READ LAST POST FIRST

So yes. more pictures...of the Tesco Not-so-Mouse-looking Balloons, actually.
haha



Hussy- distressed by the outcome of our specifically purchased mouse balloons. "What the heck, these don't look like mice!"


Good old lady S, doing the stretch the balloon out before you blow it up bit.


And then one of her many attempts to get the ears to come out.




"A show of hands. Who thinks this looks anything like a mouse balloon should?"

There is bound to be a strongly worded letter on it's way to Tesco's Corporate very soon.

zombie cocktail party

So I went to brighton this weekend for a zombie cocktail party. We had an extremely joyous night. We played games and frightened local pubgoers and consumed many halloweenee things and spent some time being terribly confused by mouse baloons purchased from tesco's whose ears just weren't very mousy.



Anyway- this is my pal ted. as i've just named him because I dont think we named him before. He was lots of fun, though unfortunately not as edible as we would have liked. Ha



The four lasses and our black boots. We all dressed up all fancy and then zombified ourselves.


that's me....I wish you could see more of my severely ratted hair. it was not fun to comb out.

Madame President with her fangs. GRRR


Hussy looking a bit like a droog.

and Lady S, the scariest of us all.


I had a really great time and the next day made fajita's for everyone. we sat around and watched Ferris Bueller's day off and the Life of Brian. It was very very very nice.

anyway...me and my multiple picture posts! ha. hope you enjoy.

playing with new picture posting things..woo

the aforementioned child in pink tights

environment

So, when I first arrived here in london I remember saying to Morsa that my building was hot. May I suffer inexplicable horror if I ever use that phrase again. Anyway, here's a scrapbook of some days in my life.


for starters I get off at this tube station.



At the exit I turn Right onto Tottenham Court Road and walk down it until I reach the corner of my street. Where I promptly look right to see the British Telcom Tower.



I then turn onto my street, making a left. that's my street.


I look up at my *hot* building.


I enter the foyer, and walk towards the lift.



Where I go to this floor.


and the button lights up all red.



Once out of the elevator I take a look out the windows towards the houses of parliament in the distance.


I then go to my room.



where I do things like spend hours- literally- on trying to post more than one picture.

so hurrah for success.

that's all.

there are some photo's of my life.

Crocs and socks

Today, the British Museum. Tomorrow, the world.

This photo is from the British Museum's Great Court. A covered courtyard you can find out about here. http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/britishmuseum/

Frog and I wandered around a bit today..more job hunting, etc. We decided to go the the British Museum because I've been wanting to and when we walked into the great court both of us were so delighted by the atmosphere that we wanted to lay down and stare up. And we did, after a little perusing of the Ancient Egyptian and Assyrian relics, oh yes and the Rosetta stone. It was lovely, and as you can see frog's glasses are reflecting the glass roof of this courtyard. It was very nice, laying on our backs just looking up at the clouds rolling quickly by, taking pictures, ignoring the snickers of small children in pink tights passing.

Oh yes and almost got a job, but the place needed an unihibited 2 month commitment (as that is how long their campaigns run) but I can't give them that now, cause I'm leaving in less than two months. I thought about lying, but I think I'd like to work for these folks when I come back.

The reason this blog entry is titled croc's and socks is because I've started wearing this combination as my main footwear. Were I more html savvy I would be able to post a picture of them here. I am, however, not html savvy, so you'll have to imagine what they look like or you can go here and learn about crocs http://www.crocs.com/home.jsp. Mine are red and i wear them with mostly argyle socks. Cause that's the way I roll.

Oh and it is 124 steps from the bottom floor of my building up to the 8th floor- where I live. Not including the obligatory one or two steps it takes to round the landing. I've made a commitment to walk up these 124 steps at least once a day. I had a similar plan when I came that included either going up or down them each day. I have, however, only been going down them, and that is just not as effective. So the plan has changed. Up once a day. And I've already been today. Couldn't sleep around 6am so I thought a good stair climb would do the trick of putting me to bed (and indeed it did).

anyway, that's my inconsequential nonsense. And just to let everyone know I have enabled comments on this blog, so if you're reading and have something to say (or don't have anything to say but want me to know that you're reading) drop me a line or two. cheers. 

