The juggling act

Lately I've been thinking about how at times life is a juggling act. 
It's a circus clown on stilts, throwing around four or at times five fire lit torches.  He, not only has the pressure to be able to stand on stilts with giant clown shoes,  he also has the whole audience watching intensely to see if he drops a torch or even worse catches on fire. The audience gets more excited as he struggles or when he lights more torches. This my friends is a very extended metaphor for the life we all live in. 

We have the pressure to balance all these responsibilities on top of not embarrassing ourselves (too much) and all these aspects of life keep "lighting up" and we have to continue juggling everything.  On top of that we have what at times feels like the rest of the world looking at us,  whispering and wondering when we'll fall.  Pressure and responsibilities don't discriminate,  every man, women, tall, short, black, white, orange, Asian, American or British have them.  I've been noticing it more, especially now that I'm living in a big city, how much people juggle in their lives. The business people on the tube carrying their brief cases full of work they didn't finish, while on the phone with their child who's so excited to have them come home, the look on their face of exhaustion leads me to think they're juggling much more..or the people in my classes that tell me they are studying part time, working full time and are mothers of four! And all these responsibilities makes it hard to have free time, to spend with family, friends and to simply enjoy things life has to offer. 
So it's important that this clown gets at least one day off a week to step away from the show,  but in real life that might not be possible and it can lead to a very stressed out clown, which can leading further down to depression (my psych way of thinking is beginning to show) and a can lead to a sad, very sad clown. It's important to try and find some time for a break from it all. 

We're all running our own circus show. In my juggling act, I now have the pressure of  being new to a country and trying to not embarrass myself too much. One torch is lit with the pressure of studying again after two years off,  another with the pressure of getting used to the British uni system, and all these endless readings. On top of that I have to make sure I'm setting some time aside to make good friendships here and keep in touch with those far. So in my circus I'm a short clown, whose shoes are too big and is still getting used to her stilts, and juggling three or four fire torches. As expected, there are days I have stressful freak outs.. but for the most part I'm able to sustain myself on the stilts and keep on preforming.  Either way though I'm loving most of it for now.  Happy clown. 

The point is, even though we have so much to do in life, it's important, to try and find time to enjoy the little things (yes zombieland is an awesome movie, also if you were thinking yolo, please exit my blog now). 

The end to my philosophical mumbo jumbo :D 

the dorm room life.

So its been.. about, around four? years since my last dorm room experience (Laplata 7 what what!?) and although this hall is both postgrads and undergrads and I have my own kitchen area and bathroom it still resembles an American dorm at times. There's a diner, with mediocre food, and noise from undergrads parting, all of which I'm fine with and expected. But this week, I had to deal with a little unexpected visitor in my room, who was never part of the plan.

On Tuesday night, before going to bed, I saw something run from next to my mini fridge to the other side of the stove, all I originally did was stare towards the kitchen area, as i didn't know what just ran by, just that something did, and so I stared.. stared for what seemed like forever, hoping,wishing,praying, that it wasn't my most dreaded fear inducing bug- Mr cockroach. But thank goodness it wasn't, because if it had been.. this would be an entirely different blog about how I ran around London like a crazy person after seeing one. but anyways, Mr mouse came back out and I pointed at him and said NOOOO. and he ran away.

 I got up from my bed, looked at everything food related I had left out and threw half of it out scared he had already been in it, and put the rest of what i thought he hadn't gotten too in the fridge. I then proceeded to clean everything possible, at 2am mind you. I had a mold & mildew spray for the bathroom that contains bleach.. and used that everywhere, because I googled that mice don't like the smell of bleach. I then had the courage to open every single drawer in my kitchen to see if i could scare Mr mouse away. I then heard him crawling underneath my sink, and that's the only second I squealed  like a girl and realised I would not be able to do anything if i found him while opening the cabinets besides scream and run away so I decided I was going to try and sleep. Between the mix of the smell of bleach and the irrational fear that Mr mouse was going to crawl into my bed, it was a hard night. I woke up the next morning and ran to reception to ask for help. I remained calm, knowing that if I yelled it would not help. The man at reception was really nice and helped me set up traps, and told me he would call pest control the next day. We never caught Mr mouse, but they did find a hole behind my fridge and fixed it. So for now, I won the battle against Mr mouse, and had to sadly remind myself that not only am I living with probably around 500 other people, but I'm also living in a major city, where rodents are common... never leaving food out ever again. Apparently mice don't like the smell of mint either?

