The Talyllyn Railway

(Note in advance: This post is probably the longest post I've ever done. If you choose to read the whole thing, it'll take you a bit. It has a ton of pictures, and is all about my visit to Talyllyn Railway. I’d like to thank my parents for taking me there and Megan for being such a good sport about going too. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to post this, but I didn’t want to rush through it when I didn’t have time. I wanted to do it justice. So, here it is!)

A week and a day ago, my family and I took a daytrip to the town of Tywyn, in Wales. We got up really early and took a bus and the Tube to Euston Station. Then from 8:43 to 9:53, we were on a train from Euston to Birmingham. From 10:09 to 11:54, we were on a train from Birmingham to Welshpool. Then from 12:05 to 1:25, we were on a bus from Welshpool to Machynlleth. Then from 1:40 to 2:04, we were on a train from Machynlleth to Tywyn. It took a long time, but the scenery was gorgeous. Rolling hills, big fields, streams, beaches, water, clouds…it was great. There were hundreds of sheep on the hillsides. I didn’t post any pictures of the trip from Euston to Tywyn because I took so many pictures and wouldn’t know where to begin. But you can see them when I come home.

The main (and pretty much only) attraction in Tywyn was the Talyllyn Railway. The Talyllyn Railway is a historic narrow-gauge railway preserved by a society of railway enthusiasts. The Rev. W. Awdry based some of his Railway Series books off of engines from the Talyllyn Railway. That’s how I first heard about it as a child. Ever since then, I’ve dreamed of visiting Talyllyn.

When my family came up, my parents decided we could take one of the days to visit Talyllyn. I was ecstatic. But when we looked up their schedule online, we discovered that none of the trains would be operating that day. I was disappointed, but my parents insisted that we could visit anyways. So we did.

The train ride there was great. (Technically, it would be “rides” because we took 3 different trains). I felt like a little kid again. I sat at the table on the trains and listened to my iPod and looked out the window at the scenery. The day before, I had bought a hardcover book called “Thomas the Tank Engine: The New Collection”, which was the complete collection of stories written by Christopher Awdry, the son of Rev. W. Awdry, who took up writing the Railway Series after his father retired. I read Thomas stories on a train that was headed for a railway where there were more trains. I hadn’t felt like such a kid in a long time. It was great.

We finally made it to Tywyn. It was, as Megan put it several times, “in the middle of nowhere”. It made Houghton feel like New York City. There was nothing. Finding Talyllyn Railway was easy. When we got there, it was also deserted. No trains were running. We found the gift shop and more importantly, the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, but it seemed like they both closed at 3 PM, which would give us about 40 minutes to do both. But then we learned something miraculous: a couple was going to be celebrating their 50th anniversary at the Talyllyn Railway in a private train. Because of that, both the museum and the shop were going to be open until 4! If we had came here any other day but then, we would’ve had less than an hour. Now, we had almost 2 hours! We still didn’t get to ride any train, but we had all the time in the world to check out everything else. That was enough for me.

The Narrow Gauge Museum was by far the coolest museum I've ever been in, period. It was full of engines and equipment and signs and signals and stuff like that. It was nuts. I was like a kid in a candy shop, only better, because I was a kid in a train museum. The guy there was so cool. He was this old man who knew everything about trains. He reminded me of my Grandpa, or Uncle Stuewe. He just sat there as I looked around, and whatever I stopped at, he'd tell me about. I loved him for that.
This is Jubilee, an engine built in 1897. I think it was built in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, meaning the 75th year of her rule, that happened in 1896, but I'm not sure on that. I bet the old guy would've told me if I had asked.
Jubilee's nameplate.
This was where one of my childhood dreams came true for the first time. Never in my life had I been in the cab of an engine before that day. I got to touch all the controls. I knew what some of them did just by looking at it, but I wasn't too sure on other stuff. I was so happy. It was insane.
What it looks like from the cab.
Look at how freakin' happy I am. I'm smiling like a moron.
I couldn't find this one's name, and I didn't have the patience or the attention span to stay there.
This is Rough Pup from 1891.
This is a model of Talyllyn, the engine that gave Talyllyn Railway its name. More on that later.
This is a copy of "Four Little Engines", the 10th book in the Railway Series. See Henry the Green Engine? The small engine is Peter Sam, an engine that is based off of an engine here.
This is a note for reserved copies of "Four Little Engines". I think it gets bigger if you click on it. Towards the bottom you can see an add for the other Railway Series books printed at that time.
This is the unique funnel of the engine Edward Thomas, the engine that Peter Sam is based off of.
This is a die-cast toy model of Peter Sam. I have the exact same toy in my attic upstairs.
Ditto for the toy of Rusty. Rusty is based off the diesel Midlander, which was somewhere at Talyllyn, but we couldn't see him.