Steak and Steve:two fine pieces of meat

so. this is completely not my picture. but it's nice. ain't it.

the picture I wanted to post was of a big fat steak that I cooked this evening. But i ate it and forgot to take a picture.

It was my first steak cooking experience. It was actually three small steaks. I could've eaten only the one of them, but was afraid to repackage the other two. and ya know- meat shrinks when you cook it so it was alright.

I started with butter in the frying pan...BUTTER!!

wait actually that's a lie.

I started by slathering the steaks in chopped garlic, garlic salt and some other herbs.

Then came the butter. and it wasn't enough...so I put more...then I put olive oil because I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

but it all worked out. I cooked them in the pan with oil and butter and didn't leave them on too long. I learned from my pal zack that steak is best medium rare- so that's what I shot for. The middle steak was the best. It was just right- perfectly medium rare. Just a sliver of pink in the middle *they were thin steaks*. the first one I didn't cook long enough and found several pieces that I was terrified of eating, the last piece I cooked too long. but it was all very tasty.

I meant to make oven chips (frech fries) with it, but I was too focused on the meat to do anything else and too hungry when the meat was done.

and you know I'm realizing that what makes eating meat- or steak, lets say- really good is the taste of blood. And I really like tasting the blood- however gross that may seem. It's just a really nice flavor. And it reminds me that something had to die so that I could eat it. And it made me think about the one pound seventy that I paid for those three steaks and how the life of that cow probably wasn't very good. So i have decided, if I am going to eat steak I am going to save up for the free range organic steak. I'm sure Happy cows taste better. And I'd rather eat a cow...if i'm gonna eat meat...that was treated better in it's lifetime. So there it is.

so yay.

I made a friend. Steven. He is actually Gulio's friend. Gulio, my cousin in law who lives and works in london (for the next 7 days..that is..then back to South africa). Last night I went for drinks with Gulio and his friends, where I met Steven. All of the people there were lovely and we had a great night. But steven and I exchanged numbers and we have a job hunting date on tuesday.


so yippy for my new friend.


anyway. that's my steak and new friend story. have to go now. 

Cloudy days

So it's been pretty intersting weather wise round here. That's all I've got to say. Have had a pretty uninteresting week so far. the most exciting thing I can tell you about is what those dark, heavy clouds brought to my house. And it was gobs and gobs of rain- rain like buckets. it was lovely. And the windows outside the front door of the flat leak so the rain was all over the floor of our hallway. isn't that nice.

now our hall smells like dead fish. not so nice.

classes are getting better. more, well understandable. and I'm a bit homesick. or peopleathomesick.

so yes. that's all.

just thought i'd show you some more neato pictures of mine.

hope all is well.

weekend at hussy's

brighton beach, originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

well. spent the weekend in brighton. had a nice evening on saturday with a great meal cooked by my newest friend regan. I like to call her madame president. She also goes by ron. We then watched some Black Books. Which was a total and complete delight for me as I hadn't seen that show since long before I left england the first time. In the morning I awoke to another great meal. (have discovered that I like my eggs poached... isn't that amazing...I like eggs!)and after a few hours of rest and relaxation we walked through the rain on a truly gorgeous day down to the lanes for a couple of pints in a hidden pub. all in all it was a very nice weekend.

Had another lecture this evening. I am beginning to worry in the same way that I worried when I was a philosophy major. see, I don't want to be the kid that sits around always asking why and never doing anything. Or using the ability to ask why- to find ideological problems with something- in order to never have to do anything. So yes...this course is worrying in that way. Sometimes I am a pragmatist (am i using that correctly) and would rather just do something- even if possibly it is not as thoroughly eeked out as it should be. Then other times i'm terrified to do anything because it has theoretical fissure's and potentially has terribly consequences. So yes. Today I was a pragmatist, tomorrow...who knows.

someone the other day described being liberal as being an advocate of relativism. that is, that every point of view has value that is equal and proportional to every other point of view. Therefor, nothing can be argued against something else because each perspective has value and neither is necessarily "right" or "wrong".

I am definitely not a fan of this description. But it makes me think how are we ascribing values to things, who's in charge of this task, and is it arbitrary or calculated.

I bet i'm really boring to some of you.

Al Otro Lado Del Ri­o

So I'm in one of those semi-trite, occationally beautiful moments post film viewing where I think anything is possible and I am enlivened by the struggle of peoples, collectively or individually.

the movie was the motorcycle diaries.

and I'm definitely thinking about che and his many mistakes, but also understanding his motivation.

