Busy, busy, busy

When your friends start asking you for signs of life, you know you've been neglecting your blog. This time, it's not even that I don't have anything to tell, I have quite a bit to tell actually, but the truth is, I now understand why the standard amount of courses here is three. It's a very simple reason, really. Four is just too much *insert expletive here* work.

And I don't really want to drop any of them either. History of the American Motion Picture is so cool I didn't even mind working my ass of on the paper that was due yesterday, Cosmology and Particle astrokphysics is frustrating because I don't understand it one bit, but it's fascinating, Biophysics is a lot of work but it's not too hard, it's interesting, and it makes me practice my basic physics skills, and with francophone cinema we watch a lot of gripping movies (the last one was "La Haine", which seriously left me silent for ten minutes) and (probably because I haven't been doing the reading so far) it's not that much work.

Oh well, back to what I had to tell. Last Fridat night, Lisa was kind enough to give us (= James and I) a ride to San Diego when she went there with a friend. As you have maybe read on Sylvia's blog, she'd gone there last weekend, and loved it. Stefan was kind enough to let us crash on his (very comfortable) couches, en even to show us around town on Saturday. It was nice (and a little odd) to see him again, to talk with someone from UC again face to face. It'll probably be odd too when I come back, but I'm sure that'll pass.

On Saturday we took the bus and made a couple of stops, the first one at La Jolla coves. The weather was, luckily, much better than predicted, and we got to say all kind of animals, including:

Sunbathing Seals

The next stop was at Mission Beach, a very, very, very long and beautiful beach we walked along for a while, then walked back to go to IHop for a very late lunch. It was nice, but I still miss Dutch pannenkoeken.

The last stop was at Old Town. I didn't love it as much as Sylvia did, but it was one more example of the strange American esthetic based on the principle that fake things are somehow more true that real ones. Seriously, Stefan had a picture of the inside of a schoolbuilding there that had "85% original material" on the blackboard :-| The concept of Old Town is that that's the place where "California was born", where the first settllers lived, but if they did it certainly wasn't in the fake "authentic" building standing there. I'm glad I went though, it certainly is something special.

The bad thing about taking the bus is that it takes forever, but the good thing is you get to see a lot, and I think I got the "feel" of San Diego. It's a much more laid-back, relaxed city than LA, and I can imagine that living there could be great.

After the tour of San Diego we were invited to a Lacrosse game by a friend of James. She was on the girls' team, but the match we watched was the men's team. To my surprise, it was actually quite fun to see guys hitting each other with sticks, and in the last five minutes, when San Diego first lost the advantage they had so far, then came back and won the game with 13-11 (I think). People were very fanatic, girls screaming "kill him!", guys chanting, very annoyingly, "thri-ller, thri-ller", and all in all it was a fun experience.

Back at Stefan's, we watched Blade Runner (one more classic I can strike off the list of classic I still have to see) and went to bed. Lisa came to pick us up at ten the following morning as she had to be back in time for work, and around 1 we were back in Westwood.

That afternoon, we caught the last two hours of the huge "festival of books" that was taking place on campus. And...I found the McSweeney's booth, and got "The Polysyllabic Spree" by Nick Hornby and "How We Are Hungry" by Dave Eggers for 20 bucks! I was giddy like a five-year old, James was much amused.

Monday night we went to a free screening of "The Man Who Wasn't There", one of my favorite films. Not only did it look even more glorious on the big screen, but Roger Deakins, the cinematographer, was there, and asnwered some questions. Sometimes I wish I had four lives, even if there seem to be too few hours in a day to lead even one. I wish I could be a cinematographer, I mean, it has the perfect blend of artisticness and technical details. Oh well. I can dream.

The rest of the week was spent mostly on my paper, and on various physics homeworks (for my two physics classes, but also my weekly tutoring of Lisa). So: boring. But I still love it here, and the end of the quarter is much too nearby.

Cheers,

Hedwig

Outside of classes

So, last time I told you all about my classes, but, even if I do have four courses and quite a few hours of class, don't worry, I'm still having a lot of fun outside of classes, I can assure you. First of all, walking over campus has never been this fun. The weather is finally really and consistently good, and, believe it or not, I'm actually getting a tan without burning! Yes, you read that right.

