Happy Anniversary to me! That's right, I know. It's crazy. I can't believe it either! A whole year of living on my own in a foreign country. Who would have thought I would survive. Oh, I survived. Not only did I survive, I thrived. So much so that I'm still here and will be for a few more years at least. Long story short, I love my new home-away-from-home and I'm ever so glad that I made this leap of faith. I've met some really wonderful and amazing people and I'm proud to call them friends. Three cheers for making it through a year of real independence! Hip HIP!
Put the kettle on, let's celebrate with tea and cake!
On sunny Sunday Ulfie and I decided to go on a Banksy walk around North London. It was something we'd wanted to do since arriving and since Ulfie's days in London are running out we thought we would take advantage of the bright skies and warm weather. We went all the way to Bethnal Green just to hunt down the "Yellow Line Painter" above. Sadly, it is slowly being covered over by other meaningless graffiti and washed away by time. Nevertheless we snapped some photos and headed to Camden where legend said there were at least 3 Banksies to behold. After a long walk along the canal, we found nothing but the spot which may have once been home to a Banksy. Fail. Sad.
Lucky for us, we were already in Camden, which is a great neighbourhood to hang out in regardless of the reason. It was Sunday, too, which means that the market was in full swing and the streets were alive with people. We walked through the stalls and shops a bit before stumbling upon something better than we could have dreamed of. Chin Chin Laboratorists. I had never heard of it, which is interesting because I consider myself an ice cream connoisseur. At any rate, a sign in the window dubbing it London's best ice cream pulled us into the queue to join the other eager patrons in waiting. The bumping music in a nearby clothing stall kept our spirits up as we waited for about 15 minutes for our turn at the mixers.
I guess I should explain. Chin Chin Labs is one of many ice cream shops that have recently popped up selling something called Nitrogen ice cream. Chin Chin claims to be Europe's first nitrogen ice cream parlour, but I'm not sure if I believe it. However, first or not, Chin Chin stands above all of the rest because these folks have actually got it down to a science. They do 3 or 4 flavours at a time, vanilla, chocolate, and whatever happens to be the "special" and "flavour of the week." Delightful. They mix the stuff up right in front of you in a row of Kitchen Aid mixers and pour in liquid nitrogen (which is, as the guy with the super protective glove said, "boiling cold") and voila, ice cream. Not just any ice cream, though. It's the creamiest, smoothest, most flavourful ice cream this tongue has ever had the fortune to sample. Perhaps I'm going a bit over the top. But seriously, it was divine.
So we chatted with the guy mixing up our individual batches of ice cream, and he told us how it worked and what they do. The Watermelon Sorbet, which was the "special," is apparently made of nothing but watermelon juice. It tasted like it too. Have I mentioned it was divine? In an effort to reduce my rambling, simply feast your eyes on this:
Tuesday night Ulfie and I headed into the city to watch Singin' in the Rain. Ulfie got the tickets for only £22, so it fit into the requirement of "cheap entertainment." It was at the Palace Theatre, which is one of those cute small old theatres with really interesting and ornate decorated ceilings. So our £22 got us seats in the highest section of the theatre, but it didn't matter because we could still see all of the action.
It's been ages since I've seen the movie Singin' in the Rain, and so I honestly forgot the plot. I recognised the music almost immediately though, and suddenly flashbacks of 8th grade Music class came back. I guess that's where I saw Singin' in the Rain for the first time.
The play was nice. Quite well done, I think. And, it did actually rain on the stage. Impressive. And not just like a sprinkle, or a drizzle. It poured, like heavier than it would have if the stage was on fire. Poor guy got soaked. Fun to watch from the balconies: the actor splashing the entire front section as he danced and kicked around in the water. I don't think the rich people sitting in the first few rows knew that they were paying extra to be in the splash zone.
Overall review: 3 stars. The music was good and the plot is just classic. Parts of it seemed kind of boring and not related to the plot, and for that it loses a star. It gains a star, however, solely because they found a way to literally make it rain on the stage. My favourite part was the last dance, after the play had "ended", when the whole cast came out and danced in the rain with shiny silver umbrellas that had brightly coloured undersides, a very nice finale indeed.
Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, I handed in my dissertation. A few weeks ago I decided to bite the bullet, put aside frantic and rather pointless editing and re-editing, and hand in my 20,000 words. Actually, the paper was much longer and really the actual content of the paper stood somewhere around 19,000. Regardless, it was a heck of a lot of words on one topic. In retrospect, it was actually a lot easier than I thought. I managed to complete the task from start to finish in about 3.5 months, which is quite fast now that I think of it. Writing in sections definitely helped. Being able to sit down and knock out 5,000 words at a time was a definite advantage as well. Long story short, it's all bound up nice and pretty and sitting on someones desk somewhere now. Marks are expected back around the beginning of October. An update will surely occur after the marks are back.
Now, the most recently time-consuming and boring task that has taken over my life since submitting: job hunting. In reality, I've been actively searching for a full-time teaching job since March. But since handing in the diss, I've been dedicating many hours a day to searching for vacancies, filling out applications, drafting cover letters, and beefing up my CV. Who would have thought it would take so much work and time? Certainly not I, or I would have tried harder in earlier months. So now here we are at the beginning of the first week of school, it's nearly 11 AM and I'm still sitting in bed in my PJs. This is not at all where I thought and desperately hoped I'd be. I guess that's just how things work out. For those of you who care, I've had a few serious offers and been held up by the Visa requirements. Frustrating to say the least. I'm now registered with at least 6 different agencies, and spent this past Friday sending out nearly 30 speculative letters to various schools around the city. I'm cautiously walking the fine line between feelings of panic and hopelessness, and would like any who can spare it to send their most positive energy and thoughts my direction. I think it's safe to say that I'm rapidly approaching desperation.
On a brighter, lighter note, I've been able to spend my relatively open afternoons and evenings doing some fun stuff. You know, taking advantage of what the city has to offer. Saturday we hit up the annual ice cream festival near King's Cross. What a sad disappointment, but I did get to pet a cow so I'll mark it as a success.
I am likely to soon hit up the London theatre district. There's so much playing, and tickets can be really cheap, so why not? Cheap tickets are key, however, because I am quickly running out of funds and must ration carefully, especially with no monetary replenishment in sight.
Boring post, I know. But that's all for now folks. I'll leave you with a fluffy song that's been stuck in my head for the past few days.
