21 Jan

Day started out fairly low-key; I was woken up around 9:30 by a fire alarm, though this time it was ringing in the dorm next door. I could see sunlight through the curtains and despite my grogginess I managed to pull them open a bit to confirm my fire alarm theory. Sure enough, I saw a crowd of students standing around the dining hall. I tried to go back to sleep but could not until the stupid bell stopped going off. I didn’t wake up again until nearly 12:30 and to my surprise the sun was still shining as strongly as it did hours earlier. To my even greater surprise it continued more or less like that the whole day! This was the first time I got to enjoy a blue sky in my dorm. Yes, that’s how bad it’s been. I’m taking pictures every day from my window and when I finally get those posted you’ll be able to see the comparison.

Feeling hungry, I decided on some PB+jam sandwiches (I’d missed lunch) but found to my regret that my bread had molded. Boo hoo. I was planning on going to the grocery store anyway, this just prompted me to go earlier than expected. After my little shopping trip I tidied my room a bit, chatted with the neighbors, and basically puttered around reading and such until dinner. Dinner was an amorphous blob called “vegetable curry and rice” that I just couldn’t finish. It’s not that it was terrible, maybe too much chili powder and little else, I just wasn’t that hungry (I had a late lunch around 14:30). The Bond (of the James variety) Party is tonight and pretty much all of us are going. I unfortunately left all my cocktail dresses and home and the guys surprisingly failed to bring along their tuxedos. Can you believe it? So I’m not dressing up or anything though Lainey and some of the other American girls are doing something great. Instead of being the traditional Bond girls and wearing something fabulous and sexy, they’re going to be morning-after Bond girls still in bed, complete with tousled hair, bed sheets, and perhaps a bottle of wine. I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I can’t wait to see how it’ll play out. Well, it’s off to the Bond Party! 20:23

24:50: I came back to the room just after midnight. The party was quite an experience; I don’t believe I’ve ever been around so many drunk people at once. The amount these people drink is quite prodigious as well; I saw people with two or even three bottles in their hands after the bar closed. KCH had hired some dealers and real gambling people to set up a roulette table and a blackjack table. I paid my 50p for £100 pounds worth of chips (just 10 of them) and entered the game of blackjack. At first my play was dismal and for a while I hovered at the edge of losing. My luck turned after what felt like an eternity and I ended up finishing with £680. Not too shabby, though I only ended up in 3^rd place. Yvonne won. The play rather frustrated me because it seemed like all the drunken people had all the luck. They would get blackjacks and it took them a while to even realize it! But I know it’s really all in the cards. The party was held in the bar and common room and after the gambling closed, I wandered around the room for a bit watching people and shooting a bit of video. Drunk people are interesting to watch. Most of the guys were predictably in black suits and white shirts with a few variations. Some guys wore camo which was also pretty neat (several are enlisted in the British equivalent of ROTC called just OTC). The American girls looked amazing:

From left to right: Kate, Sarah (another JYA), Margaret, and Lainey. They definitely drank all the wine in those bottles (though they didn’t smoke; that was just for looks). Before the party got in full swing, Colin (one of the OTC guys and a Brit I met soon after arriving here) informed us of a side room where an N64 was set up with, naturally, Goldeneye. I challenged Gregg, Lou (an American from New Jersey who’s actually getting his undergraduate degree in classical archaeology from King’s), and Colin to a match. Colin was a little surprised at my familiarity with the game which wasn’t too surprising. He had to leave shortly after we started so it was just me, Gregg, and Lou. We played Stack with Automatics and set the kill count to 20. I soundly beat them both: 20 (me)- 13 (Gregg)- 9 (Lou). Lou tried the excuse that he’d had too much to drink before we started but I didn’t let that fly. Gregg’s excuse was more valid; he wasn’t wearing his glasses because his character (the Man with the Golden Gun) didn’t wear glasses. For the occasion, Gregg slicked back his hair and made a golden (orange really) gun out of paper and cardboard. He was proud of his gun:

All in all the party was fairly amusing. At one point I made it over to the balcony that looks out onto the courtyard of KCH. The sky had remained clear for the whole day and I was thrilled to see my first starry night in London. Orion (my favorite) was shining brilliantly in the cold night and it made me happy.

I’m a little tired now (not really sure why; I did wake up quite late after all) so I think I’ll go to bed soon after chatting with the family for a bit. Cheers!