the difference between a human and a rock? If an advanced species arrived and wanted to make a wall out of us, what could we possibly say to stop them?

I listened today to a David Lynch lecture at Berkeley on i-Tunes. He is terrible. He didn't have a speech, didn't answer the questions asked, did so incoherently, and used the words "beauty" and "consciousness" every sentence. His talk was on transcendental meditation, how to become so one that you reach a different state of consciousness. My question is: what is consciousness? Is it different from the mind (in a western sense) or being, itself (in, perhaps, an eastern sense)? What makes us so sure we have a consciousness? We think, and we see that thinking is centralized in the brain. But to think of the color yellow I must first have seen the color yellow at some point, so couldn't I argue that I "think", in a sense, with my eyes? Then blind people are retarded, and dumb people are cripples! If I'm being blunt and politically incorrect I might as well have fun with it. In which case everything we do that helps our body expands our conciousness--a good diet, sleep (which I will lack in the morning), excercize, occasional indulgence, sex, etc, etc etc. Why is mediation special then? It's our age's spiritual diet pill. Sure, maybe it helps, but only supplementarily. Like sleep. I'm about to take my supplement.

Out of London

First internet access for a couple of days. We went to Westminster Abbey in London (where all the kings/notables are buried...saw Elizabeth, a few Marys, lots of Edwards and Henrys, some poets, and walked over Darwin's grave). Also visited the Tate, the Victorian Albert, and the British Museum again. All incredible, all museum-y. Makes you think though, for whatever reason.

Saw two more shows: The Woman in Black, a very effective stage thriller, and the 3-hour extravaganza-filled Lord of the Rings MUSICAL (!!??!!??) which made me nearly vomit in my mouth when I heard they were making it but was really not bad at all. Tolkien's goal was to create a mythology for a legend-less people, and it is a testament to his success that even condensed into three and a half hours with singing hobbits, a great deal of the power of the story survives.

We are now in Scotland, in a little village called Stonehenge, and my mom is getting exceptionally antsy so we've off.

London, Part 2

Two Days Ago: Woke up early again, ate yoghurt, went for a long walk to a public garden. Went on a river cruise through London (same one I’d been on last year, but still good). At the end was the Royal Observatory, where the prime meridian is located. Some interesting time/longitude facts—navigation before Google Earth was an art. Back where the cruise took off from we went to a Dali exhibit (with a bit of Picasso downstairs as an afterthought) with a lot of sketches and sculpture which was really quite good. Dali bugs me as a person (his obsessions with Freud and Catholicism and his zeppelin ego irk me), but his art is undeniably good. After that I went to see a play called “The Sexual Neurosis of our Parents” with my parents. Off-West End, and excellent, the story of a mentally handicapped girl who is taken off her medication and discovers sexuality—big time. Experimental to no great effect, but a strong script and some excellent acting. I’ve got a theory that British acting depends on craft where American acting depends on “reality within the moment,” but we’ll see where that winds up.

Yesterday: Woke up early AGAIN, did not much of anything, went to get brunch. Went to the Victorian Albert museum, which had a great Eastern art, an interesting floor all of crafts and trades, and a million other things. Honestly, though, you can only go to so many museums in a short period of time. The highlight for me was walking through a room of stained glass and processional crosses listening to Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks.” Talk about an anachronism. Went through the “Mayor’s Festival” along the Themes where we had Argentinean food from a stall on the way to the Globe, where we saw “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” The Globe is interesting…in this one, as in Titus last year, there really were no absolute stand-out performances, but the entire ambiance made the show. The actors update it only very slightly from how it would be performed in Shakespeare’s time, and the outdoor theatre, use of groundlings, and complete understanding and enjoyment of performing Shakespeare make it really good.

London, Part 1

If my last days in LA were tragic and heartfelt and oh-so-momentous, after being in London for a couple days I’ll say the sense of anti-climax is huge. It’s a vacation. Like any vacation. Not a drastic change in lifestyle, not a tremendous leap forward in personal development. Maybe that’ll come in college. But so far, we’ve been to the British museum (where I think I concluded that I’d love to study history if it wasn’t all fucking Europeans…I want Aztecs and Mayans and Egyptians and Vikings!), and seen a show on the West End (39 Steps…a very slapstick British comedy. Good fun, but it’s parody of noir made me wonder, “is there such thing as meaningful noir?”). I had a beer with my parents in a pub, which was not nearly so surreal as I thought it might be.

I did this last year and I’m doing it now—waking up really early (like, 6:30! No joke!) and walking around London. It’s really pretty cool seeing the city wake up. Yesterday I saw two foxes, in the heart of the city, around a private garden!

