22 April, 2008 | 2 Comments

At last, the warm spring day I’ve been waiting for:

In the gardens of Victoria Embankment…

1 April, 2008 | 2 Comments

The weather here has been pretty lousy for weeks on end — rain, wind, cold and dreariness. Today I walked through some of the gardens along the Thames and saw that many of the spring flowers are permanently frozen in a pose of wind-whipped submission. There was no wind when I took this photo, but the damage is done:

Today there was sunshine, but we’ve yet to have a really lovely spring day.

31 March, 2008 | 1 Comment

After hailing a taxi on Euston Road in the middle of the night, I said to the taxi driver while standing on the curb: “Excuse me! Can you take someone to hospital, please? It’s urgent!”

Taxi driver to me: “Not if there’s any blood I won’t!”

“There’s not any blood. Will you take him or not?”

“Yeah, get in.”

19 March, 2008 | 5 Comments

As of today I am a full-time writer. This morning I finished up the lingering teaching duties I had and now I am free. Free!

Gulp.

This was a big decision for me, to quit teaching and focus on school full-time, which essentially means full-time novel writing. Once again…gulp.

This academic year I’ve taken on too many responsibilities. The teaching entailed 13 hours a week of actual teaching time, not including lesson prep and marking. I also work in the hall of residence (in exchange for rent) and I still work for the American company (which I realize I never explained after my cryptic post last December). That’s three jobs. What was I thinking? What got lost in all of this is that little thing known as my PhD. You know, the PhD, otherwise known as the whole reason I came to England and what I’ll be paying off until I’m 96. Oh yeah, that.

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2 February, 2008 | 5 Comments

Today I went with a friend to a literary seminar. We listened to two professors each give a paper. Sometimes at these events, I often wonder if the whole pursuit of academic literary study at this level is pointless. What are we really contributing to society? Nothing. People are writing dissertations on the role of postage stamps in the work of Anne Bronte or how often the color yellow appears in the poetry of Ezra Pound. Okay, these examples are absurd but not necessarily too far off the mark in some cases. We’re just speaking to other academics and students in our little bubble of minutiae and accomplishing nothing except churning out more academics who will write more crap.

During the discussion that followed the lectures, a student raised the issue of how a capitalist society creates work for the “surplus educated.” Are all of us doing PhDs in the humanities the “surplus educated”? I wonder. I know this is a horrible attitude for someone doing a PhD in English to have, but this is part of the reason I switched to doing creative writing. I’d rather attempt to create art than just dissect the art that others have created. It gives me more of a sense of purpose.

To illustrate my point, during the seminar there was a man outside who began screaming. For about ten to fifteen minutes he was yelling something over and over again. To me it sounded like he was screaming “Help!” Everyone in the seminar just ignored the sound of this man from outside, though a few of us were laughing at him. I really did wonder if he’d been stabbed or something, though I didn’t get up to look out the window. Afterwards my friend said this just underscores how detached literary studies can be from the “real world.” We’re discussing ethics in literature and we want to shut the window so we can’t hear the man outside screaming for help.

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21 November, 2007 | Comments

I was just up at King’s Cross and while I was there I spotted a member of the English faculty from my university. I approached him with the intent of saying hello, but as I got closer I realized it was a homeless person. Not a difficult mistake to make, I can assure you.

29 October, 2007 | 4 Comments

Today one of my PhD supervisors pointed out that the character in my novel is never happy. She is always sad. So now I need to write a chapter in which she steps off the Misery Express for a moment or two to enjoy life. Except there’s not much to enjoy in her life, what with all the psychological torture, alienation, loneliness, religious fanaticism, sexism, divorce, depression, abortion, terrorism and ultimately the death of her one true friend and companion, her sister the stripper and high-priced whore.

Hmmm. I think this reflects poorly on me and my outlook on life. I’ve learned recently that happiness is necessary, that it’s possible, that it can be just as meaningful as angst or pain. I don’t know how to write about happiness in my fiction yet, but I need to try. I need to add a little joy to this narrator’s life, a little hope. I owe it to the poor ol’ girl..and to myself.

24 October, 2007 | 6 Comments

Random movie line to describe my mood: Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue…

You know, there are days when I don’t think of myself as a teacher, but rather as a referee between dueling groups of Russians. The class I teach is divided between Russian and Chinese students mostly. The Chinese students do their work and don’t give me any guff. The Russians, meanwhile, are a handful. They talk continuously throughout class. They try to tell me how to do my job. Today I gave the class a vocabulary test and the Russian boys were betting one another money to see who’d get the highest score on the test. And they were totally trash talking each other before the test. In all my years as a student and a teacher, I’ve never seen anything like it.

