hk’s back (and boy, is she shady)

Hah! Just call me Fats Shady! Ahem. Sorry.

It’s good to be back, and it’s thanks to the clueless white man who did time in Asia (this is explained below, sort of). As of Friday, I am the only summer associate at my firm left in London, and as a parting gift, I got a return ticket from Cambridge, a Time Out guidebook, and a voucher for the remainder of the month.

First order of the day: ow. I mean, OW. My legs are sorer than they have been in years. The reason? Well, very good reasons, actually, both in the justifying and qualitative sense. Yesterday, as my mentor event (we were all assigned associate mentors), I went horseback riding. A hack, as they call it here.

Now, the last time I went riding, I was in high school, and it was a couple weeks of lessons at a shady Korean-owned stable, where the students did a lot of group trotting and cantoring around the enclosure, and where I didn’t really understand the instructor, who spent most of his time yelling at me to stop standing up in my stirrups when my horse took it into his head to gallop instead of trot. But I’d enjoyed it, especially the one or two times I got to do some jumping, an amazing feeling of wind roaring past my ears as the horse, a very large black stallion, basically took his own lead and leaped easily over the obstacle.

So I was looking quite forward to the hack. My mentor has been taking lessons for the past three years, and she and I were talking about it when I realized it would be a great thing to do together. (Particularly since I’d never do it on my own – it costs about $80 per hour on the weekend.) She booked a reservation for us at Richmond Park, where kings have hunted, and deer still run around (we saw a large group of stag when we arrived). We took the tube and a bus, I was outfitted in boots and a hard hat, and introduced to Wellington, my ride.

You know how they say things are like riding a bike? Meaning that you never forget how to ride a bike once you learn? Well, my friends, riding a horse is not like riding a bike. I’d marked down that I was somewhere between a beginner and novice, and had done some jumping, albeit 10 years ago, which apparently to the guide meant I didn’t need any instruction. She was wrong.

The thing about riding a horse after a long time – let’s say, 15 years or so – is that you don’t really use certain muscles in everyday life that you do when you are riding. And thus: ow. Whenever you go faster than a walk, you are not only gripping the horse with your inner thigh muscles, you are also bouncing up and down in the delightful exercise known as “posting,” which is most fairly described as doing squats on an irregularly moving target of several hundred pounds. Between your ill-timed downward squat and the horse’s nyah-nyah upward middle, the horse wins. Every time. And not all of us have pelvic bones of steel, if you know what I mean. In fact, very few of us. In fact, no one who doesn’t ride.

All I’m saying is: ow.

I foolishly but really unavoidably compounded the problem today, because I went on a 9-mile hike through the Surrey countryside, driven out of London by an almost desperate need to be outside of a city for once this summer. I am city-ed out by this point, and although I still haven’t made pilgrimages to Trafalgar Square, where I met BC at high noon one summer a decade ago (when we didn’t have the email and cell phone networks to keep in touch in the three weeks between making plans to meet and actually meeting), or to the Imperial War Museum, where I discovered clotted cream and the allure of spy history, I forewent those pleasures for a glorious 3.5-hour walk through golden fields, dark and cool woods, past herds of pretty cows and burping horses, ancient roads, 18th century churches and manors, a young vineyard, and a lot of Brits who invariably smiled and said hello. Hikers are friendly that way. (They call it “walking” here, incidentally.)

(Of course, I went too late in the day, which meant that I spent about 3 hours worrying that I’d be stuck in the middle of woods come nightfall, but the good lord helps those who are total hiking idiots, and I made it back to the Box Hill and Westhumble National Rail station by 6:30.) (Incidentally: Box Hill – the name of a hill there, and Westhumble – the name of a nearby town.)

I got home by 8:30 or so, and have been watching the uktv history channel since – they’re running a series on Britain, and have lots of pretty shots of the countryside. It’s partly because of this series, and partly because I borrowed a damn good walking guidebook from a super nice English associate that I went out today to the Surrey downs. As it turned out, it was a gorgeous day, warm but breezy, and I only wished I had a better map and perhaps a companion to share those nine miles (especially when I got lost).

Well, I have been babbling on and on, and feel a burning desire to stop. (Or perhaps it’s my Sony laptop battery?) I was out pretty late in Soho with my mentor, her Italian boyfriend, and her Italian boyfriend’s colleague, and between horseback riding, language barriers and social ineptitude (not mine this time, really), it was a tiring day.

