Your eyes are so green - one of your parents must be part traffic light

I'm a loooong way from home.

So is he - I think the removable quill pen really won me over

Good morning one and all from my newly functional computer! My shiny new AC cable all the way from Austin, Texas means I can get you up to speed on the latest in New York land. Although last weekend was pretty dull as a result of "studying" for midterms (so far I've got an -A on one paper, 4th highest in the class, so it could have been worse) there was some excitement in the form of Ben Kweller. The name rang a bell and he'd had a recent spread in the Village voice so when Stacey was looking for people to go with her, I agreed and I'm glad I did. We went just a short way down town for some awesome burgers (or so I'm told; apparently the more diversity of dead things you can get on it, the better it is) and then to the pleasantly proportioned Webster Hall to see Kweller preceded by the Sam Roberts Band (not to be confused with Sam Isaac of www.myspace.com/samisaac) who were very energetic and enjoyable. Kweller himself did a great set with a lot of range and despite its considerable length I really enjoyed the whole thing. He was very endearing and funny looking, and struck me as a lot older than he actually was - which is only a few years older than me and *gasp* younger than Ed - although I'm partially chalking that up to the fact he already has a wife and kid. Anywho he's great and I've been hype machining him to death ever since the laptop's been back in action.

The view from Jen's room. She gets a waterfall. I get a medical centre. Hmmm.

Two waterfalls. That's just greedy.

Monday night Ed and I were wandering up First Ave on the hunt for food after a long day of classes and exams, and eventually popped into a falafel place called Murray's just a few blocks south of the dorms. I hadn't realised before we went in that it was a kosher place and had the odd experience of being surrounded by Jewish people. It's pretty funny given that I grew up surrounded by people of so many religious backgrounds but didn't know any Jewish people until I was at uni. Anyway, it's still pretty novel to me and I was enjoying my falafel and hummus when a guy sitting at a table next to us and the rabbi he was sat with starting talking to us. The guy turned out to be Murray himself, and he told us stories of selling falafel on the streets of New York and being a tour guide in Israel where he lived for 25 years before returning to the States and opening his restaurant four years ago. There was some interesting religious debate - we all had a laugh when the rabbi commented on finding that I wasn't religious that it didn't matter as my not believing didn't alter the fact that God existed (which sounds less funny out of context). Murray then introduced us to his Hungarian mother, who was staying with him for three months. She was a wonderful, awe-inspiring woman who had led an amazing life and talked to us about her experiences which included surviving Auschwitz. She had gone on to travel the world and told us about how much she loved New York. Despite my total panic at speaking to strangers, it was a fantastic evening that gave me a lot to think about.

With poseable arms and gliding action. I kid you not.

Tuesday night we ventured out to the Bowery Poetry Club for a poetry slam - for $7 we got to hear some open mic stuff, the featured poet - Jeffrey McDaniel, who was awesome - and Ed was even a judge for the slam, which involved some pretty fierce competition. It was my first slam and I'd love to go more often, and hopefully we'll find a venue that's a bit less steep. Wednesday I finally completed my tour of the boroughs with a brief trip to Long Island City in Queens, as part of Ed's urban geography homework. That evening was the latest of the NSE events, a trip to see Les Miserables just off Times Square. I'm still not that into musicals (despite having a couple of serious aficionado friends) but it was reasonably entertaining, and at least I've seen it now. The next event is the opera and I'm really not sure how well I'm likely to cope with that.

This is me, practising for Halloween. Little bit too surreal maybe...

The festivities started a bit early for this guy - I can't help but think
maybe someone forced him to drink gin and vodka with gummy worms.

Early Friday I escaped from the city for the first time on my own, boarding a coach from Port Authority and heading north to Massachusetts (which I can at last spell). I spent a fantastic, relaxing three days with Jen, eating, sleeping and enjoying her very scenic campus which doesn't have a skyscraper any where near it. I hadn't realised quite how stressed I was until I left the city, but despite having a wonderful trip away, I was more than happy to come home to it Sunday night. It was also slightly spooky how much bits of her campus looked like Oxford. However it was much nice because anyone can visit Mt. Holyoke's library. And you can eat while you read. Awesome.


