some elaboration

as i sit sipping green tea with honey and listening to brian wilson's smile, i will write a bit more.
some things to catch up on from the last post:

-i forgot to tell you the very important news that on sunday, at the restaurant where i work, i tried haggis for the first time! just a bite of someone else's, and no, it isn't served in that disgusting skin. anyway, it was actually kind of tasty in terms of how they flavor it, and doesn't have a gross texture. but, it is ground sheep innards, so i could never eat a lot of it. but really, not so frightening in the end. a nice thing about my work is that they make a free scottish breakfast for you at the end of your breakfast shift, which today for me was the vegetarian version consisting of a poached egg, quorn sausage (some mushroom-like mold to simulate the meat texture i guess), a cooked tomato, mushrooms, a potato scone, as well as access to the entirety of the fruits and rolls of the continental breakfast. if you were curious about what the food situation is like here, there you go. i have no complaints whatever (though i would have some about the meaty version).

-the flatmate gripe that i mentioned (this may take a minute, and may be controversial, so here we go):
laura is, as i said from before, a texan who attends vanderbilt, which sort of automatically means, as i have indeed discovered in talking to her, that she is a certain type of american: religious, privileged/yuppie (edit: man, i always spell privileged wrong and have to go fix it), perhaps bush-loving, nice but probably a bit of a snob. she is certainly very nice, and gave me the impression initially that she wanted me to contribute to her experience here studying abroad for the semester by our spending time together. i have on a few occasions tried to ask her what she's doing or to make plans with her. whenever i have gone out with her, it has been with her vanderbilt friends as well - there are 8 others here from her school and she spends basically all of her time with them and not with new people outside of her bubble world. these girls are also very nice and also those things i mentioned above; for example, when i went out to get a drink with them, they talked the entire time about the tv show "the oc" and how excited they were to have a viewing party once they figured out how to get all of the episodes over here, about how they used to play tennis at clubs when they were kids, about needing to go to the gym, etc. now, these are generally not the kind of girls i am interested in, though please let me say that there are tons of girls like this at uva and i have a great amount of respect for them. they work hard and are good at their niche, they often surprise me as fellow classmates, and they are never unpleasant to be around. but still, though i have no qualms sharing my school with them, i am not very interested in being with them all the time socially - why i haven't joined a sorority, say. just not my style.

all this being said, i have been recently disappointed by my flatmate laura's limitations. i asked her to go on this trip with me to glasgow on saturday, to see the city, do some shopping, spend some time together, get to know each other better. she said she wanted to, and everything was dandy. then, the night before she tells me that she is tired and might not want to go anymore (which played into my general frustration of late with people my age always being sooo tired from god knows what and never wanting to push themselves a little), but i of course said that was totally fine and it wasn't a big deal at all. i was happy to just go by myself and meet some new people - exactly what i did in the end. but meanwhile, the next morning while i am getting ready to leave she comes up to me and says "i am going to glasgow after all, but a bit later on the train, because some of the girls want to go see the chapel." ahh, the girls, of course. i told her we could meet up later, but she never followed through on this after i messaged her suggesting we meet for lunch. and yes, i did go to see the chapel as well.
so basically, i am frustrated that she seems to just want to be here for a few months as a tourist who has these experiences as an outsider with the exclusive company of people she can talk to just as easily back in the us. not like it's even a big stretch for her to talk to me, even if i am a bit different in terms of regional culture. of course, she should do what makes her happy, and i should just get over it and change my expectations about our potential for camaraderie. just a bummer, that's all. there you have it, that's my gripe.

life moves onward and upward! tonight i am going to a pub called bannerman's that is literally a block away from my flat where every tuesday night the international student centre has a pub night, and there i will hang out with my new lovely spanish friends. tomorrow night i am hanging out with a bunch of jews (some of whom are also going to see sigur ros in november and the decemberists, which i should really join in on) who i met through josh when i randomly attended a jewish society function with him. i very much enjoy my jewish friends - i have many back in virginia - and perhaps now more occasions will come up in which i can eat their delightful food, much to my fulfillment. i might even fast and then feast with josh for yom kippur.

also, our 6 day fall break is fast approaching! there is talk between josh and i of going to prague. of course, travel expenses need to be looked into, but i am sure as hell going to go somewhere, if not prague. the world at my fingertips, i tell ya.

i'm going to spend lots of time in the library reading articles these next few days, as well as in my room reading madame bovary, the next selection for my lit class. i hope in between these successful moments of work ethic to work on my successes as a correspondent as well. trust me, i've made a list of those to whom i am indebted. for now i'm off to run some errands, and then back here to buckle down. hopefully i will update with glasgow pictures later today.

xoxo