Day 114, 30 April: Into Study Mode

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 114. Into Study Mode

      As my way of starting off the study week, I joined Charlie and we set off for the library. Once we were there, it only took about twenty minutes for Charlie to realize something: we were sitting next to a guy that I’d like to call ‘The Breathing Man’. He breathed nasally at every intake of air, as he sipped up the words of some research book on Milton. Well that’s my notion—Charlie believes he really was on his phone the whole time.

      By lunch I headed back and got a nice bit of studying done on William Blake’s representation of childhood in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The day was warm and sunny outside, but I stayed inside, out of habit mostly. I took the night off from studying and uploaded all the Europe trip photos from Amsterdam all the way to Lisbon, Portugal.  349 pictures, and it took forever actually, with the tagging and individually locating half an album if it covered two different cities.

      In the evening I called up Katya (skype-mobile connection) and also had interesting talks in the kitchen with Jen as she described that hippos sink because their legs consist largely of just bone. Dinner was good and I actually cooked at 6. Ha, Gemma! And apparently Alvin and Charlie were also aware of this odd change from my usual 9 o’clock dinner. The night drifted on and Vinnie was asleep before me.

Day 113, 29 April: When Motivation Flies Out the Window

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 113. When Motivation Flies Out the Window

When motivation flies out the window, and you have time to spare before the onset of stress, the byproduct may be this: too much time. Yes, I spent today R.E.L.A.X.I.N.G.—Really, Eagerly Languishing And Xylophones Initially Never Gong (I think this nonsense speaks for itself).

Skyping Clare!

      Now I did do abs and run today—it was an incredibly good feeling to power past the puddles of pouring rain precipitously playing along the sidewalk (alliteration is amazingly awesome and addicting). The late afternoon weather actually brightened up and dried the rain away, which was nice for a change.

Dinner, Tea, oh yeah...I should read...

In the Kitchen, Charlie, Alvin's back, Gemma (hard to see)

       Yes, as Marika asked me this morning, today is skype Sunday—unfortunately it was only a 30-minute session with Katya, completely unplanned due to her busy schedule that, like a cloudy day, suddenly had the clouds open up for a little bit of time.  It was good to see her, as always.

Yes, my pasta just kept bubbling over tonight.
My fast solution: keep blowing on it.

      There was another skype that was unexpected, at least for me: a flat skype session with an old flatmate from last semester: Clare! She’s Eastern Australian, I believe, and currently there now, in her rental. Most of us (Gemma, Jen, Dan, Charlie, Alvin, Ryan, Matt Lithuanian Laura, and I) crowded into Jen’s room and we all hovered over the laptop monitor, non-creepily. It was fun.

My Best Attempt at the 10-Second Camera Shot Setting

       Gemma gave me a hard time about how my dinnertime is perpetually late-ten PM. I said no, it’s usually nine PM. And, confound it, the day passed by me playing guitar, reading (I so wish this was the majority), and taking pictures of myself jumping in the air. So, yes, Gemma turned out to be right again: I had dinner a little after 9pm, yet again.

      Now it’s nearly eleven and I haven’t read nearly as much as I should’ve today. Oy vey (did you know that this phrase is actually Yiddish? Yes, indeed, I looked it up. It means ‘Oh, pain’.), but hey, it was fun hearing Jen talk in Welsh in the kitchen, hearing Gemma and Jen mention also their lack of productivity today, playing on Dan’s guitar, hearing Charlie say that he likes my American accent because it’s subtle, tossing around a Nightmare Before Christmas pillow in Jen’s room, deflecting a small plush globe ball back to Charlie and to Jen in the hallway, realizing that I haven’t spent a pence since Thursday, and now deciding that maybe I can squeeze in a bit more reading before a hopefully earlier wake-up hour. Cheers!

Day 112, 28 April: Lazy Saturday

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 112. Lazy Saturday

The day was full of rain and big incentives to stay indoors. Charlie and I had separately considered running, but we had both come to our own conclusions that the rain was just too much. Neither did we go to the library today, which was another idea, because the library has become an overstuffed pin cushion of people at every seat, on every floor, and every computer.

       Charlie did manage to go out a little today and he saw a famous Rugby player on campus today, Toby Flood, the fly half for the Leichester Tigers. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to him, so he simply went up, shook Toby’s hand, wished him luck in getting to Finals [since Charlie has tickets for that game] and was off. As much as he regrets not getting a picture with him, he approached the situation quite tactfully.

Charlie said this was the best dish he's
seen me make. Aww, thanks, Charlie.

        After my decisions to neither run nor go to the library, I decided to stay in the flat today. I finished Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, for the second time (read it in tenth grade), and still found it hard to get through. I breezed through the last four episodes of How I Met Your Mother Season 5, but the bulk of the day, or night rather, was spent playing guitar and chatting with Katya. And reading a bit more of another literature novel. My fingers and eyes were dry and burning by the time I rested my head down for bed.

      

Day 111, 27 April: Afternoon Tea and British Accents

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 111. Afternoon Tea and British Accents

It was one of those mornings where my body set its own alarm—the phone alarm buzzed all right, but my hand swiped it down faster than my body could process the notion that it was a school morning (not day—2 hours in the morning is not a school day. I love uni.). I got eight hours of sleep, almost on the dot. The downside: Ahhh! 9:30! I’m late!

      Ten minutes late, I treaded into the classroom and unlike nineteenth century, the Romanticism seminar had a more structured revision session. Afterwards, I invited Stef over for tea, in which we used the time waiting for the tea to steep for going over the notes we missed separately. I felt so British in having afternoon tea.

