On Tragedy: Day 937

Over the past few days I have been processing the thoughts, reactions and news that friends have been sharing about the events that have taken place at Jonathan Law high school. I have reserved and taken the time to mull everything over before sharing my thoughts.

It's hard, first, the fact rushes over you like rampant whitecaps over stormy water, this happened. Not only did it happen, this happened just a stone's throw from my house, my family and most of the things that I have held near to my heart for all of my life. I still may be in disbelief that something so devastating could occur over something so trivial. 

My high school years were instrumental in the formation of who I have become today. I made some of the best friends I could ever ask for, I accomplished a few of the things I am most proud of, and like most adolescents, made some of the stupidest mistakes I will ever make. The events that transgressed at Law, have taken away the security that teens need to feel invincible. That every young adult feel that they are on the precipice of everything great and imaginable in this world. That they have nothing to be scared of, that they can and will achieve their dreams.  I lived and still live, without the care for what may happen after this life, my only hope is that I can impart an impression on this earth that may stay long after I am gone. Even if it lives on in the heart of just one other. I just want to make every minute I have mean something.

I know Lions and Lawmen were always meant to be rivals, but I am very happy to see the students of my Alma mater join in with Law to become one Milford, one little city, with one hell of a big heart. Our community will always stand for good, and my hope for it is that it comes back stronger than ever. That hope, along with love and tenacity will transform into the light to get everyone safe through the dark. 

Thank you to all of the Helpers, those taking the burden off of others at this time. To my home, I will be there soon, I miss you all. And to the Sanchez Family, you are in my thoughts. 

Day (really close to going home)

What an adventure, to think that I only posted on this blog maybe 10 times seems to me to be almost a shame. In the end I just got out and did as much as possible. This adventure is almost over, I can't wait to be back in the states and see everyone. I keep thinking about this set your goals song called from me to you, which is amazing, I'll post it here, It really speaks to the uncertain parts of my life right now, and just a lot of things i've been feeling lately.

I know it is going to be really hard to readjust to the US, and I will still keep up with uploading this from time to time with interesting reactions to US life. I am really going to miss this experience, I started out absolutely hating it. Fuck, I was ready to pack it in after the first week. The whole world turned around for me. I hope life is this easy when I get home, I hope that we can figure things out. anyway, I'm tired cause Ive been on tour and awake for the last 24 hours or so. 

Day 78

Thinking about paper boats and the poems that Soupy wrote, the way he talks about erosion makes me feel happy you're on your way here.

So Excited.

Tomorrow you're gonna get on a plane. By saturday afternoon, you'll be here! this is amazing. then by next tuesday my non-ginger best friend will be here. This is going to be the best time, although I am really nervous that I wont be great or impressive and you guys hate it here. we are gonna do so much crazy shit...I hope. Ive missed em so much, and itll be amazing just to have her around. Things are looking good from where I'm standing. Goodnight world.

Day 62: Spain and a little catch up

At this point in my trip I realize how awful at blogging I am. I wish I could be like a super great blogger and just blog it every day. And I want to make a solid promise to my 6 followers and Emily if she still checks this blog that I am going to try and write something here at least 3 times a week until I am back and CT. So many amazing things have happened so far and I am totally missing out on the opportunity to document them. 

Anyway, I Digress!

Spain:

I cannot express enough how amazing this country is. It's been 2 weeks since I have been there and I miss it a lot. I was half way decided to transfer right there on the spot. Or just become a vagrant on the streets, it was that good. Lord knows I couldn't survive on the streets but I'd like to think that in a place like Spain I could. Every day I spent there was gorgeous, sunshine every day, a temperature over 70 degrees Fahrenheit every day, Shorts. Every day. Sevilla has to be by far one of the most laid back places I have ever been, palm trees grow there naturally, and they grow oranges on the trees that line the sidewalk. All other opinions on christopher columbus aside, I saw where they keep his remains and a river that he sailed on. I really had a good moment to think about how water really connects us all, and I felt a little closer to home. We took a 6 hour bus ride to Sevilla, on that ride we passed through pueblos and mountains and just the most beautiful scenery. I felt sort of introspective on this trip, and sort of realized how badly I want to experience everything I possibly can. Before coming to England I really felt really caught up in my little world, the people I know, my hometown, UConn, my family, america and stuff like that. I never really realized how many other worlds there really are, every pueblo we passed on that dusty highway was someone else's world. I thought a lot about how I had known nothing but the little bit of world I had experienced up until now, and how all of a sudden I am traversing different countries on the weekend and how amazing that is, and how healthy and strong I feel because of it. I also thought about how many people lived in those small worlds, how some day I'd like to walk on their streets. What sort of things can I share with them, what can they share with me? Had they ever heard of The Wonder Years or John Green books? These are the things you think of when you are stranded on a bus for 6 hours, shit gets deep. 

