Thank GOODNESS

Otter tours Scotland in postbag

A postman who rescued a baby otter on a Scottish roadside took her on a 220-mile tour in his mailbag.

Kenny Wilson, 50, of Tweedbank, in the Borders, spotted the cub - named Orla - lying on the A7 near Stow on Sunday.

He stopped his car, popped her in his mailbag to keep her warm and then bought her kitten milk and fed her through the tube of a ballpoint pen.

He then took the otter with him on a Mini car enthusiasts' rally before taking it to an animal rescue centre.

The six-week-old otter was said to be doing well at the Arthurshiel centre near St Boswells in Roxburghshire.

Mr Wilson was travelling on the A7 road just north of Stow in the Borders in his 1999 Mini Cooper when he spotted Orla lying at the side of the road.

He explained: "She was frozen and I did not give her much of a chance to be honest.

"It looked as if she had either been abandoned or her mother had been hit by a car."

Mr Wilson said the otter had come from the nearby Gala Water and "looked terrified from the noise of the cars and would soon have been hit".

"I popped her into the mailbag I had in the car and carried on up the A7 and just kept hearing little squeaks and sucking noises to imply she was hungry," he said.

"I stopped at Tesco at Dalkeith and bought some kitten milk and fed it through the tube of a ballpoint pen.

"She seemed happy enough and during our journey she kept crawling up my neck looking for more warmth."

'Doing well'

Mr Wilson said everyone at the car rally was amazed when they saw the animal.

The pup was initially named Ozzie but when it was discovered it was female Mr Wilson's wife, Jayne, came up with Orla.

The postman added: "Orla seemed to enjoy her 220-mile round trip round the Trossachs and when we got home we fed her some crushed chicken and put her in our cat Ebony's basket as she decided to go out for the night.

"Not many otters have been on a tour of central Scotland.

"The next day we contacted Arthurshiel and took her over there where she seems to be doing well."

Shona Middlemas of the rescue centre said the brown European otter was being fed and kept warm.

"We are hand-rearing her just now and she stayed last night in the warmth of our living room," she said.

"I have been taking advice from people on the best way to look after her.

"Kenny did a good job because it sounds as if she would not have survived."

However, she said the rescue had not come without expense.

"At the moment we are feeding her fish every two hours and she has got some appetite," she explained.

"She is going through about £15 worth of salmon each day."

Original story here.

There's not much to presently report, save for

• I'm attempting facial hair out of boredom
• My calves are burning from how long we held stance last night in Wing Chun class
• I have a reading to do for Film History but the temptation to watch a movie again is overwhelming
• DVD region codes are substantially stupid and pointless.
  

An Exercise in Randomness- iTunes Shuffle Free-Throught Association

The Descendents- I'm the One. This song had pretty incredible relevance to a certain situation this fall. It's pretty obvious.

Smashing Pumpkins- Take Me Down. Man. Always kinda dug this one. James Iha is underrated. Dreamy song.

People Under the Stairs- The Breakdown. Reminds me of a certain someone. Need to listen to this compilation more.

Metallica- Whiplash. Me and Dan Robinson. High school. Pretending were cooler and more snide than everyone else at Hebrew High, in our own little world. I wore out the first three Metallica albums freshman and sophomore year, and I hate thinking about those wasted, oft-nihilistic times. So...next song.

Autopsy- Stillborn. This band is everything I love about simple, raw, oldschool death metal and holds the same appeal to me as a fantastic zombie flick.

Camel- The Great Marsh. Rural-sounding. Perfectly narrates the foggy days here in Norwich.

Voivod- Tribal Convictions. A galactic, progressive headrush. I bought this record on a whim one of many times we met up with Aunt Joanie in Tacoma. To this day, I've never heard anything else like it. RIP Piggy.

Iron Maiden- Flight of Icarus (Live). Not my favorite song, but my favorite band of all time. Seventh grade-- Ben McCarty gave me a tape with two of their songs. My hair didn't magically drop to shoulder-length, nor did I immediately get past the unsavory Limp Bizkit shit I was into at the time, but it was a golden moment that indicated a future direction for my musical taste.

Agalloch- A Celebration for the Death of Man. I could listen to Agalloch on Mars and it would still teleport my mind back to the beautiful grays of the Northwest.