      Since Stef lived in the same block of Norfolk Terrace last year, she had the same cleaning lady Judy. It turned out that Judy was just finishing the kitchen as we entered and she recognized Stef. It was a great moment.

      Meanwhile, a guy was busy fixing the refrigerator situation for the second time. In case I may have not mentioned it, there was a disastrous moment over spring break in which both the fridges and freezers in our flat stopped. All our food perished. As the first one back, Matt boldly went about cleaning the whole thing. He almost died of the smell the first time he opened the fridge, but he survived. And really did a good job cleaning everything. So the day I was gone this week, Wednesday, the right fridge stopped working. Again. All my food was in that fridge. Luckily, Matt and Vinnie put my food in the other fridge and I salvaged most of it.

      Oh yeah, and speaking of maintenance issues, I still don’t have carpet. The white layer between stone floor and carpet is tearing up in pieces. It’s clinging to my socks too. It’s just annoying.

      Anyway, tea was great. I used vanilla soymilk in replace of milk and my tea was much sweeter than I usually have it. One thing I’ve picked up in my time here is an appreciation for milk tea (not boba, which is an Asian, tapioca milk tea very, very popular in Berkeley, back in California, but té con leche, tea with milk). Stef met Stephen, Vinnie, and Alvin, I believe, and there was that moment when Stef knew who they were and they knew who she was—because of this blog. It’s freaky sometimes when that kinda thing happens.

      After a stop at the library, I said farewell to Stef and headed back to my room. This reminds me of something I forgot to mention yesterday—I was outside the library and saw Kate. I had a good talk with her about my Europe trip and about her desire to go to America. When she pulled off an American girl accent, I was impressed—and the American accent crystallized in my mind. Seeing a British friend of mine talk American was a profound experience. The British dialects (because there are definitely many regional accents—north London, Cornish, Bristol, Essex, Norwich, etc.) have a certain reverence to the vowels, with long a’s and o’s. So, to oversimplify, I’d put down the American with a ‘wide’ inflection to English and the British with a ‘tall’ one (in terms of mouth shape in pronouncing words).

      The rest of this day was spent indoors, except for abs and running after 6. I had another late dinner around 9:20 and decided against going out tonight. I had more time to talk to Katya and recover from the deadline stress of yesterday. I also got back into watching How I Met Your Mother, an American TV show. I was still up late, as late as Vinnie returning, because I decided to start on another story. This one about a dark, anti-intellectual dystopia…

Day 110, 26 April: Deadline

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 110. Deadline

I woke up, went for my first run of the week, showered, and walked late to class. Generally, I run, but I just knew that I’d be out of breath by the time I entered the seminar. I was more relaxed—I stress this point, because I don’t walk when I’m late, so…big steps in being less uptight about school. (I actually left the Nineteenth Century revision seminar early as well—very few stayed the whole time, and I stayed for the texts I plan to write on in the exam.)

      The rest of the day was a battle of time until midnight. I worked thoroughly, not quickly, so I really did spend all afternoon half-rewriting, half-redrafting, then editing, and re-editing my short story. By dusk, I ended up in the fourth draft with a more filled-in story than I had previously. The premise is simple: a boy finds a strange fountain pen that doesn’t work like a normal pen. It gives him the strength to talk to a girl through a strange blood ritual. Yes, I lied. The premise is not simple; ‘slightly odd’ would be a better way of putting it. But it’s my first short story that has a style of writing that isn’t boring, redundant, or flat-out dull. I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen King recently, so that’s where my influence lies…

      The worst part was the word count. 2,000 words. It felt like I was squashing a whole dinner plate of food into a tiny container and hoping that it would still be edible, still make sense. I kept having 200-400 words over in my final stages of writing, so I had to annihilate details here and there that I had rather liked. 2,086 was close enough. Meanwhile, I was thinking, in envy, how King’s novellas have character and plot developments that have all the room in the world to expand in.

      The best part of today was the final hour. 11pm. I hadn’t actually started part two of the assignment until 9, but I managed to get through most of the 500-word self-commentary and by 11:40, I was done with everything. I stamped on the page numbers, double-spaced the story, and emailed it to myself.

      11:43. I ran a flat-out sprint to the library, running along the elevated, cement walkway above the terraces. I swiped in, ran to a free computer, downloaded the email attachments, and printed.

      11:46. First printer I tried had no paper. 11:47. Second printer I tried had no ink. 11:48. Finally, I just looked at all the printers until I saw a ‘Ready’ sign. I got it printed on the third try.

      11:49. I walked a few feet from the printers to two guys sitting in an opened-door study room. ‘Can I use that pen?’ I wrote down my tutor’s name. ‘And do you have a stapler?’ One guy checked his bag. He did. I thanked them and ran.

      11:52. I saw the box. The official in charge of collecting all the paperwork submitted was hovering above it. I went through the library gate and dropped it in.

      My adrenaline was soaring like a rocket flying through the atmosphere. I went back to Norfolk Terrace, told Alvin my story, remembered I had to return a book, ran back to the library, ran back to the Terrace, told Dan and Gum Gum the story, and then settled down and watched How I Met Your Mother. While in the kitchen, I heard more of how Gum Gum, or Wilson, became fluent in English: his schooling in Hong Kong included 10 years of studying it (Hong Kong was once an English colony). He wants to be an English teacher back in Hong Kong, and I have to give it to him, doing his entire university education in English as a second language is admirable.

      Despite the stress in the final minutes to turn in a paper before the deadline, there is a certain degree of excitement, a survival instinct that surfaces and changes the stress into a challenge. (I do not advocate this strategy, but if it happens, it happens.) The body goes into a highly concentrated mode of activity, the mind forgets all other details and carries a single-minded focus to accelerate the task at hand. At least that’s what I experience. The academic world briefly transforms into a running race—and I have no other choice but to sprint to the finish.

