May 21 - Interview

May 24, 12:55pm (Backlog)

Now for the 21st of May!

I got up in the morning a bit earlier than I wanted, and spent the morning gtting ready for the interview.  I left at about 11:30am for the 2pm interveiw.  I got on the District line, transfered to the Jubilee line, then (after a bit of confusion) got on the appropriate train down to Deptford.  I found the place much, much easier than I expected, and went in.  I wandered around trying to find Rebecca Swift's office, but eventually gave up and went down to the front desk.  Bit of a mistake:  I told them that I had an appointment at 2pm with Rebecca Swift, and I was wondering where I should meet her.  To my horror, they immediately called Rebecca's office, and talked with her.  They told me to wait in the cafe, and Rebecca would send someone to get me.

I went to go get food at the Cafe, and while I was in line, a young lady came over to tell me that I was a bit early, and that I would have to wait for an hour or so before Rebecca arrived.  I was a bit surprised she knew exactly who go to, but on reflection I was probably very conspicous in my tie and professional wear.

I got hot chocolate and a sandwich, both of which were delicious and not overly priced.  After eating, I found a corner to relax in, and napped a bit, then started knitting.

Rebecca came down, walked past me, then found me and introduced herself to me.  For whatever reason, she reminded me of Mary Moineau-Riegel very, very strongly.  Same hairstyle, same outlook on age, same manner... just an english accent.  Very nice to talk to.  She explained the organization, and asked me a variety of questions about myself.  The main sticking point wasn't me, but rather the fact that they were extremely busy and in the middle of a major production.  The problem was that they wouldn't have enough time to train and supervise me.

The interview went well, and she said she would talk to her boss and let me know what the answer was.

I headed back home, and went to the EUSA office to report the interview results.  I talked with Joe, and he said he would talk with the Entelechy people.

I then relaxed in the house until the other people got back from the EUSA tour, and then we went out to a pub.  I was still full for whatever reason (I must have eaten at some point that day), so I didn't order anything.  I was worried we would be late for the party at the Chill House, which we were by a hour.  It was still going on, however, and we got coupons from EUSA for drinks.  I asked the bartender to make me whatever non-alcoholic beverage he thought I should get.  He made me something with lemonade, lime, and crushed mint leaves (and lots of ice).  I drank that, and found Carolyn.  We sat down and talked, then got in the really, really long line for free food, and talked as we worked our way through it.  After getting food, went settled down and ate, still talking.  Eventually I left with Carolyn, and we headed back home.  I sat around in my room, and eventually headed up to Flat 20 to visit them before going to sleep.  They were going out to get some food at midnight, so I went with them to the 24-hour store, running into the ASU folks on the way back.  I got a few little things of my own, and then went home and slept.

May 20 - The British Museum

May 24, 11:11am (London) (Backlog)

So I've been sort of failing at this blog, really should have been writing more.

Here's for... May 20th, back a while ago.

May 20 was an activity day - the activity of the day was going and visiting the British Museum.  We were supposed to check in with Angelique (One of the EUSA people) between 4pm and 5pm.  People took a while to all wake up, and I talked with folks online, ate breakfast, etc, then we all took off to go walk through Hyde Park again.  Ariana was not there, as she had to go do her interview, so it was just the five other ASU people.  This time we took a different route - previously we had gone north-north-east through the park, which was relatively short.  This time we started by going north-west, and went to the (former) royal residence that is there.  On the way we found a rather nice lake that had lots of public chairs around it, all in sets of two (matchmaking designers?).  At the royal residence, there was a nice sunken garden.  We then went south, and went along the paths on the south edge of Hyde Park.  We found out that Charlie doesn't like birds.  There were a lot of pigeons and squirrels along the path, and also a very nice willow tree.  If I ever get a proper back yard, I will have a willow tree there, with leaves reaching the ground, and a nice little area inside.

We kept going and found some tennis courts (Hannah was interested, Ross said he might try), went past the mounted cavalry barracks (where I later found out that my friend Fish is going to be stationed), and found the Rose Garden... which we walked through.  We then got on the Underground and took it to the station nearest the British Museum.

