The Last Few Days, Part 3: (Last) Monday

Well! I've certainly fallen behind on this thing. Part of that is that the new session started last week and there's a new wave of reading to do (but all good -- Dubliners was better this time around), but I've also been putting serious time into Scripps Ranch's field show. The first two tunes are arranged; the opener drill has been written (and re-written and re-re-written), as has the drill for half of the second tune. Also, last Saturday I watched the live streaming webcast of the DCI Southern Regional from Atlanta, which was pretty cool. I had to break down and get the subscription. I'd been hearing so much about how great everyone is this season that I couldn't take it any longer. The whole of Division I was in competition there (apart from Pacific Crest and Pioneer), and I saw almost all of them. Between the afternoon and evening shows, probably 22 or so shows in all. The Cavaliers are amazing this year. If you're reading this and not planning on going to the cinecast at a Regal Cinema near you on August 10th, you should really change your plans and go. Cavies alone are worth the price of admission. They are laugh-out-loud good.

Anyway, I'd better get back to the last few days of the last session here, because this weekend is Stonehenge and Canterbury, and then next week is Dublin, so I'll be plenty busy writing, I'm sure.

Monday (the 24th) was Charles and Lori's last day in the UK before heading back to New York, and since they were spending it with their friend Raffi in London, I decided to head up there and tag along. Previously, they'd said they were seeing "A Comedy of Errors" at the Globe and invited me to join them. "A Comedy of Errors" is my second favorite Shakespeare play (right behind "A Tragedy of Errors"), so naturally I accepted.

Getting from my door to our meeting place, Tower Hill Station, in London only took about two hours, which is really pretty good. I left here at about 1:00, and two trains and two Tube stations later, I'd connected with them. One of the first things Lori told me was that "A Comedy of Errors" was sold out, which wasn't too surprising, but I thought they'd already secured their tickets so I'd never mentioned earlier that it might be something on the order of impossible to get tickets to a Shakespeare play at the Globe the day of the performance.

But whatever. We walked around the Tower of London for a bit (that's "around," not "in" -- the difference in prepositions is a costly one), then found a shady bench where we could plan a replacement activity for the evening. There are always a ton of shows happening in London on any given day, so there was bound to be something we could all agree on. Turns out only one out of dozens of productions got all our votes: "On The Third Day." I wasn't really familiar with it, but it was a comedy that was also being filmed for TV, so it sounded interesting. I didn't want anything heavy; I just wanted to relax and enjoy the break between sessions without having to think too much.

There's a lot of unusual architecture in London. Right up against the very old is the very new. Sparkling new blocks of flats and towering glass office buildings vie for space with centuries-old churches and public houses. The Tate is right next to the Globe; the London Eye is right across from Parliament and Big Ben. Interesting anecdote about Big Ben: the clock itself isn't called "Big Ben." That name actually refers to the series of deafened, anonymous slave laborers inside the clock who've been nicknamed "Ben" for hundreds of years. Also, the slaves are rather large.

At any rate, across the Thames before us was an odd, modern building that resembles, in some ways, the Gherkin, only this is a different sort of relish.


And at our backs was the Tower of London:


The planning for the evening was accompanied by Lori, Charles, and Raffi showing off what they'd bought earlier in the day at an "American" vintage clothing store. Raffi won, I think. His faux-leather bomber jacket from Queen's College only cost him a pound, and as far as ironic clothing goes, a collegiate bomber jacket with a "Women's Studies" patch on one arm is hard to beat. Eventually, it was decided that we'd need to call these theaters to see if we could even get in anywhere, so we started to wander again. I took this picture of Traitors' Gate as we were walking -- that is, I was in motion when I took it -- and I'm surprised at how clearly it came out. What is it with this camera?


After we walked a few minutes in one direction (towards Tower Bridge), it was further decided that we ought to walk in the other direction, back towards the Tower and the Tube station, because we knew there were bound to be phones (and a bathroom) around there. On the way, I got a better picture of the Tower itself.


One of the many cool things about London is its public phone/Internet kiosks. While we sat on hold on one phone (and used up our 30p repeatedly in the process -- thanks, BT!), we were able to use another to check online. Well, in theory, anyway.


