The trouble with being me at this time of year between thanksgiving and going home for break is that I always feel pretty miserable (I was going to say, "the trouble with being a college student who cares too much about her grades and also christmas and is also kind of homesick and trying to come to terms with being a 'young adult' and grow up with the least amount of trauma possible," but I figured it would be more truthful to just write "me" and then explain why I did so parenthetically). I feel like I am missing out on absolutely all of the fun and christmas cheer while I sit in my room churning out papers and cramming my head full of facts. I feel like everyone else in the entire world must be, right at this moment, cutting out christmas cookies while watching It's a Wonderful Life, sitting in some sort of beautiful church listening to christmas carols, drinking mulled wine in ancient pubs, shopping at cute markets with their adorable little families (this I actually have very good reason to believe), or at least getting really drunk somewhere in picadilly circus. But I feel so far away from all of that. I am trapped in a world of online television, procrastination, nocturnalism, over-eating... well, basically trapped in the finals week style college experience. I am missing it! I am missing it all, and it's all my fault.

It's funny how we Californians assume that colder weather will mean a more christmasy environment. We are somehow convinced, in other words, that the rest of the world is having a way more authentic christmas than we are. We even try to pretend it's colder than it is by wearing unnecessary scarves and caps when we go out at night. But now that I am here in London, with my hands stuffed in my pockets and my scarf and the hot chocolate and the outdoor ice-skating and the millions of twinkle lights, I finally understand that it's really all about the music and the nostalgia. I can't feel nostalgic in London but I can in Fontana, therefore Fontana will always be the more Christmasy place in my mind, despite it's appearance. Speaking of nostalgia, I have to go write 4,500 words about it. I'm not kidding. Tis the season to be scholarly. falalalalalalalala.

diet coca cola and unlit cigareetes

Sometimes London makes me feel a little bit dry, both in my skin and my soul. Maybe that's what it's like to be content or something, but I'm not sure if I like it. I constantly have the urge to write something down, and so I pick up a pen and hold it above the paper, and then realize I don't actually have anything to say. It's like when you talk just to hear your own voice. It's like when you go to take a swig of your drink and realize that you already drank it all. But it's getting better. In the last few weeks I have been reading some really amazing things for my classes. I started off feeling pretty apathetic to most of it, but now I feel an urge to copy down all of the Great Gatsby in my own handwriting. Faulkner too, and Lorca, and Yeats and Ginsberg and Hemmingway. I'm not completely positive but I think maybe America is the best country, or lack thereof, in the world. Not best in the sense that a european might mean (i.e., actually good), but best in all the ways that the europeans never think of. I am being deliberately vague here because I don't actually know what I'm talking about. I don't think I've ever really been to America any more than I've been to France. I am judging purely by what I've heard. ex:

"I look at it, and I think it is the most beautiful history in the world. It is the history of me and of my people. And if I came here yesterday I should still think so. It is the history of all aspiration--not just the American dream but the human dream and if I came at the end of it that too is a place in the line of pioneers."

So maybe I am more at home in american literature than I am in any given physical space. That is sad, but in a beautiful way, and what could be more american than that? Maybe Wilco?

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I realized that my bottom lip is crooked.

There are way too many options in my life. For instance, tomorrow: finish paper, devendra banhart, or bonfire party at ministry of sound? All three so valuable in different ways. I wish I was being chased by robbers down a narrow alleyway with about a foot on either side between my car and a wall (image courtesy of dave eggers (this symbolism seems disgustingly obvious now but I think it's just because I have thought about it a lot) ). That would be such a relief.

Should I go to grad school? Can I even afford that? What would be the point, besides procrastination? I doubt I will know within a year.

I keep on thinking I am settled, and then getting more settled and realizing I wasn't actually settled before. I wonder when this will stop. I wonder if I really am settled this time. It feels like it. It's nice to come home to a kitchen full of people. It's nice to drink tea. It's nice to feel necessary. It's nice to do your homework. It's nice to live in the first person, if only for a night.