Ol' Dirty Bastard- Hippa To Da Hoppa. Chris Weed. I miss you, duder.

Mussorgsky- The Polish Ox-Cart. I'm no classical buff, but this and Holst's Planets are my two favorite classical works.

Cream- Swablr. Mmmm...Clapton's fuzz tone on this, so damned good. Dad saw them for something like three dollars once.

Celtic Frost- Into the Crypts of Rays. Tom, why did you spit on me when I was worshipping the ground you walked on? :(

Catherine Wheel- Show Me Mary. Catherine Wheel? This sounds like Noel Gallagher fronting Husker Du.

Void- Who Are You? It's tied between this and Black Flag's "My War," for which chorus I often want to yell at people.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer- The Barbarian. Bass distortion die for. Most ominous organ sounds ever. Heavy metal, right here.

The Long-Awaited Room Tour

This is my bed, directly to the right when you enter the room. Note the trusty eyemask and the tackboard above it.



The mess of clothes on the left is my attempt to fit all my clothing on the crude shelves that jut out from the wall. The desk is a desk...uh... moving along to the part of the room around the corner--

The closet door is obscuring the wash basin (read: sink and mirror). Spare bed on the right.

My room is also at the top of my flat's block, so I have an amazing view of the campus lake and other wonderful sights. It's like having a sweet wizard tower, only I'm not Christopher Lee.

A Slightly More Eventful Weekend Than Previous

Friday: Got out of class at 5, hit the gym at 6 and then washed up and met up with Shane and his flatmates in Suffolk (the ziggurat dorm area opposite mine) to hit up the town.

Liquid proved to be a better nightclub than Mercy, which isn't exactly a high benchmark in the first place, but come on now. I don't dance and I sure as shit didn't dress properly. Black jeans and a yellow shirt are pretty garish in general, but I'm pretty sure everybody else at the club was wondering if I even knew the meaning of the term "business casual." Pictorial proof:

And no, I'm not drunk here.

On the bright side of things, I discovered Smirnoff Ice actually tastes okay. Back on the downside of things, that's the last time I go into town without ear plugs. Haven't had the "cotton ball effect" in my ears since I saw CoC at the Showbox without any ear protection.

Saturday: Woke up nice and late, but couldn't get ahold of my buddy Mike from Goucher-- we were going to head into town to shop. Phoned Ian, who had just headed there, and took a bus by myself for the first time. It wasn't too difficult, haha. Found a tech store and paid the equivalent of 120 USD for a 1-terabyte external hard drive. Just so you're clear on the math: in summer 2006, I paid 150 for a 250-gig one. Less than three years later, I threw down thirty dollars less for four times the storage space. Awesome.

Also awesome: British-made Rotosound bass strings-- made popular by the mighty John Entwhistle and subsequently used by Chris Squire, Steve Harris and numerous other musicians that I love cost 40-some in the US, but only cost 20 here at a really sweet music shop on St. Benedict street. I snatched up a pack and will probably snag a few more before I go home.

I also bought four used movies because sometimes a guy needs ridiculous entertainment. Let's just say that Steven Seagal's Under Siege is one the best investments of time I've made in the past six months.

After Mike endured my taking my time in the video shop, we went to the Waffle House for some eats. Totally delicious! I had the stir-fry waffle with soy and chili sauce. Thanks, Mike.

Today: Just lazed around, really, but what else is new?

Wednesday, during which nothing fucking works.

Laundry was long overdue today, so I hauled my bags of it to the laundrette in the campus square. The loading/detergent process was difficult enough to do properly even with its written instructions. But the real topper was that the central pay slot started eating my coins-- not processing them, not regurgitating them in the change return, but simply absorbing them. I began to warn other unwary patrons that the thing was ferkakt (sp?) and got pen and paper from the Union Food Outlet next door and posted a sign. Calling the repair number listed on the pay slot proved little help; the guy hesitated and informed me with some reluctance that "we won't get to that for awhile." As I type this I'm sitting in my dorm room with three loads of wet laundry stretched and sprawled in every possible advantageous open space, hoping they'll be dry by morning. Then there's a completely unwashed load that I was about to put in-- and it was then that the slot stopped functioning properly

To add insult to injury, technology is failing me also. My little portable iPod speakers I received for high school graduation, having first lost the ability to charge an iPod, and then to play music from an iPod, are now hardly able to be used simply as auxilliary computer speakers. There's a lot of line hum/white noise going on whenever sound is put through them. Oh well... they lasted almost three years. Time to invest in new ones.

