...

Last night I got kicked in the face by a pole dancer...

PARIS

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting lately - my computer screen died and I couldn't. Also I just didn't want to. Anyway, in recent history of my time in Europe, I went to Paris; thaaaaaa city of lightses... and cigarette butts; there are probably more cigarette butts on the ground than blades of grass. However if you look up away from the ashy sidewalks, you will likely lose your breath.

Aside from the nasty ass ground, Paris is beautiful; the architecture is finely detailed, ancient and full of character. It has a sort of fake-ness to it; as though it's a movie set. Even the food looks like a stage prop.

The Eiffel Tower is stunning - for me it was literally stunning. Looking up at all that iron left my mouth agape and my heart beating as though I just downed a can of redbull spiked with PCP. I couldn't believe I was actually seeing it. To keep with Parisian life style (or so I have gathered from television), Trish and I popped a seat in front of the majestic, pahllic tower and downed a bottle of wine in less than 30 minutes... then we passed out beneath it. If self-induced comas were ever a joyful experience, this was it.

After we awoke from a minor brown-out, we got on the move for food with our friends Kelsey and Abdullah. We found a strange little place in which we got more wine and great meat. We each had a different innocent animal - lamb, beef, chicken, and duck. It was rull good. I will criticize it for the amount of butter - there may have been more butter than actual food on our plates. But seeing as how our first few hours in Paris involved passing out drunk in front of the Eiffel Tower, we figured we might as well go all the way and not do anything remotely healthy at all.

So OBviously we set out for more booze after dinner! And ice-cream! We met up with a couple of friends on a spot overlooking the entire city. Paris. Is. Big. It was like looking out into an ocean - no end of the lights until the horizon. Shortly below us young Parisians got sloshed and danced to the Mortal Kombat Theme Song. There was also broken glass everywhere and people strewn all up and down the steps leading to what looked like a really important building for politics or stem-cell research or something. This place was like a free-for-all.

After we grew tired of seeing the same idiot walking on his hands while his fellow street-performers tried jeering the crowd to respond as though it was the first time they'd ever seen a person upside-down, we went to an outside cafe to enjoy the buzzing atmosphere of Montmartre. Here, my friends ordered ice cream and pie and I got a highly alcoholic drink with a glow-stick in it. What a way to end an awesome day.

The next day exists as somewhat of a blur in my memory. It was very hot and Trish and I were ultimately just waiting to get on the train home. The city is beautiful, but the people are no match for the friendly Irish. Ireland looked kind of like a dump in some spots but I remember wanting to stay. Paris did not have the same effect; I was informed by a colleague that Paris is known to be one of the most xenophobic locations in the world. Not everyone was rude, but if I mis-pronounced one syllable in brief attempts to speak the language, I wouldn't even get a response. It may have been the nervous farting but I've mastered the art of evasive flatulence so I seriously doubt that's what put them off.

Not everyone was rude; I actually met a very nice woman who sold me mustard with a smile despite the fact she had been awake since 4 am preparing for the market. Regardless, I think I've been persuaded to learn Spanish. It's wiser to do that in America anyway but this was the final little nudge. Funny enough, the nicest people we met in Paris were American. The buildings of a city may be beautiful but at its heart is its culture. The 48 hours we spent in Paris were gorgeous, but they were also a little cold; Personally, I feel as though I connected with the land more than the people.

That's all for now folks, till next time!

Sam

Complain and You Shall Recieve

Okay, I was a little harsh on my internship in the last post. Yes, it was boring the first week, yes, I was basically on the same rung as a 16 year-old high school student, and yes I had horrible visions of an adult life of monotony after graduation. But things are getting enjoyable. All it took was a little bitching and the universe changed its ways. Let's hope I haven't just re-jinxed myself.

Yesterday I helped out with a film shoot for a BBC documentary on Raphael's tapestries. Raphael was made a series of huge paintings for the Vatican, all depicting biblical stories of St. Peter and St. Paul. The reason the cartoons were made was so the picture could be transferred to a tapestry. In the latest issue of V&A Magazine, Jan Dally wrote, "The cartoons (original paintings) were cut into strips about a meter wide and placed under the warp threads as a template for the weavers." How insane is that? One of the tapestries is placed in the museum directly across the cartoon it came from. In about three months, four tapestries will be shipped from the Vatican to the V&A and be reunited with one another for the first time in 500 years.

To even be a small part of producing this documentary was surreal. I've always dreamed of being on set during a shoot and Cultureshock gave me that opportunity. The director even asked me to be in some of the stills! Five seconds of fame well spent.

In addition to helping people document a historic event, I'm really enjoying my time in the office. The staff is very supportive, and my tasks are slowly evolving and expanding. I'm still doing the remedial stuff, but I've tasted productivity while doing it. If I were being paid it'd be near perfect (total perfection would require my friends and family to move here too) as perfect as an internship can be that is. After I left work today, my workaholic mind imagined them offering me a job. Then I thought of how people in the UK hate the American students coming over here and taking their sweet internships away.