Finished Kafka’s “The Trial.” It’s about a man who is on trial in a terribly inefficient legal system for a crime which they certainly don’t tell him and it seems unlikely if anyone really knows why he is on trail. I wish I knew why the hell Kafka is so good. I still have “The Castle” left to read and I’ll try to emulate his style while reading that, but it seems to me that his action is so minimalist around the central theme or plot that it’s hard without a great premise to be Kafka-esque. I have to say that “The Trial” and “In the Penal Colony” are my two favourite works of his right now. Both have an intense realism that makes their strangeness even more terrifying than the outright near-magical realism of “The Metamorphosis.”

The last days

These past two days have been incredible. I will regret forgetting them.

It is one thing to know that you have friends in an abstract sense. It is another to leave and see it realized. Sunday was a great going-away party thrown by Mette with my parents, Grandma Peggy, and William. Yesterday I went up to the school with Rez and saw my favorite teachers and various students. We went for lunch with Cheolseung, and then Brittni (who I have always known was an incredible liar) tricked me to a surprise party (She is shamelessly straightfaced. She told me we were going to a Ja-Booty-en restaurant with Kathy. And I believed her). Brittni, Kathy, Rez, Holly, Clare, Libby, and Deepika were there. Kathy and Brittni had made me four pages of pictures around the letters of my initials (BASW, one page per letter, as many words as they could think of for each letter illustrated. My favorite? Stereotype illustrated.) I went home and had my Mom's spaghetti with my parents and William, who had a great coat he gave me (greatly relieving my Mom and, therefore, me). From there I went roofing with Rez (climbing around on roofs....try it sometime!), went to Cheolseung's house where he gave me a couple books he's been talking about and a letter, and from there to Robbie's, where we watched a movie and he gave me a copy of a videogame--not sentimental seeming at first glance, but I know that it is one of the most important things to him, a major part of his life.

Today I spent the morning packing, and the afternoon seeing Rez, Cheolseung, Clare and crew for a last time. And now we are waiting for the cab...

Two days left (one full one!)

Woke up absurdly early. 6:45. Okay, 7:00. Went to Ms. Wisdom-Teeth-Puller, who said everything looked honkey dorey and ta-ta. That last sentence was a bit on the odd side. Came home, played brain-killing video games, threw more stuff in the respective piles in my bedroom/bathroom, went to lunch with my mom at Virginia Lee's house. Good people--she and her husband make me somehow look forward to old age. They are so involved, so active, so intellectual, so kind. We'd closed a couple bank accounts and ran by to consolidate them afterward. Mom dropped me off at Clare's, where we made cookie cake (literally, baked a cake with chocolate chip cookie dough in it....delicious, if underdone). We headed for the school for her to do the Academy auditions, and ran into Ms. Michel and Lissa, who I chatted with before Rez came out and I snagged a ride home with him. Ate dinner and, with a 'lil help from the parental units, ACTUALLY PACKED (Huge hold-ups at the UN....apparently, most world leaders have dropped dead of shock. One senior aide was reported to have said, "This is a moment we never thought to see in our lifetimes! World peace seems suddenly inconsequential!"). Now I'm headed off to see Chris Narrie and hopefully watch "300" with Robbie. If "300" is not all I remember it being and more, there will be tears. There will be agony.

And apparently I'm in light-ish spirits. There is humor! There is mayhem! This is more the pace of life I've grown accustomed to.

Today

These last couple days I've gotten out of being bored/mopey by now frantically rushing to see all the people I put off for a couple of weeks. Yesterday Lisa was down and we all went out to lunch (Dim Sum). We came home and I went and got ice cream with Clare, then headed over to my last voice lesson (well, not EVER), and from there to Cheolseung's for dinner (Korean food--squid, raddish, kimchi, and boiled cabbage, mushroom, beansprouts and meat), and from THERE to USC where I spent the night with Jessica, Andrea, and Alex. This morning I ate with Jessica, Andrea, and Emily, then came home in time to go to a grown-up goodbye party with Mette, William, my parents, and Grandma Peggy (delicious, thank you Mette if you're reading). Ahhhhhh the goodbyes are just beggining....and almost over.

I'm back to just excited. Which is a good place to be.

But, given the way my of-so-predictable mood-swings work, now that ive been mopey for two weeks I'll be ecstatic for two more and then back to mopey just in time for move in! Are the four week up/down cycles (two weeks each) that I noticed at the beginning of last year and now possibly again this year really biologically in there, or is it just the coincidence of what's going on? Only time will tell.