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21 October, 2007 | 4 Comments

I had a fling with Paris last week, but now I’m back to loving London. It’s not that I stopped loving London, but when something is a part of your everyday life you have to work a bit harder to see what’s so wonderful about it. A walk across Waterloo Bridge always makes me swoon. I cross this bridge quite often and the view never ceases to give me goosebumps. On one side you’ve got St. Paul’s and the City, on the other side Big Ben, Parliament and the London Eye. Being on Waterloo Bridge is like finding yourself trapped inside a giant picture postcard. It’s one of my favorite places in London and it’s the perfect spot for watching the sunset. I love watching the sunset from Waterloo Bridge so much that a friend says whenever he thinks of me, that song Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks pops into his head. [I've never heard this song!]

All the photos in this post were taken from Waterloo Bridge last night. The photo above makes London look very Italian, doesn’t it? On Flickr I called it “London Italianate.”

In addition to the amazing sunset on Saturday night, I’ve had quite a lovely weekend. I went to the opera and the theatre (more on that soon!), I had a long lazy brunch with friends, took a walk along the South Bank (with a break at a riverside café for carrot cake) and attended a get-together to watch the Rugby World Cup, where not one person could explain any of the rules of rugby. A guy I know also proposed marriage, but that’s a long story.

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13 October, 2007 | 1 Comment

Please say goodbye to your money.

I know it’s not advisable to blog while in the midst of a blinding rage, but oh well. It’s too late for me to go outside and scream until I feel better.

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9 October, 2007 | 8 Comments

Me: “Just because I am writing on the board does not mean I can’t hear you talking to your friends and laughing behind my back. Unlike most teachers you’ve known, I can still hear you when I turn around. I have magical superpowers.”

I wonder how you say bitch in Russian and Kazakh and Korean and Chinese? ‘Cuz I know they were all thinking it.

3 October, 2007 | 6 Comments

Ten long years later, the inquest into Princess Diana’s death has finally begun. Gee, what’s the rush? Let me bullet point what’s happened so far: Mohammed al-Fayed wants the Queen to testify. [Right on.] Diana was on the Pill. New CCTV footage released. Creepy police footage of Paris released.  Di unlawfully embalmed; M16 men in Paris.

I predict this whole thing will end with Prince Philip in handcuffs, just as it should.

2 October, 2007 | 7 Comments

As of last week, I am in full-time PhD mode again. I don’t think I ever shared the good news about my PhD, did I? As most of you know, after the first year of my studies, I took time off and went to Paris. I wasn’t feeling passionate about the topic I had chosen for my dissertation. More than that, when I started this PhD lark, I didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into. In hindsight, I hadn’t considered carefully enough whether I was well-suited for this kind of academic work. At heart, I am a very creative and intuitive person. I’m a smart gal, but I’m not necessarily an academic in the traditional sense. Make no mistake, I don’t aspire to be that. That’s kind of odd for a PhD student, but there you go.

I was aware of the fact that the English department at my school offered a PhD in creative writing, but it’s a new thing and wasn’t an option when I applied. I was quite disappointed when I found out about this, because it seemed like the perfect avenue for me. Still, I didn’t inquire about changing when I found out, I just kept plodding along on the traditional English PhD that I was doing. My thought process: Changing is hard, I’ll feel like a quitter, I like my supervisor, blah blah blah. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Sometimes we undermine our own chances for success. Yes, that was me. But this past February in Paris when I was trying to figure out the mess that was my life, I suddenly got a lot of clarity about what I wanted to do. It became clear to me that I needed to do everything in my power to change to the creative writing PhD. It was the right path for me, that much was blindingly obvious.

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24 September, 2007 | 4 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about the heartwarming sight of parents moving their children into the hall of residence where I live and work. Turns out that while I was writing that post — literally — the neighborhood thieves were hard at work too, smashing windows in the parents’ aforementioned Mercedes, Range Rovers et al. and swiping laptops.

What’s moving day without a few tears, shards of glass and a visit from the police? All I can say is, Welcome to the neighborhood, kiddies!

In happier news, this morning I was passing by a used bookshop and saw on their display table outside a sparkling Virago edition of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel The Enchanted April for only £1.95. Score!

23 September, 2007 | Comments

Happy first day of autumn! I love how the British always say autumn. Americans tend to say fall, which is just wrong. Autumn is such a beautiful word.

[For readers in the Southern Hemisphere, happy spring!]

The students are moving into the hall today! Right now out my window I can see a string of parental cars double and triple parked. [At least half of these cars are of the Mercedes/Beamer/Range Rover/Jaguar variety. Do you have to be rich to attend a London uni and live in hall? I have no idea. Thank goodness I don't have to pay rent on this place.]

