Here we go again

Being depressed makes me sad.

haha See what I did there?

No, but seriously. I'm depressed again and I HATE it. I wish I knew what made me slump, so I could shoot it in the face. But that's probably the depression talking. I know that, as always, this too shall pass. It's temporary. I'll feel better in a few days, or at most, a couple weeks. But I almost cried at work today...for no reason whatsoever. They had me at the front of the store as a greeter (read: theft prevention), and there was no one to talk to. I just had to walk around in circles tidying things. So I was all alone with my thoughts, and thinking about the fact that I was depressed, or how frustrated I was that I didn't know what was causing it, made me want to cry. I imagined calling my friends to chat with them, and that thought made me cry. It was ridiculous. And it was just because I was alone with my thoughts. If I'd been talking to someone else, I would have been totally fine and smiley, though perhaps slightly panicky on the inside.

I need to laugh, and I need to sleep, so I'm gonna watch some tv and hit the hay. It's a good thing I'll be seeing Izzi tomorrow. That'll cheer me up.

The last months in pictures

Finally, some photos!

Firstly, a rather shocking change:


This is the first time in my life that my hair has been shorter than shoulder length. It was not scary having it all cut off. I guess I'd been toying with the idea for a while. Also, all three of my sisters have already gone short, so I'm really just following the trend. I went to the same place I've been going since January, an academy where they give free hair cuts. This time, the students were a bunch of Italian hair students visiting London for some courses at the academy. I spoke with the guy who works there about what he would do with it, and then he handed me over to an Italian hair student who spoke no English. Fun!

I tried curling it today. It sort of worked.


Cambridge with Tanya:


Beccy and Ingo's Wedding:


And Royal Ascot:

Ascot

I don't get it. Why is my blog getting spammed? Every single post gets some nonsense comment from someone. Lame!

I went to Royal Ascot yesterday with old coworkers from the pub. It was so much fun! I saw the Queen live for the first time. It only took me two years of living in this country. I bet £5 on the first race, on a horse called Tiz My Time ridden by a US jockey, picked by name, of course. I won £15 back! I couldn't believe it! After the races, we headed back into town and caught the England football game. It was bo-ho-ring, but I made friends in the pub with an American from Manhattan and an English guy from Devon. Then I ate fish and chips, so I was pretty pleased. Pictures when I can be arsed.

Back to work today. The more shifts I work, the more I hate people. I've never felt that way in any other customer service job I've worked at. I hated my first waitressing job, but I didn't hate people. I think I'm just getting old and set in my ways, and I can't understand how any grown woman, regardless of how wealthy she is, can enter a nice store and throw clothing on the floor for someone else to pick up. Or how you can come into a store with lots of breakables and let your young children run loose. Once, a woman asked one of my coworkers to scold her children for her. Rich people. Ugh.

World Cup

Ugh, I can't be bothered to update, R! I'm just so lazy...

Today, I had a three hours 20 minutes shift at work. Multiply that by £7/hr and that doesn't even cover half of what I spent on clothes today. Oops. It's hardly worth getting dressed and trekking to work. Grr.

Ewan MacGregor's motorcycle buddy was in the shop today. Prince William's girlfriend was in last week. I would not have known either of them if my coworkers hadn't pointed them out.

Ingo's wedding was the weekend before last and it was jolly good fun. The food at the reception was amazing! I danced, of course, because I like dancing. Wanda and Ralph were there, which was really cool because I didn't get to see them at Christmas. Wanda danced as well, but we couldn't convince Ralphy to join in. It was really great seeing Beccy and Ingo again, and I'm glad I got to share their special day with them.

Last weekend marked the start of the World Cup, and I went to a coworker's boyfriend's house for an England vs. USA viewing party. The game was a bit lame and over pretty quickly, but I had a good time at the party. One of my coworker's friends thought I was cute. Score! We're gonna go on a World Cup-watching date next week. My hair has really been working for me lately, and I've been dressing a bit smarter, and I've been meeting guys right and left, so I've really been feeling like hot shit lately. It's nice to have a little boost to the confidence, especially when job hunting is still so depressing. I did contact a PhD student from the school, though, who very very kindly agreed to let me help him with a literature review he's doing this summer (he's probably thrilled he's getting free labor!) so hopefully that will help? I don't know. I just don't know what to do, where to look. I'm a lost toy.

