June 2010
5 posts
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...get lost in a good book (festival).
The Guardian Hay Festival is perhaps one of the most amazing literary festivals in the UK, so of course when I found out I’d still be in the country for it, I looked up events, bought tickets, and made my way to Hay-on-Wye, town of books.
There was sun, there was grass, there were books.
Someday, I will have Penguin Classics mugs for every single one of my favorite books. For now,...
May 2010
6 posts
5 tags
...discover bluebells in graveyards.
I learn new things about the flora of England on a daily basis. In March, it was daffodils. Now, in mid-May, it appears to be bluebells — but only in graveyards.
The Jewish Cemetery in the middle of campus.
Bunhill Fields Cemetery, the final resting place of William Blake.
I fondly remember the moment someone first taught me what the “macro” mode on my digital camera was...
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...picture Berlin.
We arrived in Berlin at the end of a long day of travel and made it to our hostel just as the sun was starting to think about setting. We were staying in the north-eastern part of the city, not very far from Alexanderplatz, in what turned out to be a pretty genial and residential area of the city. It really surprised me, actually, to see a residential area like this so close to the city’s...
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...understand where poetry comes from.
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in...
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...picture Prague.
Prague is simply a beautiful city. I can’t imagine being there during the real high season, seeing its narrow streets crowded to bursting with tourists, because even after only spending two days there, I have a feeling that that’s nothing like the real Prague (or, as they say in Czech, Praha — is there a cooler name for a city?). I’ve got a ton of pictures (as usual) but...
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...picture Vienna.
What with papers and exams and related nuisances keeping me busy throughout the next two and a half weeks, it’ll probably be a while before I can properly write about my spring break trip or post the (hundreds and hundreds of) pictures I took while I was away. But for now, before I forget (and as a method of procrastination) I’m going to put up some of my favorite pictures from each...
February 2010
2 posts
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London's best hot chocolate? →
Well, I guess that just means I’ll need to visit every single one of these in turn and figure out which one really is the best, although frankly, at the moment there’s nothing better than a giant mint hot chocolate at the cafe called Roastars which is a 5-minute walk from my dorm.
6 tags
...go see some 'art'
I know I haven’t really updated this blog in a while, but I have been busy starting up the new semester. I’m still enrolled in classes about 18th century London and Dickens in London because those were year-long, but I’ve picked up two new classes to fill in for those that ended last semester. The first one, ‘Gender, Race, and Empire in Women’s Writing,...
January 2010
4 posts
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December 2009
1 post
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November 2009
4 posts
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...make your way to Marrakesh.
Again with the ‘impressionistic’ updates (to borrow a term from my AP US history teacher). I have two essays due in the upcoming week and a friend flying in to visit from Dublin on Wednesday, but I don’t want to forget the things I wanted to say about Marrakesh before then!
It would be a stretch to say that being there was like being in another world (anyplace that has a...
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...va a Barcelona.
The update on my Reading Week trip is going to be split in two, not just because I visited two cities and countries (and continents!) but also because I don’t quite have the time to sit and write out the whole thing at once! But right now I have just about enough time to write about the three nights and two full days I spent in Barcelona. (I haven’t managed to upload my pictures yet,...
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...talk some more about Paris.
Yes, this is the real Paris update you’ve all been waiting for. I’m afraid that since it’s been a week and a half (and since I have visited two more cities, two more countries, and one more continent since then!), my recollections won’t be as prolonged or vivid as they might otherwise have been, but you’ll have to bear with me through a rather impressionistic update....
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...fall in love with Paris
I don’t have enough time to provide a full update — November has started and with it, my frantic novel-writing; by this time next week, I will be in Barcelona, about to depart for Marrakesh, and very little of that is planned yet, aside from plane tickets and a place to sleep — but I find it necessary to relate that I spent a long weekend in Paris and fell in love.
It’s a...
October 2009
8 posts
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...go to Rome!
I spent three nights and two full days of this weekend in Rome. I was there for a week or so during July, and this was my fourth trip there in total (the first being six years ago, when I was just fourteen), but every time I visit, the city has something new to give me. This time, I met up with my friend Andy, who’s studying at Trinity College in Dublin for this school year and who had...
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...go to The Library. (Yes, it's in caps for a...
Oh man. As is usual I’ve done so much stuff since the last time I posted that I can’t even keep it all straight. I’ve been doing a lot of going out and exploring London. Last weekend (I can’t believe it was only last weekend — the time moves so strangely here, I swear!) I went with some of my friends and did a tour of the Houses of Parliament on the last day that the...
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...study British literature.
Classes have officially started, and I am going to love every single one of them. Well, I don’t know about French yet, since language classes don’t start until the second week, but every single one of my English classes promises to be an adventure. My course schedule for this semester is as follows: Tuesday: Fiction and Narrative - Lecture 10-11, Seminar 11-12 Wednesday: The Dickens...
September 2009
9 posts
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...do some more walking! Yeah, that's it! And...
The past week (I can’t believe it’s only been a week) has been hectic with a side of crazy, but I’ve also been loving every last minute of it — yes, even those minutes when my feet were hurting and I was hungry and the weather was about as consistent as someone both indecisive and bipolar.
Since my last post, I’ve officially moved in at Queen Mary. I live in Pooley...
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...walk off that jet lag.
Quick post because there are so many things to do!
I arrived in London just fine, and the past day and a half, while hectic, have certainly not been boring! Today was a little more organized than yesterday, which is probably a good thing, because yesterday was chaos, and everyone was jet lagged. Not a good combination.
I’m currently attending the UC Education Abroad Program’s...
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“Simple exchanges can break down walls between us, for when people come together...”
– Barack Obama, remarks at student roundtable in Istanbul, Turkey, April 7, 2009
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...try to fit your whole life into 2.5 suitcases.
I leave in six days, so of course I spend at least two hours every day playing the suitcase game: take things out, put things in, resituate items that have already been packed, write lists of items yet to be packed, weigh suitcases, discover they are overweight. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
For an international flight, all passengers are allowed two pieces of checked baggage (each weighing under 50...
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...Skype.
I’ve finally downloaded Skype and signed myself up for their unlimited US + Canada call plan so that I can call my parents on their cell phones from my computer. It works pretty well, all things told, although my laptop’s built-in microphone leaves some things wanting and I’ll probably get an external mic once I get there. Once I work out the time difference and my schedules,...
August 2009
3 posts
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“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to...”
– G. K. Chesterton
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...send some postcards.
My address between September 21st and whenever I end up getting back (sometime around mid-June):
Pooley 03F Pooley House Westfield Way London E14 PU United Kingdom
Am I the only one who thinks that this address has way too few identifying numbers (street number?) and too many lines in it that say almost the same thing? But perhaps that’s how the Brits do things…
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...blog!
In slightly over a month, I will board a plane in Los Angeles and get off ten hours later in London.
I’m spending my junior year studying abroad at Queen Mary, University of London, located in East London between the tube stops Stepney Green and Mile End. I will be living on campus in student housing, with my own single room in a suite of five to nine boys and girls (also with their own...