Further adding salt to wound is the slow death of my external hard drive. I love it-- it's an elegant brick that's quite portable and in over three years of owning it I've only filled up 60 of it's 250-gigabyte storage capacity. But now, whenever I open an item from it (usually meaning that I attempt to play a song from iTunes), the damn thing whirs and clanks for a good while "as if there were little men banging mallets inside" as my friend Max has said. It will ten whir down, and repeat the two-step process. Eventually the song will play or the file will be able to be opened, but ultimately the wait time is getting worse. I hope these things don't run too much...I NEED one in order to continue music and music management/playback while abroad. There's simply no room on my laptop's hard drive to hold my music collection.

One spot of good news: about to hit the gym at 3:30.

Societies Follow-Up

Last Thursday, as mentioned, was a Deviant Society social at the Red Pub on campus, so I headed over there hoping to meet folks into similar musical digs. Immediately, someone takes note of my Celtic Frost hoodie and welcomes me over. I chatted with a few people over the course of the night. I'd say I was half-comfortable/half-not...some awkward personalities here and there, but really my fundamental discomfort is this: I don't feel the need to distance myself from others with even the loosest of labels. I don't wish to be labeled "deviant" just because I enjoy some heavier music; similarly, once I thought it through, I didn't want to be called "straightedge" when I didn't do drugs or drink in high school. I also do not consider myself a "dark" person in any sense despite some of the darker influences inherent in some of my musical interests. So yeah, there's that. Let's see how many further Deviant events I attend. Groucho Marx (and eventually, Woody Allen) once said "I'd never want to be part of club that wanted me as a member." Maybe that quote is applicable here.

Tonight was my first Wing Chun lesson. There were about 15 people total, including Rob (the main instructor), Ray (the society head and student instructor) and Dan (the other student instructor-- I think that was his name). We train from 7-9 every Monday. Today we learned the basic stance (which in and of itself is an exercise in muscle endurance-- makes your legs burn), the first part of the first form (a series of basic motions chained together like a kata would be in karate, somewhat), three different basic countering (bong sao, tan sao and fook sao), basic punching and kicking, and a series of counters for a wrist grab. There were also plenty of fitness exercises integrated-- we did ten sets of alternating five punches and five push-ups (they call them "press-ups" here), a painfully long plank, and sit-ups where we did ten punches every time we went up.

Ultimately, I'm beat and this will make for great learning and great exercise! I just need to get all squared away with the gym via an induction session so I can go at least two other times a week and, between that and Wing Chun, keep myself fit this semester. As I was leaving, Dan commended me on doing a great job. I thanked him for his patience...I hard time with a few elements of a particular exercise. Still, fantastic to be commended on my first martial arts class in nearly a decade!

I am so very excited to be returning to martial arts in any form (no pun intended). Some of the best days of my youth were spent sweating away in Sifu Rick Demile's martial arts academy-- and my learning there began at his garage on Madison Avenue, with no mats for the first few months, punching water-filled boat buoys. Years later, between weak cardio endurance from a pubescent growth spurt and looming Bar Mitzvah studies, I quit at the age of twelve. I always regretted it-- especially as childhood friends later ascended to black belt and assistant instructor positions-- and as a result, I've yearned to go back for the past few years, now and again. Buying a lot of old kung-fu films this summer only bolstered my desire. Now that desire is fulfilled. Awesome.

Contrary to Popular Belief, My Cell Phone is NOT a Sex Line

My flatmate Adam approached me at dinner tonight and asked what network I was using for my UK cell phone.

"Orange," I said, "Why?"
"Well, whenever I call you, there's this woman's voice as it rings and she says something about you being busy."
"What?'
"Here, I'll call you and show you what I mean."

And sure enough, over the dial tone, some sexy female voice goes "the person you're trying to reach is busy right now, but he'll call you back later. You see, he's a busy boy. A busy, busy boy!"

If only it were true.

To Bex, if you're reading this

Nicked from Martha C's recent Facebook album:

New Year's Eve.