So

It's been a while since I've posted. I've had a busy time of it withdrawing and detaching from everything without doing a bit of packing. I got my drivers license yesterday and visited with Uncle Joe and Aunt Angie. Today I finished up a Psych experiment I agreed to take part in at UCLA for $150. It's my non-job, but good money for sitting around taking a few tests around my schedule. Hopefully I'll see everyone I want to see over this weekend and spend Monday and Tuesday packing and getting ready. I've been having a somewhat unexpected reaction to this leaving shit: one week of dreadful boredom, now one week of incurable mopiness and detatchment. But I plan to make the best of this weekend and next week.

We leave nighttime on Wednsday. Lots to do...

From a discussion on what makes my generation

THOUGHT: In the 60’s, activists were as concerned with poverty in their neighbourhoods as with global affairs. Now, though, an “activist” is one who goes to Sudan, who goes to the Middle East—we go to college for international politics, international affairs. Because the homeless in the US almost never starve, we turn our eyes outward to look for what “good” we can do in the world. We have outsourced our labour. Now, we are outsourcing our caring.

A follow-up: This is, of course, only maybe 10% of the population—the upper and middle classes, college bound kids. Do we really care or do we just need something to look good on college/job applications? Good question. But the fact remains: the majority of people are just trying to make a living, have some rudimentary happiness, and live without affecting the larger world. I am worried about going to college, about picking my major and figuring out what to do with my life. But I’m 18. For every college-bound kid like me, there are people my age who are already pregnant, already married, people who have been working and living on their own for years.

MY GENERATION: When we (white, middle-class Americans) were small children, we were told we were special—we could change the world. When we were small children, we were told our education was important. But college costs are the highest they’ve ever been and a degree is a guarantee of only one thing: entry into the bourgeois white middle-class American society. We have no purpose. There is no “great cause” of our generation. Since we remember, even our own government has lied to us. We have become cynical. We know that money is important—we borrow it for everything (for college, for cars, for houses, for everything) and have a terrible need to pay it back. This problem is not unique to our generation. Another common American problem is the question of are we doing worthwhile work? The American dream is the self-made man, but we own nothing, we make nothing, we do nothing.
So, cry past generations a river. They’ve been dealing with all the same crap. What’s new? Technology, for one. Our entire means of communication is different. Virtual identities (ala MySpace) and instant communication (IM and phone text messaging) have changed our personal dynamics to enable us to keep in contact without great effort or even great interest. Such programs also delete many ideas of privacy—we don’t hide our “bad nights”, we put them on the internet for everyone to see. We don’t keep private journals. We have blogs and status updates. Being connected to the internet means that you have myriad communities living in your house.

What are your thoughts? What constitutes my generation? What is our identity?

God save me

Onto day three of excruciating restlesness! I've been getting out, doing stuff, reading, etc etc, so why do I continue to be so bored? Last night I went to Robbie's and spent the night there playing World of Warcraft and watching the first Die Hard movie (Bruce Willis has hair! It's the 80's! It's...not a bad movie, for an action thing), the night before I finally gave into a friend of mine and went to a gay club in west hollywood with her. It was awkward (especially at the beginning...I imagine going with a decent number of people would've helped that), but overall it was just interesting. I was suprised at the number of hispanics (it is LA, of course), but aside from the flaunted sexuality everyone seemed to be fitting very neatly into my stereotype of what a club is. I went with my parents to Chinatown today to eat--I really have been decently busy, but something feels...missing.

I would say it's a sense of purpose, but it's not like I've had one all summer and it certainly hasn't stopped me before. I think it might be because so many people are gone in college. But whatever it is, I don't like it, and makes me mopey, irritable, and unproductive.

Back in business

Yesterday was the first day I felt 100% again, as evidenced by my staying up until 3 in the morning as usual. I'm here for another two weeks...it seems so surreal to think that. But I've been eating (!) good food and doing...the usual, basically. Spending time with people.

Last night the midwife who delivered me, Ruth, came over for dinner. It's a little odd to talk to the person who yanked you out of your mom, but it was nicely not awkward at all. Dinner was very enjoyable and Ruth is a very interesting woman. It's always fascinating to see what people tell each other after not having seen each other or really talked in 17 years. I can't imagine.

On tap for today? Who knows.

Link

Not so much a post as a link.

Ever wondered about Aztec philosophy? What? No! Does that even exist? Well wonder no longer.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aztec.htm

And my mind continues to be blown...

