Four days until Hallmark makes a killing

I saw this walking down Charing Cross Road and had to take a picture. It was posted on the side of a telephone booth.

Happy (Belated) Chinese New Year!

Today London celebrated the Chinese New Year at Trafalgar Square and it was awesome! There were an insane number of people milling about and food stalls and firecrackers making sounds and bright colors and lanterns strung up everywhere. I met up with Steven, Meredith and some other people, which was a rather extraordinary feat. We then headed into Chinatown and walked...errrrrrrr...struggled through crowds...for a bit. Between the occasional morning tube ride and wandering through Chinatown today, I am well qualified to be a canned sardine. Which, in today's job market, may be a decent life skill. Without further ado, here is an excessive amount of lantern pictures. I REALLY liked the lanterns.



The next two pictures is of a dancing dragon! It showed up outside a restaurant that we were trying to get into and it was so cool. The dance looked exhausting. All the colors were gorgeous. I love bright colors. This was a good place to be for a bright color enthusiast.

After a delicious meal of Honey and Lemon Chicken Fillet and Green Tea bubble tea, we headed back toward Trafalgar and ran into this silver lady. She was not the stillest statue person I've ever seen, but dammit she was the classiest. Also, the lack of complete stillness gave me hope that this could be another career option. If doctor or professional sardine doesn't work, I could be a statue person with a lovely parasol.

In illness watch news, I think I'm going to see a doctor tomorrow. The cough sucks, but it's not as bad as the pre-pubescent boy voice that has replaced man voice. Don't get me wrong, pre-pubescent boy voice is hilarious, but I think I'm ready for it to be gone. And for the coughing to be gone. However, being sick has finally prompted me to do something that I should have done a long time ago. Namely, purchase tea. I finally got myself a mug a few days ago but I never got around to getting tea. Which is silly. Very silly. So, I bought a box of Earl Grey tea! Yum! I was watching an episode of Doctor Who that featured so I was inspired to sketch out just how miraculous Earl Grey tea is. Seriously.

The tea made me feel much better and I'm sure the doctor will do the same. Even if it's not, you know, the Doctor.

Much love and cheers!

Oh my god, I'm so frickin' excited!

Oh my goodness, I just had the extreme pleasure of going and listening to Dr. Steven Novella speak at The Rugby Tavern for London Skeptics in the Pub. For those of you who have no idea who this is, please let me stress how big a deal this is for me.

Dr. Novella is the host of the weekly podcast "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe," which has been hugely influential in my life. I started listening to the Skeptic's Guide at a time when I was beginning to question a lot of my beliefs and understanding of the world, and it has played a very large part in shaping how I think and who I am today. I even wrote my college admission essay, in part, about the Skeptic's Guide, which means that it is indirectly and partially responsible for my getting into and attending Pomona College, which I love dearly. I started listening to it in high school, a little while after I started reading popular scientific literature for fun (Stephen J. Gould's "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes is actually where my google username comes from). I was immediately hooked. Listening to the Skeptic's Guide helped me refine the critical thinking skills that I had been starting to develop, and gave me a look at an entire community of likeminded people around the world. I now self-identify as a skeptic, and consider this to be one of the most important things about myself. My identity as a skeptic is certainly one of the things that I am the most proud of. The Skeptic's Guide also helped me realize that I am, in fact, an atheist, and it eventually helped give me the courage to openly admit to being one.

This is the second Skeptics in the Pub event that I've been to here, and it's really cool to see the skeptical community get together and chill. This event was a particularly big deal for me not only because one of my all-time personal heroes was going to be the main guest, but also because I went to this completely by myself. Now, I think it's silly to constantly need a posse of people around all the damn time, but I generally try to avoid going to social events where I don't know anyone. You may remember from a few posts ago, but I am so awkward. It's so easy to let myself slip into being the silent, awkward, creepy person around groups of people that I don't know, but this time I wound up actually talking to people. Not as much as I could or should have, but I feel like I made a friend tonight! We started chatting when we were waiting to get into the room to see Dr. Novella, and then when her friends left to go do something else we chilled for the rest of the event. Apparently there is also a Westminster Skeptics in the Pub and they are having an event on Monday! Which is awesome because being in Westminster means that the venue is pretty close to where I live rather than an hour walk.