All of the engines were on the first floor of the museum, as they obviously couldn't be supported by the second floor. The second floor had equipment used on trains and at stations, and also had a section devoted to Thomas the Tank Engine and the Rev. W. Awdry.
This is a photo of Rev. Wilbert Awdry himself.
This is a reconstruction of his private study with his original books and furniture, donated by his family. You can see his glasses, watch, and pipe on his desk. Most of the books on his shelf are books of the Bible, railway books, Thomas books, and maps.
Gordon!
This is an actual relief map of the Island of Sodor, made in the 1970s.
One of the best days of my life.
My sister and mom looking out at the scenery. This was on a balcony overlooking the railway. You can see tracks in the corner.

Like I said, the scenery was beautiful.

This is Wharf Station, the only place we could really get to. The museum and gift shop are to the left. At this point, we had taken a break from the museum to check out the gift shop. How I walked in there with a credit card and walked out without spending a hundred pounds is a mystery (actually it's not-my parents were there and made sure I was more or less responsible). They had all sorts of books and magazines on Talyllyn and trains in general. I got a Talyllyn Railway visitor's guide and an old locomotive magazine. They had an entire Thomas the Tank Engine section, and I got a little plastic cup, just because. I mean, I wasn't going to go in there and not get anything Thomas-related, you know? My parents surprised me by buying me a poster and a beautiful print of a painting of one of the engines there (Sir Haydn in real life/Sir Handel on the Island of Sodor). I also got a little wooden carving made from actual wood from the buffer beam of the engine Talyllyn before they replaced it. I got a little certificate to go with it. I was almost drooling. Then we went back to the museum because I wasn't done yet.
Here was a nice little placard about Rev. W. Awdry and the Railway Series.

A photo of Rev. W. Awdry, his son Christopher, and his grandson Richard with the real Sir Handel. What they did was take Sir Haydn (the real-life basis of Sir Handel), put a face on him, and change his name. It was a special attraction for kids who wanted to ride an actual Thomas train.

Ok, this is where things got REALLY cool. Remember how I said that there was a couple celebrating their anniversary with a special, private train? Well, while we were still there, they started getting the train ready! I actually saw an engine! I was on the second floor of the museum when Mom and Megan called me out to the balcony, and there was No. 7 Tom Rolt with its firemen giving it coal right below us! I took some pictures on the balcony, and ran back down to the tracks to see it up close. They shovelled the coal into the hole just before the cab. You can see the rubber flap they hung on the side, covering the word "Tom". This was to keep coal from scratching the side of the engine or making it dirty.

Tom Rolt letting off steam. I got a great video of this. It whistled, and I almost went deaf. I loved it.

Me and Tom Rolt. When I got near it, I could tell that it was an 0-4-2 engine. I was so happy to be right next to it and lean on it. I was trembling a little bit. I was such a little kid.

The front of Tom Rolt. See the little plaque right under his funnel? It's for the 50th anniversary of Ann and Winston, the couple who ordered the train. If it weren't for them, I would've only had 40 minutes for the shop and the museum, and would have never seen Tom Rolt.
Some information on Tom Rolt.

This is the cool thing about Tom Rolt- there is a Railway Series engine that's based off of him! Ivo Hugh was created by Christopher Awdry in the book "New Little Engine" from 1996. This is a picture of him from that book when his name was revealed. Scroll back up and compare this picture with the photos of Tom Rolt. They're very close. But there are some differences. The face, for instance. But yeah, another childhood dream came true that day. I met an actual engine from "Thomas the Tank Engine". Ivo Hugh is no James or Percy, mind you, but he's still an engine from the Island of Sodor. It was a good day for me.
Signing the guest book. I'm the last one on the right.

