A Matter of Life and Death

Well let's see. It's time for an update!

FIRST AND FOREMOST!!! I finally got my package on Thursday. The oreos are half gone and now I can sleep at night without being cold because I have my blanket! It makes this flat with it's strange noises and spiders a lot more like home. (Yes Mom, I promise I've been sharing my oreos. Mostly.)

I have been neglecting my blogging duties due to an increase in the amount of homework that I have. So I thought I would sit down and write about the past couple of days.

Thursday is essentially our Friday. (I don't have class on Friday) so after class I knew I couldn't just sit down all day - I'd have to plan something. I didn't know what to do exactly besides something that involved walking. I looked up a bunch of the weekly markets and decided to go to Spittalfields market. It's an indoor market with different themed days. I thought that Thursday was vintage day but it turned out to be antique day.

Well, Kemper and I took the tube (OH mass transportation how I hate you so!) and we managed to successfully get from the tube to the market. It was really neat. There were so many booths with cameras and costume jewelry and albums and everything that a fun antique store in Little Rock has to offer. They also had a bunch of independent artists selling their homemade crafts and such.

We walked around all afternoon and luckily avoided the sudden downpour of rain because we were in the covered market. I bought a journal from this artist who binds her own books. The journal has cloth and stuff on it and a British flag. I know I keep a blog - but I often like to write things down in my journal as well. It's really neat. I'll take a picture of it and post it later.

Anyway after that Kemper and I returned to the flat to grab our reading and head to St. George's. St. George's is a now a public park, but it used to be a cemetery for homeless bodies as well as some really rich families of London in the 1800s. It has a certain peace about it that other parks or squares around here don't have because it doesn't have a bunch of busy streets right around it. It's sort of back off in an alley - which sounds sketchtastic - but it's really peaceful. Seriously.

I managed to mostly finish Ms. Dalloway. I don't really know how I'm feeling about Virginia Woolf...I can't help but read her works as if they have a bit of feminism in them - because they do.

Anywho...After homework time I went and had some dinner with my Guardian newspaper. I have that project due in a week where I have to report on the bias of the paper with other facts and I've been picking up copies when I can. I like the subtle humour that seems to run through the articles. ALSO - what's up with this Koran burning business? Yeeeshh...This is a horrible way for Americans to be seen - especially from abroad. Now I have this worry that every Londoner that I meet is going to accuse me of being ridiculous. OH NO!

On Thursday night Kemper and I met up and went to a small music venue called Borderline. It is literally a stone's throw away from the flat. It's a lot like Juanita's and we looked up their music they had lined up. We saw two pretty good bands - (both Canadian) The Mountains and the Trees and The lines. However, the last band, Elliot Brood, who had some good music online sucked live. We left in the middle of the set because it was simply not up to snuff.

Friday I spent a whole afternoon in the Library trying to get some sufficient reading done. I am so upset with that establishment. Apparently their printer is out. WELL...I don't see how a printer is enough to keep me from getting my card!! The weird thing about London (and perhaps England as well) is that you have to swipe a card every time you go in as well as leave some important building or event. (IE you have to swipe twice on the tube and twice in the library - to enter and exit). Well, he let me in with the button and so I trapized gracefully through the turn-style. The library man gave me implicit instructions to return in an hour to pick up my card.

I went and wandered through the hugely beautiful library and found myself on the fifth floor - the music section. I studied next to the Beatle's books figuring that their biographies are comforting to me. However, true to my word, in an hour I went back to the information desk on the fourth floor to get my card. Well, of course, there was a different worker guy. So I spent fifteen minutes trying to communicate with him my problems about the card. He acted sympathetic about the technological problems of the printer and told me to come back in exactly an hour's time. Sound familiar? :-/

SO. I then went to the seventh floor to study amongst the "Language section." I felt quite at home next to Voltaire's Candide and essays. I nearly finished my book before I realized that it was time to trek back down to the information desk. It was a new worker guy and he directed me to a different desk entirely. Well the new desk directed me back to the information desk and I had to spend another fifteen minutes trying to convince the guy to simply let me out of the Library. By that time I'd been there at least three hours and I was tired of being surrounded by scholarly literature and people who can't figure out how to work around the failings of technology (a printer!!!)

After that I came back to the flat and made breakfast for dinner. It was absolutely delicious. Then I headed over to visit Mandi and Kemper to get ready for our trek to see a movie in a cemetery. Sound creepy? Of course. It's not even Halloween yet but I like to get ready early. :)

Mandi found out about this free film festival online and she asked if we wanted to go. The festival was showing old movies and the one we were going to was called, "A Matter of Life and Death." If I were a movie guru I'd tell you who the actors and actresses were but I have no earthly idea. I just know that I really enjoyed the movie. Old timey movies are always better - life was good back before they came up with the NC-17 rating for movie goers.

Anyway - getting to the cemetery was kind of cool. We took a red bus (yes a red double decker bus!) and then we took a train. Don't worry - we were still in London - but we were pushing the suburbs. It was so neat. My ticket is the coolest thing ever - it's an old film strip. We sat on Mandi's Hendrix blanket and joined in with the families and their children and did something that somewhat made me feel like a community. It was really cool. And it was completely free. I'm going to try to be on the lookout for things likes this in the future.

Only - next time we go see a movie at nighttime in a cemetery - I'll take a jacket. :) Need to work on dressing for the weather. It's been two weeks but I guess I'm still yearning for the Arkansas heat.

Well - that was my Thursday and Friday. I miss you guys. Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I'll do better in the future hopefully. (Anyone want an oreo?!)



Cheers.