This is going to be a long series. It is a record of all the ways the U.K. is different. Words, phrases, images, habits. It will be updated as I notice more things. American English on the left, English English on the right.
elevator = lift
bun = bap
pants = trousers
tank top = vest
vest = waistcoat
bathroom = toilet, loo, WC
truck = lorry
underwear = pants, knickers
picture = photo
professor = tutor
rainboots = rubbers, wellies
good, cool, bye = cheers
pay attention to = mind
get off (usually the train) = alight
idiot = twit, twat
round trip ticket = return ticket
one way ticket = single ticket
sidewalk = pavement
purse = handbag
schedule = timetable
faculty = staff
first floor = ground floor
closet = cupboard, wardrobe
tacky = naff
potato chips = crisps
french fries = chips
cookie = biscuit
biscuit = scone
cigarettes = fags
smart = clever
dumb = thick
pee = have a wee,spend a penny,
highway = motorway
pastor = vicar
thrift store = charity store
The streetlights double as traffic lights.
The bike lanes are half the size of ours.
The streetsigns are on buildings, fences, what have you. Rarely do they stand alone.
The elevators are half the American size.
The taxis are five times cooler.
The streets are narrower.
The cars are smaller.
The trucks are smaller.
The cheap food is tastier.
The older people dress better than the older Americans I've seen
People wear jeans/nice trousers more. Rarely do I see someone in sweats, and five to one they're American. Ten to one they have a baseball cap on.
There is almost always patio dining in restaurants, if they are on street level.
The crosswalks are marked with big steel studs, like the studs on a punk jacket, about five inches square.
The charity stores are a fifth the size of our thrift stores.
When approaching a streetlight doubling as a traffic light, the white lines on the road are squiggly.
There are less coffeeshops, and pubs galore. Pubs are uncanny similar to our coffeshops.
The internet is virtually never free.
The street is usually wet.
More than half the buildings look at least eighty years old, likely more.
Said buildings have huge chimneys.
I like it here.
-Lu
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Skool. and being a Pevinsie
I feel like a Pevinsie today. Chilling inside a big house on a rainy day with books and music and a project or three. And nothing but errands to do tomorrow. And exploring. I’d best enjoy it while it lasts, because it won’t. I’m going to need study spots soon. You think they’d kick me out if I did my HW in the V&A? I love it there.
Corsetry is going to be extraordinarily fun, and a lot of work. All these classes are. The area around Lime Grove is great, reminds me a little bit of Cedar-Riverside in Mpls. There must be five or six little hole-in-the wall fabric shops a stone’s throw away. All run by well-dressed Indian men, often with their hair tied up in the Sikh style. Full of beautiful satins and silks and velvets, stacked against the walls. They look like little oases of glowing, living color in the wet, gray London street. For the record, there is one dude in Corsetry. I didn’t catch if he was going to make one for himself, or for some lucky(?) lady. The instructor told us with a smile that our finished garments would take up to 4 inches off our waists. Therefore my waist in my finished corset will measure 24 in. We are not going to think about that yet.
Oh, but I didn’t tell you about my Historical and Contemporary Fashion Research class (hereafter referred to as HCFS.) The professor is a small, rocket-fast walker of a lady, and I do really mean a lady. She talks easily at length without notes, taking us through the Natural History Museum, and the British Galleries in the V&A, connecting microscope photographs of insect heads to Alexander McQueen and horror movies, butterflies to Elizabethan embroidery and culture. But when we got the British Galleries she was really in her element. I will let the pictures do the talking about the clothes (talking too much about art is a bad idea), but she knows ALL SORTS OF THINGS. She was telling us about the lacemakers in Holland, before machine lace was made, how they would start at age nine, working long days in damp, dark cellars. They were often blind or dead of disease by the time they were 18. That brought her to discussion of today’s production methods, how Primark and similar companies, (Americanos, think Forever 21, Walmart, Target) abuse and exploit workers to make quick cheap fashion, however much the companies may protest to the contrary. That is a complex subject right there (better to be a child prostitute or work twelve hours in a dangerous factory?), but in her words “Save up for a few key pieces that will last. That’s my fashion advice.” Ah, but that requires people to have true style, to know who they are, and how they want to look, instead of listening to the billboards and the fads. How funny that my first reaction to that “know who you are” principle is “well then we’d have less diverse brands!” when really the opposite is true. There are so many different people, that we might see more diversity in brands and styles if we all dressed “according to the dictates of our souls” (that’s from a Vogue issue, hence the quotation marks, carn’t remember which issue though,) instead of inspecting the Joneses.