I was tired when we got there, and I went over to the cafe where we were supposed to meet Angelique (She's an Aussie!), but she was not there.  I then decided to nap and relax, and rest my sore feet.  I fell asleep, and woke up a bit later.  I checked at the Cafe again, and ran into the ASU folks (I had run off yet again).  Angelique wasn't there.

I went back to the entrance, and I saw Carolyn and the Flat 20 folks arrive.  Carolyn and most of the group disappeared off to the left, and I said hi to Paul, who was taking a picture of the magnificent main atrium.  I then went to go find Carolyn and Co. and found that they had went down a (decently sized) hallway to a somewhat more proper cafe inside the museum - it had two in the atrium and one off in the corner...

I checked in with Angelique there, and was dismayed to find that in the British Museum, as with every other placei n London, there were no drinking fountains.  I wound up having to be a drink to sake my thirst.  I then met up with Carolyn, and, with a friend, we visited the Roseta Stone.

After the Roseta Stone, we went across the atrium to see the section on enlightenment science.  I started going through the section quite thoroughly, reading everything there was to read.  Carolyn and her friend went off to see some other attractions that were marked as "must-see."  Eventually I finished the exhibit on the Enlightenment, and went up the stairs to see another exhibit.  I was dismayed to see someone was closing the doors.  I asked what was happening, and he said the exhibit was closing.  I enquired further, and found that the entire museum was shutting down at 5:30pm... much earlier than I expected.

I left out the front door, and met with Carolyn and the folks from Flat 20, and after a bit we headed over to a shop (where I got two shirts), and then onwards home via an Underground Station... Except that the Underground station had closed due to overcrowding.  We wound up walking around some more, and visited another shop, this one feeling very Japanese.  Past by Drury Lane.  We got to a new Tube station, and went in, but I realized that I was the only on who had gone in, and everyone else had disappeared.

They weren't planning to do much, and I wanted to drop off the shirts at home, so I decided to go on without them.  Everyone was crowding round the elevators, so I thought I would just take the stairs.  "Are you sure you want to do that - it's more than one hundred steps down." "Oh! ...it will be an adventure?"  I got down at the same time the Elevator people did, which gave everyone a bit of a smile.  I took the line home.

At home I prepared for my interview the next day.  Carolyn and folks came by to apologise for losing me.  Apparently they had stopped outside of the station due to big group indecision, just outside of where I could see, and then they took the stairs considerable slower than myself.

I went to bed a bit later than I should have.

I think I'll be putting up a post on my impressions of the British Museum on DoubleplusNil... sometime.

May 19

May 19, 9:54pm (London)

So I woke up this morning at 6am, aly in bed sleeping on and off until about 9am, and, still feeling out of it, went online.  Talked with Edelweiss, and we broke up.  Not going to get into that here, to avoid knee-jerk reactions and undue publicity.

This did, however, take the wind out of my sails, and I spent most of the day being depressed - tired, uninterested, and dour.

Hannah was up before me, as usual, but everyone else slept in late.  Ariana was the next person up after me, and she woke up at noon.  The guys work up even later than that.

We all walked over to the EUSA building to have them photocopy our passports, and then met up with some business school students from somewhere else, and had lunch.  Then we headed back home and I finally took a shower.  By the time I got out, most people were gone again, so I hung out on my computer, took pictures of the room, etc.  Ernesto was still there, but quiet.  I later fell asleep, and woke up with everyone getting ready to go to Piccadilly Square and visit a club one of Hannah's Londoner friends reccomended.  I went along, but they had only really expensive asian appetisers, which were neither novel nor filling.  I left, and walked through Green Park, eventually getting to a really impressive archway... can't remember the name.  I took the tube back to South Kensington, and got a Samoa for dinner and went to the computer and wrote this.

May 18

Currently May 18, Midnight (London Flat)

I woke up today at 7am.  Sleep was... not so good.  It's a very rickety bunk-bed, and whenever I moved, it rocked and shaked.  So much for top-bunk advantage.  I went over to the common room, and found that Hannah was already up.  Apparently she had woken up at 3am, and never gotten back to sleep.  She had just finished showering when I got up.  We drank water, and I lightly exercised in a side-room while she studied her Italian.