FYI: I was pretty good about writing daily the first week I was here, and I post those entries below. But there are about two weeks since then during which I wasn’t writing, and during which my thoughts and feelings about this place changed, and during which I unsuccessfully experimented with crime, with much regret.

I’m not sure I’ll write about those two weeks, more out of laziness than anything, but I will try. For now, here’s some navel-gazing from that first week in London, when everything seemed bright and new.

August 6, 2006
Hk in London

Yes, after a 26-hour journey from Seoul, through San Fran (where I snagged breakfast from bigbro and J1 and clothes from my favorite store, J1’s Closet – I rule!) (oh, and it was nice to see you and J1, of course, bigbro) (heh), and taking twice as long as it would have to fly westward – I am here. London. The final stop on this wacky quadra-city summer.

There’s been a moment in each city where I stopped what I was doing and started grinning like a fool, because I was so happy to be in that city, whichever one it was. I think it hit me late in New York – it was when The Ringleted One and Mr. Rocks and I were walking through Central Park on a misty, foggy night, and my heart just leapt with joy. In Hong Kong, it was when the taxi pulled out of the Airport Express station and the bright lights of the neon city came into view. Here, it was when I looked at the 50-pence coin and saw the words written in archaic font stamped into one side: “50. Fifty. Adj. Saxon Pence.n.f. plural of penny Johnson’s Dictionary 1755”.

It’s a pretty strange thing, to define the denomination and amount on your coin. Oh, you cwazy English!

Anyway, I was at the Heathrow Express station under the airport, and getting change for my ticket to London, and I stopped to examine the coins (the better to distinguish which are which), and saw that and grinned like a fool. London! Is! So! Cool!

I made it to the serviced apartment where I’m staying, which, for a 200-s.f. space, feels pretty roomy. The view across the city is great – I can see the spires of the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum – and there are wonderful skylights in the bathroom and entrance. But, true to stereotype, the infrastructure is a bit tatty – I barely get a trickle of water from my shower, I have to turn my faucets 360 degrees before getting any drops of water out of them, there is no air conditioning (which has been a problem in the recent heat wave; fortunately it seems to have returned to normal summer temps now), there isn’t a drawer in sight for my socks and delicates, and the paisley pattern of the linens could be vastly improved upon. Oh, and the TV doesn’t work. And no free internet access.

But I’m feeling quite good about London just now, perhaps in part because of a tablet of Ambien on top of a half glass of red wine from dinner. Potent combination, particularly if your total amount of sleep for the past two days was a Dramamine-induced haze in economy seats for 10 hours.

After getting into my apartment, I unpacked, showered, inadvertently fell asleep for an hour, ate some of the provisions thoughtfully prepared for me (white bread, butter, cornflakes, sugar, coffee and tea – a Britisher’s idea of provisions, to be sure), and left the apartment around 4 pm. I picked up some groceries at the Sainsbury located down the block and checked my email at an internet café. And then I set out for a look around my neighborhood, Chelsea.

I strolled down past the name brand shops (all closed because it’s Sunday – shocking!), down to the embankment, past Georgian houses where Henry James lived, looked longingly into the London Physick Garden (the oldest botanical garden in London) which was unfortunately just closing as I walked by, through the fields of the Royal Hospital which was founded by Charles II in the 17th century for army pensioners, to the white stucco Victorian buildings of Belgrave Square, and finally to the Builder’s Arms, where I had a shockingly expensive meal of lamb and vegetables and red wine ($40! At what is essentially a pub!). And then I came home.

And now, I think I may have to end this now and carry on tomorrow. Losing… coherency… must sleep…!

August 7, 2006
First day of work

A long but leisurely first day of work today. I woke up after 8 hours of sleep and debated whether to go for a run, but decided I needed the sleep more and slept for two more hours before getting up at 8 am. I then had a lovely breakfast of toast, eggs, raspberries, and orange juice, followed by a cup of coffee while sitting on my window ledge looking out at the city, drinking in the cool morning breeze and the sounds of London.

I first had to go to an orientation at the student visa organization under which I am officially here in the UK. Most of it was inapplicable – the firm takes care of the insurance, for example, and I will get taxed at the steep rate of 40% (though I should get most of that back) – but it was nice to get a stupid-is-as-stupid-does introduction to life in London. The other eight people at the orientation were more truly the target audience – mostly college kids with no job yet, out for a lark in the UK. I tried not to look too conspicuous in my suit.

