I'm from Joisey. You from Joisey?

Aaah, I can’t believe my program is already half done! Time has been flying by faster than it ever has, and I’m feeling the pressure. I don’t know how I’m going to do everything I want to before it’s over! If only I was made of millions, I would totally come and live here for a year after uni (that’s college to you Americans).

Not much new on the work front. I’m sure I’ll have tons more stories, but as of now it’s still the same as I’ve reported. Basically, compiling pictures for galleries (i.e. girls washing cars, porn stars who Twitter, and the time-honored crowd-pleaser: twins). A valuable lesson I’ve learned: if I’m going through images on Google after searching for something like “hot girls car wash” and I don’t know what I’m looking at, the best course of action is not to try to figure it out. Just keep looking. Or I will regret it.

I’ve still had only a few conversations with the other people there because it’s very solitary work, but I did have a conversation with one of the only girls about the States (which is obviously the easy topic for them to ask me about). She said she wants to come but it’s too expensive now and she wants to wait for the dollar to go down. I always think it’s funny – or annoying, actually – when people here talk about the dollar/pound ratio. They think the conversion is good for us now. “Oh, you must be loving it.” Um, no. Yes, it’s better than it was, but I’m still losing almost 50 cents for every dollar I spend.

I’m done with my first two classes (A and A-. Go me!) and now I have a Shakespeare class on Mondays. It was cancelled for Monday, so Alice (my roommate) and I are going to Stratford-upon-Avon for the day. It sounds like we’re being really studious and trying to make up for the not having class, but it’s actually just because I’m a really big nerd, and I would have gone there later anyway. So I’m really really busy, and it doesn’t help that the few moments I get to relax and go on the computer, our internet craps out. The internet is HORRIBLE here. Like, it just stops working at random times, very often, so we’re stuck for sometimes hours completely cut off from the world. It’s like 1980. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a spoiled Gen Y-er, and we like our instant gratification. No internet is like being thrown in to frickin’ Victorian England. And I’m not Jane Austen. I can’t fill my time writing the greatest romance stories ever.

On Friday night we went to see He’s Just Not that Into You because we were waking up early for a daytrip on Saturday. It was really cute, but going to the cinema here is an experience – and not a good one. Your ticket has a seat number. When I went to see Frost/Nixon with my class, it was a matinee and the theater was pretty empty, so it didn’t really matter if we sat in a different seat. This showing was packed, and there were ushers stationed at the door to show you to your seat. This proved really obnoxious when the previews started and people were still filing in, being shown to their seats in the center of the row. So, instead of latecomers finding the most accessible seats (while early birds would naturally move toward the center, leaving room on the aisles), everyone in the row would have to stand up to let people to their seats. If the usher found someone in the wrong seat, everyone would have to stand to let them move and wait for the correct people to get to those seats. It is so ridiculously inefficient, disorganized, and impractical, but I think all of the theaters do it here.

Some other interesting, unrelated things:
1. The Brits pronounce the term for child molester as “peed-o-phile.”
2. Besides all of those other embassies I mentioned, the Suadi military attaché is also just down the street. Or around the corner? I forget. But I’ve walked past it several times.
3. A popular candy here, the Mars bar, is actually a Milky Way. I’d heard of Mars bars before (or read about them), but I didn’t realize it was just another name for a candy we have.

Also, during the orientation someone was telling us all how some people, when adapting to a new country, will try to acclimate, but others will highlight their own culture. Specifically, some Americans might try to affect a British accent for short, one-word comments, like saying “excuse me” on the Tube. Others will go the opposite way, strengthening their own accents. I had totally forgotten about this until the other day, when two separate people mentioned how they sometimes slip into the accent on the Tube. I thought that was funny, and then realized why: I went the other way. I often speak here with a stronger Jersey accent than I do at home. I think I might also be emphasizing different mannerisms and injecting different sayings that I might not do so often at home. It’s funny. I don’t know why some people go one way and some the other.