Day 109, 25 April: In the Rain with Shakespeare

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 109. In the Rain with Shakespeare

I made it up at 4:10am. The taxi texted its arrival seven minutes before my desired pick-up time, 4:30. Rushing, I grabbed my shaving cream and razor and backpack and left. I edited the third draft of my short story on the train, then brainstormed the part two of the assignment, a 500-word critical self-commentary.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

      I shaved at Liverpool Street Station in London, bidding my time until Sierra’s later train came in (the cheapest train for me was 5am—I got the ticket later than I should’ve). Sierra and I made it through the Underground to King’s Cross, vaguely knowing where to go until we saw familiar faces from our London orientation. It felt like yesterday since I’d seen them. Jennifer and Sarah I saw first—they were wearing so many layers and jackets that they looked like eskimos. I then saw Katy and Jami. Amelia and Amy were there too; they had both cut their hair for a stylish look. Out of the eleven of us, eight of us had decided to go on this Shakespearean excursion to Stratford-upon-Avon. There were a dozen or more there too, since this was a whole UCEAP-opened event, but I met only one or two of them.

Jennifer and Sarah, as Eskimos

      The coaches both ways were my times to sleep, building up to a little over 6 hours by the end of the day. Unfortunately, we had to quit our first coach, a Mercedes Benz, due to technical issues, and the whole day was a day of rain. London, Norwich (I heard from Dan it was pouring there), and Stratford-upon-Avon.

      Still, the trip was well worth the effort. Upon arrival, my first glimpse of the provincial town of Stratford-upon-Avon involved the canal running right next to an elaborate structure I discovered to be the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. This town is the birthplace of Shakespeare, so the theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company naturally had to live up to the standard expected of its Shakespearean tribute.

Half a Chicken

      Lunch was incredible. On our way there, we walked along the canal, stopping for a photo op as a group and then another one to take pictures of the swans, coming up to us and expecting food. I began seeing barge after barge of restaurant boats, and I forgot to ask why they were there. We crossed the street and there was the restaurant, The Encore. We had all pre-ordered via email a month in advance, for the sake of convenience. The mushroom side and the half-chicken entrée were incredible. Oh, and even the tea was superb. I was incredibly stuffed afterwards.

      Next was the play. On the upper circle, the third and highest tier of the theatre (designed like the Globe in London, but indoors and heavily modernized), we found our seats and watched The Comedy of Errors. I saw the plot hinge upon the whole doubleness that can be seen in Twelfth Night and even akin to Midsummer Night’s Dream (in the sense that the lovers mistaken who they love): two twin brothers wind up in the same town, one a stowaway and one a citizen, and they both have servants who are also twin brothers (long ago they lived together but were separated by a storm at sea). Things get all entangled with the mistaken identities.

Inside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

      The set was one of the most impressive I had ever seen: a construction crane was situated on the high ceiling and literally lifted an entire living room with two characters seated at a table. There were trapdoors horizontally and vertically (upstage near the wings) and at the edge of one part of the stage was a tank of water to indicate the edge of a dock. An actual tank of water was placed on stage and used for the torture sequence in act one, scene one. The sets utterly blew me away.

Me in Front of Shakespeare's House

      The acting was equally superb. Maybe it was the acting, but I never got lost apart from the first scene. I followed the play and really, really loved the scenes in which the servants, both named Dromio, constantly got beaten up for disobeying orders (when they were really obeying the other brother, both confusingly named Antipholus). Amelia, a theatre major, commented later on one small flaw in one of the female characters, the overuse of arm movements. It was interesting to hear a critique from one who studies the subject. Lastly, the costumes helped bring the play into a modern atmosphere.

      The rest of our time in Stratford-upon-Avon, for most of the group, was spent walking the quaint streets and passing the old-fashioned buildings. We— Jami, Amelia, Amy, Amy’s friend, Katy, and I—as in our group of six,  took pictures of each other in front of the house Shakespeare lived in as a child, but the tour was thirteen pounds, so we decided to walk further and stop into the oh-too-tempting chocolate and olde sweet shoppes. We were in the rain with Shakespeare all around us—whether it was the house, or the statue of a jester with Shakespeare quotes on all four sides of the base, or the banner ‘Shakespeare’s Birthplace’ down one of the streets.

      The coach back to London was another nap, then Sierra and I spent our waiting hour at Liverpool Street Station having good conversations with Jennifer and her boyfriend Abdullah, who met up with his there. The British education system is definitely hard to adjust to, in the sense that all examinations come in May and June—there aren’t examinations after the first term in the fall, so the by-product is a five weeks of examinations. Luckily, I just have two in the first two weeks, but that means next Friday. And, just to topple on the stress, examinations are worth 50% or more of the courses. But we managed to talk about other things. Apparently Abdullah has got down a solid British accent in his year studying at Queen Mary University of London, getting his masters in finances in just one year (one upside to the British system).

      After a day of traveling, adding on the two-hour train ride back to Norwich and the taxi ride back to Norfolk Terrace at UEA, I was exhausted and in bed before midnight.

Day 108, 24 April: School Again; Story Exercises

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 108. School Again; Story Exercises

Today I started buckling down on the short story—more in the stressing-out than the redrafting, though. Office hours reminded me of the ‘easy’ nature of the critical self-commentary, a part two to the assignment. I hope it turns out well.

Colours!

      I was efficient in my cooking (time-wise) and day overall, as far as I could be with three hours of class and some necessary time to email and chat with Katya before tomorrow’s day-long trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and back to Norwich (with starts and stops in London in-between).

