Loyaulte · Me · Lie

Cross and Stakers!

May 1st. Reunion posting day. Location: VOY. Who: YOU.

Be there. As there as you can be on the internets.

Just NOT ready for BSG to be over. I discovered it late, and cannot believe there are only two hours left. This week already had me sniffling like a baby, I suspect next week will kill me!

I laughed. I cried. It changed my life.

Any more and I'll go on for hours.

Class day was today(names read etc). Matthew Fox was our speaker('CC 89!). I'm graduating with honours..top 25% of my class baby! Tomorrow I graduate and am thrust into the big bad world. To all of you that have helped me survive the journey from hospital to Columbia graduate, I love you and cannot thank you enough.

ETA: For anyone who wants to see lots of photos of people in blue robes: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080141&l=7c82a&id=100814

So my phone appears to have decided to not work. As of today I can send text messages again and when someone calls me, it shows up their name not 'unknown', both of which are improvements, but I am still unable to make or recieve calls/voicemails thanks to the fact the speaker is broken, so no sound comes out.

Stupid phone. Apologies to any who may or may not have tried to reach me lately!

So when I'm tired and sad(4 hours of sleep for the past two nights, up to 5am last night writing a paper to the sound of my suitemate having obnoxiously loud sex while I attempted to write coherantly on the realtionship between reading romance novels and a tendency to promuscuity(perhaps I should have asked them...) folowed by a lovely 4:45am fire alarm), I amuse myself by making travel plans. SPRING BREAK is looking to be a shit show. Maryl and I(and maybe Stacey) are going to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico for four nights, then flying to Texas to go to South Padre Island with Cass for four nights. What happens on spring break, STAYS on spring break(any jokes about pregnacy/diseases will be ignored).

Am trying to figure out my plans for the summer too. If things work out, I will start work mid july(I can request my one year work permit starts any date up to two months after graduation, so I'm gonna ask for it to start at the latest possible moment to give myself time to relax, check out of college etc). Which gives me 8 weeks, of whick I hope to spend 6 travelling(going to ask my parents for the trip for graduation...or at least help towards paying for it). Plan as of this afternoon is that I wanna spend 3 weeks on the Trans-Siberian, Trans-Mongolian railway. I found a company that does a trip on that...its in groups of 15 or less, all 18-35 year olds, and they organise for you to all stay in hostels along the way(plus you get to spend a couple of days staying in the freaking middle of nowhere in Mongolia in gers(tents)...how freaking COOL?!). You go St Petersberg, Moscow, Lake Baikal(lake which holds 20% of the world's fresh water and is the deepest lake in the world), and end up in Beijing. I suspect many people will tell me I am crazy to want to do this, and to do it alone(which is why I would go with an organisation, that way I know where I;'m going, and will have company), but I think it would be amazing. I love train journeys, and I can't imagine anything more wonderful than travelling that incredible distance over land...St Petersburg to Beijing. I dont know, just thinking about it makes me excited. i've always had a weird obsession with trains, and the idea of living on one. Fortunately on this you stop off on the way(altho at one point spend 4 days on the train). Would give me a great great chance to pause life and spend some time staring at the scenery and thinking about college and the next chapter. Also read some of the books I've been saving up sicne being in college.

That would put me getting into beijing about the 17th June, by which time Rob and Lars will have made their way there(they're travelling around Japan and China for a month, with Rob speaking Japanese and Lars speaking Chinese), so in theory would then meet up with them, which would be great as they are two of my best friends in the world, plus are two big(ish...) guys, one of whom speaks the native language, so seems like if I'm gonna travel a lil around China, they would be good people to do this with. Maybe, time/money permitting, I would then go and visit Vickey in India(she's working there over the summer in a hospital), although that would require me getting to Hong Kong(I look at flights and it kept trying to fly me from Beijing to Delhi via MOSCOW, which I point blank refuse to do as it makes NO SENSE).

seriously, if I can pull this off it would be SO COOL.

Im wasted. In Newark airport.

My flight is really really delayed thanks to fog and I got bored, so I got drunk.

WHoo.