Also, the campus is just a wonderful place. I couldn't quite put a finger on what exactly it was before, but during a conversation with a German girl who was leaving after being here for a year it finally hit me: the campus is just so alive, so evolving all the time and full of energy.

I mean, for example, two days ago there was a strike by the workers here on campus, just the way a strike should with the walking in a circle, yelling "what do we want?" (followed by something unintelligible), "when do we want it?" "NOW!". Another example: this week the two dollar movie was "hotel Rwanda" (harrowing, but very good), and afterwards, the committee for action in Darfur was waiting for us to urge us to take action.

It's not just the activities, though, or the bustling on Bruin Walk, it's also that with the sun shining so many people are lying in the grass and walking around that campus is like one big living breathing animal.

I do get off campus sometimes, to go to Westwood (to see Sin City, for example, or to go to the Famer's market on Thursday, but often also just to walk around) and, lately, also to go to Santa Monica, which has become my favorite shopping place. Not that I buy that much, lately just two very nice shirts at the Gap and one sweater-jacket, oh, and "the Waste Land and Other Poems", but it's nice just walking around, looking around, spending two hours at Barnes and Noble with the boyfriend (yes people, I found someone who can spend as much time browsing in a book store as me), looking at the sunset from the pier...

Also off-campus, but this is already two weeks ago now, we went to Magic Mountain (=Six Flags), which was very very cool, and very very cold when we'd stayed until the end and waited for Maximo (who was kind enough to drive us back and forth) until 11. It's warm during the day, but at night...it can still get very cold, especially when all you have on is a short-sleeved blouse (or, in James' case, shorts and flip-flops). It was worth it though, the Goliath was amazing, the Scream a lot of a fun, and others looked so scary (esp. the déja-vu) that I passed.

Aside from that...Well, I'll be honest with you. I am in love, and much of my time is spent just hanging around at James' apartment. There will be even more of that going on in the coming weeks, as his roommate is on some trip to Ecuador.

I know I haven't said that much about James here, but that's because what I want to say would probably make you gag. Yes, people, he has turned this thoroughly cynical girl into a full-blown sap. I don't want to turn this blog sappy, so if you want more information and are willing to stand the sappyness, just e-mail me.

That's all, basically. Life is back to the routine, but it's a routine I love, filled with movies (in classes, but also at Ackerman, besides "Hotel Rwanda" I saw a sneak of "Sahara" and, finally, "Sideways") and sun and fun.

I don't want to leave...

Hedwig

Finally, then!

No, I am not dead.

No, Larry isn't either.

Then why haven't I updated you ask? Well...Browser crashings, little to tell, and much time spent with a certain very cute American boy, probably. Also, I'm just a lazy bastard.

As I don't even remember what happened exactly each day, so I'll just go by theme. The first thing, of course, being classes. Yes, school has started again, it's almost the end of week two even (time flies), so, what about those classes?

My only true physics class this quarter is "Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics". Yes, that is scary. The professors themselves confess to playing it "good, cop, bad cop". The good cop is my professor from last quarter, Katsushi (yes, this makes me laugh), a little excited japanese man who mostly likes showing us nice pictures on overheads at top speed. The bad cop is a very young russian theorist called Alexander Kusenko, who writes frightening equations on the board but then explains them really well. Also, today he wore a glow in the dark T-shirt about dark matter. My kind of geek.

I also have a kinda physics course. By which I mean a Biophysics course. It's nice and quaint, getting back to Newton's laws and formula's like "in equilibrium the net torque = 0". The teacher is Dutch, coincidentally, so even 6000 miles from home I can't get away from Dutch accents, I mean it, they're pursuing me: yesterday on Discovery Channel, after Mythbusters (aka. the show that makes me want to be one of those bearded, bespectabled, big-bellied nerds), there was an "extreme engineering" show about Holland's battle against water, filled to the brim with Dutch-accented English.