Concurrent with those investigations, Raffi and Lori started to wonder just how early the Tube would be running the next morning, as they had to be at Heathrow at some ungodly hour. All of this checking was both fruitless and time-consuming, but eventually we came to the conclusion that we couldn't see a show and reliably get back to Finchley (for them) or Brighton (for me) while the trains were still running, so in the end, we ditched the whole play-seeing idea. Which is kind of a shame, but honestly, I didn't care. I was there to hang out in London with those crazy kids, nothing more. I didn't really care what we did.

This uncaring attitude of mine became my greatest illusory strength when it became clear that we very well might end up doing nothing at all but wander. Talk of dinner rippled through our party, and Raffi led us off into London. Unfortunately, the London he led us into was the Financial District, which is dull.


There was an old building, but it was also more or less an office building, and consequently not especially interesting. I know, I know, it's the British Treasury or something, but come on.


What I did think was interesting as we walked down those great canyons of stone and glass was that there were a number of buildings that paid homage to the sites of the old pubs on which they were built. They'd have a shingle of a grasshopper hanging off the side, or a brass plaque of a cat and fiddle set into the outer wall. It was almost apologetic.

We took a break on some weird benches, and then I wrested control of the group away from Raffi by force. Right after I took this picture.


Once I had a look at the map, I steered us towards something of interest: St. Paul's Cathedral. From there, I knew we'd have easy access to things like Westminster, the Millennium Footbridge, the Tate, the Globe -- really, it's all along the Thames. Veer too far away from that and London gets, in general, a lot less interesting unless you know what you're looking for (e.g., Wren's churches, which I ought to go find again). St. Paul's was being restored, apparently, and they put up this clever curtain to make the process as picturesque as possible.


Imagine you go to London once in your life and St. Paul's is surrounded by scaffolding. This way you at least get the idea. The cathedral has a very interesting history, built as it is on the ruins of an ancient pagan temple, but I won't go into that here because I can't quite remember it. Read From Hell. That has all the details.

It's a straight shot across the footbridge from St. Paul's to the Tate and the Globe, so... that's what we did.


The Tate is a weird looking thing. I would guess that it's a monument to, and a critique of, Industrial Age London. It looks like a factory. I'll get a better picture of it another time. However, if you look left or right off the footbridge, you get a great view of Thames-side London. When the bridge was first built, it nearly collapsed when people tried to use it, prompting its designer to quip that there was nothing wrong with the bridge -- it was the people who were the problem. Fortunately, it seems they've mostly gotten that under control because we were able to make it across with only minor injuries. Looking back towards Tower Bridge, it occurred to me how far we'd meandered.


Just down from the Tate is the Globe Theater and what seems like a few dozen riverside pubs. Shakespeare and his entourage frequented one of them -- the Anchor, I think -- when they weren't crossdressing and prancing around on stage. The wrought-iron gate of the Globe is inset with depictions of, as I understand it, a key character or symbol from each of his plays. I say "symbol" because I counted quite a few plants and animals among them, and although the donkey is likely taken from "Midsummer Night's Dream," I wouldn't exactly call it a character.


We spent some time in the giftshop/sauna, contemplated eating there, and left. Down a back alley is the site of the real Old Globe, which was destroyed in the Great Fire and then destroyed again at some point, I believe. I should do my research on this. Nowadays, the site of the Old Globe is an empty lot in the midst of some prime real estate.


Earlier I'd suggested that we wander around looking for a restaurant until we all got so hungry and irritable that we could barely stand to look at one another. This would enable us to eat quickly and in silence. I was kidding at the time, but the more it became clear that we'd never find that magical, ideal restaurant that'd suit all of our tastes, the more my suggestion started to become reality. Fortunately, there were still some pretty things to distract us, like this replica of the Golden Hind, the ship in which Magellan did his whole circumnavigating thing.


That mythical, idea restaurant had been characterized by a few recurring terms: "cool," "good," "surprising," "Indian," "Thai," and "cheap." This is undoubtedly why we ended up eating at Pizza Express. Pizza Express is a chain of restaurants that is, at most, two of those six things. It's strangely nice for a pizza place, though. For example, there are wine glasses on the tables. I got the American Pizza because I couldn't resist the stereotype. "For those who likes their flavors strong and simple." Strong and simple. Just say it, Pizza Express: we're the Hulk.

