Ode to a Flatmate [Part 1]

Today is 21 April, 2011.  That means it is a mear 4 days until my birthday!!  Now in Mattie-World, there is a "Birthday MONTH" celebration, a "Birthday WEEK" celebration, a "Birthday EVE" celebration, and to wrap it all up a "BIRTHDAY" celebration.  and sometimes when I can get away with it, a "Birthday Boxing-Day". 


I never said I wasn't over the top about some things in life....
But have no fear!! I do this for many people's birthdays!!  Or I try to anyway. ..


HOWEVER, back to my "Ode to a Flatmate".  I have missed ALL of my flatmates so much, but I only ever had one roommate!!

Ms. Stephanie Biggs

The two of us sitting on the Sphinx
off of Temple before our High Tea  

She was the best roommate I could have ever asked for!!  Steph and I met in our ASL 1 class and realizing we both went to CSUSM , we became quick friends.  Starting ASL 2 semester I had been saving up to go to London for about 2 years at the point [and by saving up, I mean saving buckets of money and then spending most of that money on coats, boots, and gloves. you know... the London Staples!].  So, I told Steph one day that I was moving to London in the Fall & she stopped abruptly [seeing as we were walking out to the parking lot...], and told me she was studying abroad in England for fall as well- but in Lancashire, not London.

It became my mission, from that day on out, to get Steph to make the right choice (;D) and move to London with me!!  After quite some time of reviewing her pro/con lists [a clad-iron piece of evidence in how similar we were], she ended up deciding that moving to the city was the best option for her!! Woot woot!! I now had a travel buddy!!

So, needless to say Steph and I had so many adventures while in England.  But the best part was that there was someone like me on the trip.  For some reason, I am just a different personality type & my idea of what is "fun" and what isn't just usually doesn't line up with what other college kids like and do...  So, Steph was my safe-haven.  While all of our other friends went out and partied all night, Steph and I had our own adventures.  We went out on dinner dates [and got dressed up for one another :D], we did city-walks [getting lost 95% of the time], had movie nights [with ample amounts of laughter provided by British tv], and whatever else suited us [i.e. the random comedy show/play nights].  I loved my other sisters who I lived with- but what [I think... haha] we love most about each other, is our differences.  And although I didn't want to go out drinking every weekend, I loved hanging out with Steph, and then of course taking care of the girls who slowly came home one after the other haha :]

That being said: Steph and I learned a lot about each other!!  For example, Steph doesn't have a "type" when it comes to guys.  However the is a certain "X"-factor which she didn't know what it was.  Usually I have a knack for pointing out other people's "type" so on the tube or overground I'd usually try and find her guy in the crowd of highly unlikelys. I think about HALF walk through our time in London- I didn't find "the guy" sad to say- but I figured out her X-Factor!!  Stephanie Biggs has a thing for gentlemen with elongated faces!! I hope she doesn't mind me outting her on here haha... Sorry Steph, if you do... Oops.

BUT... case & point: Jesse from GLEE

long face: CHECK!!

And... She noticed things about me that I had never noticed...  She noticed that whenever there was a word that I liked, or sounded funny to me- I'd repeat it about 3 or 4 times.  I guess I've always done that because I'm a nerd who gets really excited at fun-to-say vocabulary [...like "poodles" or "irrevocably"- dang you Stephanie Meyer!!].  Anyhow- Steph pointed out that I like the way the word feels in my mouth & rolls off my tongue.  

TOTALLY TRUE!!

[Unfortunately] one of my favorite words is "irrevocably"... seriously Meyer may have disappoint plot-lines with predictable outcomes (plus, hidden- or maybe not so hidden- racism and sexism...), but the woman has a SPECTACULAR vocabulary!!...  And I just remembered that I fell in-love with the word "spectacular" when Marla Singer tells Edward Norton's character in Fight Club that, "There are things about you that I like. You're smart, you're funny, you're... spectacular in bed... But you're intolerable! You have very serious emotional problems. Deep seated problems for which you should seek professional help."  

Anyhow- I accredit this wonderful tid-bit about myself [which I always knew, but could never put my finger on what it was]: to LADY STEPHANIE BIGGS!!

Haha- okay, I thought of writing this down today because in the future I want a way to to remember that STEPH was PHENOMENAL today!!  Being that it is "Birthday WEEK" she met me after my ASL 3 class to bring me a gluten-free goodie she made for me.  First of all: making gluten-free anything requires some serious shopping due to the substitutions that need to be made in the absence of wheat, flour, ect... So to make gluten [baked] anything is so sweet.  But she didn't just make me gluten-free cake [which is good because I don't like cake ha], or gluten-free brownies------- BUT------- wait for it!!!-------- 

MILLIONAIRE BARS!!!

Oh my gosh- I kid you NOT they are the BEST British dessert EVER!!  I mean, really I have two favorite: Millionaire Bars & Treacle Tart... I don't know which I favor more.  But the Sainsbury [mini-market] across the street from our flat sold Millionaire Bars [2 per package] for £1!!!  Needless to say, I think I gained 5 pounds ALONE from eating these deadly things.

mmmMMmmm... treacle tart [the syrup kind NOT fruit]

So: what this WHOLE "Ode to a Flatmate Part 1" journal entry was to say to my sweet, sweet roommate Stephanie:

Thank you my darling girl.  You are 

Honeymoon Phase Never Ending & The "Ross" Pro/Con List

Here is the problem...  

Apparently for me, the grass is 
always greener on the other side.


