Casual Over-Drinks Topics...

There’s not too much to talk about at the moment, but I figured I should do a quick entry just to highlight a couple of things that I’ve done over the last week.

Tuesday night (20 March) I traveled to Leytonstone—birthplace of Sirs Alfred Hitchcock and Derek Jacobi—in order to meet-up with two UEL students, JA and GC, for drinks. The peers in question are both thesis-level Cultural Studies students who occasionally pop into my horrid ‘Culture, Power and Resistance in the Twenty-First Century’ class. One of them (JA) also happens to be the UEL student that came to Columbia last year. We met up at the Red Lion (which I think might be affiliated with the pub I went to with K&M on my second night here), and spent a lovely couple of hours catching up over beer and cider. We chatted about everything from white privilege and racism in Europe, to the failings of abstinence-only education in the U.S., to the attempted privitization of England’s healthcare system. You know, casual over-drinks topics…for Cultural Studies students at least.

Tuesday night wasn’t my only stab at being social this week. Last night (23 March) I happened to catch a Facebook update from another friend, AH, that he was stuck at Victoria Station, waiting for a train to take him back home (which is about an hour away). Now, I’ve ‘known’ AH online for around 13 years—we’ve been part of the same He-Man/She-Ra community since the mid- to late-1990s—but we’ve never actually met before. (Namely because of the ocean which separates us.) So, upon spotting this update, a hurried flurry of messages were exchanged, and plans were made to finally meet up in person while he waited for his rescheduled train. A short while later, and we were finally greeting one another face-to-face.

Me and AH at Victoria Station

Since AH had a couple of hours before his train was scheduled to depart, we nipped over to the Duke of York, a pub not far from the station. This was actually my first experience meeting another He-Fan/She-Raver in person—everyone’s so spread out in the States that it’s hard to do so—and I loved every second of it. It was so surreal: two grown, 30(ish) year-old men—in a dark, noisy bar surrounded by stumbling heterosexuals trying to dance to ‘Hot in Here’ (and the men suggestively removing their suitcoats)—talking about everything from the father/daughter relationship between Hordak and She-Ra, to what kinds of material the Four Horsemen will use to design Scorpia’s tail, to the role of the Filmation series in producing a generation of really swell, inclusivity-minded people. You know, casual over-drinks topics…for He-Fans/She-Ravers at least.

Beyond those two bits of excitement, there’s really not too much else to tell. This week’s kind of flown by (and, honestly, I wish it would slow down)! I’m housesitting for K&M at the moment, and keeping their delightful dog Bowmar company. I’m loving every second of the peace and quiet here. I hadn't realize how stressed out I’d become living in the other house until I came here, but I suddenly find myself very relaxed.

Of course, part of the stress I’m feeling might have more to do with midterms than the constant thumpa-thumpa at my flat. Basically, our entire grade comes down to two grades: our final (60%) and our midterm (40%). Oh, and they do not award 100% over here, the rationale being that if your work warrants 100% then you should already be a teacher. Realistically, the highest score most students earn is about 75%. So, basically, my midterms have to be spot-on if I want to try to maintain my 4.0!

Fortunately, midterm madness is almost over. One of them (‘Realism, Fantasy & Utopia’) was due last week, and the other two are due this week—followed by two glorious weeks of Easter Break (yes, it's called Easter Break here), during which time I hope to visit Scotland!!!! 

And then we go straight into working on our finals, because there's only like 5 weeks left of the actual semester following Easter Break.

Two final things I want to mention, but which don’t really fit anywhere else:

First, yesterday was a gorgeous day! Mind you, this is still London, so of course there was a curtain of smog blanketing the skyline—I have yet to see a day that is both sunny and clear—but I’ll take what I can get! It was simply too nice restrict myself to the indoors all day, so after class I ran to K&M’s house, spent some time with Bowmar, grabbed the laptop, and headed to a coffee shop in Soho. The place was called LJ’s CoffeeHouse, and my choice to go there was pretty random: I simply wanted somewhere that was open-air and had free wifi, and this is where Google directed me. After visiting their website, however, I also became smitten with LJ’s through the following ‘prayer’ posted on their site (and which I can totes relate to):

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the path of conciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no equal.
For thou art with me, thy sweetness and thy crema they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of my barista:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of LJ's forever.

The service was only decent (though very friendly), but the coffee and the atmosphere as a whole were excellent. The gay Sohoians seemed to come alive, renewed by the sun’s warmth. People were so happy and pleasant, and it all jived perfectly with the mood I was in. (It was not, however, conducive to working—I spent 90% of my time there just chatting with Nic over the interwebs.)

Secondly—and containing spoilers (consider yourself warned)—I was saddened to learn on Thursday night that ‘Eastenders’ had killed off one of my favorite characters, George-Michael-obsessive Heather Trott (Cheryl Fergison). Alongside the Dot, Kim, and Shirley characters, Heather was one of my favorites. And the way in which she died—and the status of her relationships with best-friend Shirley and her murderer at the time—is just too sad. And sadly, it seems as if the U.K. soaps don’t bring back characters from the dead in the way the U.S. soaps do. Ah, well—I’ll miss you, Heather, but at least I can find some of your shenanigans on YouTube still: 

  

Until next time…