Okay, so it’s been around a week and a half since I touched down in LA. I’ve made a few observations and compared the USA to England a fair bit since that time. So far, it seems American people LOVE to eat and shop. That’s taken up the majority of my time; going to malls and cursing my family for not being rich because I can’t afford anything and eating out one of the gazillion fast food places littered around.

Eating out in England is a pretty easy thing to do because we have to little choice. There’s the typical fast food places like McDonalds, Burger King and KFC, the Indian and Chinese Takeaways and fish and chip shops on every corner and restaraunts where us poor students are too poor to even look at, let alone eat in. Over here, deciding where to eat is like taking a fucking exam. It hurts my brain.
There’s McDonalds, Wendys, Arbys, In n Out, Pizza Hut, Round Table, Chipotle, Pinkberrys, Wetzel’s Pretzels, Hotdog on a Stick, etc, etc.

These people LOVE to eat shit.

They got MEXICAN food. And it’s good. Really good! I think in the whole of England, there’s about 5 Mexican people. And two of them own Mexican restaraunts. And both these places are in Brighton, which is lucky. In fact, all the food here is good and bitch slaps any cuisine you’ll find in England. Chinese food? It tastes amazing, unlike that stock, preserved shit we get back home. Japanese food? EVERYWHERE. Japanese people? EVERYWHERE. And it’s cheap too. Sushi back home runs for about 25 pounds, here you can eat all you want for like $8. CRAZY!!!

People I’ve met who have been to England are always saying how the food is terrible and how much they miss the stuff from over here. I’ll be one of these people in two and a half weeks.

Transport.
Everyone drives. I was expecting big lights and a big deal, driving down LA but it’s really just big, wide open spaces with the occasional takeout place in between. The only walking I’ve done so far is around CostCo. Public transport doesn’t seem to exist, which makes shit quite difficult for me and I need to rely on my friends to be my babysitters/drivers all the time, which I’m sure they appreciate.

People?
FRIENDLY. I love the people here, they’re almost TOO friendly. Like they have a hidden agenda or some shit. You walk into a store and the people working there – strangely enough – seem HAPPY to see you. What the fuck? You make eye contact with someone as you walk past and they actually DON’T threaten to beat the shit out of you, but SMILE. Weird. It might be because of my British accent, I don’t know but the people here are very, very nice. More often than not they can’t understand me, but they seem to like that.

And I can’t stress this point enough: EVERYONE here is ridiculously good looking. I’ve never wanted to have sex with so many people in my life. Walking down through a mall, sitting down and eating in an Italian restaraunt, driving down the street; I always seem to want to throw off my clothes and get to work (sorry). In England, there’s some nice looking ladies. In America, the women make you die inside everytime you walk past them because you’ll never see them again. Like, WOW. Even the ugly chicks are good looking here. People tell me to see Vegas, the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood but the girls are way too distracting. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sexually frusturated in my entire life… I’ve only been to a strip club once, though.

So yeah, there’s a lot to eat, a lot to buy and a lot of lovely ladies to stalk.

The things I miss in Brighton are my friends, the clubs, the public transport (believe it or not), how wacky and busy it seems and actually making use of the motor functions in my legs. So far, I’d say if I had to take anything from America back with me, it would be the food and the people (mostly the women).

Right, right. 7 hours until I get on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean to California. Despite not really having slept in the last 24 hours, I’m still wide awake. I think I’ll save my sleep for the painfully long plane journey.

The more I think about it, the more I realise how stupid this whole thing was, haha. I just booked a ticket there and sprung that shit on the three people I know in the middle of the most family oriented parts of the year. Expecting a nice family gathering, all together for the first time in a year, gathered around a table with festive spirits, good food, good company and what feels like a lifetime of stories to tell?

Well shut the fuck up, because here comes strange English boy, Kenny in your vicinity. The turkey better not be dry, or else I will WRECK your shit. What? There’s no turkey? CHICKEN? What the fuck, I hope you have a high pain threshold.

I always liked to describe myself as being “inquistive without being intrusive”. In one swift click of a mouse button, I just intruded on Christmas and New Years at the same time. I put it down to my habit of taking things too literally. I wish it was out of blissful and innocent ignorance, but no. I do it because I can.

“It was nice meeting you, you should come to California some time!”
“Okay. Done.”
“What?”
“Tickets are booked.”
“Huh? Wait, when did-”
“Christmas, bitch. Better have me some good presents, too.”

