look left, look right, cross the road, and hold my hand

i haven't written since my first day here, which i'm sure has frustrated my hundreds of readers. to be honest, i'm not all that comfortable writing for an audience, it feels very narcisisstic. but there's no use fighting that.

on thursday i did a bunch of sightseeing, the typical london monument circuit, it was a nice day and i felt really content and happy and took lots of pictures. i didn't get to see everything i wanted to, but it's nice that i'm here for so long so there's no rush.

that night i met up with kate and bry, and we had dinner and drinks-- i had fish and chips and mushy peas, which were delicious, but apparently have no nutritional value once mushed. i tried some beer which was labelled "london's finest", but it was gross and warm, which apparently is pretty common here, and ice is non-existent. i get the feeling sometimes that the british have no desire for some modern or north american conveniences, out of some sort of pride or tradition-- after all, londoners didn't have cold beer in the victorian era, so why start now?

anyway, we got quite drunk, which kate insisted was necessary, as we had about a 2-hour trip back to egham and needed to keep the energy up. we agreed to get "g&t's" -- gin and tonics in a can at the convenience store on the way back-- i was quite excited about this-- but alas, they were all out, so i'll have to remember to try that some other time. it was a long, misty walk back to her residence, and a great way of being introduced to the impressive main building at my school.

too quickly after laying my head down on kate's hard floor, i had to get up to go to my school orientation. i kept getting awful flashbacks to frosh week, as i awkwardly tried to introduce myself to people, to avoid giving off the impression that i was a cold bitch, which i really was feeling like anyway, being hungover and in no mood for small talk. i ended up meeting a few people, it turns out most of the exchange students are americans, and some of the ones i met seemed very american , complaining the whole time about this and that, the cold, the food, the hard spray in their shower, blah blah, while i thought to myself how i didn't care about any of those things, i'm just so thrilled to be here, exactly where i've been dying to go for so long. one of the girls i met looked and talked a lot like kim kelly from freaks and geeks, which secretly amused me. everyone was very college-y, there were lots of ugg boots and hairbands and american eagle, but i guess that's just what all college kids are generally like in the states. a guy from boston asked me if toronto has all underground tunnels because it's so cold, which made me laugh.

during the presentation a civilian policeman from egham spoke about safety, and it was too weird, it was like straight out of thst movie hot fuzz-- he was this old, stout man who spoke very thickly, and insisted that egham was one of the safest towns in britain, and "not to believe rumours" about murders and attacks in graveyards, and this and that, because those were isolated incidents that had nothing to do with students, which all seemed very cryptic. he also emphasized to "steer clear of youths outside shops", and especially not to look them in the eyes.

now i'm trying to get through reading my first novel of many for class tomorrow, gaskell's cranford. reading for hours at a time about the tedious daily events of a small british victorian town isn't exactly thrilling, but then again, i suppose the same could be said about reading a blog.