All in all, it was a fine meal, and I don't think any of us had anything to complain about. My strong and simple tastes were satiated. On the way to the Tube station, we passed near the London Dungeon, a place I simply have to visit. They have a ride called "Traitor: Boat Ride to Hell." How can you resist that? And part of it involves Sweeney Todd. I'm sold. I've heard it's incredibly lame, but I don't care. I want a piece of that.


I could make any number of D&D jokes here, but I won't. Fill in the blank.

Raffi spends his summers with his dad (from what I could gather) in Finchley, which is a northern suburb of London. We took the Northern Line up there and walked the ten minutes or so to our destination. Nice neighborhood. Charles and Lori were staying the night there, of course, but I was just going along with them to hang out -- I planned to return to Brighton that night, which, judging by Raffi's dad's reaction, was ambitious. However, it was all too relaxing of an environment for me to care all that much. It was really something to go into an actual home -- not a dorm -- and lounge about in the back yard with a glass of wine. Well, I didn't have wine, obviously, and neither did Charles or Lori. Actually, only Raffi had wine. When I declined, his stepsister (I really have no idea if that's who she was; she only made a brief appearance, and at the very least she's the daughter of the woman with whom Raffi's dad is at least figurative, if not literal, "mates") said, "The drinking age is 18 here, you know. It's okay!" I told her I'm 33 and that the novelty of that is gone, but also thanked her for implying that I was 19.


Raffi took what I consider to be the definitive picture of Charles and me. If I ever get it from him, I'll post it. It's priceless.

Too late, I left for the Tube station, and Raffi's very kind father drove me (and "the gang") there. I got to Victoria Station on time, but a 30-minute delay at the platform meant that I missed the last train from Brighton to Falmer, which was very irritating. I got a taxi, though, and made it back home around 12:30.

A fun day out. I'm disappointed that Charles and Lori weren't doing eight weeks of classes here, as I am, but I'm sure we'll keep in touch. Seriously! I know people say that all the time, but I mean it. In the meantime, I'm making new friends. This morning I was invited over to Park Village 15 for pancakes by the only other Spaced fan I've met here. In other words, Charles and Lori, if you're reading this, you are obsolete.

Nah, I kid. You guys are great.

The Last Few Days, Part 2: Sunday

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30, showered, dressed, and ran out to the A27 where a car awaited to take me to a drum corps show.

Despite my experiences here, I couldn't help regretting missing out on a few summer traditions back home, one of which, of course, is drum corps. But then I discovered there was a DCUK show happening in Aldershot, which, geographically speaking, isn't too far from Brighton. When I discovered there was virtually no way to make it there and back in the same day via bus or train, I went to the DCUK website and asked if anyone had any advice for me. Within an hour, I got an email from Emma Weir, the director of the Black Knights, saying that she lives in Brighton (as does most of her staff) and would be happy to give me a lift.

The corps wasn't scheduled to take the field until the afternoon, but they were meeting at the show site at 8:00 to rehearse, and I was looking forward to sitting in on that as much as I was anticipating seeing the show itself. We don't often hear about DCUK in the U.S., but I have to say that when we do, it generally isn't very positive. I didn't care, though; I didn't expect to see a dozen 135-member corps or anything. I just wanted to check it out.

Most of the corps was arriving on a chartered bus, but the staff and a few members drove on their own. Aldershot is a "military town" -- basically, as much a military base as it is a town -- and, as luck would have it, there was an air show scheduled for the same day. The weather was looking pretty miserable, and I was a little surprised by how many people grumbled about it. I'd think they'd be used to it by now. Besides, as I reminded them, it was only 8:00 in the morning and the clouds were bound to burn off by showtime. To this, they grudgingly agreed. I may have been the only optimist.

