Pre-Trip

I made to my airport hotel in one piece, but I'm more worried about getting to my Italian hotel. I have to get up tomorrow at 3:45 a.m. (even the receptionist here flinched when I told her that) to make my 6:30 flight. That might be getting there ridiculously early, but traveling alone and I do not go well together, so I figured I'd allow as much time as possible.

It is only 5:30 pm here, but I suppose I should go to bed in a few hours so I'll be able to function during my first day in Venice.

Now I shall log offof this public computer :)

Rachel is Stupid (or maybe just socially awkward): Episode Three

Haven't had one of these in awhile have we? This is probably because Rachel has been busy learning things. But now that classes are OVER (seriously. This is not an April Fool's joke. They're done), she has plenty of time in which to be stupid. But today's episode showcases her being less stupid and more socially inept. Rachel is very socially inept. Let us see what happened last night...

Last night I had taken off from the show because, when I was asked about my schedule a few weeks ago, Adaptations had been scheduled to perform in the evening. Later, it was discovered that we couldn't because another class was performing, so we ended up going on at 11:30 a.m. It went really well, people liked ours a lot (they weren't so sure about the other group's. Neither were we) and Laura came, which was great. After the show, my group hung out for a little bit, but some still had essays to do or other classes to attend, so we weren't able to stay for as long as we usually do. It was very sad, saying good-bye to all of them. Anyway. So because I had called off, I had the night free. Today starts the next kick-in-the-pants writing project that I'm doing- Script Frenzy (1 month, 100 pages of script.) There was a kick-off party and I decided that I wanted to go. I've always wanted to do the ones for NaNoWriMo, but last November was full of night classes and rehearsals, so I missed all of them. This was perfect.

Before I went, Adrienne asked to use my computer- she had three essays due yesterday and right before she was finishing one of them, her computer crashed. She managed to save her documents but her computer is beyond help right now. The absence of my computer is important later in this story.

Problems started to arise from the moment I got to the tube station- the line I needed, which would take me directly to the stop, was having problems and was temporarily suspended. I took their advice and went to another stop to catch the same line a little further down, but there were still problems there. Eventually I did get the line I needed and decided to consult the map to find the exact location of the pub where the event was being held. I looked for the road for twenty minutes and it was not there. This, I discovered when I found the road- or rather, lane- in person was probably because the name of the lane would have taken up more room on the map than the lane itself. It was that small.

After asking directions from a few people, I found the pub and remembered that the Facebook event had said that they were going to be meeting upstairs. I was glad that they had told us this because the pub was so full of after-work patrons that they were flooding out onto the sidewalk. I'm also just not a pub fan. I like them more than bars (not that I really hang out in either, even here), but they're still pretty similar. While I have been to pubs that are very nice and allow you to talk without screaming, the ones I've been to lately are just loud. I sound like an old woman. I guess you should read "loud" as "full of people, which scares me because I am too shy to talk to any of them." Plus, after the pub experience with Megan, I was even more wary of entering by myself.

But I went in and went upstairs. That level was just a very small room, which was just as loud, but, I figured, it would make it easier to find my group. There were three distinct groups of people there, but I didn't know who I was looking for and none of them looked particularly writer-y. I stood awkwardly in the doorway for a long time, periodically taking out my phone and staring at it just to do something. When people started giving me weird looks, I moved to a corner and stood there awkwardly instead.

"You could have asked someone if they were there for Script Frenzy," I hear you sigh as you roll your eyes. No. No, I couldn't have. I knew I needed to- there was no other way for me to find out who I was supposed to be with. But it took me a good ten more minutes of awkward lurking time to work up the courage to talk to any of them. Besides my fear of being told that I had just spoken to the wrong person, I was obviously younger than all of them, and between my teenager-y way of dressing and my terrified demeanor, I probably looked like I was about fourteen. My age regressed further when I finally asked a person from each group if they were there for Screnzy and, upon being told no by each of them, felt like I was going to cry. I hurriedly exited the pub and went back to Mile End, wondering how no one from the event had come.

As it turns out, the reason no one had been upstairs is because they had changed their location to downstairs, which they sent around in a Facebook message a little bit before I left. Since I didn't have my computer, I didn't get this message :( However, I plan to try one of the write-ins this weekend.