      I have to admit, having a Romanticism seminar felt odd. I was in school again after so much time not. The sublime, an emotional phenomenon Edmund Burke explains as a paralyzing astonishment one has in the midst of witnessing something as obscure and ungraspable as a mountain with its peak in the clouds, intrigued me. In essence, the sublime transforms in different guises in the Romantic poets—Wordsworth takes on an egotistical approach (‘half-creating’ in Tintern Abbey) and Charlotte Smith challenges Wordsworth with ownership and dis-ownership from half-creating the sublime in poetry (see, a mountain itself is not sublime; how we describe it in obscure, mysterious, dark, and even threatening ways fills us with this un-fillable uncertainty that can never be filled. Milton’s description of Satan is the poetic epitome of the sublime, for Burke).

      Then onto the Chamber of Whiteboards for my last creative writing introduction class at the University of East Anglia ever. The exercises were interesting. At one point, we had to take figurative expressions and write a short story of how it can be taken literally. Here’s mine, pardon my French:

The shit hit the fan

I was carrying the bucket of manure from one end of the house to another that morning. I really don’t know why I decided to do that. Maybe it was the quick peak I could get of the television screen coming to life in the living room. I had heard it loud and clear, explosions and all, when I had been in the backyard watering the plants.

                It was now some cartoon without explosions. Yawn. I strolled past and into the kitchen, proud that I remembered my task this morning. Fertilizing. Ahh, so boring but it’ll be over soon.

                Oh  no, here comes Johnny—annoying, annoying Johnny.

‘Mommy, mommy, can I get this new toy? I saw it on the tele! Can I—‘

Boom. That was all it took. He ran into me. He flung his hands in front of him and all. That’s probably why the bucket suddenly lifted from my hands as if it was an offering to the fertilizing gods.

But apparently the gods don’t like it going upwards. The ceiling fan was on full blast and it only took a second for me to realize what was going to happen.

‘DUCK!’ I cried, throwing myself to the ground.

My brother didn’t move, though. He was petrified. But I was rolling in laughter as I saw the shit hit the fan and absolutely cover him in fecal confetti.

I laughed for the next hour while he cried. I was so happy.

It’s almost twelve now and I’m up at 4:15am tomorrow. Luckily, I’ll be able to sleep on the trains and coaches. 

Day 107, 23 April: Breakdown of a Day from Peace to Stress

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 107. Breakdown of a Day from Peace to Stress

I decided to keep an hourly sense of awareness to how my day progressed. For the purposes of writing this post quickly, I will not mention all that occurred but here are the highlights:

9-9:30 cleaned the flat kitchen, helped bring in groceries for Laura (LOw-ra)

--worked on my short story, showered, ate breakfast, ate lunch, got ready

2:20-6:40 30-minute bus to the city centre, new running shoes (New Balance again), four bags of groceries (for two weeks plus rice and spices), 30-minute bus back to UEA

Cheese-Ham-Mushroom-Veggie Stir-fry

9-10:20 preparing, cooking, eating, cleaning—I realize that I definitely take my time in this activity

10:30-12:40am online: emailing, IM-ing Katya, and buying train tickets for the UCEAP (Univ. of California Educations Abroad Program) event starting in London and taking a coach to Stratford-upon-Avon for a daytrip. This last thing caused me really considerable stress: the last ‘cheap’ (barely worthwhile) ticket for 6am and 5:30am ran out. I got stuck with a 5am ticket from Norwich to London Liverpool Street Station. I was pissed. I have to be at King’s Cross by 8am, though. I’ll just sleep.

Oh yeah, this happened too. Yes, that is
 a strainer and that is a fork.

      Second thing: looking through the requirements and expectations for the short story due this Thursday. I think the rhetoric of school assignments has always given me stress just reading them, but coupled with the train anxiety, it was worse this time. I don’t know how much I have to rewrite to fit certain conventions.

      As I got into my bed (by 12:46), I realized I had begun today with a calm mindset and I ended the day in the turmoil and boiling cesspool of traveling and school stress.

      But one thing lightened my heart, and this day: I received Katya’s anniversary parcel in the mail. She sent my favourite candy (Reese’s buttercups) and a collage of ridiculous and wonderful photos of us. In this sea of stress, in the fear of being sucked into whirlpools of chaos, I found a life buoy to hold onto and calm me down. 

Day 106, 22 April: Back to Skype Sundays

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 106. Back to Skype Sundays

Being back in Norwich has given me the opportunity to restart my Sunday tradition: skype.

That’s pretty much all I did today: four hours divided between Katya, parents, and Labyrinthian roommates back in Berkeley. And that is what I call a lazy Sunday, talking in two Californian kitchens and a living room. 

Day 105, 21 April: 'Friendship Groups' Revisited

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 105. ‘Friendship Groups’ Revisited

My fifth day abroad was the day I met Vinnie (my roommate Vinnie), Joe (New Zealand Joseph), Mo (longer than to say ‘hi’ at registration), Anna (who was my fellow sheep when Mo was ‘lil Mo peep’ during the annoyingly long scavenger hunt on Day 6), Michael (UEA Choir guy), and Briar (at the time thought she was siblings or something with Michael). The seventh day I met my flatmates: Dan the Man, Garlic Jen (her nickname), Alvin (A-dog), Charlie (Chaz), Gemma (Jim-Jam, a nickname from her past), Marie (Mai’, the nickname everyone but flatmates call her), Irish Laura, Lithuanian Laura (LOW-ra), Wilson (Gum Gum), Stephen, Matt, Ryan, and our honorary flatmate Steff (Jen’s boyfriend). The thirteenth day I met friends of Dodo (the UEA student at UC Berkeley this year; I met him at Jill Buch’s Berkeley luncheon): Kate and Stef (who conveniently turned out to be in my Romanticism and Nineteenth Century modules). I’d meet their housemates Helen and Liam later on. On the Suffolk Castles trip, I bonded with Marika, Morgana, and Rebecca. Then there was the last-minute trip to London with Marika, Morgana, and Alex. During Mrs. Buch’s luncheon on Day 39, I discussed next year academics with my fellow Berkeley-ian abroad Sierra. Meanwhile, I met Kat at Cambridge and on the Dublin trip, Caitlin and Vito in planning for and traveling through our European adventure, and Devon in Milan.