The pub was super crowded by the time I got there, which was only ten minutes after the event had been set to start. The Skeptics in the Pub folks rented out the private room in the top floor of the pub and the room was a bit small for all the people who showed up. I wound up standing out in the little hallway outside the room until Dr. Novella started up a Q&A session at which point I squeezed myself into the room and stood while getting to listen to him talk!!! He answered a bunch of really interesting questions and a few not so interesting ones, but it was all exciting. I had to leave once to get a glass of tap water because this damn cough won't go away and started acting up rather violently, but other than that I just stood there and listened with rapt attention. Then there was a little break where people mingled a bit more. I got soooooo close to getting to talk to him, but when I and the woman that I had been talking to got near him, the organizers decided to start up the Q&A session again. :( It was definitely cool just to listen to him speak though. The questions covered a wide range of topics and his answers frequently veered off into tangents that covered an even broader range. Overall, I very much enjoyed it. I mean, it was Steven Novella so there wasn't much chance of me not enjoying it. He finished answering questions at 10:00 and then started getting ready to go. My goal for the night had been to at least say "hi" and maybe get a picture with him, but he looked tired and ready to go. Oh well. Hopefully I'll get another chance. Since I did not manage to get a picture with him, these are the only pictures I have from the evening. Taking them made me feel like a total creeper because at this point I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the room with a camera out. And the pictures make him look like a ghost. This, of course, is all overshadowed by the fact that I FREAKING MET DR. STEVEN NOVELLA. I even said "Thanks for coming" as he left the room and got a "yep" and a nod, or something like that.

One of the questions asked of him tonight was whether or not he ever wavered in his skepticism when things such as his friend, Perry, dying happened. Perry DeAngelis was an incredible skeptic and an excellent part of the podcast, and his loss must have been really difficult for Steve, who apparently was actually there when Perry died. Dr. Novella's response was basically that, as hard as it was, his skepticism and views on the afterlife did not change in the slightest. I admire that. Sometimes we need to just confront our sadness and realize that, although losing something makes the world suck a little bit more, life goes on. Writing this I'm tearing up a little bit, because losing Zoe still hurts. My throat still catches when I see miniature schnauzers on the street and going to bed sometimes can be rather difficult as I think about how much I just want her to snuggle up to me. She was a really important part of my life and the lives of other people. Yet as much as I'd love to see her again, I think there is a certain amount of freedom in believing that the world was a better place for having had her a part of it and I'm a better person for having had her in my life and that is that. She doesn't have to suffer anymore and I don't have to watch her suffer. There is comfort enough in that.

Wow, sorry, I had a long walk back from the pub where I got to doing a lot of thinking. This definitely wasn't meant to be a downer at the end. In all honesty, I don't really see that last paragraph as a downer (although thinking about Zoe has admittedly gotten me crying a little bit). I think it was meant to be uplifting in a certain way. Anyways, I'm sorry.

I had an amazing night. This was so so SO cool. Man, being in London is the BEST.

Much love and cheers!

A post in which I brag shamelessly about my life...sorry

So, Sunday I was chilling in my room, not doing much of anything important (does reading for class count as important? I'm still using the "foreign country excuse" to get out of it...) when I thought to myself, "hmmm...it is a lovely day, I think I'm going to go out and enjoy it." And you know what? I did. The skies were clear, or rather as clear as they get here, and the temperature was that perfect crispness that nips a bit at your cheeks but can't get past a peacoat and jeans. I decided to check out St. James's Park. I mean, I walk past it every day and yet I hadn't walked through it yet. Which, now that I've been, is completely absurd. So, without further ado, let the shameless pictorial bragging commence!

To add words to what clearly does not need them, this is about a ten minute walk from my flat. Maybe fifteen. The point remains, I'm so freaking lucky. The walk is past Buckingham Palace.

This picture was taken on this lovely little blue bridge in the park:

This is the other direction from the bridge that I was standing upon. In case you cannot tell, that is Buckingham Palace. I know this blog post (and previous ones probably) make it sound like I'm obsessed with Buckingham Palace...but it's so pretttttttttty!

Closer view of...well...you can probably figure it out:

After enjoying the park for a while I decided to pop across the road to Green Park. Which then led me to Piccadilly. Which led me to the posh shopping area. With lots of posh stores. I walked up and down Regent Street for a while and looked in an Anthropologie and Gap and passed a Burberry because I couldn't stand to see the prices on all those pretty clothes. :) This next picture is for you, dad:

Are you all jealous? Because that was absolutely my intent. If this post was not enough to elicit jealousy, please let me know so that I can put together more obnoxious posts! Aw, screw it, I'm totally going to do that anyways.