I made my way slowly to the office, where I was due at 1:45 pm, eating a leisurely Indian buffet lunch (yum! And only $12 or so – though still twice the price it would be in NYC) and stopping in to admire the 12th century crypt and church of St. John, which I came upon by happenstance. Just stumbled upon it, this 12th century structure, with a nice elderly woman motioning me into the hushed, dark underground room. It’s SO wonderful to be in a place where you just come around a corner and fall into history.

I stayed there so long that I had to rush to get to the office, which is housed into a GINORMOUS building – I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since it serves as a workplace for 2,000 lawyers. The U.S. law group numbers about 25, though, so I have hope that it won’t be quite as anonymous a place as Mighty Big Firm in NYC was.

The U.S. recruitment team greeted me, and immediately put me into computer and telephone training, which, because I’d spent four weeks in the Hong Kong office, was pretty quick work. I then met my officemate, another U.S. law student, and filled out forms until 5:30, where the recruitment assistant found both of us and brought us down to the bar in the building.

Yes, there is a bar in the building. Being part of the canteen (cafeteria to you, Yankee), it’s not quite the nightclub that the bar in Ally McBeal’s office building was, but it does have a fair number of bottled beers and mixed drinks available, as well as nuts and Pringles (of which I ate far too many).

At the bar, I re-met two people I’d met before, and it was decided that seven of us would go out to a Mexican restaurant (which was surprisingly good) in Covent Garden. Someone foolishly suggested walking, which did not make my feet in their 2.5-inch heels happy, but sometimes you gotta do what the group dictates. In any case, I had a very interesting conversation with my officemate, who is five years older than me – I told him that sometimes reality dictates what you do, and he had a strong reaction to that, encouraging me to “be the actor, the agent” and following that up with the story of how he found out what he wanted to do: essentially, a lot of thinking about what he liked about his previous jobs, consulting with his mother to see what she thought he was going to be when he was a kid, reading a self-help book, and asking God.

That sounds much more dismissive than I intend it to be. His final comment was an exhortation to celebrate my uniqueness as a person and find my passion, my calling. I countered by saying that yes, every person is special and unique and each person should celebrate that, but that specialness and uniqueness do not necessarily have to be expressed through work. But I take to heart his next point, which was that yes, it doesn’t have to be work. But it could be.

So maybe I am being too narrow-minded about this job thing. Maybe, since I am interested in mediation and conflict resolution, I should try to get a job at the UN or something. Something more meaningful than helping banks make more money.

It was quite a worthy conversation to have, actually.

Anyway, my impressions so far of the office and its people: more organized and structured than Hong Kong’s office (good), very nice interns (v. good), reasonably good free coffee (not necessary, but good when you can get it). All in all, a very nice day.

I am quite excited to report, additionally, that I stepped out of the Mexican restaurant (which again, had unusually good guacamole – who knew?) and shivered. Shivered! And I have my windows closed and it’s not hot! Blessed coolness, how I’ve missed you.

August 8, 2006
First Outing

I got some nice croissants and pastries for breakfast this morning during my orientation to the London office, which consisted of the two recruitment staff sitting across from me and reading through a Powerpoint presentation. Of interest: “We don’t bring anyone to London whom we don’t expect to extend an offer to. So the offer is yours to lose.”

“But what if I’m a really bad worker?” I mock protested.

“We’ve been doing this a while, so we can sort of tell who we want. Besides, that’s why the offer is yours to lose!”

The Hong Kong office takes one new U.S. lawyer per year, while the London office takes many more. There were three who cycled through the HK office this summer, and if all 3 of us want to go there (and I think the other 2 do), I’m betting that my classmate from Crimson, who is the only one of the three with any claim to Chinese language ability, will take the spot.

Although, come to think of it, she’s getting a masters, so she’ll be out a year later than me and the other guy (who is a bit of drip, judging from our lunch today). Hm…

Received a work assignment this afternoon, and the exchange went like this: “So! I understand you’re keen to get some tax work!”

“Um, well, it’s true that I did list it as one of my interests in the spring,” I hedged as artfully as I could, thinking that my one tax assignment in Mighty Big Firm in New York hadn’t exactly inspired devotion to the field. The partner on the other side of the line paused, as if not sure how to react. “Is that a roundabout enough answer for you?” I joked. “No, no, I’d be glad to do a tax assignment.”

It turned out to be more interesting of a question than I anticipated, but as I discussed later in the evening, the questions are often interesting. It’s finding the answer that’s a total drag, as there is usually no clear answer (hence, the reason why the question is being asked). Law would be a lot more interesting if all I had to do was pose neat questions and have other people answer them.