She explained to me that her phone wasn't charging so I fiddled with it and plugged it in.  Message on phone came up as "Could not charge" - this was the one she had been getting.  I was in the other room warming up when I heard a loud pop, like a balloon bursting.  I popped in, and we find that the sound was her cell-phone charger.  The charger had partly exploded, blowing itself into two charred chunks.  I used a plastic spatula to pull off the end that was still plugged into power strip.  She also blew the fuse, which panicked me a bit when I found that I could not charge my computer no matter where I plugged it in...

After that mess, I took a shower.  Water was... very low pressure.  But it could do any temperature, so it was nice and hot.  I washed off all the airplane shit from me, and scrubbed cleaner with the loofah I brought.  Soap and shampoo and conditioner all worked out.  Still don't like shower gel, though.  Might get some soap one of these days.

After the shower the guys were up.  I sat and used my computer, chatting with my girlfriend, who was still on at that hour - 8am here is midnight where she is.

My flat-mates kept saying they were going to starbucks, but they took the better part of a hour before going.  We went to Starbucks, which I thought was a pity, considering that there were quite a number of other coffee-shops around.  I got hot chocolate, while the other folks got their caffeine fix to varying degrees.

After that we headed over to the EUSA building for our orientation at 10am.  We checked in, and were the first ones there.  We sat around and waited, and the rest of the Manson Place people arrived.  But while it should have started at 10am, it had to wait because all the people living in the far-away housing couldn't make it on time.  Apparently what happened was that the Kings Crossing station got overcrowded and had to be emptied for a bit so that people could get off of trains and subways, rather than facing a solid wall of people wanting to get on.

They got there a bit later, and there was the EUSA presentation, which was quite good.  I was, however, very tired, and I wound up falling asleep during the very last bit of it.  Woke up entirely dis-oriented when everyone started getting up to leave.  As I left I got a paper for the scavenger hunt we were supposed to go on, and found my flat-mates.  We decided to be a group for the Scavenger hunt.

First, however, we had to get groceries.  We went to the South Kensington Underground Station, and I ran ahead to give me time to buy a four-week pass on my Oyster card - a single payment for unlimited usage of the Underground during that time (within zones 1 and 2).  I got a 20% discount from having a student Oyster card.

We took the tube over to High Kensington, got hairdryers, got lots of groceries, and took the tube back (Circle line) to South Kensington to drop them off.  One of the guys took a picture of himself with my camera and uploaded it to EUSA's website so he could get a student Oyster car  We then walked up to Hyde Park for some bits of the scavenger hunt.  My camera was acting weird, and I realised that I had never put the memory card back into the camera.  I was without pictures for the entire day.

We took pictures with the status of King George, supported by commerce, engineering, agriculture, and manufactures, in turn supported by Asia, Africa, America, and Europe.  Very imperialistic statue, perhaps a bit self-aware.  We took pictures with the statue of physical energy, and then trooped over to the lake.  Nice swans.  We found the statue of Peter Pan (Hannah was very excited), and then headed up to another tube station.  We took the tube from there up to King's Crossing.

We looked around for platform 9 3/4s, but found that platforms 9 through 11 required a ticket to enter.  We then continued on to find the pub we were meeting everyone else at for the conclusion of the scavenger hunt at 5pm.  We found it, and sat down there.  The pub stunk, so we went up to the terrace.  Eventually everyone else arrived, including the EUSA people, and we sat around on the Terrace.  The ASU folks went down to the pub proper to get beers, some sort of cocktail, and presumably later some food.  I got a ginger beer, but went back upstairs.  I talked with people and I wound up falling in with a group of folks mostly from Flat 20 (highest up, on the 4th floor... all stairs, those poor folks).  We left the pub without further eating and went to the Kings Crossing station, and found where the segment of wall formerly between platforms 9 and 10 had been placed as a memorial (it's actually off of platform 8, in partly walled-off hallway (now dead-end).  We took pictures there.

Then we headed over to find someone's internship interview place, so that she wouldn't get lost the next day when she tried to find it.  This was smart thinking on her part, as after we took the tube down to London Bridge station, we utterly failed at finding the interview office.  What should have been a 5 minute walk from the station took the better part of half and hour.  We then went to the London Bridge, which caused some confusion - for whatever reason, we had all mixed up London Bridge and Tower Bridge, and gotten to the bridge with totally incorrect pre-conceptions.

