New Look

I just tried something new, with the help of one of my room mates and her curling iron. I feel this new look suits the Me that's in London much more than my usual ponytail...

Going With the Flow (of Drinks)

It began innocently enough as a trip to the supermarket to buy dinner fixings. But on the way it was suggested that we get a drink at a local pub and scope out the Friday night scene.

My favorite room mate and I found a not-too-busy pub in which we could have a pint (we seemed to favor anything ending in "berg" or "bourg") and observe the Brits in their natural, drunken state. Drink had, dirt shared, boys avoided, we began to head back home to buy groceries and cook dinner. But on the way we passed a little park next to the church that some satanist had designed and decided that we wanted to see this strange structure in the park (it made me feel the need to read From Hell again).

At the entrance of the darkened park a small group of young guys were taking a smoke break. As we passed one of them immediately said, "you two alright? Know your way around and all that?" His friendly tone was warmed by a charming Irish accent. We appreciated his concern, introduced ourselves, and spent a good half hour smoking with Irishmen in a darkened Satanist's church park on a Friday evening.

During our initial search for a good pub, my room mate and I had noted a funny little underground bar that used to be an underground toilet, we think. It looked a little dodgy though, and had avoided it. But turns out our new friends were taking a break from a birthday party being held at that very bar. So a few minutes later my room mate and I were underground, doing tequila shots with cute Irish boys and a very drunk birthday girl (whose name I never did get, oops).

You know you're in England when people comment on how your smile is nice because your teeth are even. Lucky for me that they are, because I smiled a lot that evening as I got progressively drunker and enjoyed the attentions of a number of very sweet boys, while dancing with girls I didn't even know.

Very drunk, and still without dinner, my room mate and I stumbled home around midnight to scavenge for food in the kitchen. I began to eat some yogurt, a piece of ham, and a toaster waffle while she sorted something out with another student in our building. While I was waiting for her I decided that I needed a glass of water to stop my head from falling off my neck. But my Brita filter was all the way in my bedroom. I slowly shuffled down the hall, grabbed the water filter off my desk, and that's when everything changed. See, I spotted my bed. And that tiny little uncomfortable mattress has never looked so good, so welcoming, so comfortable as it did in that moment. I downed the water and collapsed onto my messy unmade bed. Next thing I knew, my room mate was at my side giggling and pulling my boots off.

"Wait, no, I must have stinky feet..." I mumbled.

"I don't care, stupid," she said and pulled my boots off.

"Wait, I have food on the table. I nee-"

"I'll take care of it. Here, drink some water, get some sleep." She handed me a glass of water, kissed my cheek, threw my quilt over me and closed the door.

I mumbled "thank you," as she left, but I don't know if she heard me.


Best. Room mate. Ever.


And so ended my first Friday night drinking in London.


My head hurts...

Better

Someone below outside is whistling "oh my darling clementine" as I type this. I think it might be one of the construction workers. I'm waiting for my room mate so we can go run some fun errands together on this lovely sunny day. I am wearing my new old-man cardigan that makes me want to paint, or discuss literature in smoke-filled bars. I love this sweater.

I had to go into uni for a lecture this morning. A lecture that was really just a 15 minute run-through of a few key points of the course as told to us by the dean. He said nothing terribly interesting, but he did start by congratulating us on getting into one of the most competitive and highly regarded fashion programs in the world. And for some reason that perked me up.

I talked to one of my fellow students after the "lecture" about feeling like I have a lot of catch up to do. She seemed to be a really intelligent woman when I met her a few days ago, and she worked for one of my fashion idols last year, so I really wanted to pick her brain about CSM. She gave me some good perspective on ways to approach education here, and I left feeling a lot more optimistic about my future here in school. I think I'm going to ask her to coffee so I can get to know her a little better. She seems like she's my contemporary (a little older than most of the students) and has lived an interesting life all over the world. She seems like a potential friend, and I really need to find some of those.

So I guess I'm feeling better about things today than I did yesterday. And now, off to run errands...

Exhausted and Slightly Downtrodden

I cannot seem to sleep. I think it has something to do with sleeping alone in a tiny bed after years of being in a queen size bed with someone else. My restless nights are compounded by regular fire alarms in the building at all hours. And then last night a mirror fell off my shelf, smashed into a plate on the desk below and sent my makeup flying around the room, shattering into the carpet. I wanted to go back to sleep, but it wasn't mean to be.