This evening was a very pleasant outing indeed – one of the British lawyers volunteered to take a group of us around the neighborhood of Clerkenville. As it was a small group of us – four summers, joined by two more for dinner, I got to talk to him a bit, and discovered he had a real love for his country, thus making him a very good guide. He showed us a pretty little garden where a scene from Closer was shot, which featured a wall of tiles honoring people who had died while saving others. Some of them were quite poignant, like the one of a man who died while saving a lunatic woman committing suicide, but then was himself run over by the train. We also saw the area where William Wallace, immortalized by crazy Mel Gibson in Braveheart, was drawn and quartered, and the church where Four Weddings and a Funeral was shot.

It being Britain, the tour also involved a pub crawl. Since the area in which we were walking was near a meat packing area, the pub names were wonderful creations like “The Butcher’s Hook and Cleaver.” That one was in a historic building once used as a bank. We stopped by what the London Times called the most atmospheric pub in London, the Jerusalem Tavern, which was a snug, rather grubby place. And a very chi-chi bar with a champagne and cocktail room on the second floor.

The last stop was at an Indian restaurant, which means in the last three days, I’ve eaten Indian food three times. I’m not complaining.

My fellow interns are really pleasant, friendly, socialized, relaxed folks. Even those from Crimson! They all have experience abroad, and I found them all pretty delightful, actually. (I only had half a pint of beer the whole evening, so it’s not the alcohol talking.) You know how when you get a group of people together, there’s often two or three who are a little too cool for the rest of the group, and make conversation grudgingly? Nary a one in the bunch tonight. That’s not to say I haven’t met a couple dud-y ones, but even the dud-y ones, I think, are just a little less socialized, and I am rather inclined to forgive them.

It continues to be cool and brisk here, and I again sat on my windowsill this morning with my legs sticking out (there’s a narrow ledge just under the window that runs along the outer wall, so not to worry), drinking my coffee and looking out at the city in the fresh, cool breeze. Everything seems so right with the world, somehow.

August 9, 2006
Blah

I didn’t have a bad day today, but I don’t feel as inclined to gush as I did last night. Perhaps I’m tired? I went this morning to a derivatives-structured finance group team meeting, and was bored out of my skull, and wondered how the hell I thought I could do this kind of work. (Although international capital markets/securitization is different, and more interesting, I think.)

I went to a pro bono lunch, and was quoted some nice figures – 75% of the lawyers in the London office do some kind of pro bono work, even if it’s serving breakfast to the homeless once in a while. I signed up for a human rights project (god knows why), and the breakfast outing. My officemate, who is five years older than me, had some inspiring suggestions about getting more organizations to sponsor microfinancing programs (which is where banks give relatively tiny loans to poor people – even on the order of $20 or so – to help them start a business or get out debt, since they can’t get loans anywhere else) (the default rate on these microfinancings is virtually nil, actually). As he spoke, I thought how wonderful it was that he had these ideas and energy. And I thought again, as I have frequently these days, that I don’t really want to DO anything. I don’t particularly want to make money for other people or myself, or open a business, or run any programs, or manage any people. I like observing things and writing about them, and sometimes talking about them. I wouldn’t mind physically creating things like pottery or jewelry. But I don’t really want to DO anything. You know?

I wonder how I got here sometimes.

In the afternoon, I got another work assignment, this time in derivatives, and listened to a young, soft-spoken associate very patiently and considerately give me the short version of what derivatives are, what types exist, and what we’re trying to do with our client. In retrospect, it’s kind of interesting on a theoretical level, but while I was listening with all my might, I couldn’t stop thinking, God, please make it stop. Bored out of my mind. Having the knowledge is nice. Acquiring it is painful.

Throughout the afternoon, I also was emailing Joiner about her upcoming visit to London. She arrives on Saturday, and being a planner, has made plans for tours and shows. I’ve been to the places she’s looking at (Stonehenge, Stratford, Oxford), and strangely have no desire to go again. I think I’m a little burnt out on cities, and don’t want to spend my spare time going back to ones I’ve been to already. So the second weekend she’s here, we’ll do a little freeform exploring, which makes Joiner nervous, but she’s so nice and such a pushover sometimes, that she’s agreed to let me have free rein.