Sentimental afterthought. I haven't signed that name in years.

The people are getting ready for thier ride on Tom Rolt. This was taken on the bridge overlooking Wharf Station. See the big heap of coal?

The beginning of the Talyllyn Railway, and the only part of it that I could see. Someday, years from now, I'm going to go back there and go on the actual railway. If my children love trains and/or Thomas, it'll be when they're young. If they don't care about trains, I'll go with just my wife when they're grown up. But either way, I am going to go back to Talyllyn, no question.

Megan and Mom left a little bit before Dad and I. They wanted to go to a nearby store to get some snacks for the ride home. So it was Dad and me for a bit. On our way out, I leaned against Tom Rolt again. I didn't have much time, because the anniversary party was gathering at the platform, and I was randomly there. But I leaned against Tom Rolt and acted like I was taking a picture of his funnel (which I really was). But then, I quickly reached into his coalbox, grabbed a small lump of coal, and walked calmly and coolly away. No one noticed. That little lump of coal is going to be one of my most treasured possessions, I can tell you that. I'm going to keep it in the Thomas cup I bought here.

We left the Railway and took trains, buses, and the Tube back to London. The entire train ride back, I wrote a short story, "The Hopeful Prostitute", in my notebook. I based it off of the porn-filled phonebooths in London, the train ride to Wales, a couple Regina Spektor songs, and the Bible. When I got back to the Highbury Centre, I typed it up and put it on Facebook.

Another childhood dream came true on the train ride home. Mom and I went to the snack bar in this one car and got food, and I had dinner on a train. I had ham and cheese on panini, chedder crisps, a brownie, and a bottle of Coke. I was so happy.

We got back at like midnight. It wasn't the most time-friendly trip ever: we had travelled about 13 hours (about 6.5 each way), and we were only at the Talyllyn Railway for maybe 2 and a half hours. But my parents knew this beforehand, and they insisted that it would be ok. And it was worth it. I took 411 photos and videos on my camera that day; more than any other day in my life. I had fulfilled a bunch of childhood dreams, including eating a meal on a train, being at the controls in an engine cab, and meeting an engine from "Thomas the Tank Engine". I saw the study of the man who created Thomas in a museum filled with engines and railroad equipment. For one whole day, I got to be Danny. It was fun.

Bob Clampett, you cheater.

I promise I'm working on my paper. I just took a quick break. I was on a great animation blog by Thad Komorowski (www.thadkomorowski.com), and I saw this interesting video that he made recently. The music is all done by Raymond Scott (the drummer happens to be the father of composer John Williams).

"Going over the studio’s filmography, Clampett was primarily the only director at Warners to reuse animation on a regular basis. (Only Friz Freleng surpasses him in reuses, which to be expected given that most of them happened when Freleng was directing in the early 30s, when it was a common practice at all studios to reuse animation to save money in the Depression.) One common fact shared in a lot of the Warner animator interviews is that Clampett was always a cartoon or two behind for the studio. Keeping that in mind, it wasn’t laziness, just hacking out to play catch-up. If budget was the villain, the other directors would have reused as often too.

There didn’t seem to be a scene in the Warner catalog that Clampett couldn’t reuse, whether it be redrawing a big-lipped Stepin Fetchit as Elmer Fudd, tracing over a Harman-Ising fowl couple with Daffy and his wife, or just dropping in badly traced footage from one of Freleng’s late 30s pictures without caring about continuity (about the most polar opposite cartoon you can think of compared with Bob Clampett).

In his defense, sloppy reuse and editing aside, Clampett’s cartoons are some of the funniest, most beautifully animated, and just plain best ones anywhere. Then again, you can say that for just about any of the directors. Without the sloppy reuse and editing."



I thought that was fascinating. Equally as fascinating is the rest of Thad's blog, which you should definitely check out. In addition to classic cartoons, he talks a great deal about classic movies and man, does he know his stuff.

Ok. Back to Kierkegaard.

Because We Could All Use A Little More Hitler...