Their equipment truck was there when we arrived, parked in a huge grassy area big enough to contain several football fields. I was introduced to some of the staff and ended up talking mostly with the brass staff, which included Dan (music coordinator/brass caption head, 2003 Cadets), Simon ('91 Blue Devils), and Eoin. Eoin, though a very nice guy, seemed to be lowest on the totem pole. Actually, being very nice might explain the totem pole situation.

I noticed that there were a gas-powered portable stove and two tea kettles in the equipment truck. I thought that was pretty funny. It's the little things.

By about 8:30 or so, the members had arrived and were straggling onto the field. DCUK has some weird age-out rules. The maximum age is 25 (as opposed to 21/22 in DCI), but each corps can also have up to three members older than 25. The result: 15-year-olds marching beside the couple that'd just come back from their honeymoon. Seriously! When I remarked how odd this seemed to me, I was told that if it weren't for the "three extra" rule most corps wouldn't be able to survive. I guess I can see the logic in that. Three members might not seem like much, but three capable musicians out of 30 or even 50 is a pretty significant proportion.

Thirty or 50 members would make for a Division III drum corps in DCI (i.e., the smallest division allowed to compete, with 30 members being the minimum required to field a corps at all), but here that's as big as they get. The Black Knights were short a couple horn players on Sunday (including one of their two contras, which had to hurt), but even with them they wouldn't have had more than 20 horns. By American standards, that's pretty small; by DCUK standards, that's... well, standard.

(I should warn you now: from here on out, it's almost nothing but detailed talk about drum corps. If you're up for that, you might want to go read the Onion or something.)

The classifications differ greatly from American drum corps and, for the most part, don't seem to be based on size. The Cadet class is for very small children, usually between 8 and 12 years old, and usually very small. The Black Knight Cadets, for instance, consisted of two sopranos, two snares (playing on indoor marching snares -- light enough for a 4th-grader to wear), a couple in the pit, and a handful of guard. Junior class seems to be a sort of intermediate category, still with younger members, but definitely with more of them. Open class corps are the top of the heap, but again, the biggest corps around on Sunday only had approximately 55 members on the field. Don't get me wrong; I would've killed for 55 members at Alliance. Sadly, I never got the chance.

After they were well and truly stretched out, the horns got down to visual warmups, which was when things started getting interesting. I should point out how some other standards of rehearsal etiquette are definitely different here. For example, the prevalence and generally increased acceptance of smoking means (apparently) that members can more or less smoke during rehearsal (and, as I was horrified to witness later, in uniform!). I find this ridiculous, personally. Just looks so crazily unprofessional, not to mention the damage it does. Plus, horn players smoking during rehearsal? They're probably losing 20% of their volume right there. Ill-advised. But then again, most of the staff smokes, so what do they care?

Anyway, I was talking about visual basics. I thought it was pretty cool that they did what I consider to be staples of any basic block, but I guess that's not especially surprising considering their staff has Cadets and BD experience. Unfortunately, I couldn't help mentally critiquing their technique. Timing's pretty good, but inconsistencies in technique between individuals is holding them back. I don't want to get into it.

When that was over, they tried to clean a little drill before the music guys took over.




See those horns? That's a new set of Dynasty brass to go with their new Dynasty drums. The sponsorship thing's working out for them. I believe it's no small reason why they sound as good as they do, although it's clear the quality instruction they receive is nothing to sneeze at. When they played their first note, I jerked my head up in surprise. Nice round, dark sound, clean attack, in tune... very impressive. And loud. Unfortunately, my tiny little microphone couldn't pick all of that up, but take my word for it.

(If you're really into this kind of thing, I recommend checking our their timing and slurring/tonguing exercises. I think they sound pretty great, even with my lousy mic.)

(They also ran through some show music: parts of the opener and the closer.)

It's a Danny Elfman show, which ran its course in DCI in the early '90s, but, y'know, they perform it well, so who am I to judge? Half of it's older Elfman ("Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands") and the other half's new ("Sleepy Hollow," "Spiderman 2"). The arrangements, however, were markedly different from what I'm used to. The opener, for example, ends on a decrescendo to a mezzo-forte. I can see ending on piano. I can see ending on fortissimo even more. But somewhere in the middle? It's just a completely different aesthetic. Likewise, within the tunes there were a surprising number of sustained chords with written descrescendi, which would be, in my experience as an arranger, somewhat unusual in DCI. American drum corps tends more towards extremes. That said, it all totally worked.