So really, at this point, I;m hitting new lows on an almost hourly basis. Have been in the library since...thursday? Pretty much withou a break. So much caffeine

New lows have included:

- Referencing the Matrix in a conversation about Marx
- Drawing a one page stick figure cartoon with Cassidy about the complex issues of slavery
- Getting my thumb stuck in a can of Red Bull leading to bleeding
- Singing 'We Three Kings' outside the library and dancing
- Joining a facebook group called "england are shit at every sport' in frustration and misery at our Ashes destruction
- Constructing a complex analogy about why my most meaningful relationship in college has been with this library

I don't generally like to talk much about grades. At least not anymore. As I don't think in the grand scheme of things they really matter that much(unless I do badly, then its the end of the world)

BUT, I got an A+ in my children's literature course. This makes me so happy, as I poured my heart and soul into that final paper. It's also the only A+ I have, or most likely ever will, recieve in college. And it came from the only prof to also give me a C- on a paper haha.

Now if I can just pass the rest of my classes....

I am sat in the library reading 'Country of my Skull' my Antjie Krog. It is the account of a journalist who covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the end of Aparthide, her experience doing it, and the stories that came out from the victims and perpetrators of violence under Aparthide.

I am only about 1/3 of the way through.

I can barely read for more than 10 minutes at a time.

I cry quietly to myself in the library while reading. Then go outside and have a cigarette and unconsciously kick the wall in frustration and anger.

Is this really the kind of thing I want to do with my life? Yes, because it's important and I care about it. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm emotionally strong enough. It's been said time and time again, but this world is so fucked up.

When I finally feel like I wanna stay somewhere.

What the hell am I going to do after graduation? I'm scared, I mean at the end of the day what do I really ahve to go back to in London? My friends(with a few exceptions, but even they for the most part are not in London) are all here. But I want to go home. But where is home if not where the majority of people I love in the world are? Shit. I don't know anymore.

I'll lose some sales and my boss won't be happy,
But I can't stop listening to the sound
Of two soft voices
Blended in perfection
From the reels of this record that i've found.
Every day there's a boy in the mirror asking me:
What are you doing here?
Finding all my previous motives
Growing increasingly unclear.
I've traveled far and i've burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
All the other options held before me,
Would wither in the light of my plan.
So i'll lose some sales and my boss won't be happy,
But there's only one thing on my mind
Searching boxes underneath the counter,
On a chance that on a tape I'd find:
A song for someone who needs somewhere to long for.
Homesick.
Because I no longer know where home is.

So little time. This weekend was craaaaazy, and I still have a lot more reading to catch up on. Booooo!

But I did get to see both the shows I wanted to. Richard III, put on by KCST(Kings Crown Shakespeare Troupe), which uses the campus as the stage and you follow it around. Saw the midnight show on the friday, beer in hand wrapped in asian newspaper as I couldn't find brown bags. Amusingly, I spent most of it walking around with Lars' dad, who also had a beer wrapped in newspaper. The show was really really well done, and four of my good friends were in it which made it all the more awesome. The fight scene at the end was incredible, even more so because as a prank Lars(who played Richmond) switched the spears for LIGHTSABERS, so his final battle with Richard III(played by a girl called Sarah Lord who just might be the best actress I've ever see in a play) was a light saber battle(they light up and make the noises and everything!). It was hilarious, more so because only me, Sam, Lars' dad, and four of the people in the play knew it was coming. All the cast, director, and audience, had no idea it was coming. The guy next to be was crying with laughter. Amazing.

So so sorry to all in Boston that I couldn't make it, hope you guys had a lovely time tho. Next year, not so close to finals!!!!

I am so not ready for the semester to be done. This has been, without a doubt, the best semester so far at Columbia, with the exception of the 5 or 6 weeks in which I couldn't actually leave my room and could barely get out of bed...those were less fun. But since spring break I really made an effort to get out and be social, and I really love all the new friends I've made this semester. My social circle is so radically different from what it was sophomore year...I've totally reconnected with Dan and Julian, I've gotten to know Lucy really well, Lars and I have somehow managed to become really close friends, and I'm pretty close to the other 3 boys in their suite, and they're all so much fun to go out with on the weekends. I should miss my girlfriends, but I don't. Pretty much all my good friends are guys, but they're so much more fun and chill to hang out with. I hope this can last into next year, although I know things will not necessarily be the same when I get back from summer, which is maybe what I'm afraid of.

Looking foreword to summer, although I really really need to figure my stuff out. I wanted to go for a volunteer job in the human rights/international development area, figuring that since I have no real work experience volunteering would be the best way to go about getting it, but all the places I've looked at require you to commit to three months and I will only be in London for two because of the fringe. I might have to just suck it up and stay in London for all three, but i really don't want to do that. My dad wants me to take summer school at LSE as they have a pretty awesome looking human rights course, but I'm worried about spending ANOTHER summer not really working. Argh.

However, for now, back to work!