Was talking to my mate richie about having a hard time believing in anything- in finding hope for the world. We discussed the rampant abuses of western culture, the exploitation and oppression of entire populations, the ever-arching impenetrable bubble that a middle class bourgeois upbringing grants against these other terrors.

We both agreed it's hard to find hope when you know that the generations before were looking for perhaps the same thing and wound up in violent conflict, or worse as a cog in an even bigger stronger machine.

the problem of belief is many sided. First I don't want to support something unless it will have some kind of true and positive effect. Second I don't want to end up like che- not only leaving out many arguments for the sake of my cause- but also entrenched in violence both reviled and perpetuated by myself.

The course I'm on is making it even harder to believe.

because we sit in a building, an institute of higher education and argue why things like institutes of higher education are both unnecessary and specifically a hindrance to progressive causes that this institute specifically espouses.

I know hypocrisy exists and I know that it, as a notion, is built upon the concepts of either/or.

I'm all for granting the multiplicity of peoples, things etc, and I know that my horror at the thought of being personally hypocritical and of witnessing hypocrisy heavily relies on my subscription to the idea that one cannot be contradictory. That if you call yourself a Christian and then do very unchristian things than you are a hypocrite.

So yes...uh... maybe I should get over my idea of hypocrisy- and let things be convoluted, messy, contradictory and multiplicitous.

but if I do that how am I to decipher if one multitudinous thing is better than another.

or if one action is better or worse. For example. Eating meat.

on one hand I campaign for a fairer treatment of animals and other beings, not only physically but intellectually, but then I eat highly processed, undeniably tortured animals almost every day.

... So yes, if I am to allow myself to be multitudinous, complex, with faults and failures and virtues and values, how do I choose which is the right action.

it's all seeming a bit arbitrary to me right now and that's probably the dirtiest word I've ever known.

arbitrary. I don't want to live my life arbitrarily. I want to be discernible, but so many things are pointing me to a place where my choices, my ideals are ineffectual and superfluous.

I am basically frustrated by my classmates because we sit and talk about what is wrong with the world- yet we participate in and perpetuate many of the problems and horrors that we are discussing.

I just don't get it. I see myself doing it- I see others doing it. But I don't want to just sit around and watch the world fall to pieces. Unlike many I, perhaps unfortunately, am not ignorant to the fact that most of the clothing I wear was assembled by people, probably women, in a "third world country", that the food that I eat comes from animals kept in unnaturally small cages, and injected with hormones, that this very act of typing this nonsense on my computer in my very lush London flat required the work of several hundreds of people whose names I will never know and whose time I can never replace.

you know how in dreams sometimes you'll be screaming but there is some neurological function that prevents you from actually screaming. Or you'll feel like you can't scream in a dream because your brain is preventing you from doing it.

that's what this feels like.

I am inspired but feel suffocated.

I can stop wearing these kinds of clothes, I can stop eating meat, I can drop out of school, give away all my things and try to live off the land....

but does that do any good at all.

for me maybe, but for those people whose time has been used to place the motherboard into my computer, who will continue to assemble computers or cars or disassemble chickens, pigs and cows- will it make any difference in their lives? Will it make things better....Or worse....

will it even be able to impact the lives of those chicken, pigs and cows?

it's just such a big machine- that doesn't seem to have something as convenient as a motherboard to destroy.

I don't know where to start, or if I should stop

or what to do at all...

mum n dad

mum n dad, originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

this is maybe my favorite picture ever. I captured it on a bus in brighton when my parents and I were returning from our trip to continental europe last new years. We were all tired and this was just so cute.

Have moved my room around a bit and am feeling better about it. Discovered a secret drawer and now have enough space to lay down in my room- for those who might come to stay and for exercise purposes.

Went handing out CV's today until it started raining. Wandered through chinatown in the rain looking for hangers. Still haven't found any. Found batteries for my camera- though I didn't get to take the one picture i wanted to take today. right outside of Soho Square is the twentieth century fox building. With a great very vintage looking 20th century sign. I was very sad. Though i'm sure the building isn't going anywhere I could just go back tomorrow.

am reading History and Class Consciousness. it's a doosy. that's all I can say for it right now.

and on that note I should get back to work.

i miss you mom and dad. Hope you are both well.

remembering

beat me to the edge, originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

Today has been really...well...slow. I've had lots of school work to get done and it has finally frustrated me into doing something else. So here is a picture of my friends on top of winnemucca mountain. I had a glorious weekend there before I left the country. I am nostalgic for weekends like that now.