They did some ensemble rehearsal with everyone on the field, but frankly, I was so tired that I nodded off. Nothing against them; I just didn't get enough sleep. I feel asleep everywhere that day: in rehearsal, in the stands (with my head resting on one hand), lying down in the grass next to the stadium after the show... everywhere but the car, really. It was just like being on tour again.

Abruptly, they put down their horns and left the field under Emma's direction. Their cadet corps was about to perform, so I followed them into the stadium.

I say "stadium," but they call it an "arena." In reality, it's a rugby field. I'd had a vague feeling that there was something inherently weird to me about drum corps in a country that doesn't play American football, and when I got into the stands I was able to put my finger on just what it was: no yard lines. They painted the field, of course, but there's no other time in the history of the Aldershot Rugby Ground when it has yard lines other than when the drum corps come to town. It just seems ironic that they have to turn a field intended for one sport into a field for another sport -- and then instead of playing that sport, they have a drum corps show.

Maybe it's just me.

I missed a couple cadet corps while standing in line for food. I couldn't figure out why the line was moving so slowly until I got up there myself. It took this woman forever to add 3.80 and .70. Literally a minute or two of thinking, checking, re-checking, asking someone else, checking again.... How hard is it? At any rate, thanks to her math skills (or "maths skills"), I missed 37th Kingswood Cadets and possibly one or two others. I got into the stands in time to see the the Junior class, which kicked off with the Staffordshire Knights, whose distinctive dotted uniforms made me chuckle a bit.

They played music from "Aladdin" about on the level of the Blue Saints or another lower-ranked Div. III corps.

Up next were the Squires, a fine example of good intentions gone wrong.

This corps consisted of a trumpet, a baritone, a contra, a drum major/trumpet, one snare, and three guard (two of whom sat out most of the show). They played music from the "Rocky" movies. It was absolute torture. The drum major was probably in his 40s and definitely the only competent musician among them, and the kids were probably in junior high. The "snare" drum seemed to lack an actual snare, and thanks to that and its tuning (way too high), it sounded like the kid was beating on a shoebox. On the plus side, I was able to get all of them but one into a single picture. On the minus side... everything. I understand wanting to give kids something to do in the summer. In this case, a drum corps isn't it. Start a Pop Warner cricket team or whatever they do here. I found out later that the Squires used to be huge, and now they're down to this. Time to shut down and re-organize. This was just painful to sit through. "Theme to Rocky" just kept going and going and going. To my utter disbelief, after their show a woman behind me said, "They're quite good." I'm sorry, but there's no one on the planet who could truly consider this group "quite good." Just being honest here.

Thankfully, the next corps, Stateside (this name makes no sense to me...) was miles better.

They played a bunch of random stuff, including "If I Were A Rich Man" and "Favorite Things." There was some kind of theme involved, apparently, but I couldn't really make out what it was. This group has a lot of potential. Based on what I saw, they should be able to get it together and move up a class one of these days.

Up next was the interval.

Last of all were the Open-class corps. I have videos of all of these. First up were 37th Kingswood, who I'd heard rehearsing before the show. From a distance, their battery sounded pretty good. Up close, they were pretty fantastic. They really laid down some notes with a confidence and attitude that no other drumline that day had. Their (10) horns sounded good too, but the battery was where it was at.

Kingswood were a hard act to follow, as the Stafford Lancers were soon to discover. I really didn't like the look of this corps. The grey and blue jackets aren't distinct enough, and the blue lines running diagonally across the torso make everyone look too wide. Every bit of pit equipment had an attached splash or ride cymbal, and more than once during the show every pit player was banging or rolling on those thing simultaneously as hard as they could. The effect was just white noise. White noise and discomfort. They easily overpowered the entire rest of the corps, especially in that tiny stadium. On the whole, the talent level was lower in this corps, though they were bigger than Kingswood or Black Knights. Apparently, it's not the size, but how you use it.

The Black Knights were the final judged corps of the day. I've already written plenty about them, but here's part of their show.