When I got back to Mile End, I thought I might stop in at the local pub and meet my friends, who were going there after one of the school shows. A quick glance through the windows told me that they weren't there yet (it's pretty easy to identify the QM students from everyone else) and I wasn't going to go stand around pathetically in another pub, especially since I wouldn't order alcohol and couldn't order soda, as I've given it up for Lent. No one sits in a pub and drinks water. I went back to my room.

As it got later, I knew that if I were a normal person, I would go back to the pub and meet them... but I didn't go. Not because I didn't want to see them, but because I just didn't feel very social. It was a night when I was perfectly content to be alone and read three hundred pages of a book I've read a thousand times before. It reminds me of the episode of Gilmore Girls where Rory has the house to herself and tells her boyfriend and her best friend that she has plans that night just so she can stay home, do her laundry, and eat Indian food by herself. Maybe I'm weird, but I completely understand this.

Plus, the same friends are getting together on Thursday :)

"Rediscover Yourself."

This is what I was told by a lot of people before I came to England, or some variant of the phrase. My playwriting professor added at the end of his review of my final project, "There is so much to see and do in London. Explore, explore, explore. You will come back a different person."

I have been thinking about the idea that London will change me, and I realised that I still don't know what that means. What am I meant to be changing? Is it a conscious thing? Will it be? Should it? Am I supposed to be making my choices based on the fact that it might change me as a person? That sounds like it could be dangerous.

As I said, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be changing. I know I need to be braver in general. Coming here was a step in that direction I hope- I was as terrified as I was excited to come to England. But now that I'm here and in love with the city, am I changing? Am I rediscovering? Is settling into a routine bad? (Well, either way, I'll be fixing that in five days when school lets out.)

But I suppose change is not necessarily synonymous with rediscovery. To discover is "to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find, or find out; gain sight or knowledge of something previously unseen or unknown." So... I have to do this? See, gain knowledge of, learn of, find, gain sight or knowledge of, myself?

I almost typed, "How will I know if I'm doing this right?" but then realised that there's probably not a right way to do this. Perhaps this is also a step up, being able to see the problem in that statement, as I'm generally always concerned with getting everything perfect. I don't think it's possible to rediscover perfectly.

I guess I just want to be able to tell if I'm doing what I was instructed to do. I don't want to go back to the people who told me this and have them say, "You haven't changed at all." Then again, there are parts of myself that I don't want to change. But that could be part of the problem, too, I guess. I hold on very tightly to things.

*sigh* This is what happens when I do analytical assignments late at night. I start to think. What are your thoughts on this? I would be interested to hear them (and I'm not necessarily talking about how they pertain to me. Just in general :) )

:(

The coverage of Japan is making me very sad. I don't really know what else to say about it except that I and keeping those affected in my thoughts. I was especially worried when I heard about it because one of my childhood friends is currently living in Japan. Thankfully, she lives a few hundred miles away and it seems that she is safe. She still felt the earthquake, though, and her blog entry about it made me cry. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through something like that, especially since she's in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language. I've been watching the BBC coverage of the disaster, and it's unimaginable. Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine it :(

Spring Break Plans and Vlog #2

I didn't want to say anything until everything was finalised, and now everything is... so I am going to tell you of my super-secret-except-not-I-just-wanted-to-use-that-phrase spring break plans! As you probably know, I have all of April off- yay!- and while I don't need to be traveling constantly, I do want to take advantage of the fact that I can get to a different country in less time than it would take me to get to a neighboring state back home. I mean, seriously... no longer are my nearest visiting spots New Jersey and Maryland. No, now I am near to Norway and Germany and Spain!

As it happens, I'm not going to any of those places. Instead, here's what my calendar for April looks like:

April 1st-14th: Recover from the millions of essays I just turned in. Go see London-y things that I've not yet done, like the Imperial War Museum, Camden Markets, the V&A again, do a Harry Potter walk, etc. There's still a ton of stuff here I haven't done.

April 15th-18th: VENICE! Yes, I am going to Italy with Adrienne! While I've never had an extremely burning desire to go to Italy, I've definitely been mildly interested for awhile, thanks to The Lizzie McGuire Movie and 13 Little Blue Envelopes. And now that I'm going, I can't wait! (I'm also terrified because the only Italian word I can say is "spaghetti" and I have to get from the airport to the hotel all by myself; Adrienne's coming from previous travels.)
April 22 & 23: Overnight bus tour to Oxford, Cotswolds, Bath, Lacock, and Stonehenge.

