Speaking of ‘Precious’

I have said before that my life, which people who aren’t me seem to think should be some sort of action-packed romp around the Continent, doesn’t exactly resemble the sort of thing that Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote about. Normally this is a point of some consternation for me. The other day, as I wept into my mid-afternoon martini about the sheer unglamorousness of being me, I recalled this quotation from Hemingway that is just So My Life. (That’s a slight exaggeration. It was a Pims and Lemonade.)

Several days later I have mustered enough get-up-and-go to locate the quotation. Which is written in a notebook. A notebook that is sitting on my desk. The desk where I spend copious amounts of time every day.

Not that I’m doing anything productive during the time I’m sitting at my desk. You see, I am a young procrastinator. I am full of ideas and inspiration and good intentions, I just happen to be terminally lazy. That notebook I mentioned with the quotation written in it? It’s basically full of sketches and outlines of a year’s worth of harebrained schemes. Of all these things I want to write about.

Do you know what I should be writing about right now? I should be writing inquiry letters and cover letters to potential employers about how awesome and motivated I am. I should be writing my dissertation on museum education for students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. What am I actually writing? This blog. A review of Oreo cookies for no useful reason whatsoever. Instant messages. Because I will leave the things that I should be writing and should be doing until the last possible moment, until right before it’s too late to share them.

Which reminds me…the quotation:

You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see. You hang around cafes.

-The Sun Also Rises

I really didn’t intend for this entry to sound so nihilistic and, well, precious. The stuff that needs to get done will get done. Eventually. In the meantime I have some drinking in cafes to attend to.

Eew, the WordPress dashboard has an ugly new look.

Here is a glimpse into my exciting and glamorous life in Europe: I visit cool places, become even more extremely poor than I am now, and then return ‘home’ to my dorm room in Leicester. I never update about my travels because life aside from those travels is so mundanely boring. No one wants to hear about your Continental frolics unless you also have something exciting coming up in your schedule, as in “Last night Zelda and I dined at the Ritz, and tomorrow we will head off for a week in St Kitts.” Notice how my example contained zero references to the Continent, although I guess the Ritz is probably everywhere by now.

Let’s give it a try, shall we?

Last week I went inside a 5,000 year old tomb, and today I am sitting at my desk, listening to the hail outside, and updating my blog. Next I will either go read a book or watch the BBC. Yawn.

So that’s why I haven’t filled anyone in on my travels, which were to Prague and Ireland by the way. I loved Prague but frankly didn’t care for Dublin, though I don’t have anything especially pithy and disparaging to say about it. It was just ugly and expensive.

And the future? Until mid-June I will be completely unscheduled, lazing about and then banging out a dissertation at what is likely to be the 11th hour. I am going to take up Exercise, Drink, and Writing Things That Aren’t Blogs (But Are Unlikely to be My Dissertation Either). I’m mostly kidding about the drink. Then I’m home in NY for a week and a half before moving to London for my summer placement.

Past the end of August my life is basically a Mystery. I will be moving to wherever the jobs are, kind of like those tramps from the Great Depression. Yay recession! Hopefully I will be able to afford to travel on the inside of trains. And hopefully the work that awaits me will not be agricultural.

You Can’t Make This Shit Up #1

So, I have been missing. If you are surprised by this you probably don’t know me very well and ergo you are probably not reading this blog right now. So I don’t know why I am addressing you, you non-existent person you, but it might have something to do with the fact that I haven’t had my giant mug of tea yet.

Why have I been missing? Aside from being “around” I have also been in Brussels, Prague and head off to Ireland on Saturday. Mostly this post is just an excuse to brag about that. Also I had several weeks of actual work to complete. This was a real shock to my University of Leicester Department of Museum Studies system, hear you me. Anyway, hi.

The other reason for this post is to share with you one of those internet sites you just can’t make up. Maybe it will be a regular feature! Probably I will forget about it. But this? Hopefully this will be emblazoned into your mind for all time.

