My face!

This is the final project we did in Space Lab, which is kind of like kindergarten all over again, except with dynamics and spacial relationships and other big words. This is supposed to be an abstract 3-D representation of my face. Looks just like me, right?

The dehumidifyer is humming away

It's very wet in London. Example: today was a relatively dry day, the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky. And the current humidity level: 76 percent. Just imagine what a wet day is like! I actually don't mind the rain so much: it's usually just a drizzle, not enough to merit an umbrella but certainly enough to get one nice and damp. Our house, despite being in London, is not really built to withstand the wetness: today I cleaned a good deal of mold off my windowsill, which had accumulated from almost two months of constant wet. Thank goodness for my new friend the dehumidifyer! It has the amazing ability to pull startling quantities of water out of the air in a ridiculously short amount of time. In the past five hours, for instance, it's netted a good half-gallon of water, I'd say.
Other activities of note today: there's a Lithuanian Christmas fair going on at the Stratford station, with lots of useless Lithuanian wares which I didn't buy, but did ogle. What I did buy was a little wreath from Woolworth's, which seems to be having financial difficulties, or else just wants to get rid of all its stuff, because everything is super cheap there now.
And tomorrow, work! I'm actually liking my job quite a bit: talking to people is fun, and my coworkers are really nice. I'm considering staying there, despite the 1 hour and 15 minute commute.
School is awesome, but I'm approaching the burn-out point, so thank goodness for a break in a week! I'll be flying home to Boston, so if any of you wonderful people are around that area during the holidays let me know, I'd love to go for a coffee with you! :D

Another piece of my innocence flushed away...

The other day I went into the bathroom in the local Morrison's (supermarket), and the lights were BLUE!!! Now, I thought this was pretty awesome in a wacky sort of way. But then my friend Lauren, who was with me, explained that it's so that junkies can't shoot up in the bathroom, because they can't see their veins in blue light.
:( You learn something new every day, I guess...

Take 2!

And cut! :D
Yes, it got even shorter!
The first one was a tad too sophisticated for me, so I got my housemate Jill to mess with it, and voila! I'm loving it: so light, so posh, so easy to wash! (Yay poetry!) Gosh y'all, why didn't you convince me to cut off all my hair years ago? ;)

Don't faint now...

What do you think? :D

Paying the rent

Since I wrote last, I've found a job and started working! All of a sudden things like cooking, hanging out with my housemates, and, well, having free time are completely gone from my schedule. I guess it make sense that if you add 30 hours of class time a week to 20 hours of job a week (plus 10 hours of commuting), there aren't that many hours left for anything else. But it is quite nice to have a source of income, especially in this pricey town. And what is the job, I hear you ask? Well, you know those people who call you in the middle of dinner to ask you annoying questions about the number of TV's in your house and your favorite method of purchasing music and what you had for breakfast every day for the past month? Well, I'm now one of them! The company is called Synovate, and it does market research for companies like Sky (TV etc.), O2 (phones etc.), and Capital One. The job consists of sitting in front of a computer and bothering people at home, and then asking them waaaaaay too many questions if they agree to talk to you. Fun! One funny thing I've learned this week: you know when sometimes the phone rings and no-one is there? Well, I now know why that happens: it's a telemarketer or someone whose headset is off by mistake or who hung up on you because they wanted to take a break or something.
Feel free to go ahead if you like and start making bets about how long I'll last, but surprisingly, it's not that bad. The atmosphere at Synovate is really chill: everyone is really laid back and nice, and just about everyone is a design student or artist or other awesome profession. I think it helps a lot to be able to tell people that you're not trying to sell them anything, makes the job much less stressful. And they give you free coffee! :D
And so my life has settled into place! Home, job, school: that's life right now. And quite a nice life it is! :)

The inevitable food post

I'm really proud of what I made for dinner tonight, which inspired me to write a bit about food in London. I'm managing to live on one 20-pound shopping trip a week, which is kind of fun, as it allows for all sorts of creative permutations using a limited number of ingredients. I've definitely created some keep-able recipes (like chicken and broccoli in garlic cheese sauce and my currently digesting mixture of awesomeness, which I will tell, I promise, just saving it for the end ;).
Part of the reason for my strict budget is that it's really possible to spend way too much money on food: for instance, in bars (which are inevitable destinations), entrees are anywhere from 6 to 10 pounds on average, which is approximately 10-18 dollars. It's funny, though: bar food here is pretty classy. There are of course the expected bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes), meat pie, and other British delicacies, but there's also stuff like balsamic glazed free range chicken with organic braised parsnips and arugala salad with walnuts and goat cheese. And this is at every pub I've been to so far! Craziness.
I've also had some culinary fun living with people from different backgrounds: I guess this is also the time to talk about my lovely housemates, who seem to have remained undescribed so far (probably through sheer laziness on my part, sorry folks!). Jill is from the Boston area, but she grew up on the north shore, so she's had more exciting typical New England experiences than me (like skinning animals and making cider). She's been the one in charge of popcorn-making, when we've done that. Frank is from California, obsessed with Halloween and the washer/dryer (which is one machine: you put your clothes in dirty and take them out clean and dry... amazing!), and makes amazing things like root vegetable bakes and really delicious raisin soda bread (the recipe is really simple, but I don't remember it now: I can post it later if people are interested). Ana is from Puerto Rico, has the most infectious laugh I've ever heard, and is always making amazing concoctions involving rice, chicken, carrots, plantains, and things like that. And Gaidig, from Bretagne (France), my commuting buddy in the morning and the only smoker in the house (go figure), makes amazing things with sausages and cabbage and other vegetables, which she claims aren't really French but simply "Gaidig-style." We don't share food in my house (except for the odd trade of chocolate for tea bags, and mooching off other people's butter, etc.), so I don't get to taste any of this, but man does it look and smell good!
And now for the long-awaited amazing dinner of tonight:
Ingredients: cooked brown rice, pinto beans, chicken, and sweet potato; onions, garlic, cheese, salt and pepper. Preparation: Saute onions and garlic in oil. Add everything else. Devour (if you like, from the pot, in true grad school fashion). :)