I think this is the best and funniest picture of us both since that timeless 8th-grade-camping-trip-one. This picture reminded me of all the great laughs we crammed in to what was an unfortunately small winter break. Miss you, buddy.

Books on the Reading Docket

Currently reading: Michael Moorcock's The Chronicles of Corum, a compilation of the second Prince Corum trilogy-- The Bull and the Spear, The Oak and the Ram, and The Sword and the Stallion. On the third book already and loving it. A lot of Celtic/Cornish folkore in the influence, evidently.

In the queue:
Michael Moorcock, The History of the Runestaff. A British compilation of another series of one of Moorcock's characters, Dorian Hawkmoon. Star Wars meets King Arthur. Badass.

Michael Moorcock, The Cornelius Chronicles. Moorcock's cyberpunk, androgenous secret agent/master-of-all-trades Jerry Cornelius.

Robert L. Howard, The Conquering Sword of Conan. The final compilation of all of Howard's work before he committed suicide at a young age. I'm a big fan of his stuff and it's quite interesting to read pre-Tolkien fantasy.

Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The title short story is one of the most amazing, heartbreaking things I've ever read. Can't wait to read more of him.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. This one sounds fantastic and profound, to say the least.

Mickey Spillane, One Lonely Night. "Sure I write garbage," Spillane once said, "but it's good garbage." Tough-guy detective fiction. I'd say it's a guilty pleasure, but I don't feel too guilty reading Mike Hammer novels.

Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing. Perhaps my favorite author, giving guidance on the craft. Can't wait.

EDIT: Forgot to mention John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Knights. One of the most popular modern translations of Malory's work. Years ago my Dad tried to get me to read this and brushed him off and now I truly regret it. First, because I loved reading Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath in high school; second, because I loved Arthurian tales as a kid and recently rekindled my this love when I read Morte Darthur for a lit class this fall. Also quite excited for this one.

My possible return to the martial arts, and an early English success

Yesterday was the SocMart-- basically a club rush, but here clubs are called societies. I signed up for the mailing list for two societies.

The Wing Chun society holds a once-a-week martial arts class. The Wing Chun form is the same sort of self-defense techniques I initally learned when I was very young and studying under Sifu Rick DeMile before his curriculum focused more on combined elements. The classes are a pound each session, with a two-pound starting fee. The only catch is that I already have two classes that day, and the martial arts class is another two hours, so...we'll see. Obviously it also involves a lot of independent practice that I'll have to make time for along with the independent research for classes that British teachers are so hep on emphasizing.

The unfortunately-named Deviant Society is an alternative music collective. This seems somewhat hit-or-miss in regards to specific music I like, but they have socials at the on-campus Red Pub every Thursday night at 8-- so I'm headed there in a bit to see what's up. They also book and host gigs in town.

Today my sole class was a 4-6 Creative Writing: Prose Fiction seminar. It went quite well; a fellow Goucher English major, Mike, was in my class. At one point we all had to write for 15 minutes on our first day of school. I immediately wrote about my arrival to UEA rather than the subject instructed, realized it, and furrowed my brow a bit but kept going. After we all finished writing, we read the pieces aloud and recieved brief but straightforward verbal feedback from the the teacher. When it came time for mine, he commented that the ending was a case of telling more than showing, but otherwise the rest was "very concrete writing." Good to hear-- sometime my verbosity gets the best of me.

On an unrelated note, I watched this last night.


If you're one for samurai/kung-fu cinema, gore, or basically wonder what Road to Perdition (based on this film/comic series) would be like if it took place in feudal Japan, this one is for you. It also has four or five sequels.

Classes so far

Monday: TV History lecture/screening, an hour break, and then a small seminar discussion. The lecture outlined the course and we were shown an installment of the British 60s TV program Seven Up, which chronicled the lives of a select sample of children every seven years. Interesting stuff.

Today: Movie screening for Film History course. Given that it's titled "Film History: 1930- Present," I was hoping we'd be covering noir film or, say, Casablanca in short order, but instead we watched Scream. Yes, this Scream.


I'm not a horror film buff, though I do enjoy the genre for most part. It was quite entertaining and very 90s. Guess I'll learn about its relevance to the course tomorrow during the lecture portion of the class.

Class Schedule.

