(In)activity

Been in England a little over a month now! There really isn't a terribly huge amount to report, to all my faithful (or not) readers.

The primary concern is that I still do not have a job. That is both good and bad. Mostly bad, although it could be good, if I looked at it that way, and actually used that. See, it's bad obviously because I have no money, and most of my time is spent looking for jobs, or fretting over the fact that I don't have one. Although if I'd allow it to be, it would be good, because I don't have anything to do, and I'm in LONDON and one doesn't really have to spent money to have fun here (there are lots of free museums, most of which I still have not seen). As far a job leads, I have one fairly definite lead. I am going for a trial this Sunday at a little restaurant around the corner in Exmouth market called The Ambassador. The guy didn't sound to excited that I am only here until December 9th, but he said he'd give me a shot, which is more than anyone else has done. Any waitering tips (advice, or actual money) would be greatly appreciated at this point.

So what HAVE I been doing you ask? Well, I went to St. Ives in Cornwall for a week, which I have not yet fully reported on. That was a good experience over all, being somewhat cold and rainy, but with spots of sun peeking through every so often. It actually was out enough to burn my nose! I went surfing in a wet suit! I also had a near death experience. There are these flags that one is supposed to stay between while surfing, which is understandable because this beach is basically a beach between two cliffs and a large number of jagged rocks. So the flags keep you away from the rocks. And the lifeguards are pretty good at whistling at you if you get out of the flag area, but not so good at the actual saving part if you're about to be dashed against rocks, as I unfortunately found out. Anyway, so the surf carries you to one side of the beach, which I was aware of, but unfortunately by the time that I thought it would be appropriate to correct for the surf it was way to late. I was pummelled by wave after wave of raging sea and found myself pecariously close to a huge sharp rock. At this point I had been so innundated by huge waves that my feet were all tangled in the surf board cord, and I was fighting to keep my head above water long enough to take a breath, all the while trying frantically to paddle away from the rocks. Eventually, I just let the surf carry me to the other side of the rocks and found a little spot to swim to shore. The lifeguards were apparently totally oblivious to the fact that I was about to die. But I don't really blame them. Anyway, I took a short break of about 2 minutes, and then jumped back in the water for more! I managed to stay in the flagged region after that, and actually stood up a couple of times!

Other activites in St. Ives included, but were definitely not limited to: eating lots of cornish pasties, cornish fudge, fish and chips, a good amount of drinking (or maybe too much...); an utterly pointless farce of a boat ride, some swimming in the freezing sea (as little of that as possible), lots of reading a book called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which I highly recommend, lots of walking, some by myself, some with the Hollands. As far as other people staying there: we had two houses next to each other. In our house, we had: Catherine, Jonathan, Jonathan's friends Rhiannon, Lizzie, Will, Ben, and some of the time Ed and some others, along with Jerry, Lizzie's mum. In the other house, the Hollands stayed: Peter, Margaret, Martin, and some of the time Kate. It was fun to see them again, as although I saw Margaret at Richard's wedding a couple of years ago, it's been like 8 years since I saw any of the others.

I left St. Ives on Friday afternoon to go to Bath to compete in the Bath 8's annual tournament. I met up with Ken and Giles, some members of my team Hillcroft at the train station, and we proceeded back to Ken's house to drop our stuff. Then we went out in the center of town, where I met lots of lacrosse players from all over, most notably a guy from Santa Clara (I played them 3 or 4 times over the last few years at A&M). We went to a fairly lame night club where the Irish guy I was with amused me greatly by bouncing from group of girls to group of girls getting flatly rejected because he'd just start dancing in, on and among them freely. Eventually he danced into the wrong group of girls, and onto this intense looking guy's girlfriend. He then proceeded to get very angry, and wouldn't stop staring at the Irish guy. I don't know if that led to a fight or not, but the Irish guy got kicked out of the club, amusingly. I slept on the couch at Ken's house, in a room full of random lacrosse guys from all over the place. I think I had one of the best spots, and I allowed the pillows to be used as someone else's bed on the floor. Although I wouldn't allow the random guy next to me to steal the blanket I was using... that was going to far. We all woke up unreasonably early (at perhaps 7am) and began preparing for the tournament. I left at around 8:30 or 9 with some Bath Uni guys who actually knew where they were going (a group of London guys had set out earlier without a clue as to where to go). We got breakfast at a pastry shop, and walked to the fields.

The format for the tournament is: each team plays perhaps 8 or 10 very short 10 minute games (5 minute halfs) agianst most of the other teams in their division. The field is shorter, and each team plays with 8 players (2 attack, 2 defense, 3 middies, and a goalie). I think I played the entire time, minus time minutes at the end of the last game which we were winning like 5-1 (a lot for such short games), which was fun, except that my ankle quickly deteriorated. I had to buy some tape and tape it up mid way through the day. But our team did not do well, and the only game we won was the last one. We tied one other, and lost the others by like 1 or 2 points each. Strangely we played a wide range of team skill levels and seemed to do equally well (or badly) against all of them. Anyway, Hillcroft were quite glad to have me I think, and I did pretty well, scoring maybe 10-15 goals for the day. The other unfortunate thing about the day was that it rained steadily and heavily for the last half, which meant we ( and all out stuff ) got really wet and the fields became really slick, and it made losing that much worse. I left before most other people, at like 6pm, because I needed to get my stuff from Ken's house and make a train that was leaving sometime in the evening, but I couldn't remember when, and the ticket was at Ken's house with my stuff. So I took a taxi from the city to Ken's house, and grabbed my stuff, got back in the taxi, and went straight to the train station, not realizing that my train was not until 10pm. So, without anywhere to put my stuff (believe me, I looked), I finished my book, and waited in the station for the next few hours. Quite annoying. But I made it home eventually.

So what have I done since then? Not a lot. Lot's of job searching online and in person, many CV revisions. I went to Camden town church the next Sunday, which again was cool, and spent the entire day hanging out with some people from Church. We went to an open mic in a pub called The Green Note, at which one of the pastors of the church, Bruce, played. It was fairly folky and really good actually. After that a couple of us went to evening service at Grace Church Hackney, and then had some dinner, and went to the pub! So I got home from church at like 9pm. Basically I did the same thing this Sunday, but most of the day I was helping Bruce and PJ (his wife) move house for most of the day.

Other than that, there is not much of note, so I'll stop boring you, or rather, stop feeding your boredom, whichever may be the case, and leave it at that.