London · Calling

The other things in my life...
Everything's still wonderful with Sam.  I love him to pieces, and his friends are wonderful and have completely adopted me which I couldn't be happier about.

Now for the subject line....

Last Saturday (the 17th), I was in a taxi with Sam and his best friend and started having sharp pains in my lower abdomen on the right side.  They were a bunch of them right in a row, and then would happen a little less frequently.  Sunday, there started being constant discomfort and then sharp pains.  This continued until Tuesday when I was constantly in pain, with more painful sharp pains.  I spent Tuesday night at Sam's best friend's house b/c Sam was worried about me but had to be away Wednesday morning.  He sent me to Av's house so I wouldn't be alone and so I could talk to Av about how to deal with registering with the NHS for the first time (Av's flatmates are both studying medicine).  Wednesday AM, I made an appointment with the GP who sent me off to the hospital thinking I had appenicitis (even though I didn't have any other symptoms apart from pain).  I went off to the Emergency Room an was met by Av who sat and waited with me until Sam got back from Milton Keynes.  i was then admitted into a ward bay with 6 beds...including the crazy woman across from me and the recovering alcoholic/heroin addict diagonal from me.  Anyway, 3 nights later, they've determined I'm in for an ovarian cyst, but since they're actually quite normal, can't figure out why I'm in so much pain.

Monday I went to see a specialist that Sam's mother set me up with (God love her; I'd be completely lost without her and Sam), and it turns out that said cyst had ruptured leaving a small pool of blood behind my uterus, thus causing the pain.

Don't worry, though.  I AM FINE!!!
I have to take the rest of the week off work, which is driving me up the wall, but they're being very good and understanding about it.  I also have the best work health insurance policy EVER.

For every night I spend in an NHS hospital, the insurance company pays me £100.  If I see a private specialist, the insurance company covers up to £150, work then covers up to £75 over that.  Anything else, I pay, but if I need something beyond the initial consulation, the insurance company covers other amounts.

Good, huh?

So that's where it stands.  Sorry if I grossed anybody out, but I'm now home.  Though I'm still in pain, I'm no longer on Morphine and Tramadol, so I'm on the way to recovery!

Much love,
A

Current Location:	Flat
Current Mood:	sore

• Balanced checkbook
• Sorted out phone bills
• Reported electricity meter reading/readjusted billing
• Signed up to be a mystery shopper (mmmm, free food)
• Figured out how to get to work (both offices)
• Donated books to charity shop
• Put away dishes
• Cleaned up living room
• Sort of figured out the heating
• Put suitcases away
• Cleaned scuffs off my purse

Guess I've done more than I thought.  In fact, all I need to do now is buy pasta and do laundry!

If you can't tell, I'm back home in my itty bitty flat.  The heating is a mess.  Jesse programmed it so it's off when we're at work, which is great, but I'm home this week, and you can't override the system, you can only reset it.  I'm going to have to rearrange all the furniture since the living room sofas are blocking the radiators, and BRRR it's cold in here!

I'm really excited to start work on Monday, but before then, I have dinner/drinks with some Oxford friends tomorrow night and then pre-work drinks with my group Saturday night.  Exciting, but not as exciting as that first paycheck is going to be!!! :)

Current Location:	Flat 35
Current Mood:	excited
Current Music:	Mallorca (Barcarola)--Albeniz

Tomorrow morning I'm throwing all of my stuff into Sam's car/van/whatever monstrous thing he's borrowing from his parents, and I'm moving to London!
Seems like this day would NEVER arrive!!
So with that, my not-very-often postings will become even more not-very-often until I have internet access at my flat.  Then it's a lot of back and forth for graduation, family vacation, and temporary deportation, but I'll have a new address, new keys, new furniture, and new responsibilities (hmm).

So a fond farewell, for now.

See you in London!  :) :)

xxx

Pictures from the intermanet b/c I don't have a digital camera and/or photos of my place yet...

  
My building is the brown brick one with the white stripey things in the far corner of the square. 
You can see the end row of balconies.  My balcony's not that big though!

The White Cube Gallery is across the square from my building.
I'm looking forward to pretending I'm a trendy urban hipster who understands modern art.

The 'Gherkin' is visible from almost everywhere in Hoxton.
I dunno...I think it's a bit rude!

My closest Tube Station.