After taking photos there, we took the tube up to Piccadilly, and found some place to eat - an italian restuarant.  It was a chain, seeing as there was another one across the street and one near home in South Kensington, and was... pretty decent.  The waiter was very helpful and experienced in helping our group choose a wine, and got me plenty of water to drink.  I ate lasagna again, but this time it was good.  I then ate about half of the dish of one friend, and half of another friend's dish.  100% more food!  I was too stuffed to eat ice-cream afterwards.

We took the tube back to South Kensington, and I led them over to the flats.  I got into my flat, went and changed into my PJs, then took out my computer to write these two posts, inadvertently snubbing my girlfriend.

General notes:  I don't really feel that much kinship with my fellow ASU students.  They are nice people, and I like Hannah in particular, but their interests are so different from mine, and the drinking thing is a bit of a bore.  Drinking and telling stories of stupid things people did while drunk.  I suppose it's my non-beer-goggled perspective?  Hanging out with the blokes from flat 20 was a lot of fun, and I felt a lot more comfortable with them.

I am also worried about how I'm going to fit keeping in touch with my girlfriend during this trip.  My night is her afternoon, which is a perfect time to talk, but I am trying to write daily blog posts... which is also at night.  I'm doing so much stuff there doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day to go do things, write about them, and sleep them off.

Speaking of which, I have been walking a lot.  Regularly foot-sore.  This also means I have been eating way, way more than I normally eat.  Also, sleep is kind of important.  I wonder if I could take the matress off of the bunk and sleep on it on the ground.  Let's see how I sleep on the bunk bed tonight.

Ask questions if you're curious about anything,

-- Wilford

May 17

Currently May 18th, 10:28pm (Backlog)

Okay, so I'm a bit behind.  After I got to my room, I tookoff my shoes, unpacked my stuff, etc.  I found out from the guys who were already there that originally the four guys were given the keys to the smaller room, and the two girls were given the keys to the bigger room.  Nobody had (or has since) locked any doors, so the guys took over the larger room.  Two beds were taken, with a single bunk-bed remaining.  I went in the lower bunk, but that turned out to be hopelessly small, and I hit my head.  Couldn't even sit up all the way.  So I wound up taking the top bunk, believe it or not.

Unpacked stuff, then we went on a 3pm walking tour guided by the EUSA people.  The three other guys in my room were in by then, but both girs  They took us over to the EUSA building, and then from there we went up to the Gloucester Road, and she pointed out stores to go to and explained the Oyster Card to us.  After that about half the group went back to the flats and half of us went onwards to the supermarket she reccomended.  I got nuts, oat-crackers, bananas, and frozen lasagna.

After getting back, I went to the meeting held by the landlord.  Most of the people weren't there, so I was asked to go and knock on doors.  I got about six people, no more.  The two ladies in my flat were there at the meeting, met them, all that.

After the meeting (my male flat-mates dropped in half-way), we went up to the flat.  They wanted to go out and get a hairdryer and eat, but I had already started cooking my lasagna by then, so we all waited for that, and then for me to eat it.  The microwave was only 600W, so it took quite some time to cook the food.

We went out and walked up north until we got to Hyde park, then turned left and went to High Street Kensington.  We found the applicance store we had been reccomended, but it had just closed.  It closed at 6pm (Sunday) and we got there at 6:10pm.  We wandered aimless, then thought we should get on the High Kensington Underground to get back home.  The Circle line was under maintenance, so we could have taken the district line down to Earl's Court and then the Piccadilly line over to South Kensington, but it cost four or five pounds for something we could walk, so we decided to just walk back.

The girls were hungry, so we stopped over at a pub on the way back.  Everyone got a beer (except for me, obviously), and the girls both got food - Hannah got a Fallafel burger (she's vegetarian) and Ariana got a sausage hot-dog (like... cut up banger in a bun).  Ariana only ate half of her... hot-dog something, and so I got the other half. Neither of them ate all their fries, so I got a bunch of fries, too.

On the way back, we stopped at a 24-hour convenience store.  I got some juice (too heavy to carry from the far-away supermarket), and the rest of the ASU kids got two wine bottles (one white, one red).  We came back home, and put them in the fridge (actually the freezer - we found this out later, though) and turned on our computers.  I chatted with my lover and friends, and posted up the previous blog.  After that I fell asleep on the couch.  They woke me up at about 11pm, and I went to bed-bed-bed then.

