hello everybody. this is a temporary solution to a permanent problem...
and i can't spell... but this is it for now so enjoy... or don't .............An
act locally
we have moved
re-location. the base of operations will now run out of www.oocities.org/english_an. however links on that page are not fully functional yet. use the side links on this page if need be. god spede you.
note: pictures and some archives will still be based at this site.
Population (demographics)
Online Eating (coming soon?)
The night we ate pizza
Kids love pirates
Pictures:
ENG [1-30] [31-35]
[feb03] [mar03] [apr03]
IRE. [nov02] [mar03]
USA [past] [jan03]
Archives
Oct [16-31]
Nov [2-4] [5-10] [11-17] [18-29]
Dec [1-10] [11-26]
Jan [d29-12] [15-29]
Feb [3-20] [23-28]
Mar [10-17] [20-28]
Apr [m30-6] [8-13] [23-25] [pres]
the london eye on you
i've been trying to write a paper on emperor charles v (holy roman empire), i haven't gotten very far in the past couple of days. i always find other things to do like write emails, check out things on the web, read other websites, update this page and scan in pictures and maps. it also seems like i have trouble working in the same place twice. i guess the only exception to that would be away from everyone in the ref. anyway today i scanned in some new pictures [apr03]. these include the few shots i took in portsmouth although you probably won't be able to tell. most of them are me just wandering around london.
. ryan grotte .
. brian hagen .
everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey
today's title is so because of the part 'come on, come on...' in the song. also because i was listening to it today. anyway, the internet can seem a little slow at times, maybe even more so when your hungry. updates: i've updated the saint mary's page, this page, and i'm working on the english_an page so that there can be an eventual swopping of this page for that one (even though the a lot of the archives and such will still be at this domain). also, the swopping of my email address from heropsychodreamer24@yahoo.com to english_an@yahoo.co.uk. the swich because the previous email addy was a wee bit long and i'm getting too much spam at that address. so now i got a simpler one. i've emailed everyone in my address book about it. side notes: (1) anne i am an adoring fan of your webpage; (2) there will be no entry tomorrow.
. bill brown .
. brooke bowman .
. kate buckley .
. an hong .
. dean krouch .
. anna marquardt .
. laura miller pics .
. kelley minor pics .
. steve pease .
. anne rasmussen .
. ruth smith .
. ryan roth .
. greg sostaric .
. andreas transo .
. erin tuttle .
listen read hear
i've noticed that everyone whos anyone is posting what they are listening to and reading (with the exception of hagen and a few others). although i won't be making it a special section for it on the page i thought i'd mention where i am in the 'current readings and listenings' category (even though i'm a few years behind in music, and about a century off in reading). today i'm listening to modest mouse: the moon and antarctica and built to spill: keep it like a secret, a classic combo that i used to listen to over and over when they were fairly new. i've been reading dubliners off and on this semester. i'd like to read around ireland with a fridge but i'm not going to pay eight quid for it so i'll let it be for now. also in music i'd like to listen to the cure and the cars, highly likely purchase or downloads when i get back in the ussa.
. follow me around [radiohead]
. travis .
. modest mouse .
. death cab for cutie .
. mundane continental .
. geography.about.com.
. global issues.org .
. envirolink.org .
. greenpeace.org .
. world wildlife foundation .
. bbc.co.uk .
. writing time (clock) .
i just scanned in some new pictures, just a few though because its a timely process using a crappy imaging programme (ms paint, ms imaging). check out the new pics at picslondon4 or at the ENG [mar03] and IRE [mar03] links to the left (they both link to the same page). also all links are up for past photographs.
i'm never lonesome when i'm by myself...
today i woke up at the crack of one. i was going to go to the london zoo but when i checked to see how to get there i found that the admission price was £10.50. i certainly won't pay that much to go to a zoo, especially when kew gardens is £5.50 and probably bigger than the london zoo. so i went to richmond took the district line to the picadilly line to holborn station to check out the british museum which cost me £0.00 to get in (i started catching the evening traffic in the underground at this time, three pm gmt). the british museum has at least five donation boxes in each room you enter asking you to donate at least £3, €5, or $5. bloody bastards. i gave them 50 pense.... suckers. anyway i checked out the egyptian, indian, chinese, japanese and korean exhibits and of course the bookshop where i picked up a few postcards of paintings that i will soon tac up on my bedroom wall. in the indian exhibit i saw a statue of shiva dancing and i thought to myself, "this summer shiva is... the lord of the dance! showing soon at the grand royal theatre..." (anyway) i then got back on the tube at around five, rush hour. so i got out at leicester square walked around and checked out a few stores. i got back on the tube at half seven and there were still people going home from work, bloody hell. i got back and ate at lee's garden: chinese food to take away.
a historian at heart
the song 'crimea river' by justin timberlake is really about the crimean war. don't it make you sad about it?
