back...with pandas and new music.

Okay, I'm back in the blogging world. Or at least I hope to be. I have ridiculous amounts of travel recaps needing to be written, so I figure if I take myself off hiatus that will force me to stop neglecting them. Plus exams are over (woohoo!) so I should actually have time to write.

New song of the week is "The Boss Americana" by Albert Hammond, Jr. from 2008's release Como Te Llama. I'm always a little bit wary of members of a band putting out solo albums because most of the time the individual parts never quite measure up to the whole (just look at Carl Barat and Pete Doherty), but I just got this album a few days ago and I actually like it better than some of The Strokes' stuff.

The reason I got this (and lots of other stuff...about 2000 songs worth) is because my friend Phil came to visit this weekend. I love hanging out with him because while we have practically the exact same taste in music, we don't actually have a lot of the same music. His music library is filled with albums that I've had on my list for ages but never got around to getting (Belle and Sebastian, Arcade Fire, Pulp, early Ash and late Blur, The Zutons, The Hives, etc. etc.), and I have a ton of old school rock that he doesn't have (David Bowie, The Clash, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, and so on). Ours is a synergistic relationship.

Friday night we went into London to meet up with a girl I met in Florence, who was hosting a "panda pub crawl". Why, you ask? (And many people did). Well, why the hell not?

We took pictures in the middle of the road like the Beatles.

We drank bamboo shooters.

We met a group of Freemasons.

And we hid from vultures.

It was by far the weirdest night I've had in a very long time. But it was totally fun. I also swear to Iker I saw Andrey Arshavin walking around Holborn. I'm so going to miss London.

so you may have noticed...

...that my blog has been a bit inactive lately. So I'm putting up a temporary

sign on my proverbial blog lawn.



Fear not, I will be back soon. Until then, enjoy some pretty pictures of José Nicholas Théodore.

family obligations

Sorry for the sparseness of my blog lately. My parents and little brother are in town and so I'm hanging out with them for the rest of the week. We're in Bath right now, and we're renting a car tomorrow and doing a tour of the Cotswolds.

I am really hoping that I'll be able to watch the match against Villarreal tonight, but I missed last Saturday's Citeh game (and Cesc's homecoming!) because we were on the Tower of London tour. We'll see if I can convince my parents to eat at a pub tonight.

Oh yeah, new song of the week: Let It Rain by Living Things.

i've got the travel bug

Right now, the tentative April plan goes as such:

Week 1: 5 day vaca in Mallorca! Nice hotel for a relatively cheap price, music festival, beaches (I can finally break out the bathing suits I bought!), the whole deal. Just found out about this today and I so want to go.

Week 2: Back to the UK for family visit. My mom wants to do a few day trips around the south of England: Bath, Stonehenge, Cambridge, etc. which will be nice, because I want to go to all of those places and this way I don't have to pay for it! Yay fam.

Week 2/3ish: Begin the 10 day tour of Italy (Milan, Rome, Venice, and Florence if we can fit it), France (Nice, Marseille), and back into Spain (Barcelona, Valencia). This will be hectic as all hell and we probably won't get to all of these cities. But we're having such a hard time cutting down, because we want to go everywhere! Must figure out eurail sitch soon.

Week 4: Back to uni to study for exams.

After I get back from the break all I have left are four essay exams, but I still have a month and a half before I go back home, so I'm hoping to do more single trips around this time. I should get my exam schedule next week, which means I can start thinking about that soon. Still want to do the central Europe thing, i.e. Vienna, Prague, Zagreb. Oh, and Berlin! Gah, traveling is tough stuff.

touristy photographs

So I finally have internet access set up in my hall, but I don't really feel like recapping my week so far. I'm putting up pictures instead, and maybe you can read all about my adventures tomorrow or on Sunday when I have more free time.