God, I would do anything to just have a clique here. I always feel like I'm tagging along. I don't want to have to work this hard.

the poor diet

Alright, so this whole losing-weight thing is really awesome and all, but if I have to actually go pants shopping in this city I am going to be pissed.

Feasting and Dancing in Jerusalem

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

Not a very good day. Have seen a total of two people I know within the last six hours. Wow, I have only been awake for six hours. Am not feeling well. Going to try and read Richard III now. Remind me to never buy McVitti's biscuits again. They are much too delicious.

I haaaaaaate being in my apartment. I think this explains a lot of my actions here. This apartment sucks ass.

I am tired of being sick, I am going to start taking more than one vitamin C tablet each day! So reckless.

"Riches and Wonders" by the Mountain Goats for some reason seems relatable to my current life. Not in a literal sense, but kind of. I am fighting the urge to quote it.... No, it must be done!

we are strong
we are faithful
we are gaurdians of a rare thing
we pay close careful attention
to the news the morning air brings
we show great loyalty
to the hard times we've been through
we are filled with riches and wonders
our love keeps the things it finds
and we dance like drunken sailors
lost at sea
out of our minds
you find shelter somewhere in me
I find great comfort in you

I think it's nice to feel like I'm a part of things. Living in a city like this makes me feel connected to people. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. It's like, I'm walking along and there are people walking next to me, experienceing the same thing for a moment. And I turn on the news while I cook myself dinner, or flip through a newspaper on the tube. And I just see person after person after person and every once in a while I recognize one of them. And sometimes I am positive that the person next to me is thinking what I'm thinking, and we are in on some little joke. I can be alone if I want to, but there's really no excuse for that, cause there are people and lights everywhere in this place. You don't have a name but they see you for a second as you walk past.

Tonight I went to a gig and I realized I was having fun when all of a sudden I found myself jumping up and down arm and arm with a complete stranger. He turned to me breathless and said "Not bad for a ginger, eh?" gesturing up at the lead singer. I laughed a lot about that. Back home a night like this would have been the highlight of my month. I have to remind myself that such things are not normal. I have lost my ability to be satisfied and calm. I have lost the ability to talk myself into things. Tomorrow I am eating Indian food for lunch.

I get these pangs sometimes. Like today when hana told me that she and thomas were going over to meg's house to hang out. Or when I see my kitchen at home with a box of freshly baked cookies on the stove. Or when I think about dennys and the possibility of a good long conversation about absolutely nothing. or when i so much as hear the word burrito. or when i listen to animal collective and have nobody to song along with. But I think there's a distinction in my mind between missing a place and actually wanting to be there. Because even in my lowest moments here, I don't wish I had never come. In fact, I am quite glad that I did.

A long time ago when I went to coachella with sarah we watched animal collective. It was a very surreal and weird experience, but overall pretty disappointing. I was pretty bored during most of the show, except for the very first song, which was basically really really awesome and catchy and exciting. The song remained stuck in my head for, let's see... about a year and 5 months. I tried to descrbie it to people, "it goes kind of like dad dada dada dada da doo doo" and they looked at me blankly. I listened to all of their albums that I have trying to find it with no luck. but tonight I finally got their latest album Strawberry Jam (thanks matt) and what do you know, the song I have been thinking about for a year and a half is the very first song on this album! I was so happy that I closed my eyes.

Incidentally, animal collective is coming to london in a few weeks! I hope i can find someone to go with me. But I'm afraid it might be a repeat of last time, i.e., I might not enjoy it if I'm not on drugs like the rest of the crowd.

Amercan Fiction Seminar (notes)

Clfrn hr w cm rght bck whr w strtd frm
Best in Class
LOL me to sleep
Why do people talk about the likeability of fictional characters?
pigeonblood rubies <--> pigeonblood red
angry laugh
same as she's always been
AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T RUN
TO THEIR UNDYING CREDIT
I don't think Wharton wanted us to think anything. I think she just wanted to write a story.
empty
do we hate her b/c she's a woman?
using her body as cash
orange exension chord stretched aroundthe corner
of your desk
like a rubber band ready
to welt your body
as soon as I snap it
free
I wish I were a liberated woman
My Antonia- READ IT.

