It’s called a spöka in Swedish. It’s inspired by Jehhal’s favorite movie, Casper. It’s shaped like Aaron’s incredibly enormous genitalia (which is ironic, considering in year’s past Aaron has had the tendency to “dick” people with his gifts). It will make you feel safe at night when nightmares about said genitalia invade your thoughts. And your pants. It also includes bonus gifts.

Definitely didn’t find too many punks in the Mormonville, USA. Or mormons for that matter, so maybe that statement is unfair. The second day at Snowbird, right after a couple inches of snowfall on the 24th that made a 20 mile drive last an hour and a half, was a great Christmas present. Unfortunately, all the fresh powder tempted me to wander off path a little bit too often and i ended up getting stuck in the woods on a cliff once. Or twice.

My Christmas lunch consisted of a cup of chili while I was watching Juno over the shoulder of some lady. It made me smile. Unfortunately, nobody really ever snowboards with me. The one time that I followed my parents down the mountain, I decided to record a video of my mother falling and stumbling. She was upset. The one time that two other family friends followed me down, one of them lost their pole and the other crashed into an invisible snowmobile. Strange.

Large asian family gatherings tend to consist of hot pot, asian card games, and questions about if I had a girlfriend. Then things got a little racist and homophobic. Not too big a fan of that type of conversation. Oh well. At least I have my health.

I spent a lot of time coming back from Stockholm. The bus to Vasteras. The flight to Stansted. The easyBus to Baker St. The 205 to Mile End. Dinner at 2am and further packing. The walk down my five story flat with 25 kg bags in each arm. The District to Victoria with those same bags. The Gatwick Express. The flight to Charlotte. The fact that my flight got “rescheduled” and it was impossible to get the direct flight to San Diego. The flight to Vegas. The flight to San Diego. Stupid US Airways. At least they didn’t lose my bag.

On the way to Charlotte I met this guy sitting next to me who was struggling to fall asleep on the plane as well. Right before he landed he introduced himself and I found out that not only was he a Marshall Scholar working on his PhD, he also found spare time to produce music. He described himself as a cross between Chali2na from Jurassic 5 (whom he met as an undergraduate at Wake) and Sage Francis. Yep, broke the don’t compare white people and black people rule. Whoops.

There are elements of San Diego food that I have missed, especially now that I don’t feel nearly as poor. Korean food, Santana’s, In-n-Out, not to mention a good home cooked meal for once. Of course, it’s the conversations that make the meals: my nice, quiet high school friends now have stories of what it’s like to live surrounded by drug dealers or share their experiences of trying absinthe after Thanksgiving and why you really should be careful if you’re taking a flaming shot so you don’t burn your face or the nearby table. Also, you realize how important it is to watch what you drink because even boys can be roofie’d when they venture into a gay bar. Oh, and World of Warcraft. I hate World of Warcraft, so much.

We watched the Duke game the other day, and I skipped the first half of the second half because we were up by so much, only to find out that the score was tied. I thought Henderson was incredibly clutch, slashing twice for easy buckets and then again for an assisted three to Singler during crunch time. A good sign for our team. Of course, Scheyer was pretty much the opposite of clutch and despite conflicting reports from TBL and TBZ, I still feel like Scheyer’s taken a huge step backward since last year and really needs to shoot to pull his weight because he really has no other discernible skills. I’d rather have King out there for his size and his touch from outside than Scheyer’s bricks. Blah. Our athletic intensity really carried over to the soccer field the next day, and despite our horrible conditioning we were stride for stride with UCLA crew boys. I know, so intense. Don’t laugh, I’m really sore today.

Finally, I really couldn’t wait to see Juno. It was easily the cutest movie I’ve seen in a long time. That’s a compliment, even if I shouldn’t use the word “cutest” to describe a great movie. Despite an awkward beginning that tried too hard to be “wizard” and some narration from Ellen Page that didn’t actually fit that well, I thought it was great. The soundtrack fit the movie perfectly and the trailer didn’t give away any of Michael Cera’s best moments in the movie. Babies are swell, especially ones named Panda.