This view should need no explanation:

Monument to the 1666 fire by the old entrance to the City:

Tower Bridge (not London Bridge, as many people think):

Diagon Alley:
The museum that I couldn't stay inside because I burned my hand earlier in the day and was in horrible pain so I had to go sit outside in the freezing cold:

St. Paul's Cathedral (of William Blake's 'Holy Thursday' fame):

And now to my new home for the next several months. The main Founders building:
And my tiny little room......and even tinier closet. With no drawers! This shelf thing will take some getting used to.

excuses, excuses

Sorry for the lack of postage lately, busy holiday season and all that good stuff.

And by "busy" of course I mean waking up at noon and lazing around the house playing Rock Band all day when I should be preparing for my epic-across-the-pond-adventure, but it kind of amounts to the same thing because I have nothing of interest to report.

Although I did see my best friend for the first time in ages today. Coffee was consumed and fun stories were told, including correspondences with indie rock stars, getting drunk at professor's luncheons, and watching Martin Heidegger get slapped in the face, just to name a few. We've also made tentative plans to meet up in Sweden in June. Maybe at Jens Lekman's house.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Ta-ta for now, perhaps I'll have something more substantial to say later. But perhaps not. I'm unpredictable.

free at last

Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? I do!

I'm done with all of my work and my exams and my studying and my papers! I am now looking at seventeen days of blissful freedom, with nothing to do except give Christmas presents, get Christmas presents, bake cookies, and pack my life up into two small(ish) suitcases to take overseas.

Which will be a chore in itself, but it's not a stressful one. Well, not that stressful. Although I still have to figure out how they expect me to live on three (seriously?) pairs of shoes for six months...

to do this week:

• Start Romantic Lit paper
• Finish Romantic Lit paper (Due: Tuesday 9^th)
• Psychology Extra Credit (Due: Wednesday 10^th)
• Study for Philosophy final (Friday 12^th)
• Write Romantic Lit final (Due: Monday 15^th)
• Study for American Lit final (Monday 15^th)
• Study for World Politics final (Tuesday 16^th)
• Revise/finish American Lit Interaction Journal (Due: Wednesday 17^th)
• Complete American Lit free writing folder (Due: Wednesday 17^th)
• Clean room
• Stuff everything I own into my car
• Drive home

(To do after the semester is over: Eat, sleep)

no wonder i never had a 4.0 gpa

Earlier it was suggested that I do a post on all of the various sports I follow, and I am nothing if not obliging, so here you go.

6. College Basketball - I used to be much more into college ball than I am now. This seems a little backwards, as I am in college now and should therefore be more invested in it, but my school isn't actually that good at the sport. And since I'm now tied to one university, I can no longer root for my previous favorite team, because that would just be morally wrong. I still love March Madness competitions though.

5. American Football - Exactly the opposite of basketball, this has moved up the list since I came to college. I started liking the sport in ninth grade, because my high school team was kickass (and being on the dance team I had to go to all of the games anyways) so I ended up getting really into it. But I didn't follow NCAA or NFL until my freshman year of college, where I fast caught Hokie Fever, and through an increased appreciation of the game went back to my roots and started paying attention to Da Bears. And going to games is amazing, especially with our fabulous right-behind-the-band-close-to-the-action seats this season.

4. Tennis - This one is a little harder to get as worked up about, because I don't have one specific player that I follow over others. But I watch all of the Slams (or at least as many of the matches as I can catch...the Aussie Open is a little difficult with the timing issues) and I love most of the players so I'm generally happy with whoever wins. I just appreciate exciting matches, whoever happens to be playing. Unless it's the Williams sisters.

3. Hockey - I'm relatively new to the hockey love, but I've fallen and fallen hard. Now for football and baseball, I've got family loyalties to the Chicago teams because those are the teams my mom grew up cheering for. But she was never a huge hockey fan and I was never instilled with any sort of Blackhawks loyalty, so I became a fan of my local team. And what a team they are! The Washington Capitals make my life complete.

2. Baseball - I understand why many people think baseball is boring, but I grew up watching this game and now I just can't stop. I'm addicted. I get far too into my team (as I'm sure you have all read about in previous entries at the beginning of last month) and despite perpetual letdowns, I still come back at the beginning of each new season and get excited about my boys again.