And then...enough of the science courses, on to film courses. Well...one of them is actually a little bit of a social science course. See, when I subscribed for "French Cinema", I thought it would be about Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol etc. What I found out during the first class was that it was actually "Francophone Cinema", and that the main topic was colonialism and (mostly) the immigration problematic in France and Great Britain. So far, we've watched "The Battle of Algiers" and "Inch-Allah Dimanche". I've decided to stick with the course even if it isn't about the great french directors, the topic is very relevant and gripping, and it's nice being taught in French again, even if it is overly slow and articulated French.

My last course is "History of the American Motion Picture". And you wanna know the coolest thing about it? It's taught in an actual movie theatre. Well, there is an even cooler thing about it: after seeing Casablanca so often on DVD that I can say most of the lines before the characters, I'm finally going to see it on a big screen. So far, we've watched "Singing in the Rain" (which was pretty much just filler for the first class, and I'd watched it with my film class last semester as well, but who cares), various short films by Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers (my favorite was an Edison short called "cat boxing". The title was meant to be taken literally), some famous somewhat longer, edited shorts, notably Meliès' "a trip to the moon" and Edwin S. Porter's "The great train robbery", a D.W.Griffith film and three comedies, one of them Charlie Chaplin's "the Kid" (and boy was that kid cute) and also Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr."

So much for courses. Next update, hopefully to be up soon, what have I been doing outside of class?

Until then,

Hedwig

P.S. All Dutch speakers should check out my dear friends' yearbook entry here. I miss them.

A relatively safe trip across the border. Most of the time.

Yes people, here it finally is, the big Mexico update. Let me just get the big questions you all must have out of the way. No, I did not dance in a cage wearing a short skirt with a g-string underneath (although, trust me, plenty were, one, apparently, even without the g-string, with just a sticker on her ass). No, I did not end up sleeping with a random guy in the spa (though again, some did. One of us even went a little way in that direction...but I'll leave that for that person to tell). No, I did not flash anyone, not on purpose anyhow (damn you, bikini).

But then, the answer to the biggest question of them all: did I have fun? Absofuckinlutely!

Oh, seriously, it was so amazing. The american girls thing was just luridly fascinating, I mean, those spring break videos definitely have to need to exaggerate anything. The things these girls do...I'd be passed out before I ever drank enough to do them. It makes me wonder whether they actually thing they're having fun doing this, or only make themselves believe they are because they're supposed to.

Trust me, girls, there's plenty fun to be had without getting plastered and/or naked. Not that we didn't get drunk. Or partially undressed.

So, what did a typical Rosarito day look like? Wake up at ten, look in vain for the promised free breakfast (the travelling company promised much, but delivered, well, nothing), end up having a huge breakfast as Abuelita, lie by the pool/sit in the spa, take a nap in the afternoon (we napped a lot, and liked it so much we've all decided to make it a habit. Of course, for Maximo it already was), and then at night, burritos at "Macho Taco" and...Well, you're expecting "PARTY!", I know, but we didn't party, exactly, most of the nights. The first night we sat in the spa for hours, as I think I mentionned in the last post. The second night we did go out, to Club Iggy's. That's where we first saw the cage dancing, and came to the realization that American girls really have no shame. American guys don't have much either, though, dozens were lining up below the cage staring up, and others came up to girls (including me) and just started grinding away. Ugh. Not very appealing, not to me anyhow.

But, I have to admit, the party was a lot of fun. We went out of our minds to "hey ya" and especially to "Gasolina" (a very disgusting spanish song whose main lyric, "Dame Gasolina", literally means "give me gas" and more metaphorically "fill me up"), a song we've all grown to love in the past few days.

Talking of songs, incidentally, we had an IPod and two little speakers in the room, and it was great. I really want to have an IPod now that I've discovered how fantastic the interface is, I really love the little wheel, I think it's one of the smartest, user-friendliest things invented recently.

But, back to partying, that night at Iggy's was great. The following night we also wanted to party, and we went to Papas and Beer at eight already because we'd been promised a free dinner buffet. Guess what? There was a dinner buffet, but for "another group from mexicospringbreak.com". Bullshit. If there was another group, where were they? We decided to boycot Papas and Beer as a result, and ended up finishing a whole bottle of bacardi (combined with coke) playing "I never". Now, this is a very instructive game. And it gets more and more instructive, and revealing, as the players got drunk. But: what happens in 1217 stays in 1217, so you will get nothing from me.