Here's the Natural History Museum. We only saw the butterflies and insects, which was actually quite enough for the time we had. It's free. This makes me really really happy. I think I will commit to blog about every single museum we visit in that class. London is our classroom. It'll help me learn.
The man who practically founded the N.H.M. was Hans Sloane. He had an enormous collection of all sorts of naturey things. He was the first to bring back a recipe for hot chocolate with milk from Jamaica: he found the straight chocolate and water mixture the natives liked disgusting.
Bugs. up CLOSE. They're somewhere between beauty and horror. They're so perfectly formed it weirds me out.
Here's the structure called the Cocoon where the butterfly/insect exhibit is stored.
Here are some more bugs. Don't just think, "oh iww. bugs." Look at how perfect their patterns are, how the colors play off each other. Look at how precise all their tiny joints and hairs and wing scales are.
More Victoria and Albert! I have to go get my journal from this class. The random tidbits are fascinating. Hold on.
Ok. am back.
Ages ago, fabric came with embroidery patterns printed on. The buyer would then take the fabric home, embroider the printed pattern, and make up the garment. The smock (Calvin and Hobbes!) in the exhibit was black thread on white muslin-type fabric, pattern very simple with intricate, stylized floral embroidery.
There was the biggest bed I have ever seen. You could have fit all seventeen students and the tutor on it.
It was called the Great Bed of Ware, and was mentioned in Twelfth Night. The innkeeper who owned it used to brag that he crammed it as full as possible. Now imagine, bathing was not fashionable nor frequently feasible. EEEeeeeeee. bugs. smells. yay for technology and hygiene.
She told us how Elizabeth I was given 24,000 "pynnes" on her becoming queen, and that led to how Somerset used to be a place of enormous glove production: the uncut leather would start at one end of the town and come out the little cottages at the end all finished.
Reminds me a bit of this, by Alexander McQueen, modeled by the lovely Sasha Pivovarova, out of Vogue.
Speaking of modern fashion, our tutor pointed out the tiny dolls that were the equivalent of viewing the collections online. They were dressed in miniature versions of the latest styles. Dior and various other designers did a similar exhibit when finances were tight, which boosted their sales and was just a general success.
A woolen wedding suit, with gold and silver embroidery. The embroidery was done in many stages: I can't imagine the hours. This particular one
is miraculously well-preserved for a wool garment.
Hahlo fishies.
These wacky pannier things were removable, so that the wearer could dance more vigorously.
Here is a room for you. It was in a house in Norfolk, and was brought to the museum. Obviously. The curtains would almost never have been let down, so as to show off all the wealth to the plebians down the hill. It has been used for numerous fashion shoots. It was a music room.
And finally, here is some embroidery by a lady named Anna Maria Garthwaite. Her house was in Spitalfields, London, and she employed Huegenot weavers to help her with her work. It is exquisite.
DATS ALL FOLKS. it's time for actual homework now. Peas haute. to borrow a Heather Weidemanism.
-Lu
Corsetry is going to be extraordinarily fun, and a lot of work. All these classes are. The area around Lime Grove is great, reminds me a little bit of Cedar-Riverside in Mpls. There must be five or six little hole-in-the wall fabric shops a stone’s throw away. All run by well-dressed Indian men, often with their hair tied up in the Sikh style. Full of beautiful satins and silks and velvets, stacked against the walls. They look like little oases of glowing, living color in the wet, gray London street. For the record, there is one dude in Corsetry. I didn’t catch if he was going to make one for himself, or for some lucky(?) lady. The instructor told us with a smile that our finished garments would take up to 4 inches off our waists. Therefore my waist in my finished corset will measure 24 in. We are not going to think about that yet.