I should mention that in addition to surrounded-by-awesome, I have also been rather ill as of late. I had a super stuffed-up nose for a while which has apparently been transferred to my throat. Which is really unfortunate. Because it means that I have been coughing. Up. A. STORM. Which makes class a little awkward.

But the fact remains that I am currently in London and it's awesome. Screw you, cold virus, you can't stop me! If anything, you are just going to give me abs of steel! Which I will then use...to...defeat the cold virus...forever? Ok, that threat was not well-thought out but the damn cold virus had best be shaking in it's metaphorical boots because I am coming for it! And by "I" I mean, well, my immune system is coming for you! And lots of fluids! So I hope you know how to swim. Not...

Oh god, I clearly need to get some sleep. I'm going to go do that, so, until next time...

Much love and cheers!

We interrupt this broadcast...

Hullo, lovelies.

First, a quick update about London life. Club Neon on Thursday

was AWESOME. They had amazing music and glowstick necklace things and glowing paint it was suh-weet!

If you needed proof that the night was awesome, look above. That is how many glowy necklaces I managed to accumulated, mostly with the help of Kun-Wei. :) I had a great time!

We went to Brick Lane for Indian food on Friday (Anjali, Meredith, Meredith's friend and her flatmate). It was so tasty. So so so damn tasty. For those of you not in the know, when you walk down Brick Lane, restaurant proprietors come out and try to get you to come into their restaurant. Then you bargain. Luckily, Meredith's flatmate has been here for the year and was a total Brick Lane pro. We got a drink, an appetizer, papadum, a main dish and naan for £9.00 in total. It was delicious and economical, so...extra awesome. I could live off of naan for

the rest of my life, it is so good. So so so good.

Ok, now I need to quickly interrupt this update to be annoyed about something. I just read an

AOL article titled "Your Career is in the Cards (of Destiny)." It was so silly. I mean, it would be

cute silly if it were just a stupid joke, but, it certainly wasn't presented as such. Basically, what

the woman that the article cited was saying is that when you map out a deck of cards on a

calendar like this one...

...which you can then use to find out about your personality and what jobs you'd be best suited for and the like. WHICH DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Why in the world would playing cards have anything to do with determining personality? Like, once playing cards were invented the universe decided, OH MY GOODNESS, Imma base everyone's personality and stuff based on these things arbitrarily matched up to a calendar! Finally a fool proof way to figure this stuff out! I mean, really. REALLY. Gah, this annoys me, probably more than it deserves but it's so indicative of the complete lack of critical thinking pervasive in our media and the general public. It's just so so so dumb. Oh well.

Much love and cheers!

It's a Thursday, so naturally I'm just waiting to party

Hi,

I'm sorry that I've not been as updating as regularly as I should. My bad. I promise to try harder, I just keep putting it off. Which I realize is completely unacceptable.

Sunday was lovely. :) I walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum which is INCREDIBLE. Like podcasts, it is free and there is so much to explore, which basically makes it one of my favorite things ever. I will be going back there because I don't think I even saw a quarter of it. I was going to take a bunch of pictures but then I decided to just enjoy myself and absorb it all. However, I did take a picture of a dress that I really like though. I wish I had a Colonial Period dress. They are so pretty.

It's so pretty!!! I think I just really like Jane Austen novels. :D Also, after I left I saw this...

...which I thought that my mother would appreciate. So, there you go, mom!

On Tuesday for class we went looking for the old Roman Forum and Basilica. This is where we found a fragment.

It was in the basement of a haircutting salon. The salon people seemed rather annoyed at all the people, but they have an ancient monument downstairs so...they're just going to have to deal with it.

Anywho, I will update when I have more to update about.

Much love and cheers!

More catching up!

Ok, so, man voice is pretty much gone at this point as is all the sniffling. Yay! After my amazing 6PM-6:30AM sleeping festival they really didn't have much choice.