Monday
1-3 PM: TV History lecture

4-5 PM: TV History seminar

Tuesday
2-5 PM: Film History screening

Wednesday
10-11 AM: Film History

Thursday
4-6 PM: Creative Writing- Prose Fiction

Friday
3-4 PM: Film History

Hopefully not a prediction of the future

If for no other reason than not forgetting, I just want to note a pretty funny dream I had the other night-- or at least, funny to me.

Somehow, Bridget and myself were back in Gordon Stenerson's math class-- just the two of us-- and had gotten our recent test results returned. For some reason, I had gotten a B-minus and was bummed out at the fact (which is unrealistic-- I got C's in math during most of highschool, and would've jumped for joy if I'd gotten a B-minus). I felt myself frown and looked at Bridge.

"How'd you do?"

She looked at me really skeptically. "Really, really well."

"Well, shit."

Ups and Downs

+ Got a solid cell phone with pay-as-you-go plan
+ Got classes registered
-I have five days of class a week, while my friends average 2 or 3 days
+Most classes aren't very long
-Need to find source of good, organic food and stop scrimping and subsequently buying bad food
-It's below freezing outside
+I haven't gone outside my dorm hall today

Of the many things I miss while away from home...

I miss this.

New Day Rising.

Today made everything feel a whole lot better. Got up at 9, went to orientation at 10:30ish and met two girls, Casey and Kristy, who know a friend of mine at Dickinson where they go to school. Sat with them for the following lecture, then had lunch and met Jonah and Ian, who both hail from the Bay Area. After a good 36 hours of relative social isolation-- no friends, no cell phone, no communication-- this was all refreshing, to say the least.

Did more grocery shopping in town with the newfound friends, then headed back to the somewhat off-campus area called the Village where Casey, Kristy, Jonah and the girls' friend Anekit live in flats. We made ourselves dinner from the various groceries previously bought and laughed a lot, then headed to the campus pub. Had a little to drink, and confirmed for the umpteenth my dislike for all beer that's not Lambic Framboise (thanks, Bolesta).

After the pub closed down, we all headed into town once more to the Mercy nightclub, a truly refined and flashy joint. Dancing was not my scene, nor was it Anekit's, so we walked around the mostly-empty streets and talked. Good times, really.

I need to sleep so I can meet Jonah and buy a phone tomorrow. Love to all.

Arrival

Got in last night at 7 PM here. It was and is really cold.

The flight Sea-Tac to Cinncinati was fine, as was the flight from Seattle to London, but afterward the busride from London-Gatwick airport to University of East Anglia lasted some sevenish hours. I hadn't eaten since the brief breakfast on the plane because 1) I'm an idiot and 2) I would've had to wheel all my baggage around the airport to find food.

I couldn't and still can't make any expensive international cellphone calls because my cellphone doesn't even get reception. Going to have to find a way to get a plan or new phone or both for such things. I'm also writing this from a library computer because I won't have access to internet from my computer/dorm till Monday or so-- I have to wait to register and get my campus card and other stuff.

Anyway, while on the bus, I befriended a first-year named Jonathan, who hails from Cyprus and was also onboard. He was nice enough to help me with hauling my luggage. There's construction going on on the main roads of campus, so we had to be dropped off the main drive to campus. We then walked some 15-20 minutes to the on-campus hotel thingy, Broadview Lodge, so I could spend the night there-- I called UEA from the airport and they told me I had to find accomodations there as my room wouldn't be accessible yet. But somehow someone in the Accommodations office had forwarded my key to the Lodge's front desk. Even better, the woman working there phoned security and I got a ride to my dorm hall, preventing another tendinitis-inducing luggage haul.

My room is pretty darned huge, which is nice (pictures to come). They provided a set of sheets, which aren't the most cozy but are quite warm. My bed is like a shortened queensize. The showers & toilet are just down the stairs. The shower is like a damned coffin; I can't even stand up straight.

I woke up jet-lagged at 5-something (the only way I can tell is by looking at my computer clock). Then I went back to sleep an hour later, and woke up at 12:50. I just spent £36.50 on food at the campus supermarket and I hope it lasts. Orientation is tomorrow, so hopefully I'll feel a little more secure about things then. For now, I feel very insecure and unsure of things... there's not really anyone I know and I've only now just contacted the outside world, save for a brief call home from an aiport landline.

Thanks and love to any and all who read.