I should be working on my paper right now, but I've been terrible distracted for the past 45 minutes or so, and dinner is in only 11 minutes, so I think I'll do a quick blog. Tomorrow or Sunday, after the paper is done, I still intend on making a blog about one of the days my family was here over break. That'll be coming, I promise. Right now, I just wanted to talk about today real quick.

Today, plenary was 4 hours long. No lie. It started with the causes of World War I and ended with the effects of World War II. We watched three gross/sad videos from WWI and saw some creepy artwork from the time. No mention at all of big band music, which was sort of disappointing. I guess that wasn't too big in Europe. Anyways, toward the end of the plenary, I was feeling depressed and bored, so I drew funny pictures of Hitler.

"Adolf Hipler"

"Adolf Hatler"

"Adolf Huttlers"

"Adolf Quitler" and "Adolfin Hitler"

"Adolf Chick-ler" (Eri drew the chicken)

"Adolf Pitler"

"Adolf Hit-her"

"Adolf Zitler"
"Adolf Kitler"

"Adolf Mittler"

"Adolf S**tler" (this is tied with "Adolfin Hitler" for my personal favorite)

Oh that Hitler. What a character. In other, less facist news, I have officially registered for my classes for next semester. And you guys say I'm unproductive. Bah! As it stands, I'm taking 5 courses and a lab, and I'll be earning 17 credits. Not too shabby. Here is my schedule. If anyone from Houghton reads this, let me know if we'll have a class together next fall!

Monday
9:00-9:50 BIOL 105 A (Conservation Biology)
12:30-1:35 THEL 209 C (Introduction to Christianity)
1:50-2:40 PHED 101 A (Fitness for Life)

Tuesday
8:00-9:50 ANTH 243 A (Cultural Anthropology)
1:00-2:50 HIST 370 A (Evangelical Roots)

Wednesday
9:00-9:50 BIOL 105 A (Conservation Biology)
12:30-1:35 THEL 209 C (Introduction to Christianity)
2:00-4:50 BIOL 105 C (Conservation Biology)

Thursday
8:00-9:50 ANTH 243 A (Cultural Anthropology)
1:00-2:50 HIST 370 A (Evangelical Roots)

Friday
9:00-9:50 BIOL 105 A (Conservation Biology)
12:30-1:35 THEL 209 C (Introduction to Christianity)

Alright, the dinner bell just rang so I'm taking off. I promise I'll work hard on my paper after dinner, and I'll put up a post about break in a day or two. Later!

Where The Wild Things Are

Hey guys, it's me. Break was really fun. It was great to see my family. I'm planning on doing a blog on one day in particular, but not right now. Right now, it's pushing 1 AM , and I'm going to go to bed soon. But I was on my laptop to send a few emails to my parents and Emily, and I saw what is possibly the coolest movie trailer I've ever seen. It's for the upcoming adaptation of "Where The Wild Things Are", a children's book by Maurice Sendak that I used to read as a kid with my mom. I really liked the book, and when I found out that they were making a movie out of it, I thought it wouldn't work well. But now that I've seen the trailer, I'm actually hopeful/excited for the movie. I've watched the trailer at least a half dozen times in the past half hour. Here it is:

I love the trailer for a bunch of reasons. For one, the backgrounds/scenery/locations look really cool. There's a great looking forest, a big desert, and some cliffs by the sea. I'm a fan. The Wild Things look great. They're huge but realisitic. They talk, but the one's voice didn't seem out of place for some reason. They look emotional and fun. I love how the trailer opened and revealed the Wild Thing a little at a time. Very classy. Max looks pretty cool too. He seems more sad and less sadistic than he was in the book, and I think that's a good move. I even like the text and font in this trailer! And the clips in the trailer are beautifully arranged. They make sense, as opposed to other trailers that have a bunch of cool scenes just thrown together. I especially like the sequence of Max running away from the camera, and him playing with the ship followed by the clip of him in the real ship. It all worked well with the music, which was almost as good as the trailer itself.