Never fear.  I know where the nearest one of these is!

:)

Current Location:	Last night in the convent
Current Mood:	excited

Not particularly sure how I felt about Digital Fortress; it didn't take long for me to figure out the 'twist' or the way to solve the problem.  I just sat there metaphorically banging my head on the desk while the NSA cryptographers tried to work out the answer.  I understand that a lot of people need things spelled out for them, which is why Dan Brown did what he did, but honestly.  I enjoyed the book, but not as much as say, The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons.  I think I'm going to give Dan Brown a bit of a rest because he's just not doing it for me.

After finishing that at around 2pm (having started it Thursday), I read all of Call Me Elizabeth.  It wasn't that it was that good; I just have nothing better to do!  This is the previously mentioned memoir of an English prostitute.  The whole idea is to get you to understand why she did it (6 kids, deadbeat husband, not making any money, etc.), but I wasn't particularly moved by her story.  Yes, I was angry when she was raped, so I suppose it elicited some sort of emotion, but the entire book kept reiterating the circumstances she was under.  I'm not entirely sure it warranted a whole book, but hey, it was lying around the convent (of all places) and was free, so I went with it.

Now I'm starting A Short Hisotry of Tractors in Ukranian which everybody seems to be reading on the Tube.

In other news, I have one day to move out of my room into another room in the convent, so the person living here next year can move in.  Sister Lorraine gave me notice to August 24, but I'm going to be in Portugal the 12th-23rd and have to be in London house hunting Tuesday until I leave.  Sunday I have to be in London for Sam's friend's birthday, so this leaves Monday and Monday only.  The bigger problem is I need to keep my suitcases free to take back to Florida the 28th-7th, and I need to use my remaining smaller suitcase for Portugal.  Oh and I have no boxes.  In theory, I could unpack in the smaller room, but it's meant to be a transitional room, so there's only a bed in there (no dresser or anything like that).  This is going to take a miracle.  Have I mentioned I don't have a place to live yet?  That will happen next week because it has to.

Oh well, it'll happen.  It always does...

Current Location:	Convent
Current Mood:	hopeful
Current Music:	'Mr. Jones' ~Counting Crows

Now it's on to the next.  I bought Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island as recommended by Christy off of Amazon for 1p.  It's another one of those very loveable books about quirky English behavior, though this one is written by a travel/humor writer rather than an anthropologist (as was the case with Watching the English).  I bought Sam Bryson's Notes from a Big Country for his birthday, stole it, and read it all in two days, so I'm happy to read another one of his books.  

After this, I have Call Me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.  The former, which I found in the convent, is the memoir of a British prostitute (amazing what you can find in a convent); the latter is a fictional account of the mother of a boy who commits Columbine-esque killings and the letters she writes to her estranged husband after visiting the boy in prison.  We Need to Talk About Kevin has been on the UK best sellers list forever, so I was very intrigued and finally bought it.  As I said, to Kelsey in a letter today (Kels, check your mailbox soon!), neither of these are very appropriate to take on vacation with Sam's family lest they think I'm a complete lunatic, so I bought more books today (as thought I needed an excuse)!  Now I have Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (everybody I know that has heard of this book raves about it), A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Leqycka (don't ask me about the title, but it's another on the best sellers list and I've seen at least 4 people reading it every time I get on the tube in London), and The Last Templar by Raymon Khoury (I think my mild obsession with the Holy Grail and crime fiction is getting out of hand).

Tonight I went to watch a horrible vampire movie over Baileys milkshakes at Kaleen's flat.  You've got to love those films that are so destined to be awful that you wonder why anyone would ever make them.  :)
Anyway, I'm going to get back to reading and then go to bed.  I need to catch the train to London tomorrow.  Pray for apartment mojo.

Current Location:	Convent
Current Mood:	calm

I'm about to start Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.  Mosse, not Moss.  As far as I know, the book is not by a coked-out supermodel.  
All of this reading has made me do a lot of thinking about literacy in general, mainly about how Americans seem to read very rarely.  The Brits do it a bit differently though.  No matter the time of year and, it seems, no matter the bookstore, there's always a 3 for 2 sale going on.  Granted, it encourages sales for the shops, but really, books are expensive, so I'm far more likely to buy a book if there's some sort of deal involved.  Also, they actually advertise books.  There are tons of advertisements all over the Tube for so and so's newest novel, and it's not just novels.  A good lot of it is popular science/non-fiction.  Maybe it doesn't actually encourage literacy as much as I think it does, but what better way to get people to read then to prey on our abilities to fall into marketing schemes?