Things are feeling really heavy today. I think I got off to a bad start by sleeping through my first class. It wasn't really a bad day. It had its moments, like when I managed to open myself a bank account, and when I watched who wants to be a millonare with my roommates, and when I listened to new slang on my iPod. I guess I am still having some trouble just being ok with a normal daily life. I want it to keep on being vacation time, but it's not. It's time to see what this whole living in London thing is all about, rain and studying included. I think everything is OK; it's just one of those days where the world feels really heavy, even when it's light.

Everyone I know is like freaking out right now. I thought freshman year was supposed to be the life-altering one. What is going on?

I don't really know who I am in this place. I think that is kind of frightening but also kind of awesome.

the strand on a thursday

Sometimes you might sit in a cafe trying really hard to read Milton for an hour or two and start to get sad because the people you are staring at outside the window are not staring back at you. You might abandon the reading attempt and write anxiously in your notebook while tapping your foot. Outside it could very well be cloudy and you'll zip up your jacket and try to look like you're in a hurry, judging your self worth by whether or not you can keep up with the late-twenties businessman on the sidewalk next to you. You might think about all of these things and about what it means that you are thinking them and wonder if a metalife is real life, and wonder what everyone else occupies their mind with while they are eating lunch alone on a cloudy day. Milton, maybe.

But soon enough you'll probably see someone you know at a crosswalk and stop to talk about weekend plans, and the sun will come out for a few minutes and you'll have to squint to see westminster while the wind blows your hair all in your face. You will put some radiohead on your iPod, pretending that it just makes so much morse sense in england, and realize that it may be just a baby life, but you do actually have a life here, and think to yourself that maybe that could possibly be OK.

I am healthy and I am whole
but I have poor impulse control
and I wanna go home
but I am home

Homesick doesn't make any sense. I can't really figure out why a person shouldn't be just as happy in one place as another, especially if they are able to keep in close contact with their friends and family. But there's just something about that physical distance that bothers you, and I guess there's no convincing yourself it doesn't exist. It's not that you miss the place that is home, or even the people. You do miss the people, but that's not homesickness. Homesickness is something else that is simultaneously completely illogical and completely real.

I am so predictable. I know that if I spend the evening alone I will become lonely and sad, so I'm not surprised by it. But understanding your emotions doesn't really do anything to change the emotions themselves. If anything, it just adds this whole meta level to life which is really annoying, like a song stuck in your head.

Tomorrow I will start my classes and while I know that it will be really refreshing to have something to occupy my mind all the time, I am not feeling very self-confident about my intelligence and I am afriad that I will crash and burn this semester. So far I have not felt locked in to anything here. I have been putting off doing anything that feels permanent, such as buying pots and pans, opening a bank account, or doing my laundry. I don't know how to make myself commit to this experience. I have just been floating along in a haze and living in the moment. It's been a nice change from my usual self but it worries me, and I am afraid I will just keep on acting irresponsible and flighty and never really settle down. I need to CTFO really badly right now, but the idea of doing it makes me feel anything but chill.

I'm always in love.

News

hey guys, I decided to have a seperate blog for traveling, so that I can tell more people about it and you know, keep it more impersonal. And about traveling. Anyway, the url is: http://pseudointellectualtravels.blogspot.com/

how funny am I? I also started a videoblog, the quality of which sucks at the moment, but will improve, and you can see it on the travel blog or on youtube, and my username on youtube is ohmandyyyy if you wanna be friends/stalk me.

over and out,
Mandy

I know there must be a whole bunch of other stuff to do, but I can't think of anything! Help me! Sarah and Charlene, this means you. Please tell me what I am forgetting.