Anyway, should be getting to bed. Lunch with Holly and Alex tomorrow. I haven't seen Alex in probably two months. I was starting to think she didn't love me anymore, but it's probably just her being her usual rubbish-friend self. It'll be good to see them both.

Pictures are on Facebook. I'm too lazy to upload them to Picasa at the moment. Meh.

Clarity

A couple months ago, I was telling people that part of the reason I was having trouble finding a job was that I didn't really know what I was looking for. I didn't know quite what I wanted, I just had a general idea. But recently I've come to the realization that it's not true anymore, and probably never was. Over the past couple months, I've formed a solid and tangible idea of the job I want. I can describe it in concrete words.

I want to do qualitative, social research related to tuberculosis, preferably in India.

Hm, surprising how that's exactly how I described my ideal summer project more than a year ago. So if I've wanted to do that for over a year, why did I tell countless people that I didn't know what I wanted? Probably for the same reason that I waited until the end of my third year to declare "microbiology" as my undergraduate major, despite having picked it out of a list of majors during orientation, months before I attended my first undergraduate class. There was never any other major that I considered declaring, yet I hesitated to commit myself to microbiology. Why? Because of a ridiculous, inexplicable lack of confidence in myself or in my choices.

A friend asked me the other day why I wasn't looking for a PhD. This question usually makes me shudder and cringe with the thought of a hundred reasons not to do a PhD, but not this time. This time, I stopped and asked myself, "Yeah, why haven't I considered that?" Suddenly, I couldn't come up with a good reason. I should look into a PhD. Yeah, there may be funding issues, but I won't know until I look into it. I should finish my application to the Peace Corps, too. I should continue emailing researchers doing the work I want to do. When they don't respond, I should call them and nag them. I need to be the squeaky wheel and get myself some gosh-darned grease!

Every now and then I fall apart

Last week, I stumbled upon a quote in an old notebook:

"Follow your dreams. They know the way."

This, of course, is way easier said than done. While the quote initially made me nod my head and say "yeah! totally!" to myself, that feeling faded as soon as I tried to work out exactly how to follow my dream. Jobs doing social research on tuberculosis in India don't just grow on trees.

A couple years ago, I was bored and disappointed with my life. So I did two things. I started volunteering with some yutes, and I taught myself to knit. Both made me feel loads better. Now again I'm bored and disappointed with my life. I'm really stressing out again and getting depressed, frustrated with work and lack of money. A couple months ago, I applied to be a volunteer with an HIV support organization, and tonight I had my induction ceremony. When I left the building, I was filled with a sense of, I don't know. Rightness. Maybe it was the warm spring air, the sunset, the fact that that particular part of Islington is gorgeous (near where you lived, Rania!), but I felt like I was making a move in the right direction. I was moving in the direction of my next dream, walking through a city that represented the fulfillment of my last dream.

I think I'm gonna be alright.

British politics

UK politics, eh? I don't really understand what's going on, but I know it's historical and weird. Also, most British people don't really understand what's going on, so I'm not alone. They don't elect their prime minister the way we elect our president. They vote for how the Houses of Parliament will be structured, and whichever party has a majority in Parliament gets to put their man in 10 Downing Street. But what happens when no party gets a majority? They try to form coalitions (like on Survivor when people formed alliances, but still tried to stab each other in the backs). There were three main parties in this election, the Conservatives (right), Labour (middle/left), and the Liberal Democrats (far-left). And which two parties formed the coalition? The two with the least in common, of course!

So the Conservatives (Tories) formed a coalition with the Lib-Dems, a previously pretty small and weak third party. Now the Tory leader, David Cameron, gets to be PM but the Lib-Dem leader, Nick Clegg, gets to be Deputy PM. From what I understand (and I don't understand much), that's pretty groundbreaking. However, being Deputy PM isn't like being Vice President. They don't get to take over if the Prime Minister dies or anything. PMs don't even have to appoint a deputy. Gordon Brown didn't have a Deputy PM. Still, the Lib-Dems should gain some prestige from this, and it's pretty significant that any third party should gain such power. Like the U.S., Britain has been pretty strongly two-partied for a long time now.