As if it hadn't been clear before, after their performance it was obvious that the show would come down to Black Knights's hornline versus Kingswood's drumline. At that point, I was predicting that the latter would come out on top, although there was no way I would've said that aloud.

The Senators were supposed to have gone on after the interval, but they had some kind of problem in transit, so they ended up going last. Later, Emma referred to them as a "show band." I guess "show band" must translate to "really good," because they were pretty awesome. It's not like any of these corps were doing heavyweight concept shows, but the Senators were clearly the Madison Scouts of the day: all about the crowd. If they'd been in competition, I expect they would've won. I would've given them first place just for playing Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now." (This is a bit of a longish clip -- about two minutes -- so it may take a little longer to load.)

Then it was time for retreat. The Cadence Cadet Corps played everyone onto the field. Sort of. They played, and corps got onto the field, but there seemed to be no real relationship between the corps' feet and the eight-on-a-hand the eight-year-olds were playing as a cadence. I felt sure of the outcome.

Scores were announced, and lo and behold, the Black Knights won... with a nine-point margin. That is officially crazy. I can buy them winning, but by nine points? I thought it was much closer than that.

Instead of a standstill victory concert, they did another full performance, like it was DCI Finals. Must've been tough for them, considering they'd spent the morning rehearsing and then already played a show, but they pulled it off admirably.

We cleared out of the stadium by 4:15, after Emma talked to the corps about their upcoming trip to Holland for DCE. That's "Europe," not "East." They have a full month off from shows to rehearse. Crazy. Their competitive season goes for a month, then stops for a month, then continues for another month before ending near the end of September with DCUK Championships. I expect the Black Knights to do very well.

I told Emma, and meant it, that they, the Senators, or 37th Kingswood could reasonably win Div. III if they chose to compete in DCI for a summer. She was flattered by that, but it's the truth. I love Div. I drum corps, don't get me wrong, but I also love small, elite units like these. That's what I wanted for the San Diego Alliance before we folded, and it's good to see that concept alive and well here. However, I also heard that DCUK membership is way down. There used to be more and bigger corps only a few years ago, but things have quickly started to change. Just as in DCI, no one's exactly sure why membership is down and corps have died out, but it's clearly worrying the staff I talked to. They predict that soon, all DCUK corps will be all-age groups, with no age maximum. That would be something to see. In the meantime, in case there's a British kid reading this wondering if he should check out DCUK, I say yes, check it out. It's good stuff.

Anyway, a fun day, and really great to see drum corps again. I got home at 6:00 or so and immediately started writing drill.

The Last Few Days, Part 1: Thursday Through Saturday

A number of regular readers of my blog have emailed me, and both of them wanted to know when I'd update it again. Your guesses were correct: I've been busy. Last week was the end of the Session 1, and something's been going on pretty much every day since then. In the interest of not having a single huge post, because people don't seem to like those, I'll split it up into three posts covering Thursday/Friday/Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and hopefully none of them individually will be too long (although they might still be).

So then.

Thursday
The University of Sussex handles their finals a little differently than any other school with which I'm familiar. Final papers aren't handed in to your instructor, but to a central office on campus, and they must be in on time, no exceptions. Even a minute late means a penalty, and if it's 24 hours late, you get a zero. No excuses, no exceptions. This is perfectly reasonable, of course -- just hand the thing in on time -- but the emphasis that was put on the hardness of this deadline was eventually intimidating.

Like many other students here, I got myself together on Wednesday to write my 2,500-word paper. That's about seven pages, which isn't remarkably huge (for each of the past two quarters at UCI, I wrote at least one 10-page paper). If you know me and my habits well, it shouldn't surprise you that I was up writing it until about 5:00 am, although it may surprise you to know that by then I was only about one-third done with the thing. Fortunately, the Internet connection went down at that time, and as a few of my sources were online, I was more or less forced to go to sleep at last.

I'd downloaded a virtual alarm clock the week before, so I set it for 10:00 and went to bed.

I woke up at 12:30.

The alarm hadn't gone off, and now it was 12:30 and I had 1,700 words to write in three and a half hours. No, that's not correct: I had to write 1,700 words, go to a computer cluster, print out two copies, and deliver them to Mantell, which is near nothing.