The Apple Store Dating Blog!

Apparently this is the dating hot-spot for technophiles everywhere! In my experience they are usually staffed by 12 year old boys, but apparently I am just not going to the right stores. (I also seem to frequent the pubs filled with 12 year old boys. My life is very hard.)

Anyway, travel, actual work and sharing a martini over by the iPod Nanos. Life, eh?

Two Exciting New Games For You All!

I write to you this Saturday morning from my dorm (hall/flat/whatever). It’s extremely nice, which surprised me very much. I’ve spent this past week participating in what may be the lamest student orientation in existence, though fortunately I got free lunch out of it. I come with two exciting new games for you, so be thrilled!

The first is called Predict When the Two 40 Year Old Indian Gentlemen With Whom You Share a Bathroom Are Going to be Showering. It’s not a very fun game, though it is suspenseful. I’m afraid you can’t play along at home but you’re most welcome to visit me and give it a go.

The second is called Real Englishman or Merely a Delightful Name I Made Up? Today’s contestants are:

1. Alfred James Hipkins
2. Edwin Horatio Fedarb
3. Wenceslaus Hollar
4. Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot

No cheating! The answers will be posted soon. And I mean soon in the real sense, not soon as in “relative to the rest of this blog’s chronology.”

By the by, England is very much living up to the cliche of being cold and wet. All the time. If you love me, send tweed.

Face all aglow to leave from here, to pack up and go.

So you guys? I leave for England on Thursday morning. I get there 20:00GMT, (that time thing is going to take some getting used to. I don’t do mental math!) so lugging my two 70lb. suitcases through the streets of London in the dark is going to be interesting. I can barely move one of them at a time, so two? And on the Tube? On stairs? Oh man.

And before you mock me for over-packing, being able to condense my belongings into a mere two suitcases, albeit ones as heavy as small boulders, is something of a glorious victory. I used to fill an entire SUV to go to college. I own over 70 pairs of shoes. Also, remember, I have a mother who would prefer I pack for every weather eventuality known to man. Glorious. Victory.

There’s already some stuff that’s not going according to plan, mostly financial stuff, but a friend gave me some good advice yesterday. Paraphrased as near as I can recall she said “You’re not going over there to be comfortable. You’re going over there for the experience of it. And it’s the times when you missed your train and are wandering lost in a strange city with everything you own on your back that you know you’re growing as a person.”

I hope I can approach this entire experience the Desiree Suo way, because I know I have a tendency to gripe. Mostly I gripe because it’s funnier and it doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself, but I don’t want the record (the record being my assorted blogs) to reflect only discontent. Joy! Rapture! Edwardian plumbing! (Couldn’t resist.)

I can’t decide whether I should make posts about these same subjects on Flying and/or wmk06. I know readership isn’t identical but I feel redundant cross-posting things to my own blogs. Oh, the trials of digital over-extension…

The next time you hear from me I’ll be in England. Or just on another blog. I leave you with some lyrics from my favorite song:

He said “I left my home where the dead never rose
for the streets of gold I’ve yet to find.
And at the end of the day all you can do is pray.
Without hope, well you might as well be blind.
Yea be blind. Tomorrow comes a day too soon.”

Give me hot sauce on my taco…

I have been vaguely planning a month-long train journey from England to Morocco during my Easter break next year. Today I bought a guidebook as a sort of self-motivator. (Because if I can dream it, it does not necessarily follow that I will do it.) Here are some of the reactions my purchase received:

Mom: Morocco? You know what that makes me think of.

Me: Yea, your little Jewish-looking daughter wandering around all alone.

Mom: I was going to say Epcot.

————–

My Dad’s friend who is my age: You’re planning on going to Morocco?

Me: Yup.

Dad’s friend: Bring a gun!

People are so pleasant.

Major evangelical bonus points to anyone who can complete the title quote. If you can, know that this is not my reason for going to Morocco. At all. (It’s actually more of a Crosby, Stills & Nash inspired random whim.)