      I mention all this because today felt like a sort of summation of the friends I’ve made here. I know I’ve probably left out quite a few names, but it’s hard to summarize the connections one has made in four months in one entry. The purpose of this entry is to express the general joy I have in knowing the people I know here and wherever I am, even if I’m 5000 miles from what I once called exclusively ‘home’.

      But beyond just making this an entry about friendships (or rather, ‘friendship groups’, as the joke was back in day five), I really felt them today. I went to the library to pay off Caitlin for the ferry from Naples and Palermo, but I also went for a break from my quiet room. I ran into Stef on the staircase, taking a break from studying, and then found Caitlin on the top floor of the overcrowded library. It was good to see her, however briefly. She told me where Joe, Vito, and Liam (from the Amsterdam portion of the Europe trip) were and I went to visit them, stopping to see Stef and Helen and Kate studying (well, Stef had a book definitely not academic on her desk and Helen surely had a facebook tab opened on her laptop, but hey, who’s looking). One good side-effect of the end of a semester is that more people are in one place, the library, and the stressful experience of studying is lightened by knowing others are feeling it too.

      In the evening, the flat got together to celebrate Stephen’s birthday—well, unfortunately, it was a fragmented celebration between two flats, but nevertheless, he was still as happy and buzzing as a bee. The rest of us were buzzing too, and we decided to head over to the LCR, maybe the last time together until the examinations are over (or ever??? No, too dramatic).

      In the interlude between planning to go and going, I finally found out what LCR stands for: Lower Common Room. After all this time, THAT’s what it means? I was disappointed. I like the Harry Potter-British feel of the phrase ‘Common Room’, but ‘lower’ is just an awful, awful modifier. It should be ‘Legit Common Room’, if I were to name it.  

      I barely made it outside the door of the flat when I heard my name yelled as if it was a war cry or something. ‘SPENCER!’

      Before I knew it, I was in the midst of a whirlpool of hugs and friends. The core of my international travel friends were there (except Vinnie still in Madeira). Kat, Joe, Mo, Anna, Briar, Devon, Caitlin, Vito. It was great to see them all there at once. I saw them and instantly remembered parts of my travels with them. Kat and the Guinness factory; Mo, Anna, and Briar and the frenzy of green we wore before our first Dublin excursion; Joe, Devon, Caitlin, and Vito and the Sicilian beach, the night overlooking all of Florence and seeing the magnificent Duomo di Firenze from afar, and the bike ride through Amsterdam. So many good travel memories rushed through me all at once.

      Once at the LCR with them, I remember doing dramatic spins at one point (possibly in a friendly dance-off with Kat) and if it weren’t for Mo catching me and then Joe catching me (while spinning), I might’ve been clumsier. Needless to say, I was in high spirits dancing that night. There was one part of the night that particularly made me feel a part of UEA: I was leading this guy Nathan to Joe when every other minute I found friends behind me or in front of me. I saw Michael and we did a dramatic ‘heyyy!’ almost synchronized, and then resumed what we were doing before. I went on the dance floor and turned around to see Marika, Rebecca, Alex, and Morgana. Later I ran into Dan, Jen, Marie, Stephen, Matt, Charlie, and Alvin. I danced in a group with Devon and her friends, then saw Mo and Caitlin too. At some point, Nathan turned to me, as all this was happening, and said, ‘Wow, Spencer, you’re really feeling the love tonight, huh?’ I laughed at this but in a way it was true. In the next few minutes Nathan went off and the next thing I knew someone was pulling me around and there was Charlie and Alvin.

      From the library to the LCR today, I felt really connected to the friends I’ve met at UEA. I don’t mean to say this in a good-bye, good-to-know-ya way, but just in a grateful sense. It’s a simple but powerful feeling to feel part of people’s lives and have them feel part of your life, however small or large a part it is.

Day 104, 20 April: Dialogue Day #2

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 104. Dialogue Day #2

With his back against the brick wall, he lit his cigarette with the fickle lighter. On the third flick the flame finally connected to the paper, and he took in his first nicotine-filled breath of the night.

      ‘Alright, Pete, we better get to talking.’ He attempted a smoke ring but failed.

      The guy named Pete finally looked his way, hesitant. ‘Uh, sure, Frank, what should we talk about?’

      Frank looked at him. ‘You don’t remember? We followed that kid today.’ The cigarette went out. Piece of crap. ‘He wants us to record how his day went.’ He relit.

      ‘Uh, did he say that? I don’t remember…’

      ‘Shut it, Pete. Just for that, you go ahead and dive in first.’

      He licked his lips. ‘He woke up.’

      A mocking Frank jumped up and clapped. ‘Very, very observant, my friend.’ He leaned back against the wall, his dull expression back on his face. ‘Now say something interesting.’

      ‘It rained off and on all day. The kid stayed indoors for most of it.’

      ‘Getting warmer…still making me fall asleep.’ Frank closed his eyes, committing to his joke.

      ‘Fine!’ Pete fired back, ‘Then you demonstrate!’