Sorry about this being a rather detail-less description.  Ask me in the comments about things?

Also, for the records, the people living in my flat:

Women:

Ariana

Hannah

Men:

Charlie

Ross

Ernesto

All of them are from ASU - apparently EUSA grouped people by their starting University.  Larger contingent of ASU students proportional to the other schools, here in London, in the EUSA program.

On to the next day!

Getting to London

May 16th, 10:18am (Los Angeles time)

Well, about to get on to the first plane, a roughly three hour flight from Los Angeles to Calgary.  It's the same sort of little plan I took up to Washington last summer, but I don't think it will be much of a problem.  I'l be putting this computer up top and keeping my back-pack on the bottom.  Probably going to knit for a while, and then sleep.  It's 6:18pm over in London right now.  I guess I'll be sort of getting onto the London timezone if I knit for a while, then fall asleep.  There's a bit of a lay-over in Calgary, I'm not sure what I'll do then - maybe sleep, maybe write more.

They just announced the boarding plans - I expect boarding to begin soon.  ...well I just overheard them saying they would start the boarding at 10:25am.  Priority boarding first, though, so no rush.  Once Priority is over, it's boarding by seat number (I'm a window seat - 23F), so I should be prepared then.  I just took a picture of my boarding passes, so I'll be posting up a picture with this all.

In other news, this terminal was very quiet.  I woke up at 5:15am, took a nice, leisurely shower, then woke up everyone else at 6pm.  There was a bit of confusion, but everything got done, and we left at 6:30

-- I got called to line up at that point, as 23F is in the back of the tiny little plane. --

Continued at 5:05pm (Calgary time)

Where was I?  Right, leaving.

We left at 6:30 for my 10:55am flight, and got there at about 7pm.  Air Canada, flying to Calgary in Canada, is in Terminal 2, not the international terminal.  Perhaps partly for that reason, but also partly because Air Canada is Air Canada, there was no line.  No line at all.  It was spiffy.

No lines for the identity check or the security line thing.  Security was a bit of a pain, but that's my fault.  To go through security for me means I remove: Carabiner with bandana, micromere, etc.; my watch attached to pants; my belt, with its metal buckle; my camera from its case on my belt; my boots; my sweater (tied around waist, generally); my computer from the computer case; my passport pouch from under my shirt; my notebook from my lower pocket; and my change from my normal pockets.  Plus putting my bags into the machine as normal.  It's a bit of a bother, as is putting everything back on.  I left a water bottle in my backpack at LAX, and it got confiscated.  Not that much of a problem.  I had plenty of time.

After getting in, I walked around, knitted at my gate, walked around, went to the restroom, drank water, knitted some more, took a nap, knitted some more, napped a bit more, then fond a plug and started typing on my computer.  You know how that went.

Plane flight was... I wound up sleeping for most of it, on and off.  Air Canada's Embraers have little touch-screen displays in front of every seat, but they didn't have anything interesting functioning on the little plane.  First Mate was very humorous, giving altitude and flight time to inches, centimeters, and seconds.  Also noted that the cabin crew spoke English, French, and American.

Calgary is a nice airport.

  It has a really awful immigration thing, where you have to go through immigration, get your bags, go through customs, and then check your

 bags for your next flight.  I had about 5 hours here to start with, though, so it's fine.  

Aside from that, very nice airport.  Good shops, good resturants, and free internet.  I had a canadian burger over at Harvey's, which tasted delectable.  I had a smoothie over at Orange Julius, which was good, and

 then I headed to my gate.  I was three hours early, so it was not displaying my flight.  And here I am, typing away.

-- another break --

Good morning London!  Well, it's

 7:44am there, but I am not there.  I am somewhere over the Atlantic ocean, typing away on the airplane, with my computer plugged into the seat in front of me.  Finally, I have found an airplane where there are electrical outlets - the Airbus 333, which has a plug on the back of every other seat (next to the touch-screen monitor, which makes me wonder if this is a Air-Canada specific thing).  So I am happy.

