I'm Salad

(WARNING: the following blog-ness is unavoidable-Stacy-ramblings of self-loathing and doubt. But what else is new?)

For those that understand my Mike Birbiglia references: I am becoming Salad, and I'm freaking out because I refuse to be Salad!! Oy... okay, the last few days have been anything but academic; social-fare all around. I'll just give you a little bit of a run-down to catch you all up to speed...

Thursday night was the PKP programme Pub Crawl. Everyone was supposed to dress as Animal-Hybrids (like a gorillama, aka. a gorilla and a llama, etc.), but there were very few people that actually did this successfully. I didn't even try, just dressed in all black like a blank canvas and had an animal sticker of a little bug. He was a cute little bug.

I was with the SB peeps for most of this night, buying lots and lots of drink, and yet not getting quite drunk at all. My system must not have been wanting me to enjoy myself. No, I enjoyed myself, it was really fun actually: The last place we ended at was this enormous bar called Regal, and it was very open with lots of chairs and tables; no trouble at all hanging out there. This is where Cute Guy became particularly cute to me. Whatever.

Nothing to report there.

On Friday, we went in search of an Indian food place. Okay. Seriously. What is it with my travels trying to make me turn against Indian people? I love them! I grew up with Indian culture around me because my best friends were! As if my Air India experience wasn't enough, we found a place called the Curry King (don't ever go there!) and the 8 of us sat down... Okay, I could go into a long, Johnstone-like explanation of this event, but I will just say that it was the most shocking and unbelievable service I have ever experienced. We didn't even get through with ordering before we stood up and walked out. If you're interested, I can try and recount it to you sometime. All I know is we Californians were completely shocked; you can't get away with service that horrendous in the States. No institution would survive.

I mean, I was in France for 2 weeks and have experienced the European mentality of service; this was more shocking than I could have imagined. Oy. I'm seriously dreading my 6-hour flight home. 

::shudders::

Yesterday was actually sunny. The TAs took a group of people over to Pembroke Field where they had sporty games set up for us. I was going to play some volleyball, and then rounders (an interesting baseball-like game with hardly any rules), but found that sitting in the sun doing nothing for a few hours was much more enjoyable than moving. A group of us chatted about school and California weather and Harry Potter and all that kind of stuff.

Then they barbecued for us again, but this time they brought in someone who knew what they were doing, so I had the perfect burger.

And now to the Salad thing. My friend Carlin is really really amazing, and I am thankful to have made such an amazing friend so quickly. All of the boys like Carlin. She is so chill and sends off that "Whatever, I don't really care what you think" attitude, which is great. How can I explain this? It's just such a strange feeling being around her when there are guys around, because I can't ignore the feeling I get of being totally in the way. This is not her doing at all.... but the guys seem to send off this, "Could this girl just leave us alone?!" vibe. ::sigh:: I'm too observant for my own good. But in this case, there isn't much I can do. She isn't really interested in any of them, so I don't want to leave her alone, and she just wants to hang out with friends.

Anyway, I could ramble, but I won't. It just got crazy last night, drama that I won't go into since this is a little too public.

Oh, and not that I haven't used enough Birbig references in the short life-span of this blog, but last night we went out to a dance club, Soul Tree, "which was timely" 'cause "my self-esteem had been hovering around normal and I'd been meaning to knock it down to negative a thousand." It's painful how true this statement is.

Things started off well: we pre-partied in the dorms and got very comfortably drunk before heading out, and Carlin and I had a great time dancing -- so much fun. Cute Guy was there, and then another guy I've started to kind of like (but am giving up on for reasons that shall remain undisclosed) (we'll call him Sweet Guy) was also there. I dunno. I worked what flirting magic my inexperienced self was capable of, and it seemed to fall flat. And then I got kind of emotional -- the kind of emotional that 1 beer, 2 glasses of wine, a rum and coke, a vodka and coke, a Long Island iced tea and a blue lagoon (I don't even know what was in it!), in that order, doesn't really help to avoid.

And poor Carlin. That's all I'll say. Boys shouldn't be allowed within 10 feet of girls who have had too much to drink. Nothing bad happened, just drama, and it's still so early... Actually... I don't feel too bad for her: She got asked out in the perfect way (ie. "So when are you going to let me take you out?" le sigh) by a British stud who looks almost exactly like Henry Cavill in "The Tudors," but with even bluer eyes... What is it with people looking like Henry Cavill here?? Duh-am life is cruel.

And for me, well... it's hard being as perceptive as I have always been and still feeling okay about clearly not being wanted. And it seems to have been a theme of these last few weeks abroad.

::contemplative pause::

Not sure how much more I can take or how much harder I can try, short of throwing myself at people, which I cannot do in the typical sense. Hmm. Fantastic.

PS. The food here is terrible. No matter what I do, I end up with all carbs on my plate when eating in the canteen. I'm detoxing.

PPS. I've been terrible about taking pictures, 'cause my little purse won't hold my camera. To make up for it, here's a picture of one of the King's cows. I tried but couldn't get pictures of her babies (Mom, you would die; they're vomit-worthy cute). They wouldn't come close to us. She was nice, though, and wanted us to pet her. But she smelt really bad.