Birthdays, Football, and Debates: Last Week Pt. 1

Last week was a pretty quiet week because we had the specter of our 10-15 page final papers for Professor Murrin's class hanging over our heads, but I did manage to get and do some fun things and those things shall be related here.

On Saturday the 11th, I was eating a steak and kidney pie from Tesco for dinner when Caelyn and Francesca asked if I wanted to go to a club with the gang. I said I did want to go, so I shoved my pie down my throat about as quick as I could and got changed. When I went into the kitchen that they were hanging out in, it became clear that they had already got a pretty good start to their night. I know that from the empty cans of Foster's and the fact that Josh's friend Daniel and Andy, who are both Asian, were displaying the familiar "Asian glow" and were strawberry red. For this reason, it was pretty jubilant atmosphere as we headed towards South Kensington station to get on the tube.

We got off at Holborn, which is the same stop that we get off at to go to class. Only this time we headed in the opposite direction of class and towards the area occupied by the London School of Economics (LSE). We eventually arrived at our destination, the After Skool Klub. It's basically a college hangout where all the LSE kids come to blow off steam and dance to indie rock on the weekends. We had to pay a 3 pound cover to get in, which as things go didn't seem too heinous.

The weird thing about the whole situation was that I just came out to get out of my room, get out of Chelsea, and have fun dancing. However, there were definitely some subplots playing out as the night progressed. One of them, I had foreseen becoming an issue before we arrived at the club. Standing next to Josh on the tube as he talked to his friend Daniel, it became clear to me that Josh was, not to put too fine a point on it, wasted. At the club, he started dancing erratically, which is not to say poorly but to say that several times he risked running into walls. Without the knowledge of about half of us, Gabe, Daniel, and Josh headed back to the dorm. This caused a bit of confusion because it took the rest of us a good 30 minutes to figure out where the hell they were. In the meantime, Hilary had been flirting with a guy from the LSE, who eventually scheduled a lunch date with her. In addition to that, some of the other people in the gang started to couple up and engage in awkward, U of C style, flirting. I just danced. Nonetheless, it was fun. Also, it was informative because I got to witness things firsthand that I would otherwise have never heard. We had some trouble getting home, but thankfully Francesca can read a night bus map unlike the rest of us.

Sunday, I just tried to work on my paper (mostly unsuccessfully) and listened to the Vikings game on Field Pass. That's not as random as it seems because my roommate Dan is from Minnesota and a thus a Vikings fan.

Monday the only thing that happened was Dan and I forgetting what time class was. Class is at 10 Tuesday through Thursday. However, on Monday it's at 1:30. This is not a fact that we remembered before we prepared to leave for a class that we thought was at 10. Dan left a little ahead of me and made it all the way to Holborn before he realized what the situation was. I realized it just as I had to cross the street to get to South Kensington station and I saw Michelle walking away from the station.

Tuesday was highlighted by Jodie's birthday. Jodie, being the lovely, wonderful person she is, decided that her birthday was the occasion to inaugurate a tradition of study breaks by baking cookies and supplying other store-bought treats. For her own birthday. Needless to say, her birthday celebration was well attended. It was a welcome distraction from our papers. They were due on either Wednesday or Thursday (which means Thursday, naturally). I (finally) finished my outline on Tuesday, but I faced the prospect of writing my whole 10-15 page paper the next night, which is what I did.

Wednesday was swallowed by my paper, but that's not to say that I didn't procrastinate an unhealthy amount too. My writing flow was interrupted by madly refreshing the live text updates for the England-Belarus World Cup qualifier. England had beat Kazakhstan, which is inexplicably a part of the European qualifying region, 5-1 on Saturday at Wembley and were looking for a perfect 4 and 0 start to qualifying Wednesday in Minsk. This is a big deal (and I'll explain this more later in a separate post on sport) because England failed to even qualify for last summer's European Championships, which was widely (and rightly) considered a national embarrassment. In the end, England managed to put away Belarus 3-1 thanks in large part to Wayne Rooney being in spectacular form. My paper, however, did not fare as well as England although I did knock out a page or two during the game. The kicker is that we had a movie that we were supposed to watch for "Feelings" that was shown at the same time as the game and that I skipped to work on my paper. I call Royce Mahawatte's "London: City of Nations" class "Feelings" because it wastes a ridiculous amount of time on Royce giving us an abstract concept and then telling us to write down how we feel about it. Sometimes, we then share our feelings in small groups. I kid you not. Of course, I paid dearly for skipping this movie, as half of the next day's class proved to be us discussing our feelings on the movie.

Also, I broke my writing to watch the final presidential debate, and I'm glad I did. It was fascinating and it was good to see them really go after each other and finally debate. I had two different reactions to it. The first was that I thought that, despite the odd weird moment or two, McCain won the debate. Of course, down nearly 8 points nationally, McCain had to win the debate or he could have basically quit right then and there. McCain was really sharp with his attacks and made his points very well. Obama often appeared unable or unwilling to hit back and I was disappointed with that. The other reaction I had was that I found Obama's performance reassuring. He easily parried away the questions about ACORN and Bill Ayers and seemed firm and resolute about his policy proposals. I was also glad that he stated a commitment to cutting spending. Fiscally, I'm more of a conservative than a liberal. I support balanced budgets, a (somewhat) smaller government, and free trade. John McCain could score major points with me if he could clearly explain how he expects to cut taxes and still balance the budget. Sadly, he is consistently unable to do so and usually lapses into a tangent about pork barrel spending, which is utterly besides the point. I want to hear concrete things. Cuts to cabinet departments, entitlement reform, cuts to defense spending. Something meaningful. Obama at can vaguely ramble on about cutting programs that don't work even though he never says which ones. All of this is to say that I felt like McCain won the debate but he didn't draw enough distinctions to really make a difference in a race that may be too far gone for him to salvage. I'll probably through up a politics post later if I can get around to it where I'll write more about this.

Throughout the debate, I was sucking on a Red Bull, which was to come in handy in the following hours as I got to the business of finishing my paper. That feat was accomplished at 9:30 on Thursday. Keep in mind that it's a 30 minute commute to class and that's if you are MOVING. I wasn't fully satisfied with my paper, but a didn't have the time I might have liked to have for the purpose of refining it. Instead, I saved it to my flash drive and hurried out the door at 9:35. I'll pick up with the rest of Thursday in the next post. The horror of 19 Princelet Street deserves a fresh post. And an arson (only half kidding).