I’ll be in Snowbird the next couple of days, and I’ll try to make sure I know how to get a job in the upcoming semester as well as finish my work. To sum up my semester, I went an entire 12 weeks without a problem set and only spent two total hours taking exams (half an hour of that was an oral exam too). I met great people from England, from Europe, and even one from Africa. I went through ten countries, eight European capitals. My favorite city was Vienna, which is beautiful. My favorite experience was Madrid, which lasts all night. I managed to get as far South as Casablanca, as far North as Oslo, as far West as Tangier, as far East as Stockholm. And everywhere in between.

Things that I will not miss:

1. The word “yeah” at the end of every sentence. Wow, how can people actually talk like that yeah? Don’t they get annoyed, yeah? I thought I would have gotten used to it yeah, but no, yeah, no. I have decided that because I can’t stand the way some people talk around here, I guess the “slang” part, I will not pretend to do an English accent. Ever.
2. Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani “bruvs.” Seriously where do these people come from and when did they think they were such thugs? I get a little depressed every time I overhear a conversation or listen to them ask a question. Not a single one of any of the friends I have made here want to be friends with one of these people
3. The terrible way that my flat is designed. Who thought it would be a good idea to build a flat that is actually just a long hallway with rooms. Why are the lights in the hallway motion sensing? Why are there four freezers in the kitchen, but no refrigerator? It also makes me miss simple things like a toaster oven. Very sad sometimes.
4. The Hammersmith & City Line. Particularly dodgy. Despite being the best public transportation system in the world, I hate the tube on Sunday’s. It is impossible to get to Mile End on any line but the District Line, which unfortunately is the slowest line in the city.
5. How socially acceptable it is for Europeans to smoke everywhere. How my hallway always smells like cigarettes. How my roommates find a way to always have an empty nutella jar used as an ash tray every time I come back. Particularly, it was upsetting when my roommates figured out that the smoke detectors weren’t actually smoke detectors, just heat sensors.
6. How I have to plan ahead thirty minutes to go out anywhere in the middle of London. I hate the East End. So much. Though I hear because of the 2012 Olympics the road that is adjacent to campus is actually going to be closed off to cars and completely renovated. So maybe if I came here in… 2011, this would have been an awesome area. Unfortunately, the Olympic related highlight has been a fire at the Olympic site that cause the sky to darken.
7. How the sun sets at around 3:30 in the wintertime. How it rains every other day intermittently. The lack of daylight makes the days seem so much shorter. I stopped running a while ago, because I hated running in the sketchy east end when it was all dark. Though, this did give Ray an excuse to run with his shirt off so “bikers could see him better.” It’s fun being white, innit?
8. How difficult it is to cross a street. Instead of crossing once, you generally have to cross three times just to make it all the way across a main street. That’s ridiculous. It also doesn’t really have any good pattern or anything, but I guess in any street you just cross when there are no cars and don’t care what cars think. Too bad those cars driving in the city already pay an 8 pound congestion fee. Ouch.
9. The crash of the US dollar. Nominally, everything is the same price. However, in actual money everything costs twice as much as it does. Because of this I feel even more poor than I ought to, but it’s misleading because you don’t feel that bad paying some prices. Especially because there is no sales tax and the prices aren’t misleading. But paying $4 for a load of laundry? (Just the washer mind you). Kind of depressing. Purchasing power parity my ass.
10. Ah, who am I kidding. I really am going to miss living in one of the world’s most incredible, convenient, culturally diverse, and totally awesome cities. A lot. Not to mention it’s a springboard to the rest of Europe. Oh well, back to Durhole I go.

So the Craven Cottage actually has a cottage. It’s pretty cool. It’s on the bottom right corner of the pitch from this angle, and it has a nice balcony where I assume only the select fans can watch it. It’s also in a really cool area, just off of the Thames. It’s such a small stadium with ~30,000 seats which you can compare to University of Michigan’s “Big House” which had more than 100,000 fans see Appalachian St. kick their asses.