Failure

This weekend I have failed completely and utterly to do nothing, and this week looks to continue in that vein of failure. Today I finished the Illiad (which I started much earlier this year stopping every 25-100 pages to read something else). I'm certainly glad I did it, and if nothing else it sparked a huge interest for me in the fate of all of the characters before and after the events. Oedipus obviously predates the Illiad and is mentioned several times, but what is the exact time frame? What are Patrokolos' feelings down in Hades about having undeliberately by his death caused the destruction of Troy and of Achilleus? The question is raised in the end, what happens to the Trojan women (answered in another saga, I know)? What about Aias? Hektor's and Achileus's sons? When and where in relation to Troy are the Peloponysian wars? All excellent Wikipedia questions!

I went with my parents to dinner and baby-watch at an ex-students house (she's a professor herself now), which ended up being a good relaxing time to watch my cheeks swell up like puffer fish.

On tap for this week: Rehersal with Cheolseung, hopefully get my license, hopefully get Windows working on my Mac, make it down to New York.

Day After

The day after I lost all my wisdom (teeth) and it's been hectic. William arrived at 7 this morning to have a nightcap (he works a night shift and was on his way home). I hadn't seen him since Hawaii and we had some catching up to do--then Grandpa Paul and Grandma Robin came in on a layover between Oregon and Missouri and we went out to breakfast, where I did just fine with solid food. Heading home I slept for an hour or so, read some more of the Illiad, then got on the computer. I have a site with Kafka short stories bookmarked which was perfect for my mindframe. I read "In the Penal Colony" and "A Country Doctor." Kafka is a bizzare storyteller, but somehow you can't help but be compelled by it. "A Country Doctor" was surrealist shit (as I interpreted it...maybe I just missed the point), but "In the Penal Colony" was really quite good. It's about a man's tragic love for corporal punishment in a humanitizing age. I'd also reccomend "The Hunger Artist," about a man who fasts as an art form in an age that has lost interest in it. But are based around very concepty concepts (fasting as an art and the specific torture/death machine) but with them lead their characters to very human ends.

The website is http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/kafkatofc.htm if anyone is interested.

Then I went to Robbies and played video games and got ice cream and watched "28 Days Later" (a BAD horror flick). Life really is very strange.

Venus

I watched the move Venus with Peter O'Toole tonight with my parents. Not a great movie, but a very provocative one.

As I see it, the movie raises two central questions, two major themes. The first is old age and death: appropriate since there is only one major character in the film who is not just about on her deathbed. The characters talk about death constantly, and their loss of memory, their trivial old-person joys and their rage and bitterness at age and decrepitude are the real heart of the movie. The last line of dialogue is especially beautiful (no real spoiler here). Two characters are discussing their friend's death with obituary in hand. The last line is delivered with failed nonchalance which betrays its urgency. "How many collumns did he get?"

The second theme is pleasure. To what extent is people using each other for pleasure justifiable? Peter O'Toole plays an aged actor who takes a very physical, romantic interest in his friend's twenty-something niece. He buys her things, tell her things, and every time she is not looking we see him eye her. But she needs him too. A troubled girl, his attention becomes an affirmation of her being, and she has no problems being assertive when she feels things have gone far enough. Both of their wants and what they do to satisfy them feel sleazy to the hundredth power, disgusting and base. But human. And really, if they are fulfilling each other's warped desires, isn't what matters that they are both happy--not how twisted each desire is?

Which brings me to a philosophical/psychological/biological point that I can't help but throw in here. Human beings are not hardwired for happiness--if we were, we would sit around all day smiling until we starved to death. Rather, we are wired to be eternally discontented, trying to reach goals with the purpose of being happy but the knowledge that--if only because it is how we must be to survive as a species--as soon as we reach the goal and the happiness it becomes not enough, and we must set a new goal. Self-help crap always says "don't try to be happy, you can't force that, instead try to set and meet achievable goals." Do our brains provide a scientific grounding for this philosophy?

15 of the fuckers

Before we went to Chile, they pulled seven baby teeth, four and then three, because they had not come out yet and they wanted to make sure there were no complications.

Before I got braces, I had four adult teeth pulled. My teeth are too big for my mouth, and for all them to fit comfortable two uppers and two lowers had to come out.

Today, before I got to college, I got my four wisdom teeth out.

If teeth were lotto tickets, I'd have won by now.

Points of interest...

Two fascinating tidbits that I discovered recently, or at least hadn't thought about before.