Around 1 we decided to call it quits, but couldn't really sleep. Maximo and Jordan ended up going out, while Sylvia, Brigid and I had a really fantastic conversation in the dark. Really a great conversation. Around three, the boys came back, Sylvia sang her usual lullaby to Jordan, and all of a sudden it was our last full day already.

We spent it mostly by the pool again, a little on the beach, a little in the small streets behind the facade of the main street. I bought an awesome cowboyish hat and an even awesomer mobster trench coat, Jordan got himself an entire new wardrobe, and Sylvia got her hair braided. It looks extremely cool now, Sylvia looks like she belongs in Hawai. We also found a great little show that sold A4 size schoolroom posters, you know, the one full of images detailing history, science etc. I bought one of the skeleton of the human body and one of the discovery of the atom. All in Spanish, of course. They also had really cool little pulp (and porn) comic novels. I bought one called "amor assasino".

Back in our room Jordy and Maximo showed what truly great guys they are. Maximo gave a wondeful little speech about how great spring break had been and how great it was to spend it with this particular group (I think everyone agreed completely with him on that) and they gave us matching necklaces, with five little sea shells in a star shape to symbolize the five of us. Ain't that fantastic?

At night things were a little less rosy, unfortunately. Jordan couldn't find his credit card, and Maximo couldn't find his 80 dollars emergency money. Calling New Zealand from Rosarito to get the card blocked was, as you can imagine, not that easy. We spent some time in the room of some nice Germans (yes, they exist) we met on the bus playing more drinking games, this time with cards, but by that time I was a bit tired of Bacardi and Coke and even alcohol in general (getting drunk three nights in a row is plenty for me), so I didn't really join in. After a while we went out to Papas and Beer, but after getting there I realised I really felt to tired to party, I went back to the hotel and was able to sleep four wonderful hours alone in bed. Ahhhh, that was good...Because you see, five people in two queen size beds? It's cosy, sure, it's gezellig, but it's not all that comfy.

Thursday we were sad to have to go, but it took us much less time that we thought to long for home. See, first the bus was late. Half an hour late. Then, close to the border, it hit a taxi.

Yes, you read that right. We hit a taxi. And I'm telling you, that taxi was not in good shape. To make a long story short, we stood still again for about fourty minutes, drove the 2 minutes it took to get to the border from there and? Stood still for at least half an hour again. Getting through the border wasn't actually that difficult, we just had to drag our bags through and show our passports, but the waiting was gruesome, especially since our bus had no air conditioning.

Now, I'm betting you think that once we passed the border all was easy and quick? Well, you think wrong, my friend. See, first there was bad traffic, so we moved very slow. Then we stopped by the side of the freeway, and well, didn't move any more at all. For about three hours. Waiting for another bus, coming from LA (and traffic was even worse in that direction) to pick us up, because apparently the accident hadn't left the bus entirely unharmed, and there was something wrong with the tire. To be honest, listening to the groaning of the gear box, I didn't have much faith in the bus to begin with.

To make a long story short, the trip that took us 3 hours on the way to Rosarito took us ten hours on the way back, and it wasn't until after nine that we finally got back home. Strange, that a foreign city can become "home" so quickly, feel so familiar.

Then tonight, hopefully, I'm off again, this time to palm springs, seeing James again (finally).

On a sidenote, it's April 1st today, which doesn't just mean april fools day, but also that I've been here three months. Three months. I really don't want to leave yet...These past three months were amazingly awesome, and I'm sure the next three will be just as great. And then, back to the netherlands, boring nine to five job? *groan*

Well, I guess I'll just enjoy myself while it lasts.

Cheers,

Hedwig

P.S. The title of this post was the motto of the bus company Jordan and Maximo used to get to Mexico and back, but seeing our trip back, it applies to ours a lot better.

P.P.S. For pictures: www.sylinla.blogspot.com . For a report from another perspective www.briginla.blogspot.com. Yes, blogging is contagious.