The song they used is a new recording of "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire. Arcade Fire is my second-favorite indie band after The Bravery. Their two CDs, "Funeral" and "Neon Bible" are two of the best CDs to come out of the 2000's, in my opinion. "Wake Up" is one of their most well-known songs. And while it's not my favorite Arcade Fire tune, it's still really good. And the version used in this trailer is even better than the original. I can't wait for them to release the whole song, because they only used chunks of it in the trailer. But I LOVE how they used it in the trailer. The music fit perfectly, and the lyrics worked just as well:

"Children, don't grow up. Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up. We're just a million little gods causing rain storms, turning every good thing to rust..."

Oh, and even this rocked: the only line of dialogue in the trailer is "I didn't want to wake you up...but I really want to show you something..." And the name of the song is "Wake Up"!

This trailer is brilliant. It's classy, beautiful, emotional, nostalgic, invigorating, and powerful. It makes me want to go see the movie, which is what all trailers are supposed to do.

I had been listening to soundtrack to "West Side Story" before I saw the trailer. After I post this, I'm going to listen to Arcade Fire in bed. I'll post something about break later. Good night guys.

EDIT: Ok, it's the next day and I've already watched this trailer four more times. Here are some more things that I love about it:

I still love the new version of "Wake Up" and the suspenseful opening.

I love Max in school being sad and daydreamy. Max in school=me in school.

I love the new backstory of Max's mom and the guy, and how Max doesn't like it. It adds depth to the story, but makes a lot of sense. It's like the reason why Max growls at his mom in the book. It also works FANTASTICALLY in the trailer with the lyrics of the song that happen right then: "our hearts get torn up"- when he leans in, sees them kissing, and sadly leans away like he didn't want to see that. Beautiful.

The next chunk of lyric works equally as well: "we're just a million little gods causing rainstorms" as Max runs down the mountain with his costume, crown, and scepter, silhouetted so you can't see him, followed by a Wild Thing holding a tiny statue or something.

I love the "Inside all of us" sections. I love the "Hope" part, where there is a little leaf growing out of the word "hope", followed by Max and the Wild Thing lying near flowers, and Max giving his mom a hug. I love how the text for "Inside of all of us is fear" gets smaller and smaller in a decending slope, and the clips that follow are all darkened. There's a Wild Thing holding her head and crying and a huge splash in the ocean during the storm. Then "Inside all of us is adventure" is the opposite-the words get bigger and bigger in an ascending slope (and the "E" turns into a hairy foot).

I love how they used the part of "Wake Up" where the tempo/rhythm changes.

I still love all the clips of Max running from the camera, but I also love the clips of him running toward the camera. I love him sliding down the mountain followed by a clip of him sliding down an icy slope. I love him, the Wild Things, and another boy (him again?) throwing rocks/snowballs in three different clips.

I love the Wild Things roaring and making noise at the end.

This was a well done trailer. Everything about it was perfectly done. I can't wait to see the movie.

A Break and a Birthday (Kinda)

So, break starts today. And my family is here. That's exciting. Like, really exciting. They're tired from jet-lag, and I'm tired from going to bed at like 2:30 last night, but tomorrow will be better for all of us. I'm not going to post anything during break unless something REALLY big comes up. I just want to unwind and have fun with my family. But the program officially ends in less than a month, and I'm home in like a month and a week. So that's pretty cool.

My family brought a whole bunch of cool stuff that made me feel loved. It was great. My sister brought greetings from a bunch of my former teachers, as well as a letter that I wrote to myself in Spanish class two years ago and notes from my Spanish classmates from last year. I was able to read all of it, and it made me miss a bunch of people from high school. My parents brought candy from Mrs. Delong and a card from Grandma (thanks guys!) as well as an adorable video of the 3 Martin kids saying hi to me. Man, do I miss those kids. The best was a video of my church's talent show. I saw my sister, mom, and Grandma Hahn playing "O Danny Boy" on the kazoo, and Mr. Delong singing the same song like only he can do it. It also had Nan and mom doing a great piano duet. The highlight was watching Emily sing a solo accompanied by my mom on piano. It was such a great surprise. She has a beautiful voice. I can't wait to see her this summer.