Oh, but I didn’t tell you about my Historical and Contemporary Fashion Research class (hereafter referred to as HCFS.) The professor is a small, rocket-fast walker of a lady, and I do really mean a lady. She talks easily at length without notes, taking us through the Natural History Museum, and the British Galleries in the V&A, connecting microscope photographs of insect heads to Alexander McQueen and horror movies, butterflies to Elizabethan embroidery and culture. But when we got the British Galleries she was really in her element. I will let the pictures do the talking about the clothes (talking too much about art is a bad idea), but she knows ALL SORTS OF THINGS. She was telling us about the lacemakers in Holland, before machine lace was made, how they would start at age nine, working long days in damp, dark cellars. They were often blind or dead of disease by the time they were 18. That brought her to discussion of today’s production methods, how Primark and similar companies, (Americanos, think Forever 21, Walmart, Target) abuse and exploit workers to make quick cheap fashion, however much the companies may protest to the contrary. That is a complex subject right there (better to be a child prostitute or work twelve hours in a dangerous factory?), but in her words “Save up for a few key pieces that will last. That’s my fashion advice.” Ah, but that requires people to have true style, to know who they are, and how they want to look, instead of listening to the billboards and the fads. How funny that my first reaction to that “know who you are” principle is “well then we’d have less diverse brands!” when really the opposite is true. There are so many different people, that we might see more diversity in brands and styles if we all dressed “according to the dictates of our souls” (that’s from a Vogue issue, hence the quotation marks, carn’t remember which issue though,) instead of inspecting the Joneses.
Here's the Natural History Museum. We only saw the butterflies and insects, which was actually quite enough for the time we had. It's free. This makes me really really happy. I think I will commit to blog about every single museum we visit in that class. London is our classroom. It'll help me learn.
The man who practically founded the N.H.M. was Hans Sloane. He had an enormous collection of all sorts of naturey things. He was the first to bring back a recipe for hot chocolate with milk from Jamaica: he found the straight chocolate and water mixture the natives liked disgusting.
Bugs. up CLOSE. They're somewhere between beauty and horror. They're so perfectly formed it weirds me out.
Here's the structure called the Cocoon where the butterfly/insect exhibit is stored.
Here are some more bugs. Don't just think, "oh iww. bugs." Look at how perfect their patterns are, how the colors play off each other. Look at how precise all their tiny joints and hairs and wing scales are.
More Victoria and Albert! I have to go get my journal from this class. The random tidbits are fascinating. Hold on.
Ok. am back.
Ages ago, fabric came with embroidery patterns printed on. The buyer would then take the fabric home, embroider the printed pattern, and make up the garment. The smock (Calvin and Hobbes!) in the exhibit was black thread on white muslin-type fabric, pattern very simple with intricate, stylized floral embroidery.
There was the biggest bed I have ever seen. You could have fit all seventeen students and the tutor on it.
It was called the Great Bed of Ware, and was mentioned in Twelfth Night. The innkeeper who owned it used to brag that he crammed it as full as possible. Now imagine, bathing was not fashionable nor frequently feasible. EEEeeeeeee. bugs. smells. yay for technology and hygiene.
She told us how Elizabeth I was given 24,000 "pynnes" on her becoming queen, and that led to how Somerset used to be a place of enormous glove production: the uncut leather would start at one end of the town and come out the little cottages at the end all finished.
Reminds me a bit of this, by Alexander McQueen, modeled by the lovely Sasha Pivovarova, out of Vogue.
Speaking of modern fashion, our tutor pointed out the tiny dolls that were the equivalent of viewing the collections online. They were dressed in miniature versions of the latest styles. Dior and various other designers did a similar exhibit when finances were tight, which boosted their sales and was just a general success.
A woolen wedding suit, with gold and silver embroidery. The embroidery was done in many stages: I can't imagine the hours. This particular one
is miraculously well-preserved for a wool garment.
Hahlo fishies.
These wacky pannier things were removable, so that the wearer could dance more vigorously.
Here is a room for you. It was in a house in Norfolk, and was brought to the museum. Obviously. The curtains would almost never have been let down, so as to show off all the wealth to the plebians down the hill. It has been used for numerous fashion shoots. It was a music room.
And finally, here is some embroidery by a lady named Anna Maria Garthwaite. Her house was in Spitalfields, London, and she employed Huegenot weavers to help her with her work. It is exquisite.
DATS ALL FOLKS. it's time for actual homework now. Peas haute. to borrow a Heather Weidemanism.
-Lu
ketchup. hurry up. KETCHUP. (now I'm thinking of dancing hot dogs.)
So i went and did more random stuff.
How bad a post would that sentence be. Edit: I pooped about in Oxford Circus, observed expensive things, walked to Piccadilly Circus, which is the coolest place, full of theater and restaurants that are smell torture if you've not eaten in five hours and been walking all of them, which I had. Then I had a crazy adventure. In Dagenham. First things first.