Jen and I came across a number of very appropriate signs and cards over our weekend. We both looked at this, looked at each other, and laughed. I love having weird friends. I also loved a card we found that said "I wouldn't have to be so bossy if you just did what I told you!".

This won. Hands down. My favourite.

Jen. W00t.


The bears are on an ice cream diet. Like Ed.

This was meant to be an amazing arty photo. My camera is very temperamental but with a bit of persuasion she occasionally co-operates (I'm feeling some kind of Swiss Tony moment coming on here, a camera is like a beautiful woman...). I have a stack of photos from the greenhouse at Jen's that I'll publish separately - but for now it's back to ploughing through Mrs. Dalloway (and secretly catching up on neighbours, woo!).

A little note

Hey all, just a quick post to keep you er, posted. My latest excuse for being slow is not, as predicted, midterms - which went ok to possibly well, we'll find out next week - but a snapped AC cable on my laptop, which has means I've been deprived of interweb goodness for nearly a week. My new and very expensive cable should arrive by Monday, and then I can take the proper time to tell you about Ben Kweller, Auschwitz, Les Miserables, and Massachusettes. Until then I'm going to watch Grey's Anatomy and go and visit Jen for the weekend, when I will get to watch actual rowing again, huzzah! TTFN x

Run away Jackie, run away!

This is my blog (and my life) so of course we start with my excuses for not posting for two weeks. Well, if you know me, even a little bit, then it should be pretty self evident. However this week I will be largely blaming the internet for the delay in posting, the wireless connection in our dorms is exceptionally temperamental these days despite (or perhaps due to) a sit in protest at Hunter a few weeks ago. In any case, plenty has been happening in the big apple, and I’ve been jotting stuff down for the last ten days – so back to two weeks ago…

I love sunflowers. This one especially, because it was purchased for me with beautiful spontaneity and has magical powers.

Thursday night (5th), determined to have a bit of a boogie and undeterred by the fact most of us are under 21, a few of the girls (and Amy's boyfriend Peter, who gets two thumbs up) and I headed across town to Copa Cabana, an eighteens and over club. It was certainly an interesting experience, especially being one of the few present old enough to go to the cordoned off bar area - being 21 occasionally makes me feel very old here. Another oddity was the presence of several guys in Marine uniforms - apparently it's pretty common for guys in the military to go out to clubs in uniform here, but I couldn't stop laughing, especially as they all looked about 17. The whole evening made me think incessantly of Amina, as the place reminded me of CC club in Leicester Square, except packed with Puerto Ricans instead of Hounslownians - she would have loved it. After a couple of beers I was even capable of actually enjoying the evening, although the New York "cheesecake" I had at the diner on the way home left a lot to be desired.

The most pathetic fountain anywhere in New York. Ever.

Friday largely involved my weekly lie in, especially as this weekend was another 5 day extravaganza due to Colombus day on Monday - as one of my professors remarked, America should have been discovered more often. In the evening Ed, Roshni, Stacey and I went to MoMA - which is free entry for CUNY students, but we didn't remember that Friday nights are free general admission so the place was absolutely stuffed. I enjoyed quite a bit of what we did get to see, but had my usual "what is art anyway" dilemma, particularly highlighted by the fact that in a room full of interesting stuff all anyone cared about was Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' - which is great, don't get me wrong, but the tourist approach of seeing as much famous art as you can always makes me laugh if nothing else.

Saturday was Ed's 26th birthday, congratulations old man! Jen (of Alaska) came down from school in Massachusetts to visit, and the three of us spent the entire weekend together, seeking out ice cream and having adventures.