Today is Sylvester's 64th birthday. His debut cartoon was "Life With Feathers", directed by Friz Freleng in 1945. Since then, he's appeared in dozens of cartoons alongside characters like Speedy Gonzales, Hippety Hopper, Elmer Fudd, and of course, Tweety Bird. A whopping 7 of his cartoons have been nominated for Academy Awards (including "Life With Feathers"), with 3 of them actually winning, giving him more nods than any other Looney Tunes character. Below is an underrated Sylvester gem: Friz Freleng's "The Last Hungry Cat" from 1961. I hope you like it.

In other Looney-Tunes related news, there is a special Chuck Jones tribue/marathon on Turner Classic Movies tonight starting at 8 PM. They're showing a short documentary on him followed by a dozen of his cartoons. My only problem with it is that they're not showing any Road Runner. Chuck Jones is one of my greatest heroes, and I think it would be pretty cool if you watched this. Emily is taping it for me, so I'll catch it when I get back. Here is the schedule:

http://www.tcm.com/schedule/index.jsp?startDate=03/24/2009&timezone=EST&cid=N

Well, that's it for now. I will be back in a week or so. I'm going to have a great break with my family. We've got a whole bunch of places to hit up. It's going to be fun. I'll talk to you all later! I love you!

"I found grace inside a sound, I found grace, it's all I found..."

First off: how cool is it to see Jody Davis again?! I was very happy for that. I thought he did a great job on the solo. Now then. Michael Tait. I'm going to try and be as fair as possible. I made it through the whole video without crying or laughing, and that's saying a lot. I didn't even make fun of him when he botched the lyrics in the middle. I feel for the guy- he's got to learn and memorize an entire list of songs that aren't his, then he has to perform them live as if they were his own, even though everyone knows they belong to Peter Furler, and have always belonged to Peter Furler. So Tait's got big shoes to fill. Big, bald, white, Australian shoes to fill. And I don't dislike him, I really don't. He made "Something Beautiful" sound pretty good, actually. But it's so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this wasn't a cover, and it wasn't a tribute. Peter isn't going to pick up the mic and make it better. This is Newsboys now. I don't like it, but I don't hate it. We'll see where this goes. In August, I'm seeing Newsboys at Kingdom Bound. I'm trying hard to prepare myself for Michael Tait....but it's really hard. BUT they did say that Peter would come back for special shows, and Newsboys has been doing Kingdom Bound for years, so maybe he'll come back for that...I hope so....

In other music-related news, this is going to be a busy, expensive, and GREAT summer for me!

Here are albums coming out this year:

March 31: "Free" / Gavin DeGraw

May 5: "In the Hands of God" / Newsboys

June 16: "Best Night of Our Lives" / Everyday Sunday

Some point in 2009: "21st Century Breakdown" / Green Day, as well as albums by Switchfoot and Editors and maybe Relient K if they get their act together

Also, here are shows I'm currently planning on seeing this summer:

June 17: The Fray at Darien Lake with Emily

August 5: Phil Joel, Newsboys at Darien Lake with Emily (and Megan?)

Also also, here are shows I *might* see this summer, if money and schedules allow:

June 1: Coldplay at Darien Lake with Bocadillo

August 27: Gavin DeGraw in Syracuse (with Emily?)

September 4: Switchfoot in Syracuse

It is my complete intention to exit this summer 100% broke and 100% deaf. I shouldn't have a problem with either.

"in the forest we lie hiding, unmarked graves where flowers grow..."

This is going to be one of those posts where I write it and post it at two different times. Right now, I’m sitting under a tree in the back garden, listening to Frank Sinatra. It’s really sunny and there’s a light breeze. My sleeves are rolled up and I’m periodically chilly, but I know that if I roll them down, I’ll be too warm.

Today has been a lot of fun, and as of right now it’s only 1:43. I woke up after a great night’s sleep and had a good breakfast. The rolls were fresh and hot and the butter melted really easily on them. I stole 4 slices of bread so I could have a couple sandwiches later today.

Colloquy was good too. Our reading last night was all Romantic poetry: Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickens, Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge. I was skeptical of colloquy because I was afraid we’d over-analyze the poems. And at times, people did. When they did, I sat there and wrote down lyrics to a Decemberists song. When we weren’t completely picking the poems apart and were just talking about imagery and inspiration and historical context, I participated. It went well.