From where I left off... I didn't really do that much.  I went online, and checked a few things on facebook, such as the EUSA London 09 Facebook group, reading through the members (I didn't know anyone).  My love came online, and we talked at bit (Rachel also sent messages via phone), but the internet (provide free by the airport) got a bit funny.  I went to the restroom, knitted a bit, and tried to get it to work, but my 

computer got a bit funny and that didn't work out.  I really need to get a new anti-virus program, now that the school year is out.  I don't like Norton Anti-virus, and Norton Anti-virus doesn't like me. Also need to get a fresh version of the VLC, as the current one I have periodically freezes and eats memory.

After a while, boarding began.  I was among the first group of people to get on--again--and sat myself down and

 tried to nap while I waited for my seat-mate to appear.  I had a window seat on the far right, there is a seat, then the aisle, then four seats in the center, and antoher two seats on the other side.  My seatmate never appeared, so I expanded to sleeping on both seats, which, surprisingly, was only slightly better.  I pondered going around and finding which of the other passengers were EUSA people, but thought I should get my sleep first and then do that.  So napped on and off, ate food, more napping, and now it's 8:05AM in London... and all the lights are off inside the plane.  So no prancing around with "EUSA?" written on a peice of paper.

That's all for now.

-- break again --

Went and played Battle for Westnoth for two hours.  I'm giving the main campaign a rest, since I can't seem to beat the merfolk level, and instead I am playing "A Tale of Two Brothers."  Decent plot-line, interesting senarios... it's pretty good.  Plus it's only 4 (long) senarios, which is considerably less than the 25 senarios of "The Rebirth of Westnoth" campaign.  I feel kind of dirty for abandoning the main campaign part-way though, but I'm barely making any progress on figuring out the merfolk level.

Merfolk level is annoying - I'm used to playing with elves (in fact, I produce many variety of elves, plus horsemen, and mages... and that's all), but... there are no terrain features to use on land or on sea, the merfolk keep dying off, and the towns are undefensible.  I don't see any distinctive way to exploit the terrain, so it's just me against them - a meat-grinder that I can't win.  No idea how to win the level.  I suppose I could just plow through and win a phyrric victory, but those never appeal to me.  I need a strong army for up-coming levels...

Anyway, it doesn't seem that long until we land, so I'm going to pack up my computer and get read elsewhere.  Probably go listen to the comedy channel on the radio.

Speaking of which, the touch-screen system here is just as faulty as the last one.  I think it would be a great system if all of the features were installed, and it had a clicking sound so you know you've tapped it correctly.  I don't care that much, though, as the plug makes up for any short-coming.

So long for now.

-- break again --

May 17, 9:20pm, London

Okay, now home at evening.  I'll finish the traveling stuff there, and then the stuff after getting here will be in a normal post.

After I finished playing Battle for Westnoth and wrote the above note, I ate food and then watched the start of a docu-drama about a plot to kill Hitler.  It was pretty good, but then we landed.

I got off and went to immigration, and then... problem!  She asked me how long I was staying, and I told her that I was staying for two months.  She asked what I was doing and I told her that I was studying abroad, plus interning for an organization.  She asked me what organization, and called her boss over.  I started getting worried, and showed her the various papers.  Her boss asked me why I hadn't applied with them.  I told him that I did, and that my visa was in the passport.  The lady doing the passports spazzed a bit.  Turns out that she had missed the visa in my passport.  There was a lot of good-natured cajoling between the lady and her boss, and I got through just fine.

I grabbed my bags, and went over to the Underground, but took a wrong turn, went up an elevator, and wound up in front of the front door of London Heathrow Airport... I went around somewhere else, and got to the Piccadilly Line and took it to South Kensington.  I had too much luggage to sit down, due to my camping backpack and massive suitcase, so I just stood for the half-hour ride.  I got to South Kensington, and went outside the station.  For whatever reason, London street signs aren't in the usual place, but rather are attached to fences and building walks, on the corners and sidewalks.  Big signs, but hard to see.  I didn't know this, so I blindly wandered around until I found myself on Harrington Ave.  I went up that, then realized I didn't know what road Manson Place was attached to.  I knew that Manson Place was a dead-end alley growing from the middle of one of the roads south of Harrington... so every time there was a road going south from Harrington, I would walk down the block, then go to the next block and cross back to Harrington.  With all my luggage, this was kind of heavy, so I was pretty tired when I eventually found the place. Got to the door and the RM let me in and gave me my keys.  I went to my room and started unpacking...