Ho-Hum

Bored again... should be finishing up my paper, but for some reason, I like cutting it close. I completely erased what I had and started over this morning, and ended up with a pretty good product... just need a  conclusion. Can't really believe I'm starting my second round of courses tomorrow. The Amsterdam excursion was not long enough... Really glad I came to London - change of scenery; different people: met a really cool French-Brazilian girl and Italian guy this weekend. Good thing about this little town - everyone is from somewhere interesting. In New York, everyone was from somewhere else, but they only associated with people who were from their particular 'somewhere'... Never could really understand that. 

Back in LA, almost everyone was from around the corner.. I was the exotic one in my circle of friends... Those who actually were from somewhere tried to hard to pretend they were from LA, only problem was their image of LA was Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard. (How many real Angelenos spend any time there?) Try asking a New Yorker the last they saw the Statue of Liberty or a Londoner when last they passed by Buckingham Palace. 

Although I really miss home, I'm definitely glad to be away for a while. Just have to figure out for how long...

American Boy

It's weird being a foreigner... Even though my parents came from Nigeria, I never felt less American than my friends... But now I have to get used to people turning their heads to see the owner of the funny accent when I speak in public... some people just look at me like I'm not speaking English at all... at first I kinda enjoyed sticking out a bit - now it's a little annoying having to answer dumb questions... The only part I do still like is dispelling myths and stereotypes people have about the Yanks... I thought they were jokes at first, but they really do think we're all 400-pound, shot-gun toting Nascar fans who don't know about anything outside the states. Some girl looked at me like I had magical powers because I knew who Nicolas Sarkozy is.... Sometimes I feel like I should just play into the stereotypes just to see what kind of reaction I get...

Today

I must have a secret bad weather fetish. First I left beautiful heaven-on-earth Southern California for New York, the city of extremes. I remember melting into a puddle every August and freezing my tukkus off every January. I think I can remember every day when I actually thought it wasn't too hot or too cold or too anything else - that's because there were so few days like that. I enjoyed the place, though (something I didn't realize until after I left - Joni Mitchell was right)...

Now I find myself in London. There must be gold beneath the streets, or something else so powerful it makes people forget about the 300 rainy days a year, bad food and dislodged cobblestones that I swear are out to get me. The city has a lot of great aspects to it - I just hope I learn what they all are before my time here is up.

Trying to stay positive though... can't you tell?