England apparently is having trouble with employment, kind of like the US. Is that a, wow-how-long-have-you-been-under-that-rock, kind of thing to say? News is hard to keep up on when your main concerns involve your hair, clothes and different ways to make a ham sandwich. Vanity, thy name is Samuel.

I'm starting to catch an England bug. It's worrisome; I don't get allergies, gay men and women are allowed to marry, no one gets harassed for not wearing what everyone else is wearing, football is football, there's food from seven different countries on every street, and most importantly, the Imax theatres here are showing Twilight next weekend. Damnit family, stop being terrific. ;)

People aren't the same wherever you go. Even the English, who speak the same language as me, are significantly different from the people back home. This didn't shine through at first, but after a little time the differences became clear.

I have also decided that Australian accents are a combination of American and English ones. I came upon this revelation after I used one when answering the phone today at work. It was magical. England is moderately sized and close to many other countries; this means many accents, which means that I can get away with choosing a different one every time I talk to a stranger that will probably never see me again after this summer. This is extremely thrilling.

G'day and G'noight,

Sam

First Week of the Internship

My first week at Cultureshock Media is done, wow. It feels weird to say the least. Weird because it's an actual office job like the kind you see in movies where the main character loses his mind because the beige wallpaper starts speaking Japanese to him. Honestly, if this job gets any more dull I think I might start talking to the walls. The company is really cool and my co-workers are great people, or at least I think they are (I don't talk to anyone 80% of the time), but my job, so to speak is more or less remedial tasks that a sloth could do.

My responsibilities include reviewing the profiles of our clients for two of our websites - funkyvenues.com and funkyweddingvenues.com, paraphrasing newsletters, posting offers from clients, and managing the sites' facebook and twitter accounts. It's amazing I haven't passed out into the computer screen yet. When I'm given a small assignment I spring out of my coma and get right to it. I'm actually surprised at how efficient I am. Usually when I first do something my mentors suspect I have ADD and perhaps a learning disability, but here I barely get distracted.

I think it's easier to get distracted at school because a lot of it is bullshit that the administration wants you to pay for. There. I said it, higher education is turning into/is a money trap. Why do I need to be told by more than one professor who invented the fucking printing press? Whatever, I digress. Back to Cultureshock.

Cultureshock is a publishing, production and content providing company that works with all platforms of arts media; books, film, ads, tv, magazines, you name it, they probably do the odd jobs to help iron out the kinks of getting it together. We're like a bridge or a portal if you will, into a world where dreams and ideas come to fruition. It sounds awesome, and I'm sure it is if you actually work there, but I'm just a six-week intern whose relationship with these people is transient, as I will be back on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in less than two months.

I hope I can work with my co-workers soon, it gets a little lonely and psycho-y when I have only my own brain to silently communicate with (I REALLY hope I haven't done that thing where I think I'm thinking my thoughts but am in fact, saying them out loud with an unsettling glaze cast over my eyes). I know these people are fun, and they all seem to have at least a personal interest in fashionable clothing which is damn-well near good enough for me. But the metaphorical walls of work ethic are separating me from them. Is this too much to ask for? Are they content in their own space? Are their jobs as boring as mine?? Oh shit. Please tell me adult life isn't like this.

Needless to say, my less than thrilling internship, despite the obvious cool-ness of my co-workers, has me worrying. I really don't want a job that confines me to an office chair all day. I'll go insane. Whether I actually have ADD is unclear (I actually don't remember the test results from when I was younger) but I definitely have muscular ADD (don't wiki that, I just invented it) and can't be still for a prolonged period of time. It's like restless leg syndrome but with every part of my body... even my eyelids. Hopefully I'll be given more responsibility soon. I have faith that this company is a fun place to work; maybe they just needed to see how well I faired in the first week.

My fellow intern is a 16 year-old girl named Sophie... upon meeting her I thought, "Wow, if they're giving me the same tasks as a toddler, they must have been really impressed with my resume." Then I got competitive and wanted to show her the throw-down. I imagined my self rolling up my sleeves, towering over her and saying, "YA GOIN DOWN FOOOL!" But then I remembered, "Wait... I'm an adult." You live to impede the self-esteem of college students another day, Sophie. Actually she doesn't; she was only there for this week as part of her school's work experience requirement. Yesterday she brought in cupcakes to say thanks for the opportunity which gave her 7482o0758492 points in my book. Cake could probably end war if we took it seriously enough.

Anyway, I have the second of three papers that I and the other interns in the program have to write about our internships soon. The assignment is to create a project based on the journalistic aspects of the job. Going to be difficult seeing as how the company doesn't ever write/report anything whatsoever. Maybe I'll ask permission to follow the V&A Museum (one of our clients) while they shoot a documentary on British Art. I think they're going to say yes; if I make enough cupcakes they'll have no choice.

