I thought London would have Internet....

...but often, in my dorm at least, no such luck. it just goes out sometimes, and seemingly only if i am trying to have a conversation on skype. sometimes it comes back, sometimes not. teaches patience. reminds of modern dependence on technology. but mostly, is annoying.

this, of course, is not an excuse for the fact that i haven't updated in here in approximately 783924 years. or, to be more accurate, since 15 february. which is just silly.

much has happened. lets see... I went on a weekend of adventures in wales, courtesy of my study abroad group, attempting desperately to show the city kids that there's more than just the city. i went mountain biking and hiking and meandering around. mostly meandering. i found a castle, and an old barracks of some sort on the top of a mountain. and sheep. SO many sheep. as you see above, i took pictures (hopefully, soon to become paintings of some sort. i would have tried to do it there, but the constant rainy, 40-degree, windy, cloudy weather was a bit of a deterrent).

and then sean arrived, after a very involved hiding-keys-behind-planters-and-camouflaging-it-with-foliage-for-sean-to-find-3-days-later process that, thankfully, did not end disastrously, since he was getting into town before my return from wales. and it was a week to be remembered. sunny the whole time. nothing less for the californian.

in the midst of all of this, i was having my last few weeks of classes, which officially ended today. for the rest of my time here, i will be technically on break until 27 april, and then in our mysterious third term dedicated (i think) solely to exam-taking and performance-giving. very bizarre, if you ask me. but i'll take it. time to make use of those £20 tickets to rome and paris and budapest i see in ads all over the place...

my grandmother, and her long-time friend from switzerland, also paid a visit, just in time for our orchestra concert in st. johns cathedral in the middle of the city this past monday. it was an enormously fun, exciting concert and, as most concerts do, it reminded me how much i love being able to play for people in situations like that. i'm always going to, in some respect... if nothing else, being here this semester has made me realize that. but anyway, grandma's stay was very busy and much fun. spending real time with older people--be them family members or not--really does give perspective one loses when only hanging out with college kids. which i appreciate greatly.

since this is already a very long post, i suppose I'll sign out for now. coming up soon is an even more crazy CrazyTime, involving having to write 293847 million pages in the span of a week or two, exploring switzerland and germany with heather (!!!), and getting a week with Caroline, my best friend from high school! it will be very interesting, as that due-date-of-everything-ever will surely approach more quickly than i would like, and i'm embarrassingly enthusiastic about all of my classes/papers and want to do them well.

as always, i hope all is well and know that i miss you. stay in touch.

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to do: post on blog

i don't update this blog nearly enough. but that's because i genuinely don't know what to say... what is blog-worthy, really? i could talk as generally as possible about how my classes are going (which is difficult for me to comprehend, let alone those not obsessed with schenkerian analysis or using augmented sixth chords in the right place), or specifically about the people i'm getting to know (interesting considering the public nature of this thing), or maybe, to continue a theme, which new parts of the city in which i've gotten miserably lost (so many!), or other seemingly notable events. notable? to whom? me? family? friends? random people who don't actually know me? oh bother....

so i'm going to ignore all of the above and share one of my perpetually-posted and compulsively rewritten TO DO lists. all of you who have spent time around me have seen these floating around. it should give you an idea of every day life in london for lindsay, notable or no.

TO DO
-fill out remaining applications for CTY, CCY at wes, senior interviewer, national symphony internship, Boston Symphony internship, and accompanying grants so i don't have to live in a box BEFORE i graduate
-practice bach d minor and barber for lesson tomorrow! then practice it for another few hours!
-buy proper shoes for hip hop class before thursday--and ask sabina about how to sign up
-get tickets to visit Hansel in oxford on friday
-start researching for paper on recorded music vs. film, and start analyzing berg's altenburg lieder. and the schubert harmonization. and ahhh.
-plan travels to morocco, germany, switzerland, rome, paris, egypt, and many others. not in that order.
-find new market at which to buy bananas and another cheese i've never heard of
-top up phone

there. for now i think i'm going to go cross a few of those off the list. for later, i promise more compelling accounts of my actually very exciting and inspiring time over here.

still much love from a still very rainy london...