Oxford Circus contains the biggest H&M, Urban Outfitters, and aforementioned Topshop I've ever seen. And other spendy shops. It looks like so: (not my picture)
Then I walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. I saw a kid my own age, slumped next to a building, clutching his paper cup of coffee despondently. He was sitting on a duffel, and I didn’t know if he was homeless or just a tired traveler. The poor guy looked so utterly done in that I came really close to asking if he was all right. Didn't. ppppttt.
Piccadilly Circus. Really is like a circus. I will go sit there sometime, and act like I'm part of the architecture. It's like a picture from a history book. The beautiful old buildings towering over the various streets, the red buses scurrying, the pedestrians scurrying even harder. Picture. Again, not mine.
Then this is Theatreland. This precise Les Miserables poster is there as we speak. type. whatevs.
I then went home and was tired. but happy.
now. Dagenham. Dagenham Heathway, to be precise. I went there to get a bike. It required me to take the District Line nearly all the way to the east end. Long ride. I got there, and walked about three miles to get to the bike. I asked so many people for directions. A girl in chinos and flats clipping her hedge, a grandma in her trench coat, and this rather nerdily attractive kid my own age with green eyes, and brown hair flopping in them. The older woman literally shied away from me when I started to talk. I’ve never seen someone look so afraid of me: her eyes looked terrified. She warmed up though. “Oh yes, Green Lane, just go through that alley there, take a left, then a right in the next alley!” I was supposed to be there at a certain time, and though I had drawn a map, I wanted to be sure.
All that said, I got the bike, reduced the price by five pounds by being snarky, and began to ride home. Then, oh, then, I took a wrong turn. It was getting dark, and let's just say it was not a ritzy neighborhood. The street signs are difficult. They're on buildings, fences, sometimes not in sight at all if you don't know where to look. Yes, I know, I'm a newbie. And it was raining. I backtracked and asked directions again. I thought the road he indicated was the one I'd come in on: after five minutes, realized it wasn't so. At that point, the panicky thought crossed my mind: "WHAT IF I CAN'T GET HOME!!!!?? what if the tube doesn't run as late as it does in the city, what if I get more lost, what if i miss the first day of corsetry, what if i shrink and fall in the gutter in the rain.." There is only one thing to tell your brain at a time like that and it's Kindly Shut Up Please. Now, Some Logic. Oh look, that street sign points the way to the street you're trying to get to. and you are going the direction it points in. Keep. Pedaling. Look, a main street. A hill. I recall a hill by the station...and BEHOLD! the beautiful red and blue circle-and-dash of the London Underground. In the rain, me hauling my tired bike and sore calves up the slope, it was more gorgeous than...i don't know. Eddie Redmayne. And that's saying something.
Then onto the train, folding my little bike neatly at my feet, and reading the laughable Evening Standard as night fell. Something as simple as sitting down is occasionally wonderful. That was Sunday/Monday. I had a stellar class that morning that you'll hear about, but it must go in the Skool post. A place for everything, and everything in its place. to end, here's what the tube looks like, if you were wondering.
Brit-ism of the day: Keep Calm and Carry On.
How bad a post would that sentence be. Edit: I pooped about in Oxford Circus, observed expensive things, walked to Piccadilly Circus, which is the coolest place, full of theater and restaurants that are smell torture if you've not eaten in five hours and been walking all of them, which I had. Then I had a crazy adventure. In Dagenham. First things first.
Oxford Circus contains the biggest H&M, Urban Outfitters, and aforementioned Topshop I've ever seen. And other spendy shops. It looks like so: (not my picture)
Then I walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. I saw a kid my own age, slumped next to a building, clutching his paper cup of coffee despondently. He was sitting on a duffel, and I didn’t know if he was homeless or just a tired traveler. The poor guy looked so utterly done in that I came really close to asking if he was all right. Didn't. ppppttt.
Piccadilly Circus. Really is like a circus. I will go sit there sometime, and act like I'm part of the architecture. It's like a picture from a history book. The beautiful old buildings towering over the various streets, the red buses scurrying, the pedestrians scurrying even harder. Picture. Again, not mine.
Then this is Theatreland. This precise Les Miserables poster is there as we speak. type. whatevs.
I then went home and was tired. but happy.
now. Dagenham. Dagenham Heathway, to be precise. I went there to get a bike. It required me to take the District Line nearly all the way to the east end. Long ride. I got there, and walked about three miles to get to the bike. I asked so many people for directions. A girl in chinos and flats clipping her hedge, a grandma in her trench coat, and this rather nerdily attractive kid my own age with green eyes, and brown hair flopping in them. The older woman literally shied away from me when I started to talk. I’ve never seen someone look so afraid of me: her eyes looked terrified. She warmed up though. “Oh yes, Green Lane, just go through that alley there, take a left, then a right in the next alley!” I was supposed to be there at a certain time, and though I had drawn a map, I wanted to be sure.