I made an important decision after colloquy. The only part of the MAG that my friends and I had left was the National Gallery. And this week happens to be extended because of break being next week: the paper won’t be assigned until Saturday and won’t be due until Tuesday, the first day of break. So once we finish the National Gallery, we’ve got nothing but reading from today until Friday. That’s a lot of free time. And I decided that I didn’t want to do the National Gallery today. I’ve been enjoying the work this week, and I wouldn’t mind doing it tomorrow or Friday. It would be fun to do it by myself, too. Not that doing MAG with my friends isn’t fun, I just want to try it by myself. So after colloquy, I told my friends I was going to do my own thing today, and that I’d do the National Gallery later.

I went shopping today. It was fun. It was the first day I’ve intentionally gone out shopping. My headphones died a couple days ago, so it sort of started with that. Tabitha let me borrow her headphones until I got to the electronics store, which wasn’t going to be my first stop. My first stop was a thrift store nearby the Tube station. I bought a big band CD (hence Old Blue Eyes) for £1.49 as well as the UK version of the first Harry Potter book for a pound. I also bought a gift for Emily.

By now, the Tube is easy for me. It’s almost second nature. I took it to Tottenham Court Road and went to Maplin’s, the same electronics store I got my hard drive cable at a few weeks ago. I got a nice pair of headphones for 8 pounds.

I kept walking down the street, listening to music and taking pictures of the sky. There are so many contrails today. I like it. I bet I’ve seen about 20 of them. I took a lot of pictures of them. I was trying to make my way to a Fopp, the indie music store that I had discovered at Cambridge. On the way, I checked out a bookstore and looked around. They had Mark Twain’s Roughing It, but it was more money than I was willing to spend. They also had Matthew Stover’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, but I’m planning on getting it in August when it comes out in paperback. But I did check out their poetry section, and it was a good thing I did. I found The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth for only £4. This thing was the biggest paperback I’ve ever seen- 1082 pages! I couldn’t eat it if I tried (and I did try, but I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough).

I made it to Fopp easily enough and found a CD of U2’s 2001 concert at Slane Castle. I had the DVD of that concert, but I thought it would be nice to have the music on a CD so I could listen to it on my iPod, so I got it. It was seven pounds. I was content and headed back to the FMC, listening to Jon Foreman, the Decemberists, and “The Door in the Air” from the Prince Caspian soundtrack.

When I got back to the Highbury Centre, I put my U2 CD in my computer to upload it into iTunes. But it turns out that I had bought the DVD. Which sucks, because I already had the DVD. I thought it was a CD because it was in a CD case. Call me crazy, but I always thought that CDs went in CD cases and DVDs went in DVD cases. Maybe they changed it and forgot to tell me. Either way, I’ve got two U2: Go Home DVDs now. Yay?

Luckily, today has been so good that that didn’t come close to spoiling it. I was still in a great mood. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grabbed a raspberry yogurt and some crisps, poured some Cherry Coke in my Nalgene, and brought my lunch and laptop in the garden. I had all my food, except for the crisps. I’ll have those after I type this.

Now, it’s only 2:09. After I’m done with this I’m going to do my reading in the garden. Erin Carr is doing the same, and Danny Kim is passed out on the bench next to me. Our reading is from Marx and Engels. Should be interesting. After I’m done, I think I’ll take a nap and read some poetry. Tonight, I have my last service project at All Soul’s.

So. Here are two things I’ve decided I want to invest in. The first a high-quality VHS to DVD burner that allows me to put in chapters. I’ve got a lot of Looney Tunes tapes that I need to convert to preserve the prints for my future kids and grandkids. Digital copies don’t get worn down, but film sure does. So I need to get on that soon. I also want to get a nice big bookshelf. I’ve got so many books that I love, and they all sit in cardboard boxes in the attic. That’s not cool. I need a big shelf I can put in my room so I can display them and get at them easier.

Hey! Guess what?! Today is Eri’s birthday! Wish her a happy birthday so she’ll get mad at me for putting this in my blog.

Hey! Guess what else?! My family is coming to visit in less than a week! I can’t wait to see them. This is the longest I’ve been away from any of them in my life, and I miss them a lot. I’m going to take them to all the fun places and show them London food. I’m pumped.

Alright, that’s enough for now. Goodbye.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

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