Sound travels down the hallway, and every morning a few of the room mates' more piercing voices find their way to me as they prepare breakfast in the kitchen. Sleeping in rarely happens on planet Redhead, but a little sleep would be nice right about now.

Zzzzzzz five more minutes, Mom....

Anyhow, my summer project presentation was disheartening, to say the least. I knew I hadn't gone all out for it. I knew I could have made presentation boards and painted pretty pictures. But I didn't. I was focused on the emotional havoc caused by moving, and when I arrived here I arrived with no art supplies and no fabric. Art was not high on the to-do list, I'm afraid.

But when most of the class pulled out collaged books of photographs and fabric experiments, followed by books of illustrations and test runs on mannequins, or fully painted renderings and beautiful hand made fabrics they did themselves.... I realized that I really need to step up my game.

I have never before been at the bottom of a class. I've always pulled an easy A, or at least an easy high B. But sitting in this classroom, watching everyone else present their beautiful work and all the research and time and effort they put into it.... I was ashamed to get up there and show my crappy little sketchbook. I turned red, forget everything I wanted to say, made a few excuses, flipped through a couple pages to show my thought process, and stood there to meet the blank, bored stares of my classmates and professors.

"Do I really want this?" I asked myself. "Am I cut out for this?"

And then I asked, "am I really so lazy that I'm not willing to work my way up to the top?" This program is going to be hard for me. I suppose I am used to my work being "pretty good" on average. This program is going to be quite a trial, I think.

I am not so competitive that I need to be the best. But I refuse to be the worst. I have got to pull out all the stops and dive in. I need to do things that are not fun or easy for me. I need to establish that I am not the lazy American girl that presented a shitty project the first day of class. I cannot let that first impression last. My next project has to be amazing. It has to be fucking incredible.

But on the bright side, I suppose I have nowhere to go but up. If you start at the bottom, your progress is more noted, more obvious. If you start at the bottom, you have the opportunity to blow them out of the water someday when they least expect it.

So I guess I just need to stop distracting myself and focus. Focus entirely on my courses, and not on running home to chat online, or wandering around high street looking for a jacket and a pretty lamp. From here on out, if there is any chance that I could reach higher and push myself harder, I need to do it. I need to focus on school. I did not come here to sit around online like I did back home.

And I need to get some sleep.

G'nite.

If a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood.....

Today on the tube I saw a girl eating a bag of crisps. Only they were shaped like chips. But they were clearly crunchy, and thusly could not be considered chips. The bag said French Fries on it, but they were made in England. So was she eating crispy chips, or chip-shaped crisps?

Oh Toto......

You know how I know I'm not at an American university? My school's library has a whole section devoted to porn and studies on it. It's right next to the crime/rape section, and directly across from fashion, around the corner from sociology.

I Am Not One of You, Even Though I Am

Being an American in a foreign country seems to attract two types of people. One is the kind of person that is just as excited to meet new people from other parts of the world as I am. The other kind I seem to attract is other Americans.

I have heard that Americans are seen as this cliquish group that doesn't socialize well, and now I see why. I have been making a point of talking with people from all over the world- I mean, if you're not eager, or at least willing to do that, why come all the way here? What is up with the "you're American? I'm American, let's be best friends!" attitude?

I think that some people assume that because I dye my hair a certain way, I am a certain kind of person. But I am not that girl. I dress in a lot of weird ways and dye my hair red (and black, and blonde, and brown, and burgandy, and....). I listen to everything from Billie Holiday to Gary Numan to SiSe to The Beatles, and generally lean towards the indie kid scene more than anything else.

I might be an American in London, but I am not looking to meet Americans while I'm here. I can do that in America, thanks.

Evening Walk

I wandered around one rainy night and took a few photos. Most of them were blurry because I have an unsteady hand and my camera hates non-flash photography. But I liked these two...

The Fun Begins....

It all began when I received my sewing machine in the mail. After finding that a few things arrived broken in a previous box, I decided that it would be wise to take a break from my homework and unpack the machine to make sure it was in working condition. Worst. Decision. Ever.

I find an adapter for the US plug and attempt to turn the sewing machine on. POW! All the electricity in my room goes out. Normally I would just go find the fuse box and flip a switch, but our switches are behind locked doors, so I had to find someone who had a key.