All that said, I got the bike, reduced the price by five pounds by being snarky, and began to ride home. Then, oh, then, I took a wrong turn. It was getting dark, and let's just say it was not a ritzy neighborhood. The street signs are difficult. They're on buildings, fences, sometimes not in sight at all if you don't know where to look. Yes, I know, I'm a newbie. And it was raining. I backtracked and asked directions again. I thought the road he indicated was the one I'd come in on: after five minutes, realized it wasn't so. At that point, the panicky thought crossed my mind: "WHAT IF I CAN'T GET HOME!!!!?? what if the tube doesn't run as late as it does in the city, what if I get more lost, what if i miss the first day of corsetry, what if i shrink and fall in the gutter in the rain.." There is only one thing to tell your brain at a time like that and it's Kindly Shut Up Please. Now, Some Logic. Oh look, that street sign points the way to the street you're trying to get to. and you are going the direction it points in. Keep. Pedaling. Look, a main street. A hill. I recall a hill by the station...and BEHOLD! the beautiful red and blue circle-and-dash of the London Underground. In the rain, me hauling my tired bike and sore calves up the slope, it was more gorgeous than...i don't know. Eddie Redmayne. And that's saying something.
Then onto the train, folding my little bike neatly at my feet, and reading the laughable Evening Standard as night fell. Something as simple as sitting down is occasionally wonderful. That was Sunday/Monday. I had a stellar class that morning that you'll hear about, but it must go in the Skool post. A place for everything, and everything in its place. to end, here's what the tube looks like, if you were wondering.
Brit-ism of the day: Keep Calm and Carry On.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Where I Find Rob?
Children, heed my words. If you ever travel the London Underground on a weekend, CHECK FOR CONSTRUCTION. Yours truly was attempting to get her hands on this lovely little vintage folding bike here
But was foiled. Not really. But for the moment. I got to the station, and the sign says “oh yes. By the way, there is construction on the line you want.” Ok, thought I, this is all interconnected, I can get beyond the construction on some other line. Onto the Piccadilly line we go. Get to alternate line. “oh, this one’s down too.” Phhhhpppp. At this point, since I’m supposed to be there to pick the bike up in 45 min, I call the nice man, who agrees to hold it for me till Monday, when I can just ride District all the way. Hooray. However, I blew 8 pounds in the process. Boo.
The experience which came next, however, was worth every pence of those 8 pounds. I was sitting on a chair outside the Hammersmith station, when a terrifyingly beefy woman in leggings sitting next to me turns and says in a very thick German accent, “Excuse me, I have question.” Disclaimer: What follows is word for word. I do not make this up.
“Yes?” say I. “
“ I am trying to find my boyfriend, Rob. In 2009, we come here. He was back there.” She points behind her. “At Starbucks?” I say, trying to be helpful.
“No, in 2009, he go to Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Rd. You know how I find him?”
No. (I didn’t say that.)
What I did say was, “Well, I have an atlas, let me find it.” I poke around in my priceless London A-Z atlas. (they are the best) for five minutes.
“You don’t know, you don’t know how to find him? He was Charing Cross Police.”
at this point I think. LOOK LADY, it was two years ago. You are no longer in touch with him. You were at a hospital? And that is all the info you have on him? FURTHERMORE, can you not tell that I am AMERICAN? Not. A. Londoner. I know no more than you do about Rob. I do not live in this hood.
Fortunately, she asks the quiet fellow next to me, whose gray hair is one big perfect dreadlock. He tells her how to get to Charing Cross Hospital. She then says, “Yes, I get there, but how I find him?” At which I rise, say nicely, “If he was there, I’m sure they have record of it. Ask the people at the front desk. I hope you find him.” And walk away with my internal giggles about to become violently external.
Then I explored expensive, interesting thrift stores that play Lady Antebellum (NOT INTERESTING. Came here to escape that thank you. But I will forgive you because your little orange Prada parka is making me drool.), and ended up with a nice little green hooded raincoat. Which had a transit card in the pocket. So we shall see if my jaunt will be monetarily redeemed. There’s prolly nothing on it. Oh well.