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." ~ Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"

Apart from touring my favourite spots in town (Caravan of Dreams, Central Park, Upright Citizen's Brigade), we ended up having an all night adventure on Sunday after missing the train to Brooklyn. While it would be difficult to truely capture the insanity of this evening in words, it did include a very emotional game of catch with a packet of Bounty (the same here as it is at home) which had been purchased as a cushion for me during the comedy show, several truly random conversations with people who either wanted to congratulate ed on having two girls on his arms or to sniff his beard, and a very energetic trampolining session on a mattress left on the street in Greenwich Village. Not to mention falling asleep by the East River at 4 am, despite not having a drop to drink the entire evening. Ed and Jen are now so enamoured of each other that there is now a quest for us to be able to have a three way relationship on Facebook. I love my weird friends.

See, I bring people together. It's beautiful.

After Jen headed back to college on Monday afternoon, Ed and I embarked on another, more frightening adventure: my first ever double date. I had run screaming at its initial suggestion, but after some chocolate and calm talking, I finally agreed to go out for dinner with Amy, whose about a year older than me, and Peter whose about a year younger than Ed. Peter had located a really cute Italian just off Bleeker, and the weather was just right for us to sit in the beautifully lit garden area. Now, just between you and me, I actually had a really pleasant evening - and some amazing profiterols - and there's talk of another such event when Roshni's boyfriend comes to visit. Keep that one to yourself though, don't want anyone to think I'm going soft. Tuesday evening the four of us were back out on the town, this time with a considerably greater contingent, to celebrate Amy's 22nd Birthday.

A really rubbish picture of Amy's Baked Alaska being flambéed

Mmmm, calorific!

The Gang of Cool, somewhere in the vicinity of Times Square

We went to a restaurant just off Times Square, and had some amazing deserts, and then headed home where the cool kids stayed up all night writing papers together. I was writing about Emerson’s idea’s of scholarship and learning which was pretty damned interesting. He essentially suggest that while reading great works is good, it is far more important to come up with your own ideas and internal truths rather than becoming a book worm. My favourite quote from his essay ‘The American Scholar’ is “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.” It reminds me of the nightmare of Oxford where your views are made to seem so insignificant compared to the great works that have come before. Emerson suggests that all scholars have the potential for genius – which he describes as the action of independent thought. I certainly prefer it as an approach to academia and life – my pragmatism course is certainly bringing up some interesting stuff.

After being up well into the morning on Wednesday, I was pretty shocked to find that the sirens I had heard while finishing my essay were the result of a plane crash while uptown. Everyone reacted with the same confusion and disbelief at the news – surely, surely, it couldn’t be happening again – and it wasn’t. A very small plane had crashed into some high rise buildings just off the East River uptown – almost 50 blocks away, but visible from just outside the dorms as we’re also on the East River. The crash was only a few blocks away from campus, and on Thursday, for reasons beyond my understanding, I found myself walking around the area – there was really nothing to see other than vast numbers of news vans, which look just like they do in the movies. No one seemed to know quite how to react, especially when it became apparent that a Yankees pitcher - Cory Lidle - and his flying instructor died when their plane crashed into the apartment block. The city seemed to be in a combination of shock, confusion, but also relief that it wasn’t any worse, and that terrorism was quickly ruled out.

Picture gratefully nabbed from the BBC website

The rest of Thursday passed with little event other than the quest for a “water boiler” (a kettle – Americans generally only use the things you put on stoves, not the ones with plugs, wackos) and the discovery of an exceptionally dodgy computer warehouse shop uptown – they offer top of the range machines for next to nothing, but won’t let you check them out before hand… hmm…

The view from one of the skywalks at campus, and pretty arty photo even if I do say so myself.

I got to do some proper shopping on Friday because for some inexplicable reason, three pairs of shoes developed simultaneous injuries, I now have a shiny new pair and some funky socks, at last!

Oooh pretty new shooooes

Friday night we went out to see “Man of the Year” – a comedy about the possibility of a comedian (Robbin Williams) becoming president. Apart from a few funny moments and Christopher Walken, the film was a mess and didn’t know what it was trying to be – part comedy, part political commentary, part paranoid thriller. Even worse, it basically ended with the suggestion that if you want some kind of change, or to tell the truth, you’re pretty much doomed to fail in American politics. Woo. Probably true though. At least Robbin Williams was pretty funny.