I am such a nerd.

Current Location:	Convent of the Sacred Heart
Current Mood:	nerdy
Current Music:	'Lightning Crashes' ~Live

The rain last night cooled things off a bit, but my room's still hot as hell.  It's probably what's doing my head in.  I think I might venture outside tomorrow, but I've been two ouchie all day.

In other news, I've finished three more books (between the headachy napping):

1) Watching the English by Kate Fox.  
I was thoroughly amused by this and have really started to notice even more English peculiarities.  I'm not sure if it's available in the states, but it's worth a peek just for a bit of a laugh.  

2) The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne
Actually not by Sam Bourne but by Jonathan Freedland writing under the pseudonym of Sam Bourne.  It's being touted as 'a Jewish Da Vinci Code', looking at Kaballah and such to crack the codes in the book.  

3) some silly beach novel that was free with a housemate's old Cosmo magazine
Somewhat boring and definitely pointless, but something to read.

I'm now working on another book along the lines of #3 which claims that some city planner is a long, lost descendent of King Arthur who is working as a city planner.  Um, yeah...I don't particularly know why I'm reading this crap either.  I'll get back to some better mindless books soon!

In other news, the housing is getting sorted.  I've finally 'divorced' the group of people I was going to live with and have decided to live with my housemate from this year.  Jesse's friend has backed out, so it's just going to be the two of us, but he and Sam get along well and Jesse's girlfriend and I get along well, so everybody's fine with the arrangement.  Jesse also doesn't have to move as early as the other lot did, so I'll save myself on a month's worth of rent.  All sorted, until Dan (the one who'd been so horribly stubborn all along) emailed the rest of the original group saying he was backing out as well and living at home for the first month.  This kind of screws the other two over since they have the biggest budget discrepancy.  Not to mention the fact that I gave everybody ample warning, and Dan just dropped this on them without saying it was something he'd been considering.  Hopefully it'll work out for everybody, but I'm glad I cut things when I did, although now that Dan's out, I could have lived with the original group.  Oh well.  Just some more silly drama, I suppose.

I'm going to lie down for a bit before dinner.  Kumiko has offered to cook Japanese food for her boyfriend and me for dinner.  YUMMY!  :)

**Edit**
I've forgotten that I spent much of the early 'reading for pleasure'-ness catching up on all of those books I should have read when I was little but never did.

The Phantom Tollbooth
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

I'm going to read all of the Narnia books when I'm done with this next lot that's here.  I'm very happy that with three kids, Sam's house is still chock-full of these books that little English kids have to read when they're at school!

**Edit again**
I'm also catching up on all of the letters I owe people.  If I owe you one, let me know!

Current Location:	Convent
Current Mood:	migrainey
Current Music:	'Nobody's Perfect'~Madonna

I'm really looking forward to the trip; Sam and I have really not been able to escape the business of post-finals.  I was just not recovering from the stress very well (mmm...migraines), and he was having to move out of his house.  
House-hunting in London's not going particularly well.  The people I initially signed on to live with are being very difficult to please in terms of location (especially one of them who wants to be inexplicably far from all major transportation options), and one of them has a very low budget but wants a lot out of her housing (i.e. furnished with double beds in all 4 rooms; hardwood floors; a house, not an apartment, etc).  Luckily, one of my current housemates has invited me into an apartment with him and a friend of his, so I might just drop all of it and move with them.  It seems like the best option because we all have the same budget, all want the same area, and will all be keeping the same kind of schedule.  It's also easier to find an apartment/house with 3 bedrooms than it is one with 4.  I know what is currenlty the best option, but I've been talking about living in the 4 for months now.  How do I get out of this gracefully?

Otherwise, things are going well.  It's nice to be in Oxford without any work to do.  Granted, not many people are around, but there are still some, and I can always get into London whenever I want/need.  Also, Sam's family has invited me on vacation with them to Portugal at the middle/end of August.  YAY! :) :)

Right, back to the World Cup.
Cheer for Italy with me!

xx

Current Location:	London--Sam's Room
Current Mood:	happy
Current Music:	World Cup Final on TV