Nope! None here. Just in case you were concerned. I'm definitely not having a quarter-life crisis. Phew. Now we can just move right along to the normal blog. In fact, things are going rather well. I've stopped, for the most part, limping around. I finally broke down and got a pedicure which may have helped. And although my weeks remain insanely busy, I'm starting to settle into having an actual schedule, I have a nice balance between school and social life and I'm even starting to plan some trips around Europe (finally) - Brussels the weekend of Nov 11 for a European Jewish group event and Barcelona the week after for a visit with some LA work friends. Don't take this to mean my banking issues have all solved themselves, I've simply run out of the ability to spend any more time thinking about or devoting time to describing how terrible Lloyds is at their job. They however, assure me they are investigating how they could possibly have screwed up so royally every single thing they have tried to do in the past month in regards to my account. I have little faith in their ability to do this well either.
Turning 25 was a birthday like any other, I'm starting to accept, since it was bound to happen at some point, that I'm just no longer going to be the very absolute youngest in every work position or school program from now on. I'm OK with that, women, we age like a fine wine, yes? I am, however, looking at 25 as a year where I will either be at my peak physical condition, or dead. See the black belt that I've been training with has decided I will be coming in for three extra hours of physical training each week with another girl he has been working with. This will be in addition to the sixish hours a week I spend training brazilian jiu jitsu with possibly a side helping of Muy Thai. So, if I survive, this will be excellent. He has promised to be "gentle" with me for the first month, but after that the metaphorical gloves will be coming off. I literally shudder at the thought.
This week was a crazy mishmash and super busy, so the blog is going to reflect that by lacking any sense of order at all, instead of breaking down exactly when and in what order things occurred, I'll just jump right in! First, of all, I saw Wicked. It was AWESOME. I know I'm behind the rest of the world by years and years and years here, but I'm finally on board. I think it also counts as the first professional musical production I've ever actually seen, and it may signal a change in my attitude towards "theatre." We had cheap seats, but the theatre was small enough that it mattered not at all and I enjoyed myself immensely. See - smiling in a picture! From left to right, Sarah's visiting friend (I think Ashley), Sarah and Isla
The stage set with the mechanical dragon on top was super cool:
I also had a lovely dinner with Valerie, Marc and Stephanie. Marc and Stephanie are two USC law students here in London on the Pepperdine law school program. They were nice enough to bring me early birthday flowers since they will be in Rome this weekend
What was interesting to hear though, is that their experience has been somewhat different than mine, in that they have repeatedly had issues with Londoners that have nearly led to fights. They have been treated rudely and with condescending attitudes over and over again. I've had no issues that were even slightly similar. However, I have to agree that they aren't making this up, because while we were standing on the sidewalk after they treated me to birthday gelato we were verbally assaulted by a drunk homeless man, when we walked across the street another drunk,very short man, came up behind us and started making extremely inappropriate comments and then as we walked into the Tube, a third man made it a point to tread on my heels over and over again on our way onto the escalator until I stopped to glare at him! In short, I think they must literally be attracting these types of people somehow. It does make me somewhat glad though, since I'm stuck here for the year, that I haven't had to deal with anything of the sort.
This week was also the beginning of Sukkot, yet another Jewish holiday in the month of endless Jewish holidays. Due to some confusion over whether or not Chabad was actually hosting a dinner Wednesday night I didn't get to celebrate it quite as much as I would have liked. I had signed up for Wednesday night dinner, which was to be held at the Marble Arch synagogue, but at 9:30pm after the shul had hosted its own dinner. But the day of, I received an email from Chabad that left off the Wednesday night dinner, and the option to sign up for the dinner had disappeared from the Chabad website. Marble Arch is NOT close to where I live and I wasn't prepared to show up at 9:30pm for a dinner that was not guaranteed to be there. So I just went Thursday night, where I found out that I had in fact, missed the dinner on Wednesday, but I did meet a girl who is here on a program from University of Maryland! Jewish geography! Lily, she says she knows of you, but doesn't think you guys necessarily know each other. Her name is Aviva, she's from Queens? The dinner Thursday was really nice though, so it made up for me missing out on Wednesday. The Marble Arch synagogue has its sukkah inside of its social hall, a portion of the roof is removable and they simply place the sckach on top and presto! Sukkah with three solid walls! And it's way warmer than it would be if we were forced to sit outside.
And that, through process of elimination, like I've run out of other things to talk about, brings me to my birthday! My birthday was great. Super relaxed, and despite all my talk of the "fall finally arriving" it was warm, sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. I got a very sweet present from Nilton, the BJJ black belt
I shared donuts with my flatmates Syed and Daniel, since apparently Sayd had been conned into buying half a dozen donuts at once sometime earlier in the week. I also got super fantastic presents in the form of a "London Survival Package" from Valerie, Daniel, Syed, Sarah, Camila, Jardena and Marissa.
It came with a spiced cider kit, an owl umbrella, an owl reusable shopping bag, and the cutest PANDA highlighters I've ever seen in my entire life
I had a birthday dinner with Martin, Daniel and Syed
and Valerie and Marissa
I got a super cool drink that smoked and came in a beaker, and then had birthday milkshake/oreo/cookie/chocolate chips/whipped cream deliciousness
Our next stop was at All Bar One, which stocked my favorite wine variety and we added two to the party train, Alison and Jardena
Our third stop was a bar/club with dancing, there might have been dance battles, the pictures start to get a little shaky and out of focus at this point. We ended the night with dinner #2, complete with yet another birthday dessert, this time apple pie. In this picture I'm blowing out the obligatory imaginary candle.