Strut yo funky stuff, laydees. Ahem.

Saturday was the designated girls’ night, which was fantastic, I hadn’t realised how enjoyable rubbish American movies can be when you’re eating cookie dough out of a packet, or dancing like a funk chicken as if no one can see how silly you look. As the girls all live up and down the West Coast, there has been some talk of me visiting them all during my ridiculously long post Xmas holiday, which would be amazing. I’m very excited about getting to see more of the States, which will be interesting as everyone keeps telling me how unrepresentative New York is. The rest of my week has largely comprised of attempting catch up with work, and failing to get any sleep. The weather here varies dramatically day to day – Tuesday was freezing, yesterday was in the low 20s and today was somewhere in between. As a result my body is protesting by making me sleepy at odd hours and it’s very hard to concentrate in class as no one at uni seems to know what’s going on either, so the heating and the air conditioning are both on at full blast all day. In any case, the weekend starts here, so I’m going to go have a shower, watch Grey’s Anatomy, and then hit the town – I think we’re going back to Copa tonight. Tomorrow it’s back to studying - I’ve got midterms next week, so rest assured that’ll be my next excuse for posting late.

We don't know who Jackie is, but we still love her too.

Who needs sleep anyway...

So. It's been another week, and I've been a bit slow on the posting front due to various distractions such as writing essays about Gertrude Stein (so if I start endlessly repeating myself you might know why) eating a lot of food and being very tired. However, I promised I'd get some photos up tonight, so you'll get some rather tired and rambling commentary to go with them. A number of random events have occured during the last seven days, the most exciting and least exciting of which were probably Regina Spektor and Staten Island respectively. Well, there have probably been some less exciting things than Staten Island, but it really was pretty dull. We (being Ed, Roshni and I who are such a cool trio we should probably have a collective title) decided to go on a random trip out there this weekend and it turns out that of an evening, there really aint much to do apart from ride the free ferry and look back atManhattan. We did go into (but not eat at) a Taco Bell, and I personally discovered a really bizzare open gallery playing dodgy Jazz with some photos that looked like they'd been half heartedly distorted on Photoshop. The rest of the time was spent riding a bus from one end of the island to the other, and then going home. Regina however, was absolutely spectacular - as expected. She played almost all of my favourite songs, including 'poor little rich boy', which involves her playing a chair with a drumstick with one hand and the piano with the other, awesome. She really is even better live, which I wasn't expecting - I can't wait to go see her again sometime.

Hanging out in central park, ho ho. By the way, I made all those jokes about getting fat out here while eating American sized portions – look at that roll of flab dangling out the back of my pants! Shocking, I might actually have to start walking around places and not eating pizza every single day. Bleugh.


I love Central Park. I love Roshni. I love the fact that its October and its still HOT here. Seriously guys, mid 20s today and humid, I was walking around in a vest top. Crazy. Although now it's chucking it down, London stylee.

"I said WAIT! When I say WAIT, YOU WAIT!" (In dodgy accent)

The stage at our local (well Chealsea which is pretty much local) free comedy club - The Upright Citizens Brigade - on a Sunday night, where we get to see lots of improv from comedians I'm reliably informed are from really famous stuff like Saturday Night Live. All I know is it's damned funny.

Italian street fair thing. Largely composed of stalls selling food, alcohol or dodgy t-shirts, but still a nice enough distraction.

Pretty sure Dad and Billie came back from New York with a photo of this place. It's not that big a town after all...

I asked for it. Really, I did.


OK so it’s late, we’ve just arrived in DC after a 5 hour coach journey and we’ve got a pretty long walk to our hotel. And then we get attacked by a giant mutant puppy! Well, it turned out to just be a poster, but still, pretty damn scary if you ask me.


Sitting by the reflecting pool in DC getting trying to figure out how best to be touristy, when I was suddenly attacked by a breeze with comic timing.

Ooooh. Pretty flowers.