People need to stop being polite and start being more blunt. If not for their sake, then for the love of God, do it for mine. I can’t afford to keep making these impulsive and weird decisions, haha. I have little to no money, I have no idea what I’m going to do out there other than leech off 3 Asian girls I met a few months ago. I calculated that I’ve known them for about 6 nights; that’s like, 60 hours at most and two and a half days max. It’s either dedication, or stupidity. I’m leaning more towards stupidity. What was supposed to be a 7 day visit has been extended to 25 days. Ouch.

I expect to land soon in the United States and into a million awkward situations where my hosts struggle to find me something to do like a babysitter with a very attractive and intelligent kid who was just dropped on their doorstep at the most inconvenient of times. A better situation would be everyone pulling each other’s hair and fighting over my custody, but perhaps because of paranoia, I resemble unprotected sex more; at first it seemed like a good idea, but CONGRATULATIONS: YOU NOW HAVE AIDS.

We’ll see where this next mis-adventure takes me.

This is amusing; I look back at earlier entries here blog and how bad I was at pulling all nighters. Now I’ve become a bit of an expert.

A few weeks ago I got my first essay of this year back and scored a lowly 49. My tutor calmly and coolly ripped me to shreds, telling me that “it was abysmal and I was generous in my marking it.” Ouch. After this essay I found out about the opportunity to spend a term in my final year abroad, which sounded pretty damn exciting. As much as I love Brighton, I think going to India gave me a severe case of cabin fever upon returning to England and so, I jumped at a chance to spend anytime I could in another country. I missed the chance to spend the WHOLE of this year abroad because I was too lazy to inquire, so I made sure I applied this time around. The only catch was that you had to have a 55% average and have a decent attendance record.

In other words, I was pretty fucked. Last year I started off well enough in my essays, but later on in the year I got REALLY into drinking myself into next week, finding beauty sleep more important than lectures and seminars (I’m a pretty ugly guy) and ignoring any and all work until the very, very last minute. At the end of the year, I was tasked with 3 essays all for the same day. That week I decided it was more important to soak up the sun at the beach and repeatedly get drunk in the afternoon and ended up facing all three essays with a deadline of less than 24 hours. After coming closer to suicide than I ever have before, I managed to get them in, but the marks were pretty crap. I ended up scraping my first year with an overall 53% mark.

So already I was off to a bad start at getting that placement abroad. I spent more of my time this term looking for someone to replace me in my old house and looking for a new one than studying, and it showed in my first essay for English Literature. I had another one a couple of days later and spent over 24 hours in the library, tanking myself up on Lucozade and coffee, not starting my essay until around 7am (14 hours after I got in the library).
I also had to get a reference letter from one of my tutors to reccommend me for the placement, which was another spanner in the works because for the most part, none of my tutors had a clue who I was because of my crappy attendance. I went and sucked up to Polly, my media studies tutor and the only teacher I got on with and who’s class I did well in and she agreed to do it.

The next week I found out I got a 68 in my latest essay!

So Polly sent off the reference as she now FINALLY had something positive to write about me. Not wanting to let her, or myself down, I went back to boring old London for a week to get my act together and actually read some books for once, seeing as how I’m studying English Literature. That proved to be a bad move as when I got there, my family automatically pounced on me as the ‘Tech Support Guy’. Apparently, because I know how to use a toaster AND turn on a computer, I’m the next Bill Gates. So I had to fix the wireless Internet, install an external hard drive, install anti-virus software, get phones connected to the wi-fi, backup the computer’s files, configure mail domains and reconfigure Robocop’s software so he can get back to fighting crime. I spent more time in front of a screen than a book and had my hands full of wires and cables instead of pens and highlighters.

My parents later decided to leave the country (finally) and go for a holiday in Goa, but it was a bit late. I came back to Brighton two days later, heading straight for the library and spending the entire night there. That was yesterday and today I’m back again. Having gone through 2000 words so far, I need to write a 2000 word short story and a critical reflection on it which amounts to 1500 words. Fun times! It’s 1:30 am at the moment and I haven’t really got anywhere, I’m just faced with 7 pretty intimidating looking books and my laptop.

How many all-nighters have I pulled in this place now?
The first time for my media essay, which ended with a great result for me. I made it through the entire night without feeling even a little bit stressed or tired.
The second time was a little less productive… like, WAY less productive. If I tried, I could probably never be less productive in my life. I had no essays or work in for a while, but I decided to join my friend Fiona in her all night session because I thought the first one was pretty ‘fun’, believe it or not. This time around, it wasn’t I spent the first portion of the night watching Prison Break and Heroes, then moved on to trying to force myself to work, which didn’t happen because I wasn’t feeling that delicious last minute pressure. Instead, I contemplated for ages whether it was worth booking a ticket to California to see some friends in December. Apparently it was, as I ordered the ticket and in around 6 days I should be landing in Los Angeles. That night in the library cost me £366 and really fucked around with my sleeping patters; I still find myself waking up at 3pm and going to sleep at around 5am because of it.

