In the blue sky

I forgot to mention the game on Sunday. It was the league championship, we were in a position to move up to the premier league, we were tied 2-2 at half time and these pictures were taken about 10 minutes from the final whistle. And I'm number 6, as always.

Technically they're out of order, they should be seen bottom to top. I'm just sayin'.
*grin*



Just got the shot off...
Does this goalie look out of position to you?

now I'm big and important; one angry dwarf

I was awoken this morning by the sound of knocking at my door followed by the jingling of keys. I officially snapped out of groggy when the two workmen entered my room and I fell out of bed in an attempt to snatch my comforter off the floor to cover me in my sports bra and granny panties. They were here to fix the window. I gathered myself, kicked a path through my laundry and showed them to my window (which for some reason I suppose I thought they couldn't find on their own). So once again it is possible to both open and close my window. And I am sleeping in sweats from here on out.

I've now just returned from a chamber choir rehearsal where we focused on the Russian folk music rather than the liturgical stuff. Our conductor, a highly energetic and large Russian woman spits the text at you joyously and you are expected to spit them just as joyously back. We got through the pronunciation of one of the last pieces this afternoon and she says to us "Good! Now you are peasants! Now you leave!" Rehearsal was over.
There's something about the guttural sound of the Russian language that just puts me into a kind of meditative stupor, especially when the alto line calls for these rich sustained whole notes that only float around scale degrees 1-2-1-5-1-2-1-5 and so on. The Russian choral tradition is very different from the western choirs of Italy and France and such, that is to say that these and sustained notes and melodic lines do not breathe themselves, do not surge and deflate with the music but are stagnant throughout it. I can't explain why the music demands it- personally I think all choral music must move, much of today's rehearsal was spent with our conductor attempting to instill in us the importance of consistency between notes. I don't know. I don't think I like it. It means one has to detach your instincts from the movement of the music, and engage your head. Plus it...kind of put me to sleep. This is why I prefer Bach- not simply because I happen to believe his music is "better", if you will, but because it sings you.

Now I'm back in the room, going to read for a little while before soccer, after which a bunch of the girls are heading over to the student pub for drinks. I am tired and I ache in ways I can't really find words for. So I think soccer is just what I need.

to better counteract this charm attack

Antonio and I made sushi a few nights ago. I know sushi-making is one of those skills that is revered as a kind of art form within the Japanese culture, and needless to say we struggled valiantly. We managed to make what can only be described as abortion sushi; we're talkin' sushi rolls that, when sliced, were roughly three inches in diameter with a smallish off-center pupil of fish. Christ- this fish to rice ratio that was laughable! Tasty, but laughable.
I have also now been introduced to such remarkable British TV shows such as Extras, Spaced, and Peepshow.

I've had the urge all morning to pick a random double-decker, get on it and go. See what happens. See where I end up. I mean, they can't get that far out of central London, can they? Heh, maybe I'll just go to the Tate Britain. When I was last there they had both the Blake and the Turner collections. Now the Black collection is back but they've combined it with a Fuseli collection and called called it Gothic Nightmares: the Romantic Imagination. I love it. It's the kind of thing that I'm almost afraid to form either opinions or expectations about before seeing it. Before my first encounter with the Blake drawing I had only read pieces from his Songs of Innocence, so imagine how surprised I was to see the darkly grotesque monsters he'd sketched. Anyhow, that's a possibility for today...or tomorrow...

Must run up to the International Student Office for a brief meeting with Joe Lewis, then back to the flat for some rearranging, and then most likely down to Canary Wharf with a new Book, Rachel Cusk's "The Country Life" which Mum sent about a week ago.

Ohh...so much to do.

2:48 am

I feel so much Spring

On my way back from Walthamstow Central on the Victoria line I sat down across from an extremely inebriated middle-aged gentleman who was busy informing the mostly empty train carriage in a heavy Irish accent that he was celebrating Rugby Day (he pronounced it "Rug-a-bee"). He changed his seat to sit next to me and, over the crattle-crattle of the moving train, introduced himself as Mickey (he had fingers as thick as turnips), proceeded to tell me about his job (a scaffolder), the reason he's not married (what kind of a man would he be if he worked a dangerous job like that with a family relying on him) and would I like to join him for a pint at The Green Man (a pub at Oxford Circus). Without waiting for an answer he then launched into the history of the scaffolding profession, and finally when that had come to an end, he reiterated his invitation for a pint. It was only then that he asked my name. I replied that my name was Angela, I had just been up at my fiancee's flat who ran a company that tested trampolines for quality, and that I had an unexplainable fear of scaffolding that tended to trigger nausea so could he kindly refrain from talking about it.

I did a tremendous amount of walking today, surprisingly enough, I did so mostly without my ipod. I hadn't realized before how the music, the constant sound, the flush of chord progressions, the lyrics, all limited my thinking just a little. Not in the sense of actually impeding my view of the world around me or my interactions with it, but just keeping things at bay that otherwise might get attention.
A good day for walking. A good day for udon, for another white sky, for Ben Folds Five, for Trockadero dancers with questionable Adams apples, for singing alone.


Wake up, without a care. Your head's not heavy, conscience clear
Sins are all forgiven here, yours and mine
Fear has gone without a trace
It's the perfect time, it's the perfect place
Nothing hurting nothing sore. No one suffers anymore,
The doctor's found a simple cure
Just in time

[Chorus]
All these things if I were King would all appear around me
The world will sing when I am King
The world will sing when I am King

-Great Big Sea

I smell the onions, I look around for you

It is so remarkably cold here. Or maybe it's unremarkably cold, meaning no snow, no sleet, no ice, nothing really worth remarking over other than the fact that the wind is butt-clenchingly cold and no one can really believe it. Everyone walks down the street wide-eyed at the chill; women bury their children in their armpits, bow their heads and hurry to their destinations, guys in suits (my god there are a lot of guys in suits in London) tighten colorful scarves around their necks, ignoring the bits of prawn and mayonnaise sandwich they've dropped on themselves, and the street vendors abandon their posts altogether and go have coffee somewhere. Empty carts. Quiet streets filled with cold bustling people.

This time in London is such a different experience from my first one. Freshman year I was in Regent's Park in the heart of the city, the poshest of the posh districts, a grand park with a rose garden and fields and swing sets and Baker street within spitting distance with its tourist shops galore. New Cross is very very different. The community is far less well-to-do, isn't primarily Caucasian, on the whole the neighborhood is grungy, dark, no grand architecture or boutiques or swing sets here. In fact, just yesterday one of the professors was telling us about an incident of a girl being found chopped to pieces in a bag not two blocks from the college. About a month ago. Charming, no? Strange thing is, although it's just in south London and has it's own tube stop and everything, most people in central London have never heard of New Cross. I suppose it's really not much other than the college itself; it's mostly internet cafes and (Emma, you'll love this) Fried Chicken Shops. Really. It's the London that nobody has ever put on a post card. Since coming here there have been times when I've wondered if perhaps I should have traveled somewhere else, somewhere I hadn't explored before, somewhere without memories yet. When I really think about it though, this area of London is so drastically different from Regents Park that it allows it to be the very different adventure I need it to be.

Right now I'm listening to the Garrison Keillor episode broadcasted on January 7th. It reminds me, as always, of cooking dinner with Michelle at Dad's on Saturday night.

I have no idea what the plans for tonight are. When asked, I tend to use the soccer games on Sunday as an excuse for being low-key, not going out, not partying and not drinking. I think I'm generally recognized as lame because of it. Meh. I need to find a Scrabble tournament.