I once again (same as last week), walked home barefoot, and having not learned my lesson from last time, managed to get glass in my foot. I'm going to have to invest in some of those tiny shoes that roll up and fit in your purse.
Having survived my birthday celebration, and with the sun still shining, I spent the next day at the park behind my residence, which looks like this
It was a great way to spend the afternoon, until I got bit by some apparently vicious bug, with slow acting venom, since it only became painful after whatever it was bit me. And I mean this bite remained inflamed all night, and by "inflamed" I mean I could feel the heat it was giving off through my jeans. I think I might just not have any immunity to whatever nasty elements populate the UK and that's why it was so bad? To recover I went home and self-medicated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7 until my Kazakh roommate, Yerzhan invited me to the mid-east (located up near Edgeware) to a hookah bar.
Today, since I somehow always end with "today," was the same as most others here, although I finally made my bow to necessity and went to Costa to do some reading for my class tomorrow. I won't claim I absorbed much but I'm feeling good that I actually DID the reading. Baby steps. I also played football (soccer) for a full hour and a half, possibly more. Although I seem to be getting worse each game? Or the quality of players around me is increasing at an exponential rate. I've got big plans to head to Bodeans BBQ later tonight to watch the Saints game and pick up my birthday present from my grandmother and Aunt Carla.
And that's it! My week all wrapped up into a neat blog-like package. This week promises to be just as crazy as the last few. First of all, classes and attendance start to count for reals. I no longer have any excuse to not be doing the reading, and there is yet again two days worth of Jewish holidays at the end of the week. So basically, my religiously obligated partying continues :) You'll hear all about it next week.
Love,
Turning 25 was a birthday like any other, I'm starting to accept, since it was bound to happen at some point, that I'm just no longer going to be the very absolute youngest in every work position or school program from now on. I'm OK with that, women, we age like a fine wine, yes? I am, however, looking at 25 as a year where I will either be at my peak physical condition, or dead. See the black belt that I've been training with has decided I will be coming in for three extra hours of physical training each week with another girl he has been working with. This will be in addition to the sixish hours a week I spend training brazilian jiu jitsu with possibly a side helping of Muy Thai. So, if I survive, this will be excellent. He has promised to be "gentle" with me for the first month, but after that the metaphorical gloves will be coming off. I literally shudder at the thought.
This week was a crazy mishmash and super busy, so the blog is going to reflect that by lacking any sense of order at all, instead of breaking down exactly when and in what order things occurred, I'll just jump right in! First, of all, I saw Wicked. It was AWESOME. I know I'm behind the rest of the world by years and years and years here, but I'm finally on board. I think it also counts as the first professional musical production I've ever actually seen, and it may signal a change in my attitude towards "theatre." We had cheap seats, but the theatre was small enough that it mattered not at all and I enjoyed myself immensely. See - smiling in a picture! From left to right, Sarah's visiting friend (I think Ashley), Sarah and Isla
The stage set with the mechanical dragon on top was super cool:
I also had a lovely dinner with Valerie, Marc and Stephanie. Marc and Stephanie are two USC law students here in London on the Pepperdine law school program. They were nice enough to bring me early birthday flowers since they will be in Rome this weekend
This week was also the beginning of Sukkot, yet another Jewish holiday in the month of endless Jewish holidays. Due to some confusion over whether or not Chabad was actually hosting a dinner Wednesday night I didn't get to celebrate it quite as much as I would have liked. I had signed up for Wednesday night dinner, which was to be held at the Marble Arch synagogue, but at 9:30pm after the shul had hosted its own dinner. But the day of, I received an email from Chabad that left off the Wednesday night dinner, and the option to sign up for the dinner had disappeared from the Chabad website. Marble Arch is NOT close to where I live and I wasn't prepared to show up at 9:30pm for a dinner that was not guaranteed to be there. So I just went Thursday night, where I found out that I had in fact, missed the dinner on Wednesday, but I did meet a girl who is here on a program from University of Maryland! Jewish geography! Lily, she says she knows of you, but doesn't think you guys necessarily know each other. Her name is Aviva, she's from Queens? The dinner Thursday was really nice though, so it made up for me missing out on Wednesday. The Marble Arch synagogue has its sukkah inside of its social hall, a portion of the roof is removable and they simply place the sckach on top and presto! Sukkah with three solid walls! And it's way warmer than it would be if we were forced to sit outside.
And that, through process of elimination, like I've run out of other things to talk about, brings me to my birthday! My birthday was great. Super relaxed, and despite all my talk of the "fall finally arriving" it was warm, sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. I got a very sweet present from Nilton, the BJJ black belt
I once again (same as last week), walked home barefoot, and having not learned my lesson from last time, managed to get glass in my foot. I'm going to have to invest in some of those tiny shoes that roll up and fit in your purse.
Having survived my birthday celebration, and with the sun still shining, I spent the next day at the park behind my residence, which looks like this
Today, since I somehow always end with "today," was the same as most others here, although I finally made my bow to necessity and went to Costa to do some reading for my class tomorrow. I won't claim I absorbed much but I'm feeling good that I actually DID the reading. Baby steps. I also played football (soccer) for a full hour and a half, possibly more. Although I seem to be getting worse each game? Or the quality of players around me is increasing at an exponential rate. I've got big plans to head to Bodeans BBQ later tonight to watch the Saints game and pick up my birthday present from my grandmother and Aunt Carla.
And that's it! My week all wrapped up into a neat blog-like package. This week promises to be just as crazy as the last few. First of all, classes and attendance start to count for reals. I no longer have any excuse to not be doing the reading, and there is yet again two days worth of Jewish holidays at the end of the week. So basically, my religiously obligated partying continues :) You'll hear all about it next week.
Love,
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