P.S. Said charity shops are located on 211 Brompton Rd, and 3 Bute St., run by Octavia Foundation.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Expeditions to Shopping Land and LCF
We toured LCF today, had our orientation. It is just off of Oxford Circus. We went to the Topshop flagship store over lunch.
Five stories, and the basement is just shoes. I could have lived there. Ahhhh.
Also United Colors of Benetton, All Saints, H & M, and plenty others, all a mere stone’s throw from school. The LCF staff are awesome. You can tell from the first five minutes, that they love what they do, they are happy. The building itself is unremarkable outside, beautifully minimalist inside. There are no textbooks, but to balance that, if you miss one class without an excused absence, you lose a letter grade. The walls are full of postings and beautiful illustrations and photographs. Here are my classes there: Corsetry, Shoemaking, Historical and Contemporary Fashion Studies. The last one meets at a different gallery or museum every single week, admittance paid. HAVE I DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN? It was a good day. Chilling and organizing now. Needed some down time like crazy. Tomorrow we goeth to a big thrift store in our rather wealthy neighborhood, and possibly a designer sample sale in Brick Lane, way the heck up by Islington sorta. And sleeping in. there will be some sleeping in happening.
Five stories, and the basement is just shoes. I could have lived there. Ahhhh.
Also United Colors of Benetton, All Saints, H & M, and plenty others, all a mere stone’s throw from school. The LCF staff are awesome. You can tell from the first five minutes, that they love what they do, they are happy. The building itself is unremarkable outside, beautifully minimalist inside. There are no textbooks, but to balance that, if you miss one class without an excused absence, you lose a letter grade. The walls are full of postings and beautiful illustrations and photographs. Here are my classes there: Corsetry, Shoemaking, Historical and Contemporary Fashion Studies. The last one meets at a different gallery or museum every single week, admittance paid. HAVE I DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN? It was a good day. Chilling and organizing now. Needed some down time like crazy. Tomorrow we goeth to a big thrift store in our rather wealthy neighborhood, and possibly a designer sample sale in Brick Lane, way the heck up by Islington sorta. And sleeping in. there will be some sleeping in happening.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Is finally going to be in one place for longer than two days. Too much facebook, i just typed that as one would a status. ignore.
I walked everywhere again. Being reluctant to spend money on the tube to go two miles, there were three round trips made to get my luggage where it goes. It is now there, and will not be moving for four months. YES.It didn't matter too much, because the neighborhood I was going through is, as I've already stated, most chic and interesting.
It does not seem there will be any gaining of weight in this place. I have to be brutally honest here. All that stuff about Americans being fatter than Europeans? At this point, I have to agree, almost completely. That being an explosive subject, let us move on to other things.
I get to go explore my new campus tomorrow, and since I took no pictures today, because I was on a time constraint of sorts and was too busy trying not to knock people over with my luggage. I'm sure the shutterbugging will resume tomorrow.
The flats we live in are cute places. I'll take pictures tomorrow. I have a desk in a little alcove by a window, and roomie Priya has a nice little skylight. yay.
ah, funny occurrence. I was waiting outside the Holborn tube station last night to meet someone, and a woman in a suit came up and asked for directions. She took me for a native till I opened my mouth, but I got all smarty with my mini-atlas and gave her directions. heh.
May it also be noted that I stood there forty-five minutes (Stephanie if you read this I was early on purpose, wanted to people-watch) and London did not disappoint. Not a boring moment. Let me describe it for you. The street is full of taxis and buses, honking, cycles speeding past with fluorescent-jacketed people looking like jockeys. The light fades from normal daylight to the odd night light of huge cities. The people are myriad as always, meeting their friends, kissing their lovers, smoking a cigarette and reading the Evening Standard, a Citypages sort of publication, free. The pavement is half gum, half cig butts. A street sweeper sets up shop, and somehow, under the fashionably clad feet of hundreds of people, the trash and abandoned nicotine sorts itself into a neat pile. The buildings tower, they give this funny feeling of coziness in the noisy, life-filled dark, as if they're watching amiably. Watching the same things they've seen for who knows how long. Ah if only they could talk. Well, perhaps not. Slowly, if you stand in one place long enough, you blend into the world around you, more aware of the pigeon hopping at your feet and the funny, pessimistic man handing out the papers than how your hair looks. Such that when the observant Stephanie walked up to me, she was within a foot of my face before I realized it was she.
Then, we went to a pub called the Shepherd's Bush, and I had a fried salmon and cheese cake and a Guinness. Excellent.
Night kids. Tomorrow we set off for Oxford Circus and the London College of Fashion.