Anyway, headlines everywhere read about how Fulham conceded a late lead yet again to only come out with a draw – however, considering how terrible their defense is and how many blown opportunities they had in the first half. Especially Kamara, holy crap. I know he scored but that was the easiest tap in I’ve ever seen. Basically he would get the ball all alone on one side of the pitch and dribble it out of bounds or take way too long to take a shot or shoot one right over the post or make a horrible cross to no one. And yeah, their defense is terrible. If Blackburn had anywhere near the opportunities that Fulham had – the score would have been like 5-0. Also the foul call for the first Fulham goal was pretty dodgy I thought. Oh yeah, and they play Song 2 after a goal. Obviously.

So tracking American soccer star Clint Dempsey, they really hounded him because I think they knew Kamara was terrible. Numerous times Fulham would still throw it into Dempsey even when he was doubled. The funniest thing I think about soccer is this ridiculous play where Dempsey and a defender were chasing down a long pass in the corner. But the defender goes ahead of him, and you can see Dempsey is slowing down and basically has his arms in front of him when he is. And then the defender just rolls and tumbles forward over the ball as soon as he feels Dempsey’s hands graze him. Ah, the Europeans. They are such pussies. At least on the soccer field. This would never happen in rugby.

The Blackburn fans were definitely intense, dancing and chanting the entire games a la Cameron Crazies. Except I really couldn’t make out what the hell they were saying, whether it’s because their accents were terrible or the fact that I didn’t know any of the Blackburn players. Still, a pretty entertaining game due to the fact that it barely met professional football standards.

• An interesting article about being libertarian and how that affects Ron Paul. I think it’s really cool how he managed to set a one-day GOP record of $4.3 million on the internet alone, just because it was Guy Fawkes Day. And the crazy thing is he didn’t even organize it, some supporter did. More of a comment on how the two party system is completely failing this country in the eyes of every college-aged citizen.
• The thing about Ron Paul is, it’s admirable that he holds onto his strong, non-interventionist-support-the-constitution beliefs, but I’m scared about how someone like him would react when some things could go wrong. For example, I personally don’t think the private market is a solution for social security – nor can the government cease to regulate things related to the environment (Al Gore would freak). Would Paul be flexible and relinquish his small government principles? I don’t think so.
• I cracked a couple of eggs on the way back from ASDA yesterday and decided that I had to make something with them, to go along with the leftover turkey from the Thanksgiving Zach had organized on Thursday. So I made korean pancakes. Actually they turned out to be just fluffy omelets due to so much egg and not enough flour, but still, pretty good. I didn’t think San Diego would be a place that I missed for its Asian cuisine, but Southern California really had some good stuff.
• The thing about two story clubs with multiple dance floors is – it really just gives an excuse to play the same songs in multiple locations over and over again. It’s ridiculous. I mean, I guess you can’t go wrong with playing Beautiful Girls three times in one night, but I’m sure other people tend to get upset.
• Josh McRoberts, I hope you’re happy sitting on the bench for Portland playing behind the likes of Raef Lafrentz. That second round contract feels good doesn’t it? I’m glad the rest of the NBA is smart enough to see what Duke has seen all along: a marginally athletic power forward who wishes he was a point guard. Well, at least you look happy.

So after a couple away messages filled with strange Michael Vick references, my new roommate Ben (as I am officially removed from my housing requirement) leaves me a message and lets me know that we have a dog. She’s a pitbull pup named Penelope. She is eight weeks old. We are going to train it for dogfighting.

Oh Penelope, I will feed you mangos. She’s filled with air so that when she swallows oxygen, she floats up. I will volver with a present for you.

Hopefully this will help me overcome my fear of animals.

I have tickets to Paris on the holiday that you Americans refer to as Thanksgiving. I like to consider it the day you celebrating fucking over the indigenous people to achieve your manifest destiny. God I miss home. The last time I talked to these people, one of the girls wanted to go to EuroDisney because she had been to Paris so many times she wanted to see something else.

I also have tickets to Oslo and a return ticket from Stockholm. My parents have a horror story that they shared with me when they went to see the Nobel prize ceremony, about how it was cheaper to rent a car so they drove a while in the snow until they almost hit a truck and spun out in the road. Mm, scary.