At 3:30, I emailed the eight-page Word doc to myself and ran out the door. I knew I didn't have enough money on my account to print it twice, but I had plenty of change, so that wasn't a problem. The computers in York House are always broken, slow, or occupied, so I ran to IT and logged into an open computer. While that was happening, I went over to the PABS machine (Print Account Banking System) to put more money on my account, but it was broken. I only had enough for one copy.

However, I also had a copy card for use with the photocopiers (these are separate things here; the card doesn't work for printers, and the PABS account doesn't apply to copying), so my new plan was to print one and run to the library, where I knew there were copiers. While my paper printed, I filled out my two coversheets (there are coversheet forms that get stapled to the copies -- it's all very complicated). Then off to the library.

I should mention I forgot to bring my watch when I left, so I wasn't sure what time it was at this point. I did remember seeing that it was 3:45 when I logged out of my computer, though.

I wouldn't say the library is near IT, exactly, but it's a shorter run than the one between Park Village and IT. Up the stairs (there are a lot of stairs -- the building looks like it was built to defend against the Huns) and into the Copy Center. Picked out a copier, put my card in, put the pages in the feeder, and hit the button. Sounds of copying, but the feeder doesn't take my pages, then a blank page comes out. No time to complain; lift the lid and copy them one at a time on the glass. Brought my stapler with me, so staple staple and then off out the door and back down the steps.

In addition to not being near anything, Mantell is also the better part of the way up a rather steep hill. Ran up that, up more stairs, found the room. This is where it gets nerve wracking. There's a box for every class -- every class -- and trying to find mine in the few minutes that remained before 4:00 was like that scene in Poltergeist when they're trying to flee their haunted house and Craig T. Nelson can't seem to find the key to unlock the car door. At 3:58, I found it, signed in, and was done.

Suddenly, I realized how hot, sweaty, and unshowered I was. I realized it was 4:00 in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything all day. And I realized that I had absolutely nothing to do until the next week.

Later, I was invited to an impromptu end-of-session potato latke event over at Charles and Lori's. Three of their other friends, Sinmi, Huma, and Sateary, rounded out our group. We ended up migrating over to Sinmi's kitchen in Norwich House because it was bigger and cleaner than Charles and Lori's tiny, filthy food-preparation area. I was excited to learn that Sinmi was from Nigeria. I had yet to meet a student here who wasn't from the U.S., and besides, I've had a keen interest in Nigeria ever since their Minister of Defense's widow contacted me about a financial issue. Turned out that Sinmi goes to UCSD and knows nothing about the Minister of Defense's widow, so that was a bit of a let down. Huma and Sateary are both from UCI. So many UCI students here.

Dinner ended up being a lot more than latkes. We all helped in one way or another, but in the end it was mostly Sinmi. Her improv cooking skills are pretty amazing.


We had mini pizza-things, chicken in some kind of tomato sauce, veggie patties, and vegetables. And latkes. They came last. I didn't eat all of that, but it was certainly the fullest home-cooked meal I'd had in the past few weeks.


Afterwards, I got my laptop and we went over to the TV room in York House to watch some of my DVDs. Huma had never seen "The Office" and was eager to, so we watched an episode of that. "Peep Show" was a big hit with everyone, and while they all agreed it was weird, everyone was able to get into "Look Around You" (the first series; "Water" and "Germs"). Malcolm, one of the RAs, wandered in when we were watching "The Office" and stuck around for a bit. After Huma and Sateary cleared off, for a joke I put in one of my DCI DVDs and we watched 2001 Cavaliers... and Charles, Sinmi, and Lori were genuinely interested in it. Lori passed out on a couch pretty quickly, but the rest of us went on to watch 2002 Cavies, 2001 Vanguard, and '87 Velvet Knights. I was just so surprised and pleased they were interested I had to take advantage of it.

At around 2:00 in the morning (hey, we didn't have any class or commitments the next day), a porter came in to tell us she was locking up. She saw the "Peep Show" DVDs and said, "'Peep Show'! That show is awesome!" So that was nice.