On Tuesday I had Evolution in Science and Culture and London Before the Great Fire. I love my evolution class so much. So so so much. It's actually like someone was like, "Let's make the perfect class for Kelsey...let's see...what would make her super happy?..." and then they made it into a class. Oh my goodness, it is SO COOL. And SO INTERESTING. And just SO AWESOME. London Before the Great Fire is pretty sweet too. We went to the Museum of London and checked out some ruins. We saw the ruins of part of the old Roman wall around Londinium (that's the name of London when it was run by the Romans) and the ruins of a Roman fort. We actually got to STAND in the ruins. It kind of takes one's breath away. I mean, the sheer weight of all that history is rather awe-inspiring. Something about standing at that site and then getting to look at all the Roman artifacts really hit me, and I found myself contemplating my place in history and our current time's place in history and the fact that someday, our society will almost certainly not exist in the way that Rome's Londinium no longer exists... It was interesting.

Part of the assignment for touring the museum was that we had to check out the gift shop at the end. The gift shop had tacky recreations of artifacts, fake aliens guns that made obnoxious noises, more candy than you could shake a tapestry at and lots of books-some more relevant than others. The shop also had these:

Dear Sameera, oh my god, can you make these please???? How cute are they? I know the answer! The answer is too cute. Way way way too cute. Like, the cutest. Ever. OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE! *Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel*

Ok, so after the museum, Kun-Wei and I walked back to UCL. On the way, we stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral. You know, because it was just on the way. No big deal. :P

Ok, so Wednesday was basically the best day EVER. We had classes which we cool, Cellular Neurophysiology and Developmental Neurobiology are pretty alright. Also, classes totally don't feel like they last an hour...but apparently they do? I mean, they definitely do. It feels like we aren't in class enough. Not that I'm complaining! But...yeah...it's straaaaaaaaange. After class we had plans later on so I decided to chill out in the area for a few hours. So. What does one do when you have a couple of hours near the UCL campus to kill? The British Museum!!! Seriously, one ten minute walk from campus later and I was hangin' with a crystal skull and stuff from 2,500 BC Mesopotamia. Woah. It was so cool. I love that place so much. After spending some time there I left and read in a park with a fountain for a while. Mmmm, the fountain made me think of Pomona. I felt so at home. :) It was a beautiful park and the book ("The Girl Who Played with Fire"-another of Meredith's books) is delightful. In a somewhat disturbing sort of way...

Why hello Mr. Skull. Were you made by the Aztecs? No, not at all. Do you have magical powers? Lollerskates. Nope. But it's ok! You are still really cool!

Necklaces! Super old jewelry stuff! Woo! God, this stuff is SO COOL.

FOUNTAIN!!!!!! It is a FOUNTAIN!!!!

After all that I went back to campus and met the other Pomona students at out liaison's office. We went with her to THE MOST DELICIOUS AND FILLING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. We had English Afternoon Tea at the British Museum (twice in one day, woot woot!) and it was INCREDIBLE. I'm going to go ahead and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Yes, that is three layers of PURE METAPHORICAL GOLD. And it came with a pot of Earl Grey Tea. That I put milk in. Because I'm learning how to be English!

Scones with jam and clotted cream. Soooooooooooo delicious.

Classy finger sandwiches filled with things like cream cheese and cucumber and smoked salmon. And other delicious sandwichey things.

I feel like this layer doesn't even need explaining. I hadn't eaten lunch and it was 4:30 when we had this but I still couldn't do much more than waddle out of the museum afterwards. It was such a satisfying fullness. This is the best meal I've had here. And it was free for me! Yay! I will definitely be dreaming of this years from now. I certainly still am now. :D

We also went out with the neuro students again. It was fun, I learned how to play Cheers Gov'ner which was rather entertaining. We were going to go to a club but an hour or so of waiting in line was enough for me so I headed back and slept. This was in the midst of my cold so I think I made the right choice. Probably. Actually, definitely.

Thursday I slept the epic amount. Then on Friday I went to a UCL neuro students birthday party! It was my first socializing event without other Pomona people around. O.o I keep waiting for the day when I'm not incredibly awkward with new people. I mean, it shouldn't be that difficult, right? But then I wind up overthinking everything and getting worried that speaking too much will be an unwanted imposition for those around me so I wind up being the awkward, silent girl who smiles a lot but doesn't really say much of anything. Which is more awkward than talking but...easier, I guess. Uuuuuuuugh, I'll figure it out eventually. Right?

I drew a cartoon for you guys! It's all about me being awkward! Yay?

Much love and cheers!