The Senior Resident on call was a very sweet girl named Lauren. We opened every single locked door in the flat , and after we had no luck finding my room's fuse box, I suddenly had a thought. Remember that "potentially problematic door" I posted a photo of? I asked her if the fuse box for my room might be outside in the fire escape area. Turns out I was right... But this suggestion of mine kicked off a series of discoveries that led to an interesting night for the whole flat.

When Lauren tried to unlock the "potentially problematic" fire door we realized that the lock had been broken, and that the door has been open to the outside world this whole time. All my jokes about setting up a lounge area in the room off of the fire escape? They weren't funny any more because we found that our unlocked fire door had left our flat open to anyone in our building. Adding to the sudden feeling of discomfort was compounded by the fact that it seemed a lot of other people knew they could get up here and took advantage of it.

When Lauren and I (followed by my flat mates, many of whom were awakened by the noise) went out into the hallway to flip my fuse switch, we found that someone decided that our indoor fire escape was a good place to do some spray paint artwork. The ghost of spray painted 11x17 papers in various colors littered the carpeting. Our mystery artist even left a can of red paint and their latest creation drying on the floor in front of my fuse box.

We turned the corner and found that someone had been smoking on our steps, and left us a little mess to clean. (Last week, many of us commented that our hallway smelled of smoke. Now we know why.)

It was midnight by now, and this whole situation would have looked very funny if it weren't for one problem. All this "vandalism" was done outside out top floor flat, so it of course would appear that WE did it. The fine for something like this is a few hundred quid, minimum.

But the only problem we could deal with at midnight was my lack of electricity. Now that we'd found my fuse box, we flipped the switch. Nothing happened. We did it again, and waited. Still nothing. Phone calls were made, drama ensued, but when the overhead light popped back on in my room, there was great rejoicing in the camp! Everyone shuffled back to their rooms, I thanked Lauren profusely, offered to buy her a bottle of wine for her trouble, and settled down to complete my homework.

Before she left Lauren promised to talk to the building owners on our behalf regarding the mess and mysterious broken lock (and hopefully get it fixed so we aren't giving everyone free access to our flat).

All was well it seemed. That is until I found that despite my overhead light working, all my electrical sockets were still completely dead.

I called Lauren again, very apologetically, and we began searching for the mystery switch that would turn my power sockets back on. The noise of Lauren and I talking alerted all the room mates that something was up, and soon they were all awake and gawking at the cigarettes and spray paint.

My room mates were understandably of freaked out about the unlocked fire door, and tempers were rising about the mess. But none of this was as pressing a concern to me as the fact that nothing seemed to be turning my power sockets back on. With everyone's permission, Lauren and I shut off the main power to the whole flat. Sitting in the dark hallway, lit only by emergency lighting, what could you do but laugh at the situation? "Wow, you broke the flat the first day of school," someone said to me. Heh, whoops.

It was 12:30 or so, and I was getting a little punchy. I was finding that my concern about not having power was slowly being outweighed by concerns about the fines that we would have to fight when the building managers found out about the mess our mystery friends had made.

All the girls seemed to be getting progressively more upset about the spray paint on the floor. The lovely piece of artwork that our mysterious artistic friend had left to dry seemed to be egging them on. I think a few of the girls were feeling very exposed and victimized, what with the door to our flat unlocked and broken. So I decided to do something that would make us all feel in control again, and redirect our collective anger back to the place where it should have been. I grabbed a dark marker....



... and let them know that we were somewhat annoyed.



I really hope the artist comes upstairs looking for their paint cans and art piece soon.

I guess my punchiness had rubbed off on everyone because as soon as I emerged from my room with a pen announcing my intentions, my flat mates grabbed their cameras to record me being what was later termed "the flat's guard bitch" and "the mean one" and "the girl who starts shit". (It was suggested that they get me a "guard dog on duty" sign for my door. "Why not just put a nice big welcome mat outside our unlocked fire escape door?" I had said. "What, so you can beat up anyone who comes through?" they'd giggled.)

We never did get my power turned back on. I am writing to you now on battery power while the wine buzz wears off. At 1:00am we ended the evening with a lot of shrugging, and a "who needs wine and cookies?!" comment that brought about, well, wine and cookies.