      ‘Walking through the rain, the boy managed to journey over to the UEA Hotel, asking for Eleanor Crawford at the desk. He proceeded to the door on the right. There before him was the elegant lady he had met around the time of Mrs. Jill’s luncheon, way back in Day 39. She had pale skin, as if she had been more in fluorescent light than sunlight.

      ‘She handed him a letter from Mrs. Jill. A thank-you note, for his thank-you note, to continue this pleasant cycle of gratitude. Mrs. Jill also invited him and the other Berkeley student Sierra to her lodge in the next two weeks, on a Thursday. Smiling, he closed the letter.’

      Pete held up his hands, defensively, ‘All right, all right, I get it. You’re just SO good at describing things.’

      Frank closed his eyes. ‘And you’re not. Try harder. Go.’

      ‘All right, well, here goes: The boy kept rereading passages from Stephen King’s On Writing, an autobiographical writer’s manual if there ever was one. He read up to the middle of a writer’s schedule. Mr. King writes four to six hours a day, his quota 2,000 words.

      ‘The boy looked at the panicked, present-tense narrative voice in his current short story for class. It wouldn’t do. As he sometimes does, he opened up a new Microsoft Word document and started over. The words came easier in the past tense. The voice became more mature. Subject matter the boy kept the same, but the story took on a more developed texture now. He got to a 1,000 words. He was happy.’

      Pete stopped and looked over at him. ‘Well?’ Frank asked.

      ‘How was that?’

      ‘A good second attempt. Apart from being unclear at some points. You should’ve said, “He read up to the middle of the section about a writer’s schedule”. And it’s unnecessary to say the boy was happy. I honestly don’t give a crap. He wants us to write about his day, not talk about feelings. We’re not freaking psychologists.’

      ‘Okay.’ A braver Pete started up again. ‘He skyped his parents in the early afternoon. He was glad to talk—‘ Frank shook his head. ‘Oh, right, no feelings. Later, much later, he went for a run. His pinky toes have cuts in them, probably from the shoes. He ran anyway.’

      ‘And the pain during the run made him do the oddest thing,’ Frank joined in.

      Pete continued, ‘He decided to run backwards, for a hundred metres or so. Just to give his toes a break.’ (In a parenthetical aside, Pete heard his friend murmur, ‘Weird kid.’)

      After another breath of smoke, Frank said, ‘But before the run, he wasted part of the day on his computer. He ended up running at 7:30, starting with a stop at the campus market. It was closed. Dumb kid.’ After a nudge in the side, he corrected himself, ‘Oh well. He learned that apparently the store closes early on Fridays.

      ‘Anyway, he ate a microwaveable dinner at 9, which prompted Marie to tell him that he ate at the oddest hours. She arrived back today, by the way, along with Dan the Man. He was glad to see they were back.’

      After missing his cue to continue where Frank left off, Pete said, ‘And the boy picked up the oddest interest in fountain pens today.’

      The cigarette was barely a stub. His friend squashed the remnants of it with his foot, and made a reckless smile with his yellowed teeth. ‘Well, Pete, I’d say that just about covers his day, don’t you?’

      ‘Well, no, he read more of Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady and read—‘

      Frank interrupted, smiling, ‘Yep, I’d say we’re done.’

Day 103, 19 April: A 'Talking' Day

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 103. A ‘Talking’ Day

In my silent room half without the purple carpet that I took for granted (I now wear sandals to endure the sticky, white surface), I realized that I can occupy my time in a day purely with my own activities…but the day itself feels unproductive at some level. Around three in the afternoon today, I realized that apart from a few short conversations with various flatmates in the kitchen in the sleepy morning, I had done all my communicating to people through typed words alone. It made me think, am I still ‘talking’ when my voice remains mute all day? Am I being sociable while remaining at my desk all day? The answers for me were both no. Talking and socializing imply movement beyond the tapping of fingers on square buttons with the letters on them. But in this day and age and when a lot of friends and all family are back home, sometimes internet messaging has to suffice (and there’s skype which helps bring it closer to real talking).

      Nevertheless, it felt good to walk over to the library and do something. I was able to meet up with Stef in the library in early evening and we chatted about the upcoming examinations in the next few weeks, since we’re in both the Romanticism and 19^th Century Writing modules. It was nice to see both her and her friend Helen. Hitting up the libs (lie-bs, gangstifying the partially mundane word ‘library’) offered another thing: I picked out short stories by Hemingway and Ian McEwan to help me on my quest to get my assigned short story on the road.

         Meditate-read-write-nap-read-run for the second day in forever-forget to put away laundry-cook the same meal as last night-check out favourite bands online-chat Katya and family-sleep. The other elements of my day. As I cooked, Alvin, Charlie, Gemma, and I sang to tunes in the kitchen. It was really fun, especially singing Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’, a favourite song of mine. In other music news, I discovered that one of my ex-favourite bands, Linkin Park, might return to the style of its earlier stuff—the last album disappointed heavily, but I have hope for this summer one. By the sleeping hour, I felt content.

Day 102, 18 April: The Anniversary

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 102. The Anniversary

I got up at 11:30. I cleaned my room of loose receipts and cardboard boxes. I complained internally for the busted radiator that leaked over the break and led to half my carpet being ripped out. I got more money out—in pounds. (I ran into a few American dollar bills as I was cleaning and realized how small they were in contrast.) I did laundry, I got groceries, I added credit to my phone (finally), I ran a slow-paced run to ease out of an unfortunate 25-day streak of not running. I showered, shaved, and cooked.

      Recovering. It’s taking me longer than imagined to adjust back into normal life. My body is still weary, my mind still drained.