1. Biology is a new science. I don't know why this is so revolutionary for me. Chemistry has been around since antiquity in various forms--gunpowder, alchemy, etc. Physics, especially mechanics, has been explained and re-explianed from the idea that all objects had a natural resting place. Medicine, perhaps the closest thing to biology, and human anatomy, have been wildly speculated on (the humors, etc) as an obvious area of interest. But biology, macro and micro, has only been around for a short time. Classifying species--even knowing accurately what animals looked like, let alone how they functioned--is something not much older than Darwin's explination for it all. And the very first microscope was invented in the 1600's. So why, biological engineering aside, does biology seem like such a dead, obsolete science, a collection of dry facts and names? Our model for how the world works phyisically is always changing, people are always trying to fiddle with elements and discover new ones--using biology as a tool is great, but why are we assuming we have it all "right" and not intelligently challenging it's base assumptions?

2. This is a bit about psychology. "Since Freud, we have placed far too much importance on psychology. It's become a religion for atheists: a scientific way to explain it all and figure out how to live a good (or, to be PC, 'functional') life. Psychology is the newest religion." Agree or disagree, there seems to be at least a grain of truth in this statement.

I recently read that Siddhartha Gautama first preached Buddhism not as a religion or philosophy, but as an almost medical entity—a prescription for the mind toward the cessation of suffering. As remedial psychology. Do we, as a society, worship psychology? Yes. But have we always?

Forced Post

I really don't have much to say insofar as organized thoughts or really interesting events. For the last few days I've just been spending time with various people (five of my friends left for college this Wednsday). I've been listening to Pink Floyd and, for whatever inexplicable reason, Rhianna's "Umbrella" over and over again. I have been wasting a lot of time on the internet, because I get my wisdom teeth pulled this Friday and am diluding myself into thinking that I'll be reading a lot once I'm forced into inactivity. I've been reading the blog http://www.overcomingbias.com/ , which is another one by an economics guy who has some interesting stuff to say about the value we assign to truth and the difficulties associated with biases.

The Road

Finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy today (I had read another of his, "No Country for Old Men," during the school year). He is an incredible author, although I don't think he has terribly much range. His books all take place in the border desert between Mexico and the US, all the settings barren and characters simple in that their goals are simply to stay alive.

"The Road" tracks a father and son making their way south (no explicit reason stated) in a US/Mexico after essentially Armageddon (again, no explination for it is given). The novel revolves around two elements, which are so simple that they sustain it and make it an interesting read by themselves. The first is the father-son relationship, incredibly delicate and fragile but with invisible strength like a spider's web. It gives immediacy to all conflicts they encounter, the ever-elusive "why should I care?" The second element is McCarthy's power of description. He is as much a painter as a storyteller, as is able to describe desolate nothingness with such detail and precision that it becomes intensely real.

This book didn't so much make me think as it did make me experience and feel...and for that reason, perhaps unfairly, I enjoyed it tremendously but don't value it that much, i suppose because i associate "lit'rature" with "deep thought". A good book, although it defies how I try to measure the books I've read.

An interesting argument:

For the destruction of the environment as a crime against humanity. It seems odd--the environment and humanity are two distinct things, the environment and business are thought of as opposites, and business is central to our way of life. But if humanity is a part of the environment, than isn't any "crime" against the environment a crime against humanity.

Destruction of the environment is not considered a crime against humanity, but should it be?

Crimes against humanity are usually seen as repeated offenses or "policy" toward one group of people along some sort of lines (ethnic, religious, national, etc). Examples include: mass murder, genocide, slavery, indefinite imprisonment without trial, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, and disappearances. The common theme seems to be the violation of "inaleanable human rights" of life and liberty (property/the pursuit of happiness...less so). Anything that willfully, maliciously, and without due cause harms a group of people. With Earth's population being a group of people, this seems to fit the bill.

Destroying natural rescources and starving/sickening populations has been wartime strategy since the dawn of man, but now is merely a side effect of environmental destruction to be visited all over the world. Even so, the idea of "environmental destruction" seems tame in the age of Iraq and the oh so lurking threat of terrorism.

Not that classifying environmental destruction as a crime against humanity would make much difference--it would simply racket up the propaganda. But isn't this needed? Scare tactics WORK, harsh language WORKS, gut responses get action. All the proof of global warming and pollution is great (I like the quote "global warming is a 'theory' like the 'theory' of evolution or the 'theory' of gravity"), but the language is clearly failing us. "An Inconvinient Truth" and movies like "The Day After Tommorow" are good for part of the job, but it seems like we need a massive overhaul of terms to make the destruction of the environment not merely "something to be concerned about" but rather "the most serious threat to humanity, America, democracy, and YOU." Fighting fire with fire...