1. Football (a.k.a. Soccer) - Well, I just explained about where my love of the game came from last entry, so I won't bore you with the deets again. Suffice it to say that this is my favorite sport, my obsession, the one that I absolutely cannot live without, and also the one that weirds people out the most. ("You like soccer?...but why?") I don't think that part will ever change in America.

Whew. Clearly this takes up a lot of my time. I don't know why I go to such pains, and subject myself to so much opportunity for heartbreak. The only thing I can come up with is that seeing my teams win, no matter how infrequently, makes it all worth it.

Plus, athletes are hot.

"never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just as well."

I have an American Literature midterm tomorrow, so naturally, I'm blogging instead of studying. It's how I roll. (Although that quote at the top is Ben Franklin...I'm procrastinating by writing quotes about procrastination that I actually might need to know for my test so it's not really procrastination at all...trippy.)

I've spent a highly productive evening cutting the split ends out of my hair. You think I'm joking? Ohh no. It's a seriously strange and strangely addictive habit--the more I cut out, the more I find, so it's a never ending process. And since pretty much every hair on my head seems to be damaged, it's kind of like I'm giving myself a very uneven haircut. The sensible thing would be to get a real haircut, but when have I ever been sensible? I'll get it trimmed one of these days. But just because I'm slightly obsessed with my hair doesn't mean that you all want to read about it. So I'll move on to a quick weekend sports recap.

Da Bearss lost to Atlanta today. We are now 3-3, which isn't very good, but no one else in our division is doing well either so it's okay. I didn't watch the game because I was on the highway driving back to school in my shiny new-engined car. (Which didn't break down! It's running fabulously after it got all of its insides replaced, plus it looks amazing because my dad got it detailed.)

The Caps lost their season opener to Atlanta (what is it with Atlanta teams, huh?) on Friday, but beat the Blackhawks yesterday in their first home game. I'm pretty optimistic about most of the team; of course Ovie is always going to be amazing and Green looks as good as ever, but I'm a little worried about Theodore, the new goalie. Hopefully he'll improve as the season goes on.

[Random note: Sarah Palin dropped the ceremonial puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' home opener and got booed hardcore. They had to turn the music up way loud to try to drown out the chorus of boos she got. And it totally didn't work. Also, note the two Obama/Biden signs in the crowd behind her. This makes me like the Flyers a little bit more. Or at least their fans.]

No league footie this weekend, on account of World Cup qualifiers. I only saw the first 20 minutes of the US match against Cuba, but we won 6-1 which is a good sign. Beasley's first goal (the only one I saw) was quite nice. Other scorers were Donovan (meh), Ching (awesome), Jozy (equally awesome), and Gooch (haha, yes really). I haven't heard anything about the two missing Cuban players. I'm imagining them wandering the streets of DC in their match kits, shivering in the frigid 80-degree October weather. (Fuck global warming BTW. I want snow!)

I did get to see Spain vs. Estonia, which was about as interesting as it sounds. Spain pulled out an easy win, and they looked good but not fabulous. Nando's hair is looking so much better than it used to though! Definite plus. I always forget how much I like him until I see him play for Spain. Cesc's hair, on the other hand, I will not mention.

I will now end with another quote, this time from John Adams, just so I don't feel like this was a complete waste of my time.

"Had a declaration of Independency been made seven months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects...We should have mastered Quebec and been in possession of Canada..."

Hee! Our second president totally wanted us to invade Canada. Awesome.

so yeah...

As you can no doubt see, I have decided to try my hand at blogging. I have no idea if this will work for me, as this year is already turning out to be jam-packed with schoolwork and meetings and philanthropies and various other obligations. I am especially flummoxed as to why I decided to start this week, which seems to be quite possibly my busiest week of the year. Honestly though, I bet I'll write much more often than I think I will, as I'm pretty sure this will turn into another fantastic form of procrastination.

I'm not even going to try to make this blog about anything in particular, because my mind is so completely jumbled that I'd probably forget what I was supposed to be writing about and go off on unintelligible tangents anyways. So I figure if I keep it limited to everything and anything I'm interested in, I can't really go wrong.

Um, yeah. I guess we'll see how it goes.