Poverty

One of my worst fears came true today. I have no money to my name. I’ve spent it all on clothes, food, local attractions, and crappy nightclubs. When the ATM made that horrible beeping sound as the screen said “insufficient funds” I felt a pang of guilt and panic. My parents and relatives have been pouring money into my bank account so I can have the time of my life and I’ve gone and spent it all like a madman. What’s worse is that I’ll have to keep asking for it. Eventually, the money on my tube card will run out, the food in the fridge will run out if it doesn’t go bad, and eventually I’ll have to pay to wash my clothes at the nearest laundry service. The walk back to my dorm was a blur of defeat and helplessness.

I blinked the panicked glaze from my eyes for a second and saw a homeless man sitting outside Whole Foods. That’s when it hit me: So THIS is why people have jobs! It’s all so clear now; if you don’t have a JOB, you’ll end up with nothing and your only form of shelter from rain will be your three-foot long toenails, and that’s only if you’re really flexible. I started thinking of ways that I could make money under the table. Then I remembered I’ll be working at my internship eight hours a day, five days a week. Would I be willing to break my visa contract and give up one of my days off for money? Considering my strong aversion to toenails, I’m definitely considering it.

So, a word to those who have yet to study abroad: conserve your money. Have fun, and get out there to see as much as you can, but don’t go crazy. It’s a bother to discipline yourself by choosing to sit some things out but it’s a worse feeling to not even have the choice at all. Ultimately, it’s not your money you’re spending; it’s your parents’, or guardians’ – the people who are actually making a living. This may not be the case for everyone, but who between the ages of 19 and 21 can afford the ridiculous amount of money it costs to study abroad? If you can, great, if you can’t, join the club, we call ourselves “The General Public” – we have jackets and meet every Tuesday for coffee and sponge cake.

For The Anxiously Separated

When I first got to England, I suffered from severe separation anxiety; you don’t know what it’s like to not be able to buy your favorite moisturizer for six weeks. It’s just cruel. I’ve also really been missing my friends and family. Being so far away from them all makes it seem like they either A) don’t exist, B) are in another universe, or C) have forgotten that I exist period. This pattern of thought goes back as far to my childhood. If you can believe it, it was far more dramatic back then, so at least I’m maturing slowly rather than not at all.

Any way, before I left the States, it didn’t dawn on me that I’ve never actually left home. I went off to school, sure, but if I wanted to visit home I just had to get in the car and drive for an hour. It was like I never left! I remember my first trip home after settling in on campus. I pulled into the driveway of my dad’s house around the beginning of September with one of my best friends from school, Caroline. He leaned out of the front door and said, “Is it Thanksgiving already?”

It had been less than a week since I said heartfelt goodbyes to my family before I came crawling back to them. As time went on I got better at not wanting my mommy and daddy, but I don’t think living an hour away from home was enough to prepare me for the big leap across the pond. In the last six weeks, my nights have been peppered with weird-ass dreams, the latest involving melting children. According to my roommates I’ve been doing a lot of “sleep-shouting” which has involved some key phrases such as “ONE TWO THREE FOUR! ONE TWO THREE FOUR!” And, in the voice of Gollum, “More light… MORE LIGHT!” Some other time I was yelling so loudly that everyone in the kitchen could hear me. Luckily they’ve been patient with me and haven’t called an exorcist, much like I would have done twelve times by now were I in their shoes.

Needless to say, I’ve been missing home and it’s had a big enough affect to penetrate my subconscious mind. Mostly, the stress has manifested itself in a serious fear that everyone I know and love at home will die and I’ll have missed the last days of their lives. Extreme, I know, but I can’t help it. I’m a performer at heart and if I don’t dramatize at least one thing every other hour I’ll turn into super-dramatic Sam. And that ain’t pretty, it’s actually really obnoxious, so I’ve been informed. But there is a good ending. Last night whilst, obsessively trying to distract my brain from imagining my family dying in a velociraptor zombie apocalypse, I read about a thousand posts of an extremely funny blog called, Hyperbole and a Half. Within it I read about seeing love as “stretchy.”

I would be injured deeply if I lost someone near my heart, but Allie Brosh helped me find some light in the loss of a loved one. She writes about the five stages of grief and how throughout that process, you feel like your life has suffered a wound that will never heal. Trying to fill the void someone has left behind is wrong because it’s as if you are trying to replace that someone, so you can finally get on with your life. Brosh said there was a time after her pet rat, Isabelle, died, when she felt she would never love another pet the same way. But she said something else that emanated a beacon of light when I read it.

Love is wonderful in that it can never be wasted or used up. We can never replace the people or animals we have loved, but the love we feel for them can be expanded. I like to think of love as being stretchy. It is easy to feel guilty when you start to love a new pet - like somehow that means you love your old friend less. But when you think of love as being stretchy and able to expand, you can see that there will always be room for everything. You can love as much as you want.

I’m not, in any way, saying I can’t wait for everyone I care about to kick the bucket so I can get my love-stretch on, but I wanted to share it with you all because it brightened my spirits a great deal. Maybe when you’re feeling sad about how much it hurts to be away from the love of your life, your children, parents, best friends, and to know that even the dearest parts of life come to an end, you’ll be lifted like I was. Now if you’ll excuse me, Terry just put on “Country Grammar” and I have to get jiggy with it.

A big hug for you,

Sam