A couple other things I found interesting: The Geneva Convention holds NO mention of the word "murder." Torture via radical temperature changes, sleep deprivation, starvation, and other physical discomfort (ala Chinese water torture) can be more effective than pulling out fingernails, put is not as of yet strictly classified as torture. It seems several definitions need updating...

If you read this, respond! I know you have information and insights that I do not, and I'd like this blog to be something of a forum for discussion as well as a cutesy "my diary." Take two seconds and share an idea.

Hawaii

I got back last night from a week in Hawaii (and a night in the airport). I went with Rez, and we stayed on Oahu, for a few days in Honolulu on the south coast and a few days on the north coast. All in hostels, taking public transit (hitchhiking one day) and eating beautifully unhealthily. Hawaii itself, at least the part we stayed, was Disneyland for the tropics--really just a more crowded Costa Rica without the lush plant and animal life. What was amazing was budget traveling with a friend, and all the people we met along the way. This was not so much "my trip to Hawaii" as "our social adventure around the world."

So, the sparknotes:

I arrived around sunset on the first night to see a double-rainbow above the mountains from the plane. I met up with Rez in the airport, and we took the bus to our first hostel in Waikiki (about 45 minutes away from the airport). On the bus we met Frank, an asian guy from New York with an incredible Bronx accent who, it turns out, had actually been behind me on the flight and who was going to the same hostel. After checking in, the three of us wandered the streets for a while, eating Burger King and ColdStone's before heading in for the night.

The next morning Frank left to meet his girlfriend at the airport (the last we saw of him), and Rez and I went on a hike to a nearby mountain which was organized by (and had about 7 people from) the hostel. There was a Frenchman, an Englishwoman, and a Scottish woman on the hike who I talked to a lot, and I got my first taste of how Europeans travel: in bulk. All of them were away from home for at LEAST two months, traveling around Asia, Australia and the US in one single, long trip. The French guy was working at the hostel for this month, getting managerial training and free room and board in exchange for his services. The English woman enthusiastically expounded on the differences between England and the US; the two bits I remember now are that she was having to get used to called "rubbish" "trash" (a term reserved for people exclisively in the UK--how sweet!), and that we was shocked and appalled that she had purchased a salad and they hadn't given her a knife to cut it with.

Getting back from the hike we met two Australian guys who were sharing our room: Glen (who organized concerts), and his quiet buddy Daniel (a surfer taking a break from school, who had never been outside of Australia before). We went to lunch at Taco Bell with them (Glen made it a point to come every time he was in the US, he said), and went swimming. Daniel, though the quieter of the two, was hilarious--his comment on the one dollar fee for the hike, "that's steep," was indicative of wonderfully terrible sense of humor. He was amazed by peanut butter and took every opportunity to eat it (especially with sweets) that he could get. He bought a belt with a gun on it, and was very proud of getting his gun in America.

That night was interesting. Rez's mom knew a guy from her villiage in Bangladesh who she knew from work but had never actually met, and we went and had dinner with him. He had a wife, three kids, and a nephew over, and I was the only one who didn't speak Bengali--which was an experience. Fortunately Rez scattered enough English into his Bengali so that I could understand most of what was going on, and the food was really good. After dinner, the guy gave us essentially a lecture on his view of life and what we should do with it. "Make the right choices," "The future is yours," "Money is important," and "Let me give you example" were favorite phrases of his. He drove us back to the hostel for the night.

The next day we visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial, which was somewhat of a bust in that it took a long time to get to and we had to wait a while to get in, but once inside had some interesting stuff. We got back in the evening and spent the night on-and-off with Glen and Daniel and some Australian girls from our room (it seemed like every fifth person was Australian--every other person was Japanese, but none of them were in the hostel). We went out for dinner (Beef! Chicken! Mahi Mahi! Spam! Delicious.), and went to a bar/restaurant where the Aussies drank and Rez and I were ridiculed by other tourists for our pathetic attempt to play pool. We wandered around, watching street performers as, early at night, the streets reached New York levels of congestion. We went back to the hostel, wandered the beach, went to get pastries, and finally fell asleep talking in hammocks at the hostel before it got cold and we moved inside to real beds.

The next day we took a free shuttle up to the north shore, where there was another hostel. Unlike crowded, touristy Honolulu, the north shore was a relaxed place filled with a lot of surfers who were frustrated at the severe lack of waves. After meeting Sarah, an English law student who would be one roommate, we swam, took a long and futile walk to try to get to a town, and went back to the hostel for a barbeque. As that died down, Rez, Sarah, and I went to a supermarket nearby to get orange juice (Rez and I both had the odd craving) and got caught in the pouring rain before reaching the freezing, air-conditioned store. Drinking orange juice, we went to the beach to look at the stars, which were pretty clear up there. I guess there was a meteor shower, because there were shooting stars every five minutes.