April 24-27th: LILLE! I'm returning Megan's visit and staying with her in France for a few days, which should be awesome. Again, I don't speak the language (despite the valiant attempts of my two wonderful French teachers, I'm still terrible), but Megan does, so I won't die.

Then I come back and prep for exams in May. This is all very exciting, but I do need to make it through March first, and that's going to be the tricky part. I got a great group today for my Adaptations performance, and we have lots of cool ideas, but we're going to have to rehearse a lot, as we only have three weeks, really, to put a performance together, including tech and a full script and everything.
I handed in two essays today. One was a pseudo-essay that wasn't too much stress except that the teacher sent out yet another e-mail about it that I didn't get and so myself and a classmate were running around trying to figure out what to do with our essays. The second was my Proof essay. I turned it in a full twenty-four and a half hours early, but keeping it wouldn't have done me any good. I was stressing over it too much to keep it any longer; now it's out of my hands in every sense. I've determined that it's not the students who should be stressing us out, as was suggested to us before we came here; it's the academic system, and the English students are just as freaked out by it as we are. There was a regular QMUL girl handing in an essay at the same time I was and she was in tears from the stress. Yeah...

I recorded another vlog for you. I hope you enjoy. I'm working on my editing, I promise (also, they won't be made this regularly. I was just bored the other day.)

Is there anything you'd like to know about my time here? Food, people, even more school, what places are like outside of my uni? I am missing my commenters :p so let me know what you want to see!

Rachel is Stupid: Episode One

Hello, and welcome to the premiere of our new show, where our star, Rachel, demonstrates just how foolish she can be. While it would be easy to give you a taste of this daily, we thought we'd just save episodes for special occasions. And what a special occasion today was, ladies and gentlemen, for Rachel seriously considered chaging her major to Stupid today... and it was only noon when she considered this! Let’s go into Rachel’s brain and hear things from her point of view.

First, we must flash back to a few days ago, when I told Adrienne that she could use my pots and pans to make some pasta, as her kitchen supplies had not yet arrived. I had already made my pasta and was halfway through my delicious Italian dish when Adrienne came into my room. The following conversation ensued:

ADRIENNE: Hey, what did you use to take he pot off of the stove?
ME: (is this a trick question?) My hand?
ADRIENNE: Well, I just thought that since the handle is metal, it might be really hot.
ME: Oh, yeah...

And now we come to today's instances. I had no classes so I decided that, before my appointment that night, I’d check some things off of my to-do list: do laundry, go to the library, check out the gym, buy some actual dinner food, etc. So I make to do the first on the list- laundry.

I had been very responsible. Though I have no laundry bag and cannot find one ANYWHERE to purchase, I’m a former Girl Scout, and therefore had been stashing my laundry in a sturdy cloth bag from Curves. I picked up this bag and also my wallet, because I thought maybe laundry wasn’t free to do here as it is at my home school. 'I am so prepared,' I thought. 'I am a laundry-doing wizard. I will go down in the history of laundry-doing. I am the Rudolph of laundry.'
So I made my way to the laundry building (no machines in the dorms) and when I got there, I couldn’t get in. I pulled on the door, but nothing happened. I pushed, because here, doors have handles and not flat metal panels when they want you to push them. Still, nothing happened. Then I noticed an electronic black box to the right of the door and waved my card in front of it- bingo! I went in with my laundry to find that thankfully, the machines were basically the same as at Arcadia. It did indeed cost money to do the laundry, which kind of sucks- guess I won’t be doing it every week like I do back home. So I loaded up the machine, fed in the coins, closed the door and tried to leave… and I couldn’t. The door was locked. There was a lock above the handle of the door- maybe if I twisted it… Nope. It just twirled around and around and wouldn’t let me out.

This was embarrassing. I was locked in the laundry room. How was I going to get out? Adrienne and Laura were in class, so I couldn’t even make a humiliating “LIBERATE ME FROM THE LAUNDRY ROOM!” call. I kept trying to get out, trying to look like I was just chilling by the door when people passed (because normal people just chill by doors.) Finally, I looked around desperately and noticed a few buttons that looked like light switches on the side. I contemplated what might happen if I pressed them. They might blow up the building. But then at least I’d be out. So I pressed one. And lo and behold, the door unlocked! I was free! But I still felt stupid for being stuck in there for so long (even though it was only about three minutes.)