But that's all I really have to say, Spain is amazing. Oh and I got to participate in OccupySpain, really cool stuff. Sometimes I think we really need to change the world. 

We really need to change the world.

And I really want them to bring a san montaditos to america. thanks.

Liverpool:

Depressed the shit out of me. it was cold. But I love the beatles. What would John lennon do if he saw an entire museum dedicated to him?

Okay, that's pretty much my catch up. Ill post again this week! and by saturday I will have climbed helvellyn, super awesome adventurous mountain climber right here!

good night world! See you in 6 weeks america. I guess we have to start a countdown even though I would rather have you all come here, and just hang.

Spain is the best country I have been to. Entry soon as I get back from liverpool

Cooking in London: Three Men and a Stove

I would like to preface this by saying that this is by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near the likeness of Gordon Ramsey, Emeril Lagasse or Wolfgang Puck (That guy still cooks right?). The protagonists of our story are the flat mates of Apartment Six, Crawford House. Our sizeable task: trying to avoid fast food restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner therein by gaining a thousand pounds and losing our rugged physiques. The expectation of men as far as the kitchen goes is that we stay as far away as possible, so by sizeable I mean something along the lines of Everest sized. Luckily we have some climbing experience, and by that I mean we’ve turned on an oven before. See what I did there?

Tonight’s main course is the Beer Can Chicken, an idea I took from the time I spent living in my best friend’s walk in closet over the summer, but more on that later. We will be using the convection setting on the stove, which I know is the setting that is incredibly louder than the regular bake. You are going to want to preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, but then upon arriving at the oven you will find that it the temperatures are only in Centegrade. So after some quick math and muttered profanities directed toward the customary system[1] you will set the oven to 176 degrees Celsius. Beer Can Chicken is the age old art of shoving a half full (optimism![2]) beer can inside the cavity of a roasting chicken. Clearly this is a culinary technique that is only reserved for the highest echelons of the field. After the half full beer can is in the fowl, we doused the bird in olive oil, garlic and onion powder and then finally the Piece de Resistance: we wrapped the chicken in bacon. After this crucial step we placed the bacon wrapped, beer infused chicken in the oven for around One and a half hours.  When this is all over, please carve the chicken respectfully, like have some finesse with it, then gather your friends and enjoy the most amazing culinary experience of your life.

And that is exactly what life in London comes down to, whether it’s finding a new way to use beer, which happens to be the only thing left in your fridge, or fumbling with an oven and memorizing  the conversion formula for Celcius to Fahrenheit[3], then finding out that you and your flatmates are closer for having shared that experience and maybe you aren’t that bad at cooking after all. Either way it ends in finding a new place to call home, creating a familiarity where you feel like you belong.

[1] The American inches, Fahrenheit system. But maybe I should be directing my frustration towards a country that measures their beer in pints and roads in miles but use Celsius on their ovens. I’m looking at you England.  

[2] I once heard a joke that went something like optimists say the glass is half full, and pessimists think the glass is half empty but only engineers know the glass is twice the size it should be. 

[3] (°F  -  32)  x  5/9 = °C

Day 40something: A haiku

I really hate tests

finals should be illegal

london is too cool.

Day 36: A Note on Amsterdam. Part 2

So we get to the Schipol, the airport in Amsterdam, and we run to the train. They pack us in like we are cattle, and I should have known then it would only get worse. Why would I listen to my gut? We finally get to Amsterdam proper and we reach our hostel which is past a bunch of canals and Weed drenched coffee shops. This hostel, when I say living in a box for 4 days would have been more sanitary, I mean it. When I say I mean it, I mean its a total understatement. Never ever stay at Amsterdam Hostel Centre, there are bugs, the showers are just...dirty and I am pretty sure they do not wash the sheets in between people staying there.