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running around the heath

(...and i very much mean "around," despite my most diligent efforts to go into this 790-acre, most elevated park in the city...)

it finally occurred to me this morning why i'm reluctant to go running in london. yes, i'm more out of shape than i'd like to be. yes, every morning i sit up in bed and gaze wistfully out onto the bright green courtyard that would be striped with morning sunlight if it wasn't pouring. but i've done distance running in literally the worst weather imaginable from the seventh grade onwards and a couple puddles don't bother me anymore. no, no: every time i set out to try a much-researched loop in the direction of the heath, i feel a pang of terror that i won't be able to find my way home.

with good reason, as i've gotten lost literally every time i've gone running here. it's an unfortunate and unavoidable conglomeration of factors: my sense of direction is more of a suspicion of direction; on principle (despite all logic) i refuse to ask for help; i also refuse just to run straight up the main road and back again because the area is so interesting; and there is not a single right angle between intersecting roads on the entire 19 pages of my london A-Z for my neighborhood (i checked). it is all frighteningly like a labyrinth, as I never know what direction I'm facing, and there are no spaces to peer through between buildings on each block. every time i do make it to another intersection, i look right, then left, and instead of having a clear view of the road's path, it veers or curves and i'm left staring at another solid wall of old buildings and an old lady watering her begonias.

this morning i set out to do the two miles to a running track in the heath, do a few 400s (for which i have been strangely nostalgic), and go back home. no problem. so i got my google walking directions, memorized the 10+ turns and veers and subtle forks, and set out. of course after about turn 3 i stop recognizing names and rely on my direction suspicions to find the edge of the heath, which is probably 5 miles of a solid wall of woods to the north-west. nope. i found three tube stops on different lines, four schools, a statue of a woman inexplicably bending over in what looked like a toga, but no heath.

next time i'm carrying my A-Z when i go on a run. yes, i will look ridiculous, but maybe it will finally lead me to the expansive yet quite clandestine center of this london labyrinth.....

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Obama + Orchestra = Best Night Ever

i had titled this entry "a night of BO and the LSO" when i registered Obama's initials for the first time. i bet he had a rough third grade. like my classmate from about the same age, Ashley Sylvia Solomon. ashley, if you're out there, i'm sorry about that. i'm sure the boys are too. well, maybe.

but anyway, i wanted to give a snapshot of my unique rendition of the much-anticipated 20th of january. i ended up streaming the ceremony from my laptop in my room, which was actually really cool. i turned off the lights and sat there, just listening to him. the african american studies major in me (thanks, prof. eudell) certainly has a significant number of doubts about the coming years, but i'm also damn excited. and hopeful, and so astounded that he did it. just think, we were all sitting on that hill last may watching him speak, saying "only a miracle will get him nominated"... it was a really spiritual thing, sitting, just me and obama's voice, so very far away from it all but still hearing people cheering upstairs in their british accents.

and soon thereafter i took off on the tube for barbican hall, home of the world-renowned london symphony orchestra. they just so happened to be playing latin-american composers that night, who just so happened to be my three all-time favorites. on inauguration night. i also managed to get a seat in the very front of the hall, right in front of the concertmaster and conductor, both of whom glanced down at different points and smiled, probably because they could feel me staring at them all up in their business. because the front row, mind you, is basically on the stage (and very much under the lights) in this place. but it didn't bother me. so after an afternoon of just me and obama, i had a night of just me and the LSO. whew. before the encore, the soloist of a ginastera piece made an announcement about how honored he is to play with the LSO, and how powerful it is to be playing right after such a momentous occasion in the USA. and, lo and behold, the entire hall of however many hundreds of quite not-american people, started cheering "obama! obama!" and then the LSO played a thunderously crazy and beautiful piece by Rivueltas. that is my kind of celebration right there. i may or may not have been in tears.

For everyone in middletown, say hello to Wes for me. it's really a weird feeling, now that you're back, being able to picture you together there. i've grown quite a liking for the place, i must admit...

anyway, enough from me. happy inauguration, and beginning of semester. i miss you.