The terrible triumvirate take on DC. We're a bit like our own UN I think. But cooler.

Monuments. Lots of em.


So many, in fact, that a bit of creative photography was called for.

OK, prepare yourselves for a rant. This WWII memorial really pissed me off. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm part of a generation so far removed from actual war and the genuine threat upon my own way of life that I just can't understand this. But this kind of thing really angers me. Memorials should be about remembering the dead and honouring the people who chose to give their lives - which is something I am prepared to do. I am not, on the other hand, prepared to accept a statement like this. If you can't read the photo, it goes like this: "We are determined the before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other." Surely the point was not to become known as an "overwhelming force", and the reference to the American flag as a "symbol of freedom" is so loaded with irony now it's practically a joke. There are signs all over the US announcing support for the American troops (or even "God bless our troops" which really messes with my head) and maybe it's a British thing, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable with it at home. And another point, all the dates on this war memorial are 1941 - 1945. I'm sorry, but the fact that the Yanks were late does not alter the date on which the Second World War started. Sort it out. Rant over.

Pretty memorials that I do not currently feel the need to rant about. Ahem.

Subways in DC are nice. Roomy, air-conditioned, with funky tunnels and great lighting. Doesn’t mean I love the Tube any less of course. Interestingly, I’ve discovered that I don’t actually say Tube. I say Tchube. Funny the things you notice when trying to explain pronunciation to Americans. Less funny: the fact that every American’s imitation of a British accent sounds like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Seriously.

Roshni and I spent a good 15 minutes in hysterics after watching rubbish TV in our hotel room – nothing was on but bloody Oprah. When we asked Ed why she was on 24 hrs a day, he replied “There are only 24 hrs. If there were 28 she’d be on that many too”. Maybe you had to be there, but we laughed until I was in serious pain.

A squirrel we befriended. He took a piece of cookie right out of my hand. I don’t care what anyone says, squirrels are damned cute. Foamy might get mad at that though.
http://www.illwillpress.com/ I really do love Foamy.

So Dad, here’s one for you. Jim Lambie has been quietly stalking you and I for some years now, and I realised this while at the Hirshhorn gallery in DC. Which was very nice by the way. So you may remember we watched a documentary about him making his crazy stripey floors, and then putting sculptures on top of spray cans – was he a Turner Prize entry or something? Any way, he had a stripey floor sculpture thing on in DC and while glancing through the associated leaflet I realised we’d seen his stuff before – way back when at the Oxford Modern Art, he did the long black and white striped floor that made us go all dizzy, and the blue painted mattress throw up on the wall. Well yeah, there you go. He’s definitely stalking us. Well, me anyway. I felt all cultured actually recognising an artist, although I did initially claim it was a woman - there goes all my looking knowledgeable.

Ed being a cool dude. He then proceeded to skid about the floor of gallery in his sandals. Hetti is hiding in the background. Travelling with a rubber chicked certainly makes life more interesting.

A really lovely park in DC, which would have had an amazing view of Capitol Hill and the monuments had that rather ugly apartment block not got in the way.

Well that's all for just now folks. It's 2:58 am and I've got my ever thrilling linguistics class at 9:45. For an advanced linguistics class, its pretty basic. There was a 20 minute discussion last week about whether everywhere and nowhere were synonyms or antonyms. Which sounds intersting, but try discussing it for 20 minutes - after 5, it's very difficult to care. Especially when the next 20 minute discussion is on the defining characteristics of a chair. Really, it just isn't that exciting. Pragmatism, on the other hand, is easily my favourite class even if writing essays on Gertrude Stein is rather painful. This week we're reading Sherwood Anderson's 'Winesburg, Ohio' and it actually looks like fun after 'Melanctha'. Enough nonsensical ramblings - more from me soon, I've got a 5 day weekend coming up and Jen of Alaska is coming to stay, woohoo!

P.S. All photos were shamelessly stolen from the camera of Edward Alonzo, which is why the photography is remarkably better than usual. Ta very much Ed.