These all-nighters are becoming quite standard for me. I’m actually enjoying them a little bit now because there’s none of those bloody distractions… except for writing in this bloody blog, of course. I’m really liking being forced to walk through all the isles of books and being forced to sit down and read them. For once, I actually feel like I’m learning something when I do this and it’s always fun to run into a friend in the maze of literature who is in the same shit as you, frantically trying to get an essay done before the sun rises and reminds you that the time is ticking…
It’s starting to feel like home, this place. You have your neighbours, some of who you might be friendly and on speaking terms with, and you’ll stop and say hello to them. Standard things to talk about include how stressed you are, even if you’re not, because it’ll either make them feel better or give them something to talk about. You might want to ask how long they’ve been there, when there deadline is, etc, etc. More often than not you’ll try and avoid eye contact so you can skip the boring conversation altogether and get back to checking Facebook every 2 minutes doing your work. Frequent visits to free your bladder of all the energy drinks and coffee happen, and you’ll now find yourself familiar and friendly with the security guard at the reception, who in the early hours falls asleep a bit.

It’s only 2am now, but my eyelids are getting incredibly heavy and I’m feeling kinda drowsy… I haven’t had my fix of Lucozade and I doubt the empty cafe downstairs has any left in the vending machines. And if they do, I doubt they’ll take my £20 note, the only source of money I got. Maybe I should start doing my schoolwork earlier than a day before it’s supposed to be handed in?

Argghh.

Okay, 7 books to look through, one 2000 word short story to write, a critical essay on it of 1500 words and 14 hours to go. And then I can hibernate for a week.

December
From the 14th: procrastinating in London

1. December 10th: 2 Essays due.
   6 Days
2. December 11th: Start packing.
   7 Days
3. December 16th: Fly to California.
   12 days

January
From the 12th: Returning to London

1. January 13th: Move into new house.
   1 day
2. January 15th: 1 essay due.
   3 days
3. January 16th: Death from liver failiure.
   4 days

I’m sitting in the spare room at house in London. I call it ‘house’ as opposed to ‘home’ because I’m a believer that home is where the heart is, and my blood just ain’t pumping around here. I’ve come back to settle the score with the two essays haunting me until next Wednesday and then I’ll be free from this pretty eventful term of being homeless and well on my way to going to California for an ickle break from the weather and work here. Today marked the day that I finally got myself a room in Central Brighton for the next 6 months for a very fair price indeed. Things are looking up!

For the most part, my area of London is uneventful and boring and I always resent coming back here because of it. Having whiny and bitchy parents around, having none of the wacky characters and independence makes me feel pretty grateful for living in Brighton, which I always neglect until I come back to this shithole. I’ve come back to blitz these essays and get away from couchsurfing for a while so when I come back to my new home, I’ll be loving it. Also, there’s the free food being put on the table all the time, which is a plus.

Other than proper food, a bed and heating, there’s one thing I’ve missed the hell out of since I left my first term at University in June: music. MUSSSIIIIICCC! Aarrrgghh! Everyday, the first thing I would do is jump out of bed and flip on my harddrive, select my favourite tunes on my laptop and out of my speakers, feeling the base through the floor and forcing my feet to move as I brushed my teeth. MUSIC!! Before I came to University my playlist consisted of about 15 songs from the 80’s, but after moving in with a DJ and making friends with a fiend for Funk music, I bought a harddrive which now has over 1GB of music, which for the less geeky means over 100 days of song and sound. I discovered a whole new world of rhytm and beat, artists and genre that in my past life of being acoustically retarded would never have been able to comprehend. It was like some kind of drug, giving me a tremendously scary amount of energy and drive, from when my eyes fluttered open to the sunrise, bouncing through the day and getting down at sunset.

When I packed up my stuff at the end of term, my laptop, harddrive and speakers went with all of it. Staying on campus was amazing and although I could dig Suria and Robin’s leftover tracks which we played on the sound system we found in the trash and set up in our kitchen, it was missed greatly when Robin moved out. Now on my own, I spent a lot of time going down to the computer rooms late at night, which was empty apart from a handful of mature students emailing whoever and doing whatever. I would plug in my earphones, get on Youtube and browse for some of my favourite songs, obviously in the mainstream as the more obscure songs I liked were nowhere to be found.