So maybe I started some shit with the people below us. But you know what? Fuck them. I am pissed that their actions might cause a very expensive fight with the building owners. I am completely prepared to follow this through, too. If the people downstairs want to fuck with us, the flat's "guard bitch on duty" is happy to confront them. In fact, I suppose I already have. And the whole mess will be reported by a Senior Resident who was there to witness the situation and who took photos of the whole thing. Let the fun begin...

If all goes well, an electrician will show up tomorrow around 8am to fix my room's power. And maybe the door to our flat will be locked before anyone can try to retaliate for my little note. (Hm, maybe I should have considered that before I wrote on their artwork, hm?)


...you know, I never did get this homework done....

First Day of "Classes", Sorted.

I just got in from my first day at Uni (which is what they call university here, by the way), where I had my first class! Well, it wasn't really a class. I'm not quite sure what today was honestly. An introduction class, I guess. And I'm not quite sure what sort of "classes" I have either.... or if they are classes. They certainly aren't referred to as "classes" on my schedule. My schedule looks like I have one class a week, followed by an odd series of tutor-led open labs. But I think the open labs are mandatory? I'm not sure. If they are, I have classes every day of the week. Which is unusual, as every other student I live with has class no more than three days a week. I guess I'll just go with the flow and see what happens.

Today I showed up at 10am and received a packet of paperwork with my course schedule. I sat around talking to these two really cool girls from China and South Korea, and I met a really cool girl from London too. She is as tall as me (I'm 5'11"), also a Virgo, and has what seems to be a good head on her shoulders. She and I got along immediately.

The room full of fashion students suddenly went quiet when the heads of our departments gathered us into a group to introduce themselves. The three people who are in charge of my program seem REALLY cool. We were then split up into our programs (my program has about 25 people or so) and we got a quick tour of the rooms we'll be using.

The CSM building that I'll be centered in is perfect. It's old, full of stairways and odd back alleys, and made of brick and painted wood. All over there are huge dirty windows, and hallways with bright white walls and heavy doors, and it is incredibly confusing to get around in. It looks and feels exactly the way an art school should. I love it.

The tour over, we were told come back to get our first group project briefing at 4:15. It wasn't even 11am yet. I asked my new tall friend if she wanted to get a cup of coffee, and we ended up spending the next 5 hours together wandering around Soho so she could show me some of her favorite clubs while we talked about art, schooling, boyfriends, fashion, religion, our families, and what we want to get out of our time at university.

At 4:15 all 25 of us were shuffled into a little room where we were arranged into groups of five and given a briefing on our first group research project. It is a pretty simple project. Really it's just an excuse to meet new people, use the school library, and get us all back up to speed on what student life is going to be like. I have some nice girls in my group, we all exchanged info and plan to meet tomorrow after a stupid 10am "safety and rules" lecture. (One of the girls asked me if I was American. I said yes, and that I was from San Francisco, which seemed to surprise her. Then she said, "you don't seem to be American. You don't have a terrible American accent or anything. You sound very international to me." I was flattered, and told her so.)

As we were getting our project brief, the guy who is one of the head tutors in my department talked about projects. He told us something about how we are graded and then said, "it's not like your marks really matter though. But, you do want to make sure you get the mark you deserve, right? This course is more about being graded on your own progress anyhow..." Shock! And relief! And more shock! A TEACHER just said that our grades aren't the most important thing!?!? What the....??? Wow.

To have the freedom to try crazy things, safe in the knowledge that is okay if your ideas don't turn out... I have always wanted that. It is both terrifying and exhilarating. It sounds like CSM is the type of place that encourages you to reach incredibly high, even if you are going to fail miserably, because your grades are largely based upon your own personal progress. They seem to want to ask you how far you are willing to step outside of what is comfortable and easy for you.

This could be an amazing school for me...

So all in all I think it was a successful first day! I met some new people and got a sense of what my next ten weeks are going to be like. Still not sure about "classes", but I sort of don't care right now because I am incredibly excited! I am nervous as well. But mostly I am excited!


I also need to finish this summer homework project tonight since it's due on Wednesday and someone waited until the last minute to do it....*ahem*

So off I go to draw skinny women in unrealistic clothing....


Ta ra!

Stinky

By the way, nothing starts the day off right quite like having no running water in the building. Perhaps I should just strip and go run in the lovely rain outside. Ahhhhh, England!