its been crazy lately here in the house of love!

these past few weeks joel was here visiting me. it was soooo wonderful to have him in london! over the weekend we took a jaunt over to paris and enjoyed excellent french food and romance on top of the eiffel tower (you have to have romance when its snowing!).

this past week two of our friends, shelley and jess, were visiting london. they were tourist champs and saw EVERYTHING here in london. they did more in six days than i've done in (a collective) six months. oh well...we cant win them all.

while they were here, joel and i accompanied them to brick lane, which is a street with tons of indian restaurants. as we walked down the street, guys would come up to us and tell us great deals so that we would go to their place. after denying a few, we settled on a great bangladeshi restaurant. the food was so good and to reward us for choosing them, we got our first two rounds of drinks free and 30% off the entire bill.

now i am in full throttle finals mode. our first one is a week from tomorrow! ahhhh! its so crazy that this time is almost done. but not quite because i still have a trip to budapest planned. when will i do all this you ask? well, i have 3 finals the first week of finals (not this week but the next week) and my last final on the monday of our second week. so, that leaves me until the following sunday (the 16th) to travel!

this past friday we had our second house of love par-tay. as usual it was a smashing success and people were calling for another one as they exited our door. we should have another one because we have so much alcohol that we will need a whole army to dispose of it for us.

i will post pictures from the past three weeks sometime this week. things are a bit complicated because i am using my old computer (which joel so wonderfully brought to me) but i prefer using my macbook because its soooo fast and pretty. but i cant stand its new 'quirk'. with the old computer my internet lasts for only 30 minute increments. so every half hour i have to reset my internet which messes up anything that i am working on (like this post). thats why i will be posting pictures at another time (and boy are they excellent pictures!).

i regret to inform you...

that since i have been gone, i have not received one package, letter, or post card.

humpf.

another day at the office

today, i worked. monday is my last day at the gherkin, which is both positive and negative. i am really enjoying kirkland and the environment and the people. on the flip side i am exhausted and find i dont have as much time to work on school as i'd like. so come tuesday, i will be finished with my internship.

perfect timing because that is the day joel comes to london! i am very excited for him to visit and cannot wait to share this part of my life with him. so far we have planned a weekend trip to paris and a day in london with two of our friends (jess and shelley) that will be visiting during thanksgiving week. other than that, london is our oyster.

the last few days have been pretty standard. monday - worked from 9:30 till 5 then had eu class from 6:30-9:30. i came home and instead of falling into bed i stayed up on the internet. ugh.

tuesday - i let myself sleep as much as i wanted and then got up, read a bit, and went to school. i had a remedies mid-term (um, yea...), then con law and then 2 hours of hell, i mean, international arbitration. i then came home and instead of falling into bed i played some foosball and stayed up on the internet and talking to joel.

today - i woke up and went to work all day. we are working on a large case and all my time is spent sifting through dozens of binders of documents. i make sure there isnt any personal information in them and then i make sure the indexes are correct and that the unrelevant documents have been removed. its not very thrilling but sure has taken a looooot of time. after i got home, instead of falling into bed i made some excellent spaghetti, played some foosball (i'm getting to be really good), read a bit of con law and am now playing around on the internet (i'm starting to think it wasnt the greatest idea getting the internet).

tomorrow - remedies has been cancelled so i dont need to wake up early. thus, i will not set my alarm clock and will let myself wake up whenever i damn well please.

layer tennis

while reading my favorite blog, i stumbled upon this very cool idea.

every friday two artists (i assume they are artists...) come together (in web-speak...they still might be in different parts of the country/world) and have 10 rounds of art-volleys. each volley is fifteen minutes long and the artists are to build upon/work with the previous volley to build a new image. at the same time there is a commentator (this week was my favorite blogger) who comments on each new volley, as well as, people (like me and you) who comment in the forum as the match proceeds.

at the end of the ten volleys a winner is chosen based on who was the crowd favorite. it was immensely cool.

here are the first three volleys from yesterday's match (go check out the rest of the volleys and thank me once you are addicted to this website).

volley 1 - marian bantjes


volley 2 - armin vit

volley 3 - marian bantjes

pepperdine: the apocalypse

the resort:



the furnace:

loser

tonight i am a loser...that is, a loser of two potential job offers. i am trying to maintain my dignity and some amount of grace but it seems more of me was wrapped up in these potential jobs (and might i add potential small fortunes) than i had realized.

but i'm glad (relieved, blessed, excited...?) that its happening this way because i am always asking God to show me His will (not mine) and reveal to me His plan in His timing. i have an inkling that this is part of that plan. mostly because the situation is odd...people generally get offers from call backs and these two firms really liked me and said i was an excellent candidate (and i know i interview well because i am personable and well-liked).

so i believe this is one of those moments (as joel aptly put) that in a few months we will look back on this ever-hard time and say "see, that's why they didn't choose you...God had something so much better in mind!"

it seems the more time i spend with lola, the more we become alike. for instance, we are both tempermental/moody, both white, both highly intelligent, and both LOVE being warm. my new theory is that lola performs soooo much better when her atmosphere is on the warmer side.

a couple nights ago our landlady came over and had her plumber fix our heat. before that the house was freezing (!) and lola was crashing at an unbelievable rate (probably the worst i've experienced thus far). since the heat has been fixed our house is nice and toasty and oddly enough lola has crashed maybe 5 times in 3 days....truly a record.

so, if not for our sakes then for lola's sake we should keep this place warm!

bocce in hyde park

a few weekends ago a bunch of us played bocce ball in hyde park. it was awesome! people would stop and look at us and sometimes almost get hit by the balls.


we had 11 teams of 2 players and played round robin where each team played all the other teams. the top four teams progressed to the finals and battled off in one large bocce game.
devra... stoner...the ultimate winner


there i am in the pink
the finalists
holly
drew
it was a gorgeous sunset

after we went to a pub and watched the rugby game (france v. england). now that i am writing this it seems i may have posted about this day back when it happened. well, if i did now you get to see the pictures.

thursday

my favorite past time these days has definitely been reading other people's blogs. i almost feel voyeristic as i read the private (i guess they aren't so private if they are posted on a public blog) moments of people i know nothing about. its almost as if i have two lives - the "amanda" life that everyone knows and the "blog-amanda" life that i am slowly kindling. in this life i have friends that i know only through what they have written. i am joyous when they post pictures that reveal parts of them i would never have known if it wasnt for the picture. i thrive on videos where the two-dimensional people become three-dimensional with real voices.

but the thing i've gathered the most from these blogs is how important pictures are. i love them! that's why i've decided to institute more pictures on this blog. the reason i haven't been posting pictures is because it is SO much work. i have to plug the camera into the computer (which at this point is VERY tempermental), upload the pictures, put them in a special file, then open firefox and upload the pictures on to my blog. then i have to arrange them in to a pleasing fashion and write blurbs about them. its all very exhausting.

yesterday, halloween was it?, was fairly uneventful here in london. its not a holiday so widely and fervently observed as it is in the states. apart from the half naked teens on the bus and the four kids who accosted our home, i really wouldnt have known yesterday was any different than, say, today. here's what the house of love did....

we ate at the gourmet burger kitchen and it was great.

today i had class from 2:30 until 9. we had a half hour break around 6:45. ugh. 4 classes in a row is grueling. and everyone around me is getting sick. now i have to go to bed and be well rested for another vigorous day at the office.

on a side note, i am still waiting to hear back about the interviews from last week....this waiting is killing me! i check my email every chance i get (which is about 15 times a day). i think this is the Lord's way of teaching me patience. ok God, i get it already - i've learned the patience...now send me an email!