While my wash was washing, I thought I’d go to the library, print out a receipt I needed and get a play I am supposed to read. As I mentioned, the library is kind of intimidatingly large. I went to a computer to try and log and it wouldn’t let me, so I found a librarian. “Could you tell me how to print out a receipt for a booklet I need for class?” I asked. They stared at me. “A book for class?” the woman asked. “Yes, a receipt for it. I heard we have to have it printed out in order to actually get it.” More staring. “We don’t deal with the books for the departments,” the man said. “You’ll have to speak to your head of department about that.” “Where did you buy it?” the woman asked. “On the e-shop,” I answered. “No, we don’t deal with that,” the man insisted. “We only have books and journals to check out, not to purchase.” “No,” I insisted. “It’s not a book, it’s a- a- a- a…” I couldn’t think of the word that they called it. I was creating a language barrier that didn’t exist. I had begun to use odd, jerky hand motions to try to represent a book that wasn’t a book but a collection of papers bound together by a wire. Obviously, I wasn’t doing it well, because they stared like it was their job. I was frustrated and therefore close to tears because crying is my response to everything.

I did not cry, though. Eventually, I got it across that I just needed to print something out, did so, and went in search of the play I needed. I followed the directions to the drama section with my call number, which began with PR. The last section was PN. Okay, it must be in the adjacent room. I entered and looked at the first shelf; PT.

WHAT?! The shelf I needed was the Grimmauld Place of shelves, except I wasn’t the Secret Keeper and so had no idea how to find it. Eventually I did and got a copy of the play with the proper editor and made my way to the checkout area.
Here’s the thing about checking out books at Queen Mary. There is not a person involved, save the student doing the checking out. It’s a machine. This was completely new to me. Basically, what you do is you scan the barcode on your i.d., punch in your PIN number, and then lay your book in this glowing blue box underneath the screen. I kind of expected it to be beamed somewhere, but then the machine spit out my receipt and bade me remove the book from the (non) beaming machine. Thus ended my adventure in the giant library.

But my day wasn’t over (nor is it now, as I wrote this.) Because I still had more on my to-do list. I needed to get some real food and so did Laura, so we headed off to Sainsbury’s. We decided to take the bus because it’s been kind of cold today. As you know, I just got my Oyster card yesterday, so I thought I was set… until the low, disapproving beep (as opposed to the high, “welcome on board!” beep) sounded when I pressed my card to the “touch in” button in the bus.

I didn’t know what to do, but I figured I’d ask the bus driver on the way back. I probably should have gotten off the bus; technically, I hadn’t paid. But I didn’t. And punishment for this was swift. Sainsbury’s is only a few stops from the school, and we were just one stop away from the one we needed. At this stop were literally twenty neon green-vested police officers, and it seemed that they were checking the buses for people with offended passes, a.k.a ME.

I tried to act nonchalant, but it’s like when you’re onstage (or anywhere, really) and you’re told to just act normally and you suddenly go, “…How do you do that?” Two policemen got on either end of the bus and started working toward the middle, where Laura and I were standing. The front policeman found that a man next to me was holding a problem card and kicked him off the bus, but before he got to me, he was distracted and went to the front of the bus again. The back policeman was still coming closer, and I knew that I was going to be kicked off. How humiliating. Their scary scanning was just like 1984, and I wondered, if they found out that I was a holder of an offending card, if I might be exposed to the rats. But just as the back policeman raised the scanner to look at my card, his colleague outside called the him, he got off the bus, and we pulled away. WHOA. Once I recovered, I was just annoyed with my card. I was not allowed on the bus on the way home; I have no idea what’s wrong with my card, but I have to find out before my appointment today so I can actually get there.

So there are all of my adventures before three p.m. today. When I got home, I engaged my drug of choice to help me calm down: Gilmore Girls. And after the theme song had played, I heard a knock on my door. A girl was standing there. “Hi,” she said in an English accent. “Are you watching Gilmore Girls?” “Er… yes,” I replied. “I thought so! I love that show, and when I heard the music, I thought that I wanted to meet the person watching it. Hi, I’m Emmie!” So I’ve finally met one of my flatmates. She’s very nice and invited me to hang out with the others in the flat, which is a relief, because everyone in the flat has basically been scurrying around Adrienne and me, the only two new people in the flat. Now maybe we can get to know them :)


Oh, and by the way, thanks for all of the comments, everyone! My inbox was filled with them when I got up this morning and it was wonderful to read all of your thoughts! Comments are love :) Check back where you wrote, because I'll be responding!