Many of my close friends and their families have had to evacuate their homes. It’s hard to understand until you see some of this in person, but I found these photos on a flickr community. It’s devastating. It’s estimated the 700,000 people (~300,00 households) have been forced to evacuate San Diego County. Compare that to four years ago when there were only 50,000.

I have been able to keep up despite being in London through these websites:

Two maps and other links
The fastest updates around
Official fire map
Official fire blog

The latest I’ve been hearing is that the fire is moving north to Rancho San Diego. Scripps Ranch and Del Mar are allowed to return home.

Fortunately, my parents are out of the country. I have been trying to contact them for days but they have yet to respond to any e-mails. Ironically, they have always been upset whenever I don’t check my e-mail or call enough. I guess I can see why. After going through several family friends, I finally reached the neighbor who has our keys and he has been sending me e-mail updates about the situation. I hope everything will be okay. It’s difficult not being there while all of this is going on.

Ironically, I had to go outside last night for a fire drill. Outside two boys played “Crank Dat” on their cell phones and proceeded to practice the Soulja Boy dance.

Later I went out and walked aimlessly around a part of East London for an hour looking for a place that was closed, then waited across the street because she was an hour late anyway. Then she told me about her celebrity obsession and made an awkward analogy to necrophilia and that was it for me. On the bright side, she’s in a band.

It’s cold in London right now.

In life news, it was Tai’s 21st birthday last Wednesday and we decided to celebrate this completely meaningless age. Kassity made him a ridiculous dinner that necessitated multiple trips to go shopping and included home-rolled sushi and not home-made duck! Ray and I took care of the party and invited American friends over to … celebrate. Slowly, Americans such as myself have educated the Brits on how to play games such as beirut, kings, and spoons and generally refuse to try anything else. Oddly, I met girls from Duke that night that I had never seen before in my life. Really weird. It’s kind of pathetic that I don’t know anyone.

The next day I woke up in my clothes not knowing how the night ended. It wasn’t until 5 p.m. that Giancarlo showed me a photo he snapped of me without pants, sitting on the toilet, with my head in the sink. This picture will not be shown on the internet. Anyway, I suppose I learned that night that you can unscrew my bathroom door from the outside really easily. There’s this episode of Scrubs where J.D. develops a case of vasovagal syncope, meaning he passes out when he poops. On an unrelated note, I have a tendency to go and pass out in the bathroom after I have too much to drink, because the quiet and the small space comforts me. Somehow, put these situations together and you can understand my night.

The rest of the weekend was spent out and about in London going to Old Street one night and SoHo the next. England is in the Rugby World Cup finals against South Africa, and I have never had to learn about a very complicated sport so quickly. It seems unnecessarily complicated when all you really do is try to run the ball past someone else. Thankfully, I watched this with Joey who is at LSE, a former rugby player (which is only funny if you’ve met him and seen his frame. he was one of the kickers all the way in the back). Oh, and he’s Canadian. And the Canadian dollar has surpassed the American dollar. It’s upsetting.

One thing I’ve noticed: this country is so terribly unorganized and technologically backward, it is frustrating sometimes. Like how it takes two weeks to set up a basic bank account. Or the fact that the e-mail servers at school don’t really work and the school computers run Windows ME. Or that people aren’t meant to take courses in different subject areas so they place my lab in the time of my other class, making me miss information and group assignments for the lab, then having a group who does not respond to e-mails and disappears immediately after class that I end up missing my other lab on Thursday. I blame the country.

I’ve been mountaineering every week, partially in hopes of receiving an invitation to go climbing off the coast of Spain, but also because it’s awesome. Due to my unique combination of being very lightweight and very flexible, I don’t embarrass myself. There are some absolutely amazing people though. Too bad they are now going to Sardinia, and I am planning my own trip to Spain. I still have yet to go outdoors, but it’s definitely in my list of near goals. My parents have rock climbing equipment and it’s definitely something I want to try when I get back. Duke also has its own climbing wall now.