It'll be really interesting to see how things pan out as far as compromises are concerned. For example, on the issue of immigration, the Tories and the Lib-Dems take polar opposite stances. Nick Clegg originally advocated for making all illegal immigrants citizens, while the Tories want to round them all up and deport them. (Well, actually, they wouldn't deport them. They'd just put them in high-security prisons indefinitely with no trial or hopes of ever living a normal life.) So yeah. Fun times ahead for Britain!

On a related but separate note, something I find really interesting and kind of funny: two of the biggest criticisms of Barack Obama in the run-up to the election were that he was 1) an elitist and 2) young and inexperienced. I was all for these things. After 8 years of George W. (and facing the prospect of Sarah Palin as second-in-command), I was ready for someone with a brain to be in power. And as a young person, I'm okay with young people with fresh ideas being in charge. In Britain, the Tories are most like Republicans, and Labour is most like the Democrats. But the people here who love Barack Obama, who support Labour or the Lib-Dems, their big criticisms of Tory leader David Cameron are that he is 1) an elitist and 2) young and inexperienced. Funny how that works, huh? The elitist thing is different here, though. Where Barack Obama was called elitist because he's intelligent and educated, despite humble roots, David Cameron is called an elitist because he's the son of rich, powerful people who sent him to the top (elitist) schools. The class system is way more powerful here than in the U.S., and David Cameron definitely belongs to the snooty upper class.

Ok, enough. I will now return to hating and ignoring politics.

Chin ups

Dude, what is with all the spam comments? Ugh. Anyway, I suppose it's about time I updated again. *bored eye roll*

Hm, so...I bought a bike a week and a half ago. It's a piece of junk and I paid way too much for it, but it's a really pretty blue and is one of those curvy beach-cruiser shapes, which I LOVE! Sadly, the seat post seems to be rusted in place so I can't lower the seat to a comfortable height. Alas.

I had a phone interview for an internship in Uganda last week. I didn't do very well. They said they'd let me know by the end of last week but I still haven't heard from them. I think that's a no...

I've been made till specialist at work, which is pretty cool. It means more responsibility for the same amount of pay. And they're not going to be giving me more hours. Hm. Why did I want this again? Oh well, it'll look good on the ol' resume, and I think it'll be kind of fun.

Hm, I feel like there was something else I was going to write about, but now I can't remember. Oh well. Back to job hunting, a.k.a. the most soul-destroying, confidence-shattering activity known to man.

My first celebrity sighting

Bob Geldof came into the shop today. I didn't even catch a glimpse of him cuz I'm useless. Apparently he told Elin, the sweetest girl in the world, that our walky-talkies make us look stupid. Yes, that's right, we wear walky-talkies around the shop.

But that's nothing. This weekend, I went to a pub in Chalk Farm with Holly, Tanya, Simon and James. I walked out onto the patio to find us a table in the sun, and as I was glancing around, I noticed a guy who looked kind of like Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl (except way more tan). I was like, "Nah, it can't be him. All these women on the patio are giving him a wide berth and acting completely normal. Must just be a look-alike."

But it did look a lot like him, so I kept stealing glances back at him (read: trying not to be obvious about the fact that I was staring at him.) It was him. No doubt in my mind. The same crooked teeth, lips, and eyebrows. The overwhelming cockiness in his posture. It was so him. Knowing that I had drinks at a pub that *Chuck Bass* (can't be bothered to look up his real name) goes to makes me feel like I could almost sort of a little bit be mistaken for a cool person. Almost.

Birthday presents!

From Simon: Vladimir, the coolest cane EVER! Check out the crazy eyes going in opposite directions!


From Holly: Cath Kidston sneakers! There's a reason I listed this girl as my significant other.


From Izzi and Tim: super cute purse and tea cups with too-short spoons



From Mel (flatmate): headband and jewelry



From Carina: words can not describe the wonderfulness of this necklace


From Alex: pretty swallow necklace


From Maya: weird but awesome coconut purse


From John and Becky: Vampire Weekend and The Power of Now
From James: The xx and Mos Def


From Ross and Sandra: heirloom quality pearl necklace (!!!!!) and bonus black pearl earrings


Thank you thank you thank you everyone for the wonderful and awesome birthday presents! Those of you who are nearly a month late in sending me my goodies are losers. Though to be fair, I'm greedy and selfish, so I guess I shouldn't sling too much mud your way.