Anyway, as grossed out as I was I kept brushing off our prison-like surroundings and went to walk the city. We ate at an Italian restaurant where we overpaid for pizza and spaghetti. after this more than dissapointing meal we met up with the other guys who were high from the moment they got off the plane. The rest of the night was a blur of boredom and a really really awkward bar called Teasers...where some guy was caught video taping the waitress. How fucked up is that? watch for part 3.

Day 36 (Part 2): A Note to John Green

Sir,

Your books are made of awesome and they go really well with a nice day in hyde park and a baguette with brie. 

Thanks.

Day 36: A Note on Amsterdam. Part 1

The events following take place from 9/28/2011 at around 12 Noon until 10/1/2011 about 6PM: I have told this story, or just the string of thoughts about a thousand times and each time it becomes funnier in one of those ways where, at the time of occurance you say "we'll laugh about it later". and so we did.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon on the 28th Ivette, Chris and I boarded an easyjet plane headed for amsterdam, netherlands. We made the flight just as they announced the last boarding call. The three of us decided that this would be a sign of a good weekend. The best sign really. How wrong we would later find out we were. 

Day 32: I promise I will write an entry about amsterdam.

But tonight I need sleep. I can't remember the last time I had a good night of it. I am hoping it will wash away the negativity of the (mostly) awful weekend I just had. 

I am really missing you. 

Day 28 or so...I'm too tired to figure it out: an ode to imperial stag

I hate whiskey

no really I do

Like seriously 

who thought this

would make me better

but really im just sweating

I should have bought something nicer

My mouth tastes like urine

goodbye common cold

hello Amsterdam

Question: To indulge or not?

Day 28 or so...I'm too tired to figure it out: TO THE NETHERLANDS

I have 6 hours to sleep...then I am going to class, and leaving on a train to amsterdam. and of course by train i mean plane, but I am also too tired to use the delete key...or remember the basic modes of transport. It seems like it is going to be the longest weekend ever. I am sick, and trust me, whiskey is NOT the cure, I got really hot and thirsty...I am trying to figure out how to stay in contact with the most amazing girl in the world, but efforts seem futile. We missed eachother again tonight, and it makes me sad, I really am missing home. I know she misses me too, and it hurts not being able to be there right now...or this week. I am missing the feeling of her touch. Alas, Amsterdam awaits...and the sound of her voice will have to be but a wistful thought tonight and a tangible feeling another. This is all. 

Day 24A: Just a thought.

What happens if I come back to america and I've been replaced? what happens if people stop missing me?

Day 23: A walk on the Thames

The river was alive tonight,

they said it was never so. 

The trees were lit with stars

of blue and white, sometimes

the invention of man strikes me.

The people found it odd to

pass out on benches in the

most awkward positions. Why are

the memorials to the ones we lost

always better looking at night?

I think that maybe they planned it

like that. Maybe we were all meant to be

viewed by city lights or country stars.

The banks were blue, the eye was 

stopped dead in its tracks. The

night watchmen wouldn't let us on.

I'm so sober right now:

If I had a nickel for every time

I heard that one. I'm about it,

don't worry. Is this what we came

here to do? Maybe our wonder years

are passing us by. No, they'll come.

Tomorrow, my love.

today was great. London, you never cease to amaze me. I started to write out about this walk I took with my roommates tonight, and it turned out to be sort of an awe inspiring event, then writing about it turned into sort of a poem thing.... Walks along the thames should always be taken with bellies full of homemade fried chicken and cupcakes. And the most colorful people take to the streets at night. I was imagining a future, and a theory of higher intellegence. My mind is made up. 

Day 20: In the Works

I've been thinking about the importance of the name peter, overcasts and the doppler effect. Homesick and tired, I miss you.

fuck.

Day 14: England Makes sweet beautiful music

Not much happened today, my roommates and I bought a guitar, we sang, we went to class. I talked to emily on the skype. It was standard, and beautiful. Can't wait till she and Seth are here! there will be serenading. it will be awesome. :) All is well in the world, good night. My thought for today is why can't we all have it this good?