A friend of mine reminded me of this mousehunt movie, and this is entirely how i felt on tuesday night.

More observations after being in London for about a month:

• Wildlife: London, has a lot of animals. Lots of birds, pigeons, geese, peacocks (just chilling at hollandpark) and the one I've just learned about; urban foxes, everywhere, according to this picture, even on the tube. 

• Fashion: Its bit obvious, but man do Londoners know how to dress (OK i guess it depends on who you look at). Both females and men, are wearing everything perfectly. Sweatpants are never seen, PJ's to classes are not an option. 
• Making out/Snogging: Is everywhere, its very public, and especially at night in pubs/bars/clubs. 
• Addresses: make absolutely no sense, the numbers do not go by evens and odds, and while your at number 105 take two steps and you'll be at 300. They have maps all over the places for the tourists (and the directionally slow like myself) but these maps are NOT facing north, their just a map of exactly how the streets are- a bit confusing. 
• Tea: although its always been a stereotype that the English love tea and drink tea every day at 5PM, while I been here I can say they do fancy their tea, but not in the carzyly exaggerated way seen in marry poppins. I always smile and haven't gotten used to guys asking each other "Ay mate, fancy some tea before we head to the next class!?". 
• THE Meltingpot: There seems to be very few people who live in London who are actually from London. London is more of a melting pot than New York. You step outside and can be submerged in endless chatter in 20 different languages, all NOT english. 
• Beer: Beer at pubs are not always served stereotypically at room temperature. A few that I've had, have been roomtemp, but most have been cold. Alsooo beer here that claim they re IPA's are nottt..Cider here is really good though :) 

brilliant, bollocks, knackered, chav, bog, quid.

I love the fact that I'm fluent in English (American i guess) and I've learned so many new words here. Ok, so most of them are slang, but still, its hilarious having a conversation with someone who's English and not understanding half of what their saying.  I always ask people to repeat stuff, but at time some people have had to ask ME to repeat stuff as well, so you know, i say tomato you say tomato. Loving the new words thrown at me, disliking the difference's in the spelling. Behavour, theatre, favourite, yoghurt= better set my spell check to English (United Kingdom).

in case you had no idea where that saying comes from :P 

I'm in love with London's architecture. Its a huge city, but it doesn't feel as intimidating as new york ( and although its mostly always gray, you can see the sky here!) Here you can see any style of building you want. Theres a few things from before the great fire, buildings from the late 17 century, or 18th or 19th or the new sky liners. It's awesome and I'm as in love with this city as I was when i first visited it when I was 17 (maybe so even more now). I wish I had more time to explore, I know after i finish this year, I'll travel and really take it all in. 

Here is a picture of how i spent my week:

This weekend was a nice relaxing one- spent most of it reading- but i did get to go to a vintage thrift shop, which was selling everything for  ₤1! Sara and I, took a bus at around 10am, to east London where this place was at. Upon arriving we were greeted by 500 people, like actually, 500 people. Long story short, when they started letting people in, it was like a stampede of animals. It was a very interesting experience. The racks were full of all these crazy cool boho vintage clothes. I bought purple leather pants! and a goofy shirt! so cheap, so fun.

the end.