The next day Rez's mom called and said she wanted him to catch a flight back home, so I went off by myself to town (getting a ride from some people at the hostel). After eating lunch and seeing various galleries, surf museums and the "surfboard graveyard," where old, broken surfboard were carved and painted and made into art, I hitchhiked back to the hostel with three old computer geeks from Alabama. I went swimming for a while then (Rez can't swim and had been afraid of the water, so I hadn't gotten out as much as I would have liked to).

On on the rocks looking at tide pools, I ran into a military unit off-duty, a bunch of guys who had just gotten out of basic training. Most of the hostel people were in their 20's, so these guys were actually nearer my age than most of the people I'd been interacting with, and I hung out with them for the afternoon. They were intensely stereotypical. There was 'The Mexican," "The Funny Black Guy," "The Loner," "The quiet, nice, nature-loving soldier," and "The Jerk, with wife and kid at home." The contrast between them and the two Norgwegian girls (waitresses on their month-long Euro-vacation) who had just come into the hostel and who I spent the rest of the evening with was amazing. Only on this trip...

The next day I spent getting back to Honolulu and the airport, taking my leisurely time and finishing Milan Condera's "The Joke" (the writing is dense and Russian, but the story ties up beautifully). At the airport I met up with Rez--who still hadn't gotten out and, as I am writing this, still has not--and missed the 10:15 flight. We spent the night in the airport, getting more and more rediculous as time went on.

By the middle of Monday when I had finally gotten on a flight, I had smuggled banannas into the airport (we were going to just eat them there instead of overpriced airport food, but "no produce!"), and got onto my flight wearing a Burger King crown.

This proved to be an interesting contrast. The flight was full, so I got a seat usually reserved for flight attendants (it went all the way back--nice!) next to an army guy going back for 5 more months in Iraq. It was intensely surreal, after a night of almost no sleep, to sit in a Burger King crown next to a guy who got shot at every day, who had watched two of his friends get blown up, and who for two weeks had seen his baby for the first time in 10 months.

And I arrived home. Keep your fingers crossed for Rez!

Vacation

Tommorow I'm off to Hawaii (Honolulu) for a week away from nasty computers. Wish me luck, and I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

Themed Restaurants!

I'm sure the food is terribly/mediocre, but I love the idea of themed restaurants. The idea of simply having rude waiters is awesome, but these are truly origional and wierd. A few examples:

-All staff are twins
-All staff are blind, and you dine in complete darkness
-Staff throw free rolls at patrons
-The restaurant is run by missonary nuns singing "Ave Maria" to the guests
-A vegetarian restaurant where you are fined if you do not finish your food
-Meals are cooked using volcanic heat
-A restaurant in Stalin's bunker. Reservations required.

Link: http://restoran.us/trivia/unusual.htm

AND the Islam fact-of-the-day: (William told us this) 20% of China is Muslim--mostly in the north-west region, right by Pakistan. Surprising, but it makes sense.

Visiting a Korean grocery store/restaurant in Korea Town

I skipped two parties tonight to go with Cheolseung tonight to Korea Town to do his shopping and have dinner. Today is just multicultural central!

The Korean market was different--its strangeness reminded me of the grocery stores in Chile. Things I take for granted (cheese, for example) are completely absent. First we went into a video store inside the larger grocery store and Cheolseung rented about 6 Korean movies...all melodramas, he said. We then went through the isles, starting with fruit and vegetables. Mostly fruit, really, and what was really interesting was how heavy the section was on roots and mushrooms--and whats more, that seemed to be what most people were getting. My impression of Korean food (having eaten it all of...twice) is that it largely consists of big soups, more "entree in water" than what we consider soup, along with about a million side dishes. The veggies of choice seemed to reflect things you might put in a soup. Also facinating were a huge fresh fish section with live flatfish (halibut?) and abalone, along with a lot of squid-on-ice. Nearby was an entire isle of frozen packages of fish, all of which, according to Cheolseung, were supposed to be part of soup. Nearby was an isle devoted to side-dishes, and opposite it a buffet-style row of vats with various side dishes and containers, so that you could scoup as much of the side (lots of pickled things, lots of kimchi) into a container yourself to buy it, and eat it throught he week. The best part? The store was filled with Korean people, speaking Korean, buying Korean food with Korean lables. And the teller and bag guy were talking to each other in rapid...Spanish. Only in LA.