When I first arrived in England, the whole group of study abroad students and I went to an orientation at the University of London, where we were told there is a psychological adjustment- a culture shock wave, if you will- to the whole experience. 

8am Orientation

• Honeymoon Stage
  - Everything is exciting, new, and predominantly positive
• Culture Shock/Conflict 
  - Unsure of customs 
  - Overwhelmed, anxious, confused, irritable, hostile
• Recovery and Understanding
  - Flexible, open to new experiences 
  – Better understanding of host environment 
  – Developing social network
• Adjustment
  - Able to maintain home cultural practices/beliefs and accept or incorporate new cultural practices/beliefs

And then you experience all those same things once you come home again...

Here is MY problem though...


When I got to London I pretty much stayed in honeymoon phase the whole time, while skipping conflict/culture shock, and moving right along to understanding/recovery [not so much the recovery though] and adjustment!!


And now that I am home, I am pretty much stuck on Conflict/Culture Shock. . .


As my flatmate Jenn said "every time you mention it another pang of sadness and yearning hits my heart."

this is my jenny-bean.

The Cons of London [if you could even call them that...]:
For the first month in London, I could barely sleep during the night.  Not because I wasn't comfortable or because I wasn't use to the time change... The girls (my flatmates) theorized that it was because Andrew was around 5000 miles away from me and my body could tell the difference.  I thought this plausible, but another factor was that: I am pretty sure if I still had an umbilical cord it would connect straight into the Pacific Ocean.  So, while I must admit that I hardly ever missed home while I was in London- I did miss factors of it: like Andrew, my family, the ocean, my friends...  


The Cons of Home:
It's not London.


This is like the episode in F.R.I.E.N.D.S where Ross is deciding between dating Julie or Rachel.  Rachel has a whole list of cons, but Julie has one: "she's not Rachum"- where Chandler spelled Rachel's name wrong...  Granted this leads to a whole fight between Ross and Rachel, but the remaining fact is that Ross broke up with Julie because in the end- whether Rachel would have him or not- Rachel was the best for him... 

So what does that make London? Rachel? Does that mean London is where I should be? And if so... Would I miss home more-so the second time around?

Life in San Diego

Life in London

Here is the ULTIMATE problem: God has created waaaay too much beauty in this world for my heart to be content in one place...  Therefore, no matter where I live, move, travel, ect... I will always craving more and more of His creation.


Thanks a lot Dad...... ;D

trixy weather & phone holding

      This morning my 4 year old (almost 5 year old) nephew had a t-ball game out in Temecula.  When I woke up this morning there was ice on my car- ICE people!!  In San Diego...  Plus, the wind was bitter cold, like the European kind that bites at your checks and turns them rosy.  It felt like a morning in Earl's Court.  So I ran back inside a pulled out my knee high socks, london rain boots, beanie, and coat!!  See... I knew I wanted to go to London for two years- so in the mean time I bought coat after coat, pair and pairs of gloves, and so on...  So by the time I was able to move to Englad, I had too many coats.  Now that I am home, I have all this stuff by the dozens, and barely any time to wear them.  So you can imagine my excitement when it was this cold!!  It means British Clothes!!!

my British attire for my Windsor trip :]

As soon as I drove out to Temecula and sat down at the game- the sun was beaming down the third baseline.  Leave it to San Diego to trick me with a patch of London and then take it away...  Actually, hold the phone- this is EXACTLY London weather!!  I just saw this...

Eeeek!! Thanks San Diego!!  I am no longer bitter :D Woot Woot!!

travel blog lament & monogamy reconsidered

I lived in London for 4 phenomenal months... While I lived in Kensington, and sporadically roamed the European continent, I kept a travel blog with snippets of of my life as a Londoner.  It was priceless.  I wrote about my love for my darling flatmates, getting lost in the city, anecdotes from funny incidents, videos of us (me and friends) going around the city, my tours of museums, ect...  I loved my travel blog and knew it would be something to cherish forever.




And then the uncertain, unsecured British internet networks took over and disaster struck.  On one of the nights when our flat's internet had failed, I headed over to the unfortunate American "restaurant" on our block that offered free internet: McDonalds.  I had a skype date with my mother (which, by the way, she failed to show up for...) so, I clicked on the "login" button on the McDonalds site; that unfortunate "click" changed everything.


As it turns out, someone hacked into my accounts (e-mails and otherwise) in order to get into my bank accounts and suck my London-funds dry (even though I had done a pretty stand up job of that myself).  In the mean time however they chose to delete me out of my own e-mail account- which of course is hooked up to the sacred travel blog!


Not to mention that within the same twenty-four hour time period my computer also crashed, hard drive shut down, and many- if not all- of my pictures we're deleted.


So... I spend a lot of time here (residing in my original home-California) pining over moments long gone that took place in Britain; wishing I had my travel blog to read so I could pretend I was still dancing through the tube or walking down Earl's Court Rd to check and see if the thrift shop 4 doors down from our flat received any new (British) copies of the Harry Potter books...  Therefore, this is my lament.  Ode to my British Love Affair.  This is certainly not going to be a chronological list of events from my life in London.  I wish I had that- but... I don't.  Some European-punk deleted my shots out of that... Anyhow- my old travel blog was initially for my friends, family, and fiance at home who wanted to keep up with my life while I was 5,000 miles away.  However, this, this bog... this is for me.  I am a full-hearted believer in monogamy- but not when cities are involved.


I miss London every day.  I intend to love my city from afar while I wait for the chance to go back again; but until then, I'll rehash, retell, and relive all the beautiful components that comprised my Truly Brilliant British Life.