-Lu
It does not seem there will be any gaining of weight in this place. I have to be brutally honest here. All that stuff about Americans being fatter than Europeans? At this point, I have to agree, almost completely. That being an explosive subject, let us move on to other things.
I get to go explore my new campus tomorrow, and since I took no pictures today, because I was on a time constraint of sorts and was too busy trying not to knock people over with my luggage. I'm sure the shutterbugging will resume tomorrow.
The flats we live in are cute places. I'll take pictures tomorrow. I have a desk in a little alcove by a window, and roomie Priya has a nice little skylight. yay.
ah, funny occurrence. I was waiting outside the Holborn tube station last night to meet someone, and a woman in a suit came up and asked for directions. She took me for a native till I opened my mouth, but I got all smarty with my mini-atlas and gave her directions. heh.
May it also be noted that I stood there forty-five minutes (Stephanie if you read this I was early on purpose, wanted to people-watch) and London did not disappoint. Not a boring moment. Let me describe it for you. The street is full of taxis and buses, honking, cycles speeding past with fluorescent-jacketed people looking like jockeys. The light fades from normal daylight to the odd night light of huge cities. The people are myriad as always, meeting their friends, kissing their lovers, smoking a cigarette and reading the Evening Standard, a Citypages sort of publication, free. The pavement is half gum, half cig butts. A street sweeper sets up shop, and somehow, under the fashionably clad feet of hundreds of people, the trash and abandoned nicotine sorts itself into a neat pile. The buildings tower, they give this funny feeling of coziness in the noisy, life-filled dark, as if they're watching amiably. Watching the same things they've seen for who knows how long. Ah if only they could talk. Well, perhaps not. Slowly, if you stand in one place long enough, you blend into the world around you, more aware of the pigeon hopping at your feet and the funny, pessimistic man handing out the papers than how your hair looks. Such that when the observant Stephanie walked up to me, she was within a foot of my face before I realized it was she.
Then, we went to a pub called the Shepherd's Bush, and I had a fried salmon and cheese cake and a Guinness. Excellent.
Night kids. Tomorrow we set off for Oxford Circus and the London College of Fashion.
-Lu
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
In Defense of The Internet (Brought on by reddit. It's been ages since I wrote anything argumentative)
You know, we whine about technology all the time, particularly the internet. WHY? Right, I’ll hand it to you, it can suck your time, make you unproductive, encourage the banal, even make actual face-to-face interaction difficult if you use it enough. A lot of the other technology we use can have similar pitfalls. Cell phones/texting can degrade your grammar/writing skills. Fast cars result in devastating crashes. Advanced medicine can also be used for warfare purposes. But let me just take the four things I mentioned, and compare how they make our lives different from say, 150 years ago.
We’ll go backwards. Advanced medicine. Imagine a world where perhaps a third of your siblings die before you’re 12. I mean it. Imagine that. If you have two brothers, one is dead. A simple infection can kill you. Diseases are transmitted lightning fast for lack of vaccines or access to them. Surgery is terrifying and primitive. No Vicodin here.
Fast cars. We’ll keep with the health issue. Ambulances. Ask any doctor, and they will tell you that minutes can decide whether someone lives or dies. I could give you any number of anecdotes illustrating the fact. Now imagine being a doctor with nothing but a fast horse. I know, ambulances are sometimes too late as well. But you cannot tell me the horse was more efficient. Life is fundamentally, completely interconnected. That person on the gurney might have been your soulmate.
A plane can drop bombs and be gone before anyone knows what’s happening. It can also get supplies to natural disaster victims in a matter of hours, food to desperate people before they starve.
Texting. We are going with convenience here. It is simply a pain in the bum to make ten calls trying to meet with someone, changing the plans. It takes half that time to text, and you’re enjoying your friend’s company twice as fast. Just phones in general: how would you like to wait for months for mail, imagining all the things that could have happened to your faraway friend in that time. Even the Pony
Express, crazy cool though they were, cannot hold a candle to le telephone.
Now, the Internet. This, to me, is the most complex one, because it is so incredibly multi-faceted. It is ridiculously easy to air your opinions, enlighten or deceive people, make them laugh, steal from them, inspire them, we could go on and on. Behold, I’m doing it now. I think the bottom line of it is that we need to stop acting as though the Internet, and not humanity, has problems. The internet is just a bunch of code and electricity and invisible stuff, fundamentally. It is a THING. It has no conscience, no compassion.