Most London colleges start this week, including mine. Forget January — this is when the new year starts. This time of year is always very exciting for me. Autumn. School supplies. Beginnings.

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19 September, 2007 | 1 Comment

Last week my summer job teaching at the university ended and I already lined up another job! I feel special. I don’t know why people in London are always clamoring for my services, but I’m not complaining. I feel sad the university job is finished (they only need extra part-time staff during the peak summer period), but I found a job at a little college run by a major language school, teaching essay writing and other academic skills to international students. I think it’ll be fun.

Another reason I’m sad the university job is over is because being a part-time instructor (or what Americans call an adjunct) at a British university pays a motherload. The job I had teaching for the university here pays more than any job I’ve ever hard before in my life. Not only that, but get this. Because of an EU directive, part-timers get one hour of holiday pay for every twelve hours of teaching. So I’ve just raked in several hundred pounds in holiday pay for what was a two-month job.

Contrast this with my American job. I’ve been working part-time for this company for nearly three years; earlier this year I got a promotion, so that shows I do good work. What benefits have I gotten during these three years of hard work? Not one single solitary cent. Zilch. Nothing. And if I complained about this (as people have), they’d tell me that if I don’t like it, they’ll just replace me with someone else. This is really just a reflection of the American employment situation in general, particularly for those working part-time, which is really a way for employers to avoid providing health insurance. In every field I’ve ever worked in, I’ve been paid peanuts and worked to death.

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15 September, 2007 | 4 Comments

Two years ago today my Continental flight from Newark, New Jersey touched down in London. It’s been two whole years since I arrived on these shores. It’s easy for me to go into sentimental overdrive at times like these, so let me just say this:

I think London is the most amazing city in the world. I know I haven’t visited every city in the world, but I’ve traveled a bit. I’ve also been lucky enough to call a few world-class cities home: New York, Boston, Paris. In my opinion, those cities combined do not hold a candle to the wonder that is London. It’s not even close. There’s no question about that in my mind.

This is the only place I’ve ever lived that I truly love. Something about London speaks to me, makes me feel at home, inspires me. I’m not entirely sure why this is — no place in my own country has ever made me feel this way. This city, in a country not my own, gives me a sense of home like no other place has. I don’t question it, I just savor the feelings it evokes. I romanticize this city, to be sure, but I’ve also had my share of difficult times here and it hasn’t changed my view of what this place means to me. I romanticized Paris and that wore off rather quickly once I moved there. Not so with London.

I couldn’t possibly explain why I love London so much in this short space, but I try to convey my passion in my blog posts and photos. One of the best things about having a blog is that sometimes Londoners tell me that seeing their city through my eyes makes them realize just how special it is. This is one advantage the outsider has — the ability to see a place in a way the natives cannot. This perspective is a gift and I’ll always treasure it. I had a conversation recently with an Englishman who lived in Los Angeles for a few years and he spoke of it as a miraculous, amazing place. As a native of Southern California, I laughed at his assessment, which was mean, because I should have realized that it was impossible for me to see LA in the way that he does.

I’ve been reading a lot of Virginia Woolf lately and she writes so eloquently about her intense, passionate love of London. This city was her whole world. In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa thinks about how much she loves London and how it will continue to be here long after she is gone. After reading this I realized that even life-long residents of London are only temporary residents. London is never truly ours; no matter how long any of us live here it’ll never belong to us. It’ll go on without us, which is sad and wonderful at the same time. One of the things to love about this place is the way it lives and breathes and perseveres; the way the ghosts of its past inhabitants dwell amongst us, the living. All we can do is appreciate our time here, the now, the London that exists in these early days of the 21st-century. If we’re wise, we’ll view our days here as a gift. We’ll call London ours and we’ll believe that it is.

9 September, 2007 | 2 Comments

I remember when I was a little girl, many shops wouldn’t allow children to buy glue. Apparently, the wicked allure of sniffing good ol’ Elmer’s was too irresistible for some youngsters.

How quaint.

Today at my local supermarket (part of a huge UK supermarket chain), I saw a notice stating that the store will no longer sell knives to anyone under the age of 18. Customers are warned that if they look under 21, they’ll be carded when trying to buy a knife and that they shouldn’t be offended if this happens. Ah, what a wonderful world we live in.

According to the Times, the UK is “one of the knife crime blackspots of the developed world.” Perhaps the chains will start selling stab-proof vests just in time for back-to-school shopping.

Not to be left out, American parents can buy all sorts of bullet-proof baby gear. [No, this website isn't real -- or at least, I pray it's not -- but it's damn funny.]