      Luckily, there was something to distract me entirely from long-lingering exhaustion: Katya. Today was our anniversary. One year ago I asked her to be my girlfriend. At the time she had bangs and wore flowery skirts that she still wears every so often. Even without bangs, she’s just as cute now as ever.

      I remember when we first met in January 2011, during a Welcome Back to A Cappella choir show. We were backstage, and by backstage I mean the hallway that juts to the left of the grand stage of Hertz Hall. We were in a circle, a small six-person one. The only other person I remember in this circle was Hayden, a freshman who loved to sing and meet people. He introduced this girl named Katya to me. I smiled and waved since we weren’t close enough to shake hands. She looked cute but I didn’t think about it too much. We found each other on facebook the next day and that seemed the end of it.

      It wasn’t. I wrote a facebook status in late February that went something like this: ‘Off in 5 minutes to go to [something…running club?]‘. Five minutes surely went by easily and I was still online. I got a comment on my status from the girl named Katya. She was teasing me for not leaving like I had said I was. Odd. I barely know the girl, but I like her spunk. I replied, teasingly. She replied. She facebook-Instant Messaged me (in those days, messaging and IM did not contain the same thread) and the ball of friendship began to roll. The conversation was surprisingly fluid, for us being acquaintances at the time. There were no boring stops or pauses whatsoever. By the end of it, she asked me, ‘Didn’t you have to leave in five minutes?’ And I smiled as I looked at the computer screen and told her not anymore.

      That started us off. A simple facebook comment. From there, it progressed to facebook messaging—she wanted to meet me. I offered up a time and place: 1pm on Sunday at Milano Café. Now remember that neither of us had the slightest inclination to consider each other as more than fast friends. And faster friends we became. I estimated that the lunch at 1pm would go for two hours at the most, if we turned out to like each other’s company.

March 2011. Cafe Milano.

      The lunch did not take two hours. It took six. At the time, she was joining a sorority (Gamma Phi Beta) and her Big (‘sister’, mentor figure) wanted to meet with her after our lunch. Katya kept postponing and postponing to no end. Finally, we realized that we had to go. I left for the library in the rain with my heavy bookbag and felt happy.

July 2011. Midnight Showing of the Final
Chapter in the Harry Potter series. She's
Lavender Brown. I'm a Hufflepuff.

      The undercurrent of text and facebook messages continued almost daily, especially during spring break when we were both back home, but the next event was a dinner. We discovered that we’d both be back on the Saturday before classes started back up. A dinner turned into a late night of endless conversation, 10pm became 1am.

      I asked her to the movies. We saw the movie ‘Limitless’. She put her head on my shoulder. We went out often after that. I got back late to Berkeley from San Francisco one night and asked her if she wanted frozen yogurt before the shop closed. We made it just in time. We went for salad at Café Mezzo (which burned down this past year) and delayed going to class afterwards. Finally we did, and after the goodbye hug, she waited a moment and rushed up to my cheek and kissed it. I went late to my Rhetoric 20 lecture hall of 90 without a care in the world that day.

      Finally, I asked her, in the Morrison Hall piano practice rooms. April 18. It was a Monday. Would you be my girlfriend? She said ‘of course’. We had our first real kiss as we parted for class.

      Today marked a year since that day. I feel nostalgia thinking about us, about our younger selves. When you stay in a long-term relationship with someone, you essentially grow up with them. And it’s been a year since we started growing up together.

      As for what we did today, we skyped. She ate lunch and I ate dinner. We both had pasta, as it turned out. Normally, I tend to cap skypes at two hours due to sleepiness or stress. Today I didn’t. We skyped for an hour and a half less than our first date at Milano: Four and a half hours.

      I loved it. And I love her.

March 2012. In the City of Love.

                                                    

Day 101, 17 April: In Contemplation, In Transit

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, UK, Day 101. In Contemplation, In Transit

The day is a list of transportation times:

Aerobus to Lisbon Airport, 9:00-9:20

EasyJet flight to London Luton Airport, 11:10-13:40

Green Line bus to London Victoria Coach Station, 15:40-17:15

National Express bus to Norwich Coach Station, 18:00-21:15

Local bus from Norwich City Centre to University of East Anglia, 21:20-21:45

The time in-between the movement of the wings and the wheels is what made the day not a waste. At Terminal 2, I hugged Vinnie good-bye as we parted ways for our own destinations, Madeira and London. I could not imagine spending another week away, but I wish him all the best.

      As I considered what I would do during my waiting period for and on the plane, I decided that I would read Stephen King’s novella ‘Apt Pupil’ until I finished. I figured it’d be a 40- to 100-page story. Getting through the disgusting subject matter of a boy corrupted by the stories of an ex-Nazi commander, I still really enjoyed the writing and kept going. 200 pages. By this time, I was halfway through the flight. Finally, the story ended at 247 pages and it felt like a conclusion, just as the middle really did feel like a middle as I read it (despite wishfully hoping it was over soon). This was the second story of King’s collection ‘Different Seasons’. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (the story’s actual title) is classified by King as 'Hope Springs Eternal' (Spring) and this one, Apt Pupil, was summer: Summer of Corruption. I guess the test of a good writer is the ability to enjoy reading the story even when you hate the character and the subject matter. Undoubtedly, Stephen King definitely has a gift for storytelling.

From the Victoria Coach bus toward Norwich 

       Afterwards, I transitioned into the middle of a book I hadn’t yet finished for class, Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. I suddenly imagined reading novels as eating out of bowls of soup: the spoons of old and modern novels differ extraordinarily. King’s novella had paragraphs short, with the occasional longer ones detailing a character’s reflections or background exposition. Small spoon, eating fast. James’ novel lifts these two-page long paragraphs at times, lifting a scene to detail so precise that the hue and location of the flower or the gentleman’s overcoat must be accounted for. Big spoon, eating slow. And that is why it takes me forever to read these novels for class.