So there are a lot of idiots on the web. They were there before! You just didn’t know they were an idiot. It merely makes it easier for them to inflict idiocy on everybody else. So there is obscenity and racism on the Internet. Have you ever really studied Shakespeare? Have you ever heard a bawdy old bar song? Seen certain ancient art? HEARD OF THE CIVIL WAR??? They didn’t have internet. It’s nothing new. And may I point out that nobody is making you look. Nobody is stopping you, but they are not forcing you to click on the link your conscience doesn’t like.
So those are the cons. Here are the pros. The internet allows you to quickly and thoroughly research to an incredible degree. I know there is false information out there, but don’t tell me you can’t still cross-check things. It allows you to understand much more fully what is going on in other countries and how such things affect you. As previously stated, it brings the interconnectedness of everything to light. It allows you to share interesting things, to spread ideas, to connect with people on the other side of the world,. It can emphasize the truth that there's only one kind of people. People. That’s it. They are fundamentally just like you. It is often incredibly conducive to creativity and art, if you are willing to search out the right people and websites.
I’m not saying we’re better than our ancestors. They did great things and terrible things with the tools they had. Our times are not better, they are not worse. They are just that, ours. You can’t time travel. Live where you are, and quit whining about it. As Eugene Hutz so wisely says: “There were never any good old days,/they are today, they are tomorrow./It’s a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow."
-Lu
We’ll go backwards. Advanced medicine. Imagine a world where perhaps a third of your siblings die before you’re 12. I mean it. Imagine that. If you have two brothers, one is dead. A simple infection can kill you. Diseases are transmitted lightning fast for lack of vaccines or access to them. Surgery is terrifying and primitive. No Vicodin here.
Fast cars. We’ll keep with the health issue. Ambulances. Ask any doctor, and they will tell you that minutes can decide whether someone lives or dies. I could give you any number of anecdotes illustrating the fact. Now imagine being a doctor with nothing but a fast horse. I know, ambulances are sometimes too late as well. But you cannot tell me the horse was more efficient. Life is fundamentally, completely interconnected. That person on the gurney might have been your soulmate.
A plane can drop bombs and be gone before anyone knows what’s happening. It can also get supplies to natural disaster victims in a matter of hours, food to desperate people before they starve.
Texting. We are going with convenience here. It is simply a pain in the bum to make ten calls trying to meet with someone, changing the plans. It takes half that time to text, and you’re enjoying your friend’s company twice as fast. Just phones in general: how would you like to wait for months for mail, imagining all the things that could have happened to your faraway friend in that time. Even the Pony
Express, crazy cool though they were, cannot hold a candle to le telephone.
Now, the Internet. This, to me, is the most complex one, because it is so incredibly multi-faceted. It is ridiculously easy to air your opinions, enlighten or deceive people, make them laugh, steal from them, inspire them, we could go on and on. Behold, I’m doing it now. I think the bottom line of it is that we need to stop acting as though the Internet, and not humanity, has problems. The internet is just a bunch of code and electricity and invisible stuff, fundamentally. It is a THING. It has no conscience, no compassion.
So there are a lot of idiots on the web. They were there before! You just didn’t know they were an idiot. It merely makes it easier for them to inflict idiocy on everybody else. So there is obscenity and racism on the Internet. Have you ever really studied Shakespeare? Have you ever heard a bawdy old bar song? Seen certain ancient art? HEARD OF THE CIVIL WAR??? They didn’t have internet. It’s nothing new. And may I point out that nobody is making you look. Nobody is stopping you, but they are not forcing you to click on the link your conscience doesn’t like.
So those are the cons. Here are the pros. The internet allows you to quickly and thoroughly research to an incredible degree. I know there is false information out there, but don’t tell me you can’t still cross-check things. It allows you to understand much more fully what is going on in other countries and how such things affect you. As previously stated, it brings the interconnectedness of everything to light. It allows you to share interesting things, to spread ideas, to connect with people on the other side of the world,. It can emphasize the truth that there's only one kind of people. People. That’s it. They are fundamentally just like you. It is often incredibly conducive to creativity and art, if you are willing to search out the right people and websites.
I’m not saying we’re better than our ancestors. They did great things and terrible things with the tools they had. Our times are not better, they are not worse. They are just that, ours. You can’t time travel. Live where you are, and quit whining about it. As Eugene Hutz so wisely says: “There were never any good old days,/they are today, they are tomorrow./It’s a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow."
-Lu
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