Limited culture shock

While I've been in London for the past few weeks, I've been surprised at the lack of culture shock I've had. Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but so far, my frustrations have been limited. Besides having to always carry a converter for the three huge electricity plugs they use here, and slowly getting used to the love for coins, I think I've actually mastered crossing the street/ and looking the opposite way (I've even biked "on the wrong side of the road" already).

wall sockets here in case you didn't know 

 I've gotten used to changing how I say certain words because I get strange looks. And surprisingly, so far, the weather has been pretty nice. It rain's but its that overcast-drizzle-stop-the start again- rain. Which for now I prefer more than crazy downpours. I'm expecting it to get grosser/colder out though. English food, is not the best, they have good fries chips and their into healthy and organic stuff, so I love that there are fresh outside fruit and veggie markets. 

But MAN does London have AMAZING restaurants. Seriously, I think this city might beat Paris on the quality of international/gourmet restaurants. I haven't been able to try many, have been to a couple this last few days when my parents where here, but everywhere you walk there are restaurants, and I always stop to admire the menus and die with envy at the business men eating there. If i have any money after I graduate, I'm going to properly celebrate finishing my masters and eat at one of those 5 start restaurants around here. So needless to say I haven't had trouble with the food, besides I'm cooking for myself a lot as well.

 And I've also, so far have had a pretty good time meeting people and making friends. Originally that was one of my main concerns. How do you make new friends when you move to a new country. I think it's definitely helping that I'm in an academic setting, living in a undergrad and grad school hall and I'm literally in the middle of 4 or 5 other college campuses. The first weekend was a bit lonely, but I knew id meet people soon. The international orientation helped a lot, and I've gotten a good group of international friends, who are all so nice, interesting and all going through similar experiences so I'm hoping we stay friends so I can continue asking them questions/sharing my frustrations (such as why in a major city like London the tube closes at 12am!?) Plus we've already been planning to go to the harry potter studios when we have time, and already planned having some sort of a thanksgiving and seeing each other on Halloween. I saw most of them this weekend as well. In my course (aka major) there are 14 girls. Of course my developmental psychology (child/adolescent psychology for those who don't know) course is all females, who would expect differently :). All of the girls are really nice, and were all so excited yet so terrified of the year to come. I see all of them in all my classes so its nice to have a small group. I've also made some friends here at the hall, which is nice when they say Hi when they see you coming in and out, because its nice to know like at least someone knows your name. The undergrads are in the whole OMG-everyone is my friend-lets get drunk and not go to classes together- phase, but us post grads are in the HOLYSHIT i have to read all this crap this whole term-wait did the Internet just go out-I'm about to murder someone-phase, and having someone say HI makes you feel a bit normal. 

Woo I've been writing alot. So I'm getting used to the amount of reading we have to do in grad school. It's alot more than under gad, but what I find most frustrating right now, is the lack of guidance on WHAT to read. I guess I'm used to professors in undergrad being like look this is the book we will use, and you need to read this chapter for this class. In grad school- at least here- they give you a "reading list" for the week that includes literally entire textbook and are like yea so this is the recommended reading list. OK recommended, so does that mean I should read all of it, or only the ones i want to or what!? I've been reading mostly parts of everything, that are relevant to the next lecture and hoping that how people are doing it. I signed up for a bunch of academic writing workshops, which will help me, because all my classes are graded with only ONE final essay. My entire grade in the class depends on ONE essay, and if i fuck up I'm screwed. So needless to say my dyslexic self is going to write 523945849320 essays before I turn the final ones in. 

I got to see my parents this week, i loved it, and they loved London. Mom help me organize my entire room today, before they left, and it's looking so much homier. They brought me tapestries from Uganda and I've put up a bunch of pictures :). Saw my cousin on my dad's side this weekend too, she lives here with her family-adorable 2 year old daughter. I'm excited to get to know her better, as we haven't lived in the same country in forever. Ok now I'm hungry, so I'm off to make dinner and continue reading the one fun recommended read in my genetics of development class.