Tonight I went to a really nice Japanese restaurant in Hampstead with my mentor and another summer who worked with my mentor almost exclusively the first month he (the summer) was here. Both of them are nice (for what that’s worth), and they are both incredibly well-traveled, to some amazing places (Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, the Kodiak Islands in Alaska, Botswana and Egypt, to name a few), but for the life of me, they could not carry a conversation. I must have asked several dozen questions throughout the evening, and got asked two in return: where I was from and why I was in Alaska last summer.

I was feeling pretty put-upon by the end of the evening, I tell you. Maybe it was just differences in conversation styles – some people like to talk about events or ideas, I like to talk about people and their stories – although no, they didn’t talk about events or ideas either. Oh, phooey on you people. You OUGHT to be so interesting. You more well-traveled than I am, you’re clearly adventurous and enjoy encountering other cultures -- why aren’t you more interesting? Or rather, why can’t you carry a conversation? Damn you!

Well, at least the food was really good. But really, this gaining weight thing is getting out of hand – I was changing for bed tonight, and my tummy is a small version of the beer gut. So gross.

But in non-gross news, I stepped out of the office tonight and was chilled by the air. Blissful, cool, breezy air! I welcome you!

August 10, 2006
Alternating

So first off, go British intelligence, for uncovering a truly horrific plot to destroy several planes flying from the UK to the US, and (we pray) preventing it from being realized. I turned on the radio this morning to get the weather, and there it was.

I talked about it a little with my officemate and then with two other firm folks on the cab ride to our evening event, and they were interesting conversations indeed. Apparently there has been a movement to try to decrease discrimination against Muslims (I think particularly South Asians) in the UK because of British anti-terrorism laws, which is not likely to attract much support now, I think. The summer associate sitting next to me in the cab who declared that yes, it was difficult to be discriminated against, but that some violation of civil rights was a fair price to pay to prevent terrible plots like this one from becoming reality.

She was trying to be sympathetic, admitting that she hadn’t ever experienced discrimination (she is white), but I felt a twinge of annoyance anyway. I think most Americans – most Arab Americans too, I daresay – would agree with her, but the experience of being viewed suspiciously not just once and not just at airports, must be a truly terrible one, and not one to be blithely disregarded even in the face of (what I consider) a greater evil. And it’s not just suspicion, but active discriminatory behavior, hate crimes, and violence. It’s the impotent rage and frustration of being American through and through, and seeing the distrust, experiencing the casual demotion from human being to possible terrorist, all because of one’s religion or dark skin or surname.

Anyway. I was in DC when 9/11 happened, and I still cannot see the video of the twin towers coming down without feeling a surge of adrenaline. I can’t imagine seeing the new movie about the World Trade Center, or the one that came out earlier about the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. The British last summer dealt with a subway bombing, and are again experiencing the fear and uncertainty, albeit to a much lower level.

Joiner is still planning to fly in tomorrow, arriving on Saturday. I hope the plots really were averted. I hope the lines aren’t too long.

At the office, I started the day with a bare-bones, talk-to-me-like-I’m-five-years-old training session on the practical aspects of international securitization, which is the type of work I did in HK and, I realized today more clearly than ever, is the type of work that interests me the most, almost to the point of real interest, not “interesting relative to my loooow expectations of corporate work.” The talk put into context all of the work I’d done in HK, and I was interested enough to ask a question (which three people thanked me for asking afterwards because it was like one of those questions you’re really glad that someone asks in law school classes because it’s a question that everyone else is thinking but doesn’t want to pose because they’re afraid it’s too basic a question and that they’ll look like a fool).

The rest of the day I emailed with Joiner about her visit, and started reading through a credit support deed, which is something I still don’t really understand, despite having gotten a 40-minute long explanation and having read through most of it. Derivatives! Argh!

This evening, we had a nice event – a cooking class where we made Thai food. Amazingly simple when you have all the ingredients prepared and a nice stainless steel workstation and an instructor telling you exactly what to do and when to do it. It was quite nice – and the green curry chicken that I and my partner made was very, very good. I kid you not – it was TASTY.

It’s funny – I can never answer the question “Do you cook?” right. I have cooked, and at times cooked well, and there are times where I’ve even enjoyed cooking, but I haven’t cooked regularly for four years, and I can’t say I really enjoy it, because plenty of times I don’t. So when my partner, a rather extraordinary tall southern girl who worked in SE Asia and Africa before law school, asked me “Do you cook?” I answered, “Not really,” which made her think, I think, that I knew nothing about cooking. Well, I do – at least enough to identify sesame oil, and how to stir fry things and how to season something. But it’s funny how people are so ready to assume I know nothing, when I think I’ve just been honest or modest about what I actually do know. I don’t know, maybe because I look young?