i dreamed a dream that time gone by
last week i had a dream that grotte and i went to brewers/twins game in milwakee (interleague play?). its a wee bit odd because i think its the first time i've dreamt about someone in the states since i've been in london. but then again dreams are hard to remember so that could be a false statement.
falls over in pairs
rolls over your neighbors dog
whats good for a snack
and fits on your back
its log, log, log
its log, its log
its big, its heavy, its wood
its log, its log
its better than bad, its good
everyone wants a log
your gonna want a log
everyone wants a log
your gonna want a log
the computer lab has been closed over much of easter break but is today through friday this week. even thought i really haven't got much to talk about in a way, i do.
taste like an english channel... (no i'm not taking a piss at andy...:)
monday, april 14th (hampton, richmond stn, ldn waterloo stn, portsmouth & southsea stn, southsea). i got a late start on monday and didn't depart london waterloo until about half five (pm). i arrived in portsmouth (via train) about two hours later got out and tried to figure out how to get to a hostel from the station. you know its kind of funny when you don't really plan out a trip and you have no idea where everything will be when you get there. the portsmouth area was a lot bigger than i thought it would be so i did a lot of walking while i was there. i found my hostel (for £12 a night, bueno) and chilled there for the rest of the night. gone in 60 seconds was on the tele. one of the people in my room was from france, the other two i didn't meet until later...
tuesday, april 15th (southsea, portsmouth). woke up at nine and left the hostel an hour later. walked around on the shoreline (right near the beach) for a while and then did some wondering. while i stopped to look at a map some lady asked "are you lost?" and i said "well, i'm just sort of wondering... um, where is the high street... where can i get some breakfast?" so she directed me towards the city centre. this journey quite the walk. i ate shortly after i got there. i then walked to the ferry port which was a hell of a walk and went check out the prices. i was planning on staying in france for two nights. the lady told me it would be fifty quid and i said "are there any deals or anything cheaper?" and she told me that i would have to go to 'the travel shop' to find out which was 'just up the road'. 'just up the road' turned out to be a twenty minute walk and 'the travel shop' turned out to be a travel agent of any type. so i went into the shop, waited my turn and asked them about any deals on the ferry. what they did was call the people i just talked to twenty plus minutes ago and offered me the same deal. so i asked if there were any internet cafes around and they told me there was only one in southsea... so i took the bus from the north end to the city centre and walked to southsea, finally found a library and booked a time for the next free computer. while waiting for my computer i had to use the loo and the librarian said that they didn't have one but the closest one was in a pub across the street otherwise there was the pubic toilet two blocks away. i started walking to the public toilet but then said screw it, i'll just go into the pub. the pub turned out to be a gay bar. i ordered one half pint of guinness, went to the loo, drank the guinness and went back to the library. when i went back to the library i found on the computer (internet) that it cost much less to to travel return for one day (twenty four hours) rather than two because for a two day trip they charge you the same amount as a three day trip. had the lady at the ferry port told me this after i had asked for the next cheapest possible return fare to cherbourg then i could have left on that day. instead i had to go back to the ferry port and book my ticket for the next day. after that i went back to the hostel i had stayed at the previous night. when i got back there the french guy was gone but the other two bloaks were in. they were both (white) from south africa and spoke afrkan as their primary language. they also both worked for the ferries that sailed out from portsmouth and southamton. i later found out that the majority, maybe about eighty percent, of the people staying at the hostel were working for the ferry companies that went to france, spain, germany, etc. later that night they all laughed hysterically when we watched 'ferry disasters' on the history channel. we also spent a lot of time watching episodes of jackass and dirty sanchez that night and on the previous night.
wednesday, april 16th (portsmouth, cherbourg). in the year of our lord twenty thousand and three we set sail from the cold quay of portsmouth... two hours and some odd minutes later we arrived in cherbourg, france (oh ho ho). even though i p&o ferries gave me the priviledge of waiting in the passenger ferry port lobby for three extra hours (due to 'technical problems' on the original ferry) they upgraded me to the faster ferry at a later time. i had finally made it to france. whoever thought it would be a good idea to let me into this country was going to regret it... (well, not really). upon my arrival i had just missed the last bus to the city centre so i did some more walking. so i walked around for a little bit and found my hostel after a half hour or so. when i arrived at the hostel i found that the receptionist spoke very little english and communication beween the french and i was a wee bit difficult (unbeknownst to me this was going to be a recurring theme during my time in france). my two years of french in high school did me no good, mainly because i didn't take the class very seriously and did some serious slacking. after i had put my things in my room i had decided to go out and get a drink and possibly some food before it got really late. i looked for a sports pub or a pub with a tv because the arsenal vs man u game was on that night. i found a pub with a tv and ordered a pint of guinness but got a amstel of an undertermined volume instead. i then took a seat to watch the football game. however it was french football instead of the premier league so i finished my drink and left. i got to the hostel got some crisps out of the vending machine and read a little bit of the dubliners before i went to sleep.