      Boredom.

      My mind wanders after the third line. I read and read and by ten pages of struggling, I can get into a flow. Otherwise, minutes go by of irrelevant thoughts.

      This change in the novel form is the change of society: progression to a faster society—less exposition, more action. Less explanation, but more speech.

      I still get distracted. The guy taking the newspaper out of the rubbish bag on the airplane amuses me.  

Then the airplane begins shaking in its descent. I envision an invisible staircase in the sky, upon which an airplane must descend a certain number of feet in elevation in a routine amount of time. This flight’s footsteps land harshly on each step, but strangely the last step, the landing, is the smoothest.

Upon arrival, I told Stephen
how I went basically a month
without peanut butter. Without
another word, he tossed me the
last of his jar. I took my trusty
spoon and devoured it.
Every. last. drop.

      Then the loud speaker on the bus. It’s strange how those things raise the volume of one’s voice, but they sure don’t make it any clearer.

      Finally, I arrived in Norwich and I smiled while inhaling the fresh night air. I felt at home. This place has become so familiar, the people too. As I walked up to my block, I saw my flatmate Stephen and his friend James (from our neighbour flat), and Stephen pulled out the greatest line when he saw me with my bags, ‘You look ridiculous. Two of the biggest bags I’ve ever seen are attached to your back and front like a sandwich.’ Basically, that’s what he said. I laughed and made it back to my room.

      The smell downstairs unsettled me. Then I discovered that I had half my carpet scraped from my floor. Not the most welcomed of surprises, but it’s good to be back in Norwich, hanging out in the kitchen with Alvin, Charlie, Stephen, and Gemma. Night.
   (And so concludes the 25 days of traveling: London, Norwich, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo, Madrid, and Lisbon. By countries: England, France, England, Netherlands, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Portugal. I have seen but a glimpse of the world, but that glimpse was enough to know that the answer to the question ‘how does one live?’ is plural. Different cultures, different languages—languages from common roots, Portuguese being Spanish’s cousin with a lisp, Spanish being Italian’s cousin without the lilt (‘andiAmO’), French being the cousin with the silent consonant endings, and English being another cousin (with traits I’m too accustomed to perceive). Yet it is apparent that the world’s big cities are becoming more alike than they once were, the relics becoming the hallmarks of these places as the McDonald’s and the metros and cars being the mainstay of modern living.)

I can't say I remember taking this shot. It appears
to be the work of the orange-jumper-clad fellow
by the name of Stephen. Meanwhile, Alvin does not
look amused by this orange-jumper-clad fellow.

             

Dia 100, 16 April: Our Local, Portuguese Peregrinations

Yes! Hostel, Lisbon, Portugal, Dia 100. Our Local, Portuguese Peregrinations

      The Castelo de Săo Jorge was four euros with a student ID. Vinnie and I paid and went through the turnstile into an opened park setting, trees all around the areas where the sidewalk ended. The only thing different about this park was a four-foot wall of stone that served as a perimeter—and the fact that this park offered one of the best views of all of Lisbon one could find. As per usual in such cases, we took pictures with this magnificent background behind us. We found a perch to jump off and we took pictures of each other flying into the air for a few seconds, hoping that the other could catch a shot in mid-air. Finally, it worked out.Then we went up to the highest section of the castle and slept on the low walls, just for a few minutes…I think....

      Traveling around the castle was fun, but even at this site, I was weary of sight-seeing, mainly enjoying small things here and there, like the kitties around the moat. One of them looked like my family’s cat Roscoe and I petted it, sad and longing to see the original back home.

      There is something about a place that can definitely affect one’s mood. I’ve never really been one to believe that entirely, though. That is, until I took one look through the first park area after the castle entrance, seeing the rich green hue of the plants and the rich gold shine from the sun’s rays on the walls. I saw this sight yesterday and still, the beauty relaxed me, made me feel cool in spite of the ever-so-small embers of school stress flickering in the canyons of my mind.

Portuguese-style, cooked fish...

      After the castle, Vinnie and I walked down the streets until we decided on a place for lunch. Like last night, I ordered whatever said ‘Portuguese style’, but Portuguese-style fish differed from the really-not-so-exotic Portuguese meat last night. The fish on my plate were whole, head and tail and everything. I timidly opened up the fish with my fork, knowing that the amount of meat was definitely not going to be enough for a meal. The moral I guess is don’t order Portuguese-style fish, unless you like working to eat your food and only getting small portions in return.

      Vinnie and I proceeded in relative silence around the streets until we reached the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, since Lisbon is located right on the water in a beautiful climate. We watched the water from the rocks, then moved on through the Terreiro de Paҫo, and took a long, scenic route back to the hostel. From 3 til 7pm, we stayed in, tired of sight-seeing and somewhat bored of traveling.

      I suspected that Vinnie may have been mad at me, for some reason, since he seemed too quiet during these two days. Not helping my suspicion, our dinner arrangement was separate, Vinnie to a burger place, me to a buffet. We decided to do our own thing.

      Later, during our walk out for dessert on our last night in Lisbon, he told me of his overall exhaustion, dampening his spirits. I wondered why he was going on to Madeira, then. Five days in a southern island of Portugal alone. He said that he’d had time to think about what he’d learned from others this trip and at some level, I envied him a little for having solitude in paradise. He has family in Madeira, though, so he won’t be completely alone.

      Vinnie seemed better after skyping and emailing some friends from my computer, and we both made it to bed by midnight. 

Walking Past Rossio Square