I'm not sure if I like it here. Isn't that funny. I think when I'm at home in my flat I'd much rather be living in brighton- but when i'm out and about I'm really happy to be in London.

Had my first real class last night. I kept wanting to ask myself...Am I really a graduate student? Am I?

It was strange and thoughtful and good and confusing and everything I expected it to be.

A couple of my classmates and I went to the birkbeck bar (which is about the size of my entire flat) to continue the discussion.

It was nice and strange and at times I felt like I was some poseur idiot trying to pretend I'm something I'm not. Still at other times I felt surrounded by a bunch of unfeeling Nihilists and like the only one with a heart (however naive and sentimental that makes me).

so yes. I am confused and delighted by that confusion, but of course concerned that I'm not smart enough, not focused enough, not in the right place-perhaps.

oh woe is me. hahaha.

will have to find the core of existence another day. for now....laundry.

a very good day indeed

frog a pint and a packet of crisps, originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

So yesterday I got up and met frog at covent garden. We walked around there admiring the performance artists, the magicians, the pigeons. It was nice. We went into lush and found a natual deodorant to our delight. At the counter where they cut the deodorant bar in half (one for each of us) frog asked about coffee places that have soy. And the woman behind the counter replied..."I know this is probably a dirty word, but I believe starbucks has soya". HA. frog and I both laughed for quite a while about that. We managed to find a coffee place that had soy and was not starbucks. i got myself a banana milkshake, because it was a warm sunny day. We then wandered into this place called neal's yard, which is just a tiny litte cove of resturants and book shops. Frog and I both said we'd like to live there, looking out on the colorful building and smelling the incense wafting up to our rooms. It was lovely. I had chicken pie which was extraordinarily good and I hope to learn how to make. We then wandered out to a place called seven dials and sat around taking pictures of people. One man had a very orange drink and I asked him if I could photograph it. He looked worried but allowed me to anyway. I haven't figured out how to post more than one picture on here. I'll be sure to try and learn.

After all that we decided (as I had actual errands to run) that we would head up to camden so frog could get a pair of socks and some bread. It took us a little while to find the tube station but we made it. Of course I'm a dork and thought that I would be able to get postage stamps on a sunday. Not so. So we wandered around, got frog some bread and decided to have a pint by the river. We scouted a seat and that's where the picture is. That's frog and a pint of London Pride (eww) and salt and vinegar crisps. We sat there drinking and talking, frog found a button that said "I love my dad" on the ground and she pinned it to herself proudly. Eventually we noticed a couple of teenagers on the bridge across from us snogging. They must have been making out for 45 minutes. The two of us completely enthralled with the technique- the hand placement- why the girl didn't put her bag down- why sometimes she was almost bent over backwards and him still leaning forward. We had many good laughs and discussions and it was a pretty glorious day.

city life

window washer seven stories up
Originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

so this picture is of the guy who was fixing something on my window. I live on the 8th floor, which to americans means the ninth floor. So to find some guy dangling out your window is somewhat suprising to me. Not so for my flatmate sofia. She says it happens all the time. Anyway I couldn't help but have a bit of fun and take a picture of this man and post a little note on my window that said- don't fall. He didn't or at least i don't think he did. Anyway that's all.

the ms's

snocone
Originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

am just missing my friends.

ominous tate

ominous tate
Originally uploaded by shavawnmarie.

the best I can do. This is a picture of the tate modern. that is a gallery in london. and there was a frida kahlo exhibition- so i went with my friend frog (who is a friend of morsa's from that crazy artfestivalinthedesert thing).

it was good. good good good good.

i was very pensive afterwards and glad for it.

so yes, back in england. In london this time. Doing well or as well as can be expected.

thought i'd see if there's any blood coarsing through the veins of this here blog. we'll see. in time i'm sure we'll see.

i've also grown into the world of picture posting. it's just more fun that way isn't it?

so there you have it. a nice juicy picture from my experience in london. yippy.

hope all is medium rare.