The Korean restaurant was a trip too. I was amazed when we went for a full Korean barbecue a few months ago, but figured what they did there must be a special thing. Not so! We sat down and were immediately given a pitcher of Korean ice tea (think Thai ice tea) for no charge. Then, two bowls of rice and four appetizers--a gellylike thing, harder gellylike things, kimchi, and pickled stringbeans. All what, in an American restaurant, would be considered full appetizers and would cost $5-7 a pop. Here, when one got low, a waitress came by and refilled it. Cheolseung said that, in Korea, it is considered bad manners to leave a side dish empty. Also, according to him, you can tell the quality of a restaurant by the number and quality of their side dishes. This one only had 4 plus rice...a B. The American capitalist inside me cried a little.

The main dish was chicken soup--a whole, small chicken in rice-broth, with little fruits, nuts, ginsing, and leeks. But now I'm getting stupidly detailed so I'll stop. I will say, though, that today has been a great day. I think I may make it a goal to visit the religious centers and grocery stores (two main cultural centers, as far as I am concerned) of various cultures and religions. It's just damn interesting!

Impressions on visiting a Mosque

Don't worry, I'm not about to convert. But I've been to Christian weddings, funerals, and the accompanying church services. I've been to Jewish weddings, funerals, and Barmitzfas. I'm an equal opportunity atheist.

So:

All religions are the same. All sermons are the same. The very tone of voice is the same.

When singing the prayers, the leader has his back to those who pray, facing into a hollow cavity by what, in a Christian church, would be the pulpit. I interpret this similarly to the refusal to have graven images. The prayer, the voice, does not belong to the person who utters it—it belongs to all. It is egoless.

You can tell that Islam is a desert religion. The images, the colours in the Mosque all point to this, for they suggest a desert oasis. The walls are all white, the carpets red and patterned simply. But every time there is a design, or picture, or letters in Arabic, they appear in blue, like water. The images are all of plants—flowers, trees, leaves. Even the designs suggest vines and roots. The effect is not emasculating, as it would be in a different kind of church. As gold and crosses are “heaven” to Christianity, black tradition to Judaism, so green and blue, flowers and leaves are “heaven” to a desert religion.

The act of prayer is different, because it is a physical act. Not an intensely physical one, but physical enough to engage the body as well as the mind. In this way, Islam becomes an exercise as well as a belief.

A people, and a people’s mentality, are shaped by the religion. The sermon seemed to have three components (which I was aware of). The first was history, tradition, Arabic directly from the Koran, translations, the stories of Mohammed. The next component was instruction, not what a good Muslim was—it seemed assumed that all present were good Muslims—but rather what a good Muslim should strive to do. Central to this was the belief that, though Allah would help, tasks had to be undertaken and struggled through personally. You had to do 99% of the work, hard work, and Allah would only give the final but crucial 1%. The final aspect of the sermon, and the aspect which I found most interesting, was mathematical. Here, the sermon acted as a proof, justifying everything that was said—not only why right action was right, but why Mohammed would record a chapter which seemed to glorify himself, because it reality it glorified God. The structure of the sermon was that of a proof, and it seemed as analytical within the structure of the faith as it was based on blind belief in what the sermon-giver said.

All of my Muslim friends have a distinctive way of speaking, not an accent as much as an intonation. From having foreign parents, of course, but listening to the intonation of the prayers (which no doubt mirror the rhythms of Arabic) I could hear something of the intonation that gives a distinctive speaking voice even in English.

And, of course, women. I was pleasantly surprised in the Koran to see how equal of a role women (for that time) were given alongside men. Here, the women and men prayed in separate rooms. I would be fascinated to see what the women did. I can only think, though, that listening to separate sermons, being in a separate place, somehow the men and women are worshiping different Gods. Every teacher, every classroom colours what one learns of a subject, and I imagine religious teaching is the same way. In this way, different genders are kept in the dark about what the other is thinking, worshiping, what they believe it is right to do.

Addendum:

I talked to Rez afterward, and I was wrong in my interpretation of a few points. Women do not listen to a different sermon, or pray separate prayers. They are merely in a different room, getting the backwash of what the men get by watching the sermon and prayers on a screen via the miracle of video technology. So they watch the same service, second hand. So, they are second rate. Rez says that this is so the men and women will not be distracted by each other—they bend and kneel in their prayers, the physicality would make it easy to stray into perversion. Perhaps, but there must be a better way. This seems to me simply wrong.

The second thing is that the chanted call-to-prayer and recitations of the Koran are not done specifically toward a wall, but rather simply always in the direction of Mecca. This changes little though: still, the leader prays with, not to, the followers. Still, it is an egoless prayer.