I saw my first musical, We Will Rock You, the jukebox one based off of Queen. Mostly because Ray really wanted to see it, but who doesn’t appreciate a good sing along? I plan to see at least one more, hopefully Avenue Q as they are offering some kind of special. I have yet to attend a football match yet, but I am trying to get in touch with Joey in the near future. Apparently he has a stepbrother who has season passes to Arsenal (yeah, ridiculous) – and he somehow got the connections to watch England vs. Estonia last weekend. I definitely have to go to at least one, hopefully one where I can learn all the songs and hooligan it up.

My roommates are all fun people. The thing I like about living with 10 others is the nightly midnight snack we all decide to have, consisting of mostly cereal and nutella. One night we even made fried bananas with cinnamon on top of nutella. I had a burn mark on my hand for over a week after that. And there is this amazing local kebab place that will sometimes let us get a free fried sausage when they are closing because we’re regulars. I have been living off of having a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich everyday for lunch and alternating between cooking pan-fried chinese food at night and pasta, as it is all I know how to make. Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt like a fat American as I realize just how ridiculous American portions are compared to those in other countries. But I keep eating.

The last few weekends I have been spending in London and hope to travel more in the future. I have Oxford plans this weekend where I will see people from high school that I haven’t seen since graduation. It should be interesting.

Wonder why he’s just standing around …

Unfortunately, we arrived at Buckingham Palace at 11:30 only to realize that they were not doing the whole “changing of the guard” thing. So we hung around in the gardens for a while and Ray took packs of sugar from the nearby snack stand and got really excited. Obviously.

Anyway, I wanted to mention how cool Flickr is (also found on your left), since it allows you to geographically tag all your photos that you upload. If you take a look and click on a picture, you can see on the bottom right sidebar, “Taken in London, England (map).” That way you can see where exactly everything has been. I totally want to complete this for all my photos. God I have no life. That said, I’ll think about doing it for all of them. I mention this because I updated my photos! Hurray.

I arrived here a week ago to find out that as a resident of the new student village, I am going to reside in what is essentially a long hallway with 11 rooms and 1 kitchen. Amazingly though, I get my own mini-fridge and my own bathroom. I also have a view from my room where I can see the location of where the millennium fair was held. Unfortunately, our kitchen has four freezers and no refrigerators, a lesson that I had to learn the hard way when I froze the first batch of groceries that we bought on accident. Also, the hallway lights are sensor based – so when groups of people are sitting out in the hallway the lights will periodically shut off. My flat is filled with international students: Isabella, Lara and Gian Carlo are from Italy, Melina is from Greece, Katyana and Athena are from Cyprus, and Yassine is from Morocco. The rest of us are from the states. We are like the Brady Bunch, but not really.

Unexpectedly, I have been given an opportunity to go through “fresher” orientation again: making new mates and getting smashed every night. Unfortunately, I’m still not very good at that sort of thing. Still trying to ease into the next experience. Anyway, thus far I have experienced the local pubs (I even found an Englishman who loved punk rock and blink182), the amazing bangladeshi food in east london, and the large english night clubs filled with ridiculous house music (but beautiful girls is still popular). I realize that I really enjoy sitting around talking the most, even when it involves awful dinners with experimental mango chicken dishes or the best meal that can possibly be salvaged from a bunch of frozen vegetables. Best of all are sing-a-longs, even if they are limited to the few songs that are internationally well known. Of course, because Isabella knew all the words, the rendition we had to “I Believe I Can Fly” was my favorite of the night – thank you R. Kelly.

I also spent some time going on a three hour tour of London, learned about the different districts, and now have it firmly entrenched in my mind that the city burned down in 1666. Because of a bakery fire. Also, every important bell in the world is apparently built in the Whitechapel bell foundry. Who knew? Who cares. I also wandered around St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge area on my way to the TATE Modern. I still don’t understand modern art.

I did get an infusion of Brit-speak that is sorely lacking around my flat mates and have added “wanker,” tosser,” and “bollocks” to my vocabulary. As well as “malaka,” which is Greek. They all pretty much mean the same thing.

My classes begin on Monday and I leave for Austria on Wednesday for a week to see Salzburg, Vienna, and Munich for Oktoberfest. In the meantime I will try to commit more popular songs to memory.