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Meanwhile, back in Hampstead...

today marks my two-week anniversary of abroad-itude, and i must say time is doing its somewhat familiar but always-surprising warp, where i feel like i've only just gotten here but left home so very long ago. perhaps the days all seem to clump together because of the weather patterns, if "pattern" is the right word (see above, if it's legible). sometimes when i wake up and (try to) go running it has rained already and is foggy and dim, and other days it's about to rain, and is foggy and dim. though i maintain that i am head-over-heels for this city, i no longer question the somewhat dejected faces of the people walking by me in their routines relatively uninterrupted by the weather, something i have quite counted on in the past without realizing it. to meagerly compensate, i have taken to wearing as many annoyingly bright colors as possible.

classes still have yet to start, too, which makes me feel like i'm just a tourist. i've taken advantage of this position, however, and have taken bad touristy photos at: buckingham palace, the houses of parliament, the london eye, big ben, big ben from farther away, old unidentified cobblestone roads between cramped old buildings, myriad parks with ladies in high heels walking their terriers and older dignified british men awkwardly jogging in mismatched waterproof sweatgear. and the shopping. oh bother.

i've met a bunch of brits in my dorm, who are very nice but in the midst of exams. i also have a great small group of americans with whom i've been exploring, and after a certain wonderful experience on monday, have established that we're going to meet every week for (ready?) Monday Drag Queen Bingo Bar Night (as Timberlina explains "because it's bingo, in a bar, at night!" and everyone always thinks this is uproariously funny). discount beer, £1 a game, colorful roaming lights, and abba, queen, and so much more. what more could you need on a monday evening?

had an overwhelming-in-every-way weekend with hansel (as always) who was visiting on his way home to oxford, and some quality time with chris sutliff as he was passing through.

and i'm purely happy for the first time in a long while. much of it is being able to make my own schedule (still packed, but in a good way), and knowing that i'll be able to go as quickly or as slowly as i want for the next five months. i'm on my own a lot, too, which for whatever reason gives me so much good perspective and energy. i'm going to a London Symphony concert next week by myself and haven't looked more forward to a concert...ever.

so that's life on my dot on the map. i'll be here walking around, waiting to start the studying part of my study-abroad next week... stay in touch, as always.

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so THIS is london...

jet lag is a new flavor of tired for me. it's somewhere between post-middleschool-sleepover tired and dazed-after-busy-day tired, popping up and fading away like weather patterns at entirely irrational times. it's an unbalanced sort of tired. usually when i feel this mentally dead, i run until i'm at the same physical level, to gradually and evenly turn up the volume later on. and so, today i embarked on the ambitious journey of walking from my dorm in hampstead to around oxford street, pickadilly, soho, and i found the king's college strand campus at which i'll be studying, ending up being maybe 15 miles. as for london? wow. oh wow. wowow. i'm sure this is the "honeymoon" stage of culture shock that was described to me, but either way, this city is beautiful. but beautiful isn't even enough of a word. love at first sight? i'll work on that.

but i am terrifed. why, you ask? first time out of the country? weird, new academic system? don't know anybody yet? meh. it dawned upon me today walking down the bustling materialistic mecca of oxford street: somehow, my sense of fashion is european. or at least not quite american. i have been fruitlessly searching for an unidentified something in fashion ever since i reluctantly gave up my tomboyhood in high school, and that something is here. i must stay away. i mean, if i'm relegating myself to a diet of rice and soup for a semester, i probably shouldn't be buying £20 boots and skirts and hats and legwarmers left and right, right? i used to hate shopping, and now this. of course. oh bother.

well, i had intended on checking in to say i now have my single room complete with a working internet connection and a sink, waiting for classes to start on the 12th, but all this came out instead. despite that, happy new year. so far, i'm having a blast having time to myself and getting lost in this big city...

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new year new country new violin strings...

as i sit here staring at piles of clothing organized by color and reading material which probably weighs more than my high school backpack, and wondering if i want to take that pair of boots or trade them for a couple extra bottles of my precious hair mousse, it occurs to me that i have been quite negligent in replying to the many thoughtful emails and assorted other communications that have come my way in the past weeks. as i suspected, the time has flown by and tomorrow at this time i will have started my series of voyages landing me in london by around 9 on new years morning in the quiet wake of the previous evening's celebrations...

and so i figured it would be a good time for a first report. though i'm not sure how many bottles of mousse i will be taking, i do know that i have packed two watercolor tablets and paints, and will be very open to suggestions for places to plant myself and paint for as long as necessary. taking life more slowly in watercolor-like ways is one of my top priorities for this semester.

anyway, i am now 21, i have purchased my london city guide, and beyond that i have absolutely no idea what to expect for the next 6 months of my life. but i have a feeling it will change me, in many of the (oft music-related) ways previously prevented by sheer exhaustion and constant stress.

email me. skype me. if you're taking the time to read this, chances are you mean a lot to me and i want to know how you are. i'll send myriad updates as things actually get interesting...

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