The More You Change

I'm in heaven. I really am. I was walking to the office today and it hit me. Here I was, in London. Seriously, the city has grown on me and its charms are even more hypnotic now that Dan is here. He arrived on Saturday and we've been having a jolly good time. On that note, it has been raining and the temperature has been as low as 50. Yet Dan and I soldier on. On Monday we went to the National Portrait Museum to check out "The Face of Fashion" exhibition. Yesterday, after putting in a solid day at the office, we saw This is England, a story of a 12-year old boy in 1980's England who becomes a skinhead. The movie was really quite good. As I got up this morning I found myself thinking about the character. It also was an excellent way to familiarize myself to my topic. I saw the gloomy desperation of these working-class people and the gross hate that they dealt to immigrants. I also felt like I was less-sympathetic to the conservative outreach agenda than I had once been. This came at the point when the leader of the gang, Combo, poses a question to a friend of some of the members, Milky, who is Jamaican. He asks him, "Are you English or are you Jamaican?" At that point, Milky stared at the ground for what seemed like an intolerably long time. After the tension had built to an excruciating level, he replied, "English." Combo replied, "Good. We need more like you." Essentially, this is what a lot of the conservative outreach entails. There is slightly less of an exclusive relationship between the two identities, but the cruel choice lurks in the background. In other news, I am thisclose to buying the Blake Lewis EP on Itunes. Is this horrible? I feel like it is. I find him delightful and I love his song choices (we'll ignore that Maroon 5 selection). Now it is back to work for me.

London: Week One

This past week was very nice, if you conveniently forget the whole bed bug fiasco. The first good thing is that I have an office in the political science department at University College London. All of a sudden I have a desk and office mates. This translates into human interactions! Woot woot! I also feel like I have a set place where I can get MSD (major shit done). On my first day at the office I met these other human beings. The first was Canadaian and instantly charming. Yet as we talked I noticed that he was the prototype of a "frenemy." He just slides in these digs in everything he says, mostly about Americans. Because of his false amability he reminds me of one of Bridget Jones's friends. She had this way of saying things that made pathetic Bridget feel even more pathetic. Now Bridget knows that it is on purpose, but it is so subtle that she can't really call the person out. Luckily, my other officemate Jeremy is super cool and I can see us being friends for a long time. There is also Julio, the Argentinean political theorist. HIs English is very charming in that he speaks in a literal translation of Spanish phrases, which are very poetic but completely foreign to any saying that a native English speaker would oncoct. The four of us, as well as other graduate students in the department, went out for drinks. A professor even joined us! He is young and reminds me of the Lebanese-Chilean-English version of Mika (LCEVM for short). He and I really hit it off! We discussed everything, from Derrida's bullshit and how to tell the social class of an Englishman based on how he pronounces "house." Next week he is taking me to Brick Road. Today I went to Oxford to meet Maria, with whom I've been in contact for quite a while. As I approached Nuffield, I was instantly amazed by how much I loved the university and how excited I was to enter the department. Fiver years ago I had visited Oxford and now I was there for a professional meeting! The scene was perfect. It was raining lightly, which made the bucolic scenery just glisten. The lush green complemented the butter yellow of the stone buildings. I was in heaven. We went for lunch in this really nice cafeteria. It was gorgeous and so academic looking, complete with high vaulted ceilings, stone walls, and lamps for lighting. I found out that the school pays for staff members' dinner and lunches. We had an extremely productive conversation over Jamaican chicken and fresh fruit. Afterwards, we went back to the canteen, grabbed some coffee, and made ourselves at home at the, you guessed it, incredibly academic looking staff and student lounge. We have nothing like this at Michigan. There was a large flat-screen TV playing a cricket match, and white-haired professors chatted over (free) coffee to students Maria's fiance joined us. He was still dressed in his cricket clothes as he had practice earlier. He sat down with us and we had a really fun conversation. I learned so much in those two-hours, from British culture and the ins and outs of British party politics in, oh, the last 30 years. I was in heaven. Honestly, I could have died right then and there. I will say it: my dream is to work at Oxford, whether it be for a year (post-doc) or for a very, very long time. So now I'm in my new hotel. Why? Look at this picture: 'Nuff said. DK is coming tomorrow! I am so excited! And on that note, I'm going to bed.