Identity Redeemed

The internet has been down in my building for something like 5 days now, and was in and out faulty for several days before that. I've had to go to the ground floor lounge where there is wireless (which makes no sense...if there's wireless here, why isn't there wireless throughout the rest of the building? No clue), and it's very frustrating. And perhaps the most frustrating part of it is that, to contact us and keep us updated, the Resnet people send us EMAILS!!!! Which makes total sense, since we have such easy access to the interne...oh, wait. Right.

Got my thyroid meds from the doctor here for the first time today; National Health Care at its best. A two month supply, and it's easy to get refills done. Brilliant. And it only cost £5 for the two months, rather than $20 for two months. Extra brilliant!

The doctor's appointment was at 9:10am this morning, so I woke up at 8:20am, and the sun hadn't risen yet. The sky was light, the clouds painted red in the dawn, but the sun was not actually up at 8:20am. Though by the time I got out of the shower, approximately 8:45am, it looked like the sun was up. And I think I've been able to determine that my window faces East; all I can see from it is a little courtyard thing, I can't see anything but other wings of my building, so I've never been totally sure. But I'm pretty sure it faces East.

Last night, I was sitting in the lounge, and I heard a couple loud bangs on the window behind me, which looks out Richmond Place. I looked, and there were two local kids, maybe 15 years old, out there, tapping on the windows and occasionally flipping me off. One of them had a Santa hat on. So I complimented his hat (I had to yell through the window, since they don't open), and the kid said something back, but all I could catch was the end: '...eh, ginge?'

The term 'ginge' is short for 'ginger,' which is slang for a red haired person. I couldn't have been more pleased!! Why, you may wonder? Well, because I've always had red hair...I'm a red head. But, lately, people have been telling me I'm not, that my hair is blonde, particularly since I moved over here; my British friends have all insisted that I'm not ginger. I was starting to feel bad about it. But I have been redeemed!! And I am willing to take the two Scottish lads' opinion over my friends from London or Leeds, because Scotland has the highest concentration of gingers, and people who carry the ginger gene, of any place on earth; something 30% of people here carry the gene, and something like 17% are actually ginger (I'm not sure on these numbers; there was a piece in National Geographic at the end of Summer 2008, I believe, about the ginger gene, look it up if you doubt me). So, these two kids from Scotland, surrounded by the most gingers per capita in the world, means that they are surrounded by some of the most gingery gingers there are, and if they think I am a ginger, then I am. Ta da!

Two pictures from my time at Berkeley, tonight.

This is me (obviously), and to my left, Chelsea, and her older sister and my best friend, Magic. We were at a tailgate party at a frat house in Berkeley before a football game between UCBerkeley and...OSU, I think...some school in Oregon, anyway. Regardless, we were hanging out, and then Magic said 'Hey, Stephen, look, you like them, right?' and I turned and saw the man standing to my right...Adam Duritz, lead singer of the Counting Crows. I nearly died; I do love them. And after trying to sneakily snap a picture with my camera phone, Magic's dad, Bill, took me over and asked Adam for a picture, and I was a beaming idiot. Still, cool, though.

And this is me (again, obviously) and three of my best friends in Berkeley; from left to right, Annie, James and Sean. We were the most regular members of our Pub Quiz team, and we often did quite well. This is shortly after James, Sean and I had graduated (that's why everyone is dressed up a bit). No famous people in this shot (well, not yet, anyway).

Vocab! First, an update: I wrote about the term 'rounded' several weeks ago, and mentioned that most people here didn't know that term, and I expressed my growing belief that I may have made it up. I did not! I checked Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com), an online slang dictionary, and rounded was listed, and an example of its use was cited as being from the movie Shaun of the Dead. Well, it just so happens that Shaun of the Dead is one of my favourite movies ever, and I watch it almost once a week, so now the mystery has been solved: I heard it in Shaun of the Dead, and unknowingly assimilated it.

New vocab today is 'numpty.' I came across this story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3724424/Text-message-slang-found-in-school-work.html, about how text and instant message spellings and grammar, as well as common slang terms, are appearing more and more in the schoolwork of students. It's a very amusing article, and it discusses a phenomenon which I think is occurring more and more on both sides of the Atlantic, but my favourite example of this happening provided in the article is taken from a student's work about Romeo & Juliet: 'Romeo was a numpty, wasn't he?' A Scottish slang word, a 'numpty' is someone who, for whatever reason, doesn't have all necessary information; basically, an idiot. Romeo was an uninformed idiot. I'm definitely going to start using this.