thursday, april 17th (cherbourg, portsmouth). when i awoke i checked out of the hostel and found the tourist information centre. i asked the lady what there was to do in cherbourg and through her lack of english and my lack of french speaking skills she just handed me a leaflet with french, german, and english on it. i spotted 'the liberation museum' or rather the 'musee de liberation' or something like that and decided to check that out. but first i had to send my mother a birthday card i had picked up in portsmouth (i made sure it contained the word 'mum') so i found the post office and sent it out. the liberation museum was at the top of a very steep and high hill/mountain/bluff. i climbed that hill/mountain/bluff up and down with a fifteen pound backpack, barefooted, in three feet of snow, and backwards. after a half hour of walking up the to the museum i got to the gates and it was closed. so then i went back down and back to the city centre where the outdoor markets were and got 'sausage et ketchup' in a baguette. i also visited two city parks before i headed back to england. in one of them they had several birds, a goat, and a sea lion... in a city park, crazy. when i got to the ferry port in cherbourg to return to portsmouth there were once again some ferry delays and that my ferry wasn't coming. so they once again i got upgraded to the fast ferry at a later time. while waiting around i had a pint in the only pub in the terminal. at the end of that pint i realised that i really hadn't been eating all that much during the whole trip because i was feeling the effects of the pint. so then i walked around and sobered up. i found an outdoor section of the building on the first floor (which is really the second floor in american terms), nobody was out there so i sat up there and played my tin whistle for a while. i stopped when someone came up with his two kids. i started talking to the bloak and found out he spoke english, amazing. he had moved to cherbourg from leeds about a year ago. it was interesting conversation until i had to leave. when i arrived in portsmouth at half ten i went immediately to the train station and found that i had missed the last train to london by at least an hour. i stood in the train station for a few minutes and thought of what i should do, but by this time it was a quater past eleven and all i wanted to do was get back to london.
friday, april 18th (portsmouth, london waterloo station, richmond upon thames station, hampton). so didn't want to book another room at the hostel nor did i think i could get one at this time so i just started to walk around. then next time for train to london waterloo was at five in the morning. i walked down to the next and last station on the line, 'portsmouth harbour'. there was a national express bus station there as well so i check the times for the bus but they had already stopped running and didn't start again until half four. so i sat down and started reading the dubliners again. after a couple of stories i got up and walked around the city. when i got back i found that two bloaks were in my bloody bus shelter, wankers. so i went in there with them. after a few minutes of silence i started talking to them. they both had missed the last trains to where they were going as well (london and brighton). so for the next five hours we all stood around saying something every so often to each other freezing our bollocks off. luckily there was a twenty four hour beverage/food shack that was open so we'd get hot tea or coffee from the window every half hour or so. just before five the train station opened and we found our train. i then fell asleep and two hours and some odd minutes later we arrived at london waterloo. the bloak headed for brighton was gone but the one remaining said 'hey mate, we're here' and i woke up. with a stiff neck i said 'thanks... take care', and then we were both on our separate ways.
i've decided that no longer should i be unhappy, bored, or depressed. everything i need is within myself and no longer will i suffer from negative things i place upon myself. i can make my life better if i make an effort to do so. i'm not saying that i'm going achieve anything of extrodinary magnitude, just simple things on a daily basis. this week i'm going to go to the london zoo and the botanical gardens of kew (even if it is by myself). you see the thing is i never want to do things by myself but i think its about time to start because if i want to see/do things then sometimes thats the only way i'll get to do it (case and point: portsmouth and cherbourg). but i must also do things alone because (in many ways) i can not always rely on others. i have always known this when it comes to family but never relised it when it came to friends. despite what they may say friends are not always there. though i did not want to believe it until recently i think it is something that i must learn. i've always thought that i'd have to turn to myself for problems, living abroad now i know its true. call it a distrust towards the world but perhaps a just a solution to my own unhappiest. trust. i live in a world where i would like to have complete faith and trust in people but i can no longer bring myself to do it. i also live in a world where i would like to have complete faith and trust in myself but can not bring myself to do it. but its time to start. its time to rely on myself. its time to start trying, at the core and instead of the periphery.
its not that i don't want to trust other people, its just hurts sometimes (on many levels). now, time for some kfc. their slogan in the uk is "soul food", i hope its not the same in the states. in actuality it should be more like "steal your soul (food)". if you eat enough kfc its bound to happen.
dedicated to my mother eloise fischer and edward appleby, a friend of a friend
by some sort of act of god andreas transo (my good friend and flatmate) has been granted money from the state of wisconson... suckers. anyway, andreas in turn has offered to purchase my bike. today i purchased a bus pass and am ready to let go of my bicycle after having just named it miss cross during this past week. miss cross and i had some good times together over the past couple of months and now i am ready to move on. on a side note i feel that although i won't be riding a bike anymore with the purchase of a monthly bus pass i fore see an increase in walking, the reading of current events, and possibly alcohol consumption. this purchase also allows me the ability to travel anywhere within zone four with relative ease (this includes kingston and richmond upon thames).