Anyhoo. We then ended up in a bar down the street, where I had 2 unfortunate conversations with the summer associate who was in HK before me and a fulltime associate who had spent five months there.

Unfortunate Conversation The First: The summer associate, who is a bit… strange, was talking about my officemate (and his too, actually) in HK (Sunshine), who is single and Chinese American, and how there are more women than men in HK, and that women are at a disadvantage there. I didn’t really know how to take this, but I agreeably and truthfully said, “Yeah, it’s hard for Asian American women in Asia.” There was a pause, and then the fulltime associate asked, “Really? Why? Are they discriminated against or something?”

Thinking to myself, god, you’re really not going to make me say this, are you? I carefully replied, “Well, all – a lot of Western men who go to Asia want to date, uh, you know, Lotus Blossom. And they’re not interested in women who are, um, of too similar a cultural background.”

There was a loooong, uncomfortable pause, where I stared off into the distance, and the two men did too. The summer associate is married to a Japanese woman, so I don’t know what he was thinking. But dude, you KNOW that is the truth. It’s extremely disappointing and sorta gross to me, but that’s the way it is.

Unfortunate Conversation The Second: the fulltime associate moved away after this, and then the summer associate asked me if I’d decided anything about future jobs – city, work, anything. I answered that I liked capital markets, but that I hadn’t thought about location or firm, because there wasn’t an answer that jumped out at me like the practice area did. I observed that he had found an answer, though, and asked how he liked London compared to HK (which he had mentioned before he would like to start at).

Then ensued a tricky exchange which was partially my fault:

“You know, they only take one person a year there.”

He nodded.

“And JK (the other summer who was in HK), is getting a master’s, so she won’t be on the job market the same time.”

“Yup,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind starting in London either, but it would be hard to get my wife to uproot and move to HK if we didn’t start there. She doesn’t like Asia. So I kind of need to start in HK.”

Trying to lighten the mood, I joked, “Okay, P, do you want me to give up the HK position to you?”

“No,” he shrugged, “you should go for it if you’re interested. I wouldn’t want to go if they didn’t want me.”

“Huh,” I said. “But what if they said, ‘Look, hk has some language skills, and we really need some help on Korean deals.”

“That’s okay. But I don’t think people there liked me as much as people here do. And I don’t think I did as good a job as I’m doing here. The work’s more interesting here too. And the new associate starting this fall is another Asian American woman, and I would definitely feel like the odd man out. [Out of 10, there will be three Asian American women this fall. All three partners are men – black, white and Asian. Of the three senior associates, two are men.] I don’t know, I couldn’t talk about the same things with them, because I don’t talk about shopping. I didn’t really work with the partners, and I didn’t really get close to the male associates.”

“So why do you want to go to HK?” I wondered. “The work here is more interesting, you think the people like you more here, and you’re doing better work.”

“I like HK,” he said.

“Huh. So we liked HK for the exact opposite reasons,” I said. He nodded. “But at least we agree that they’re really stressed there,” I said, mediator-ishly.

I think that ended the conversation.

I don’t think he’s actually a putz, though he sounds like one here. He’s an odd one, yes, and he definitely was trying to get a read on if I was going to pose a problem for his plans, which I don’t blame him for. I suppose it must be frustrating to know what you want but be faced with potentially very serious competition, from a person who doesn’t know what she wants. But -- what an icky conversation!

The rest of the night at the bar was sort of fun but I felt sort of detached. I was sitting with a summer who loves to travel, so we talked about the Trans-Siberian railroad and going after the bar, and what it was like to move around a lot as a kid, and the experience of being homesick for places you’ve only visited – stuff like that which was really nice to bond over. Then a woman from my school, Prom Queen, who is ridiculously fun and funny, joined us, and they started doing accents and charades, and I mostly listened and laughed, but wasn’t really participating. That is what I mean by detached. But it was pretty funny to hear Prom Queen attempt a British accent, and be made fun of, and to hear the other woman do an Aussie accent, which freaked Prom Queen out, for some reason.

And then, around when the gay recruitment officer started leaning in a bit too close with someone’s gay friend who was along for the ride, we thankfully went home. And that was the day.

So in sum: British intelligence rocks, discrimination sucks, coconut milk and green curry chicken makes my stomach sing with joy, clueless white men who’ve done time in Asia also kind of suck, and detached fun can also be kind of fun, although it would have been better to participate.

Must to bed.