Friday
I went into town to shop for books for my next class. I was supposed to meet Lori, Charles, et al. at 2:30, but I was a little late and ended up doing my thing by myself, which is just as well. I needed to do some pretty me-specific shopping, like I said. As usual, in the course of surveying secondhand bookstores in Brighton I stopped by Dave's Comics, which is awesome.


Of all the books on our reading list, I could only find one: Beckett's Murphy. I bought it and had a great calzone at this Italian restaurant that sort of shares patio space with The House, where they tried to charge me $40 for fish and chips (remember that?). While I waited for my food, I started to read Murphy. That thing's going to be a pain. Beckett is... weird, as you may know.

After that, I wandered out to the pier and settled into a deck chair to read some more. However, I fell asleep almost immediately. The book was impenetrable, the weather was cool, the view was relaxing -- I'm only human. I think I slept for about half an hour. That's thirty minutes of sleeping in public, like some kind of hobo. No one threw me over the edge or anything. And when I woke up, there was about 80p in my hat. Nice people here.

Later that night, Charles, Lori, and I watched some "I'm Alan Partridge," including "Bravealan" from the second series ("Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!"). I feel justified in saying it was a hit, although "Peep Show" was clearly the winner.

Saturday
My new and sudden group of friends had plans to meet up at York House Saturday morning for a walk to Stanmer Park (where the Kite Festival was) and into the village. I'd never been to the village, and it seemed like the sort of thing I ought to see. That morning the weather was looking pretty dire, but I went to the rendezvous point anyway. I was a bit late and none of them were there, but I decided to press on to the park. If the weather hadn't scared them off, I'd find them soon enough, and if it had, I'd go on my own.

Apart from a rapidly dampening birthday celebration and a circle of trailers (gypsies!), the park was empty. The rain was a steady sprinkling now, but I decided to continue on to the village, which was about a kilometer and a half up a paved road. During the walk, the weather got steadily worse until it was at the point where anyone would have been forced to say, "Okay, it's raining." You know how there are those people who refuse to acknowledge it's raining until they're being pelted with M&M-sized drops? What's with them, anyway?

Before long I came upon the church and museum that mark the outskirts of the village. Somehow, the foul weather made it even more appealing. Maybe I've read too much Dickens.


I'm always interested in old buildings, which in California usually means anything built in the '70s. This church, however, was built in the 18th century. I went into the churchyard to take a closer look at the headstones, some of which were nearly as ancient as the church itself.


The village proper was just up the road from here, but by the time I got there the rain had ceased to be charming and had become a serious issue. There was a family trying gamely to eat at a picnic table sheltered under a tree, but nothing was safe from the downpour. Trust me on that; I was under a tree myself.


Every time I thought it was about to subside, it'd just get louder and harder and wetter. Despite this, I carried on up the road until suddenly it just... ended. In this:

Before the rain gave me a concussion, though, I managed to duck into some kind of dry storage barn-like building. There was a van in it with its back door open, so I figured someone else was around somewhere, but if there were, I couldn't see them. But farmers are supposed to be hospitable, right? Surely they wouldn't mind if I waited out the rain in there, whoever they were. I sat down on some pallets and wrote some postcards, which, in a rare instance of forethought, I'd brought with me.


After a while it all died down and I ventured out into the open again. Forty minutes or so later, I was back home and exhausted. After a nap, I joined Charles, Lori, and Sinmi for some lunch. I don't understand Sinmi's ability to just throw things together and have them turn out so great, but thankfully, I don't have to understand it to eat it.

That night was Charles and Lori's last among us here in Brighton, so "the gang" got together again at Park Village 36 to use up as much of their remaining food as possible. Someone made a really great fritatta-like thing out of eggs, cheese, beans, corn, and snow peas, which we supplemented with toast and beans. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I didn't contribute anything to this shindig, but whoa there. Don't think that. I brought the Hob Nobs.

After dinner we watched "The Mighty Boosh" ("Bollo"), which was a big hit, and some more "Peep Show," by popular demand. Charles, Lori, and I made some vague plans about meeting up in London on Monday, as they were stopping there to visit a friend on their way back to New York, and then I stumbled back to my place. I had an early morning and a big day ahead of me.