I remember my friend from Mexico, Juan, inviting me to a bar to listen to his singer and songwriter friend, also from Mexico. The language barrier prevented me from understanding the stories his soft and soothing voice told the audience, but it didn’t matter. Like a starving dog, I sat tapping the floor with my feet, the table with my hand and my head nodding in sync with his guitar. Deprived of music for so long, I had fallen completely under his spell. I recall having so little money that I couldn’t really afford to eat properly, yet I was so happy to hear good music after so long that I shelled out around £20 for a foursome of his CDs.

On the occasion that I went to a club during this time I went mad, my favourite place being the basement of Jazz club Casablanca with their live bands. Karaoke nights in the campus bar were infectious; I a drunken haze I swayed side to side, miming along with the squealing of intoxicated students screaming down a microphone.

I left Brighton’s endless buffet of clubs, bars and music whenever I needed it and I ended up in India, where good music was literally a million miles away. My time was spent in a house where electricity went out for hours at a time, in a developing city where there was no sign of the sound I wanted to seduce my senses and ease my eardrums from the constant onslaught of car horns. The five star resaraunt we frequented quite often for good food and beer didn’t rescue me; they usually had only one song on a constant and eternal loop, including strange variations of Christmas songs (in INDIA… during AUGUST) which coupled with the gale force air conditioning, made you think you were in some kind of fucked up version of the North Pole.
Taxi drivers most often played Indian songs which featured the most disgustingly high pitched singing in the world and I struggled to understand how anyone could take it seriously. Sometimes they had songs of prayer (also disgustingly high pitched) which were completely montonous and lasted for 15 minutes, making it sound like the CD kept skipping. The latest Bollywood film, ‘Singh is Kinng’ featured a ridiculous cameo at the end from Snoop Dogg who struggled to rap for an Indian audience. Despite this, kids would often walk around with their phones out, blasting out the song and trying to look ‘gangsta’ because for the first time in their life, they were listening to music by a black guy. More often than not, men and teenage boys were trying to win a trophy in being the most annoying prick in the world by playing the music on their phones as loud as they could on bus journeys which lasted over 5 hours for everyone to hear. Surprisingly, nobody minded but I found it amusing how they thought it was cool and hip to be listening to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

Then I got back to Brighton and found I forgot to bring my cable for my harddrive and so, deprived once again of my precious playlists. Clubs once again put blood in my empty veins, as did trawling through the computers of my friends and listening to their music. Now back in London, I found the cable and hooked myself back up to my harddrive…

YES! It was well worth the wait! MUSAKKK! This music, this feeling, it’s been way too long!! When I hit ‘play’ I was hit with a hurricane of ecstacy which takes me back in time to over half a year ago, back to my room. I can actually feel myself sitting in that chair, leaning back, chilling and relaxing. It’s Summer at last, there’s no pressure, no stress… the time is around 4PM, the sun is slowly climbing across the sky to the east, slowly setting and hiding behind the trees in the far off distance. It’s not as hot as earlier on in the day, but there’s a pleasent, warm breeze winding through my open windows and into my room. Outside, people are sitting on their roof, their balconies, on the hill and chatting away, laughing and taking in the atmosphere. Music plays loudly from the bar and people are sipping on their beers and Pimms. Today was good, tonight looks great and tomorrow holds a lot of promise. Life is good. I got music, I got sun, I got everything and it all. This is living!

I might seem a tad overexcited and extreme, but this feeling is amazing! Makes me realise how good my first year at University is and how good my second should be… and will be, henceforth!

When I look back at all this, the simple thing to do would be getting an MP3 player, I guess. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about never having my music collection more than a button push away at any time. But I’ve been quite against the idea of buying an MP3 player for a long time.

It just seems to impair my sense of hearing and focus, which I love. It’s not just that I would prefer to hear a car coming at me in the middle of the road or a knife wielding maniac coming at me from down the street. I just love being aware of everything. I just recently ordered an MP3 player because it was cheap, but instantly felt guilty as if I had paid a £2 whore for sex. I didn’t understand why I did it, so I asked all my friends why and where they listen to their MP3 players:

“When I’m on the bus/train.”
“When I’m walking to stuff.”
“When I’m in bed.”

I still couldn’t understand. When you’re on the bus or train there’s plenty to see or think about, that’s especially true when you’re walking to stuff. And when I’m in bed, I’m usually there for a reason: to SLEEP. I don’t know, maybe I’m just so in love and into the world around me that I want to take it all in. When I was India there was so much to see and do that I would have hated to have Kanye West telling me his lifestory as I walked the streets aimlessly. More often than not I’m with friends, who I love to talk to… and I have to admit, I get royally pissed off when one of my friends refuses to participate in conversation and instead opt to listen to their frigging MP3 player. I might be arrogant enough to say I prefer listening to my own thoughts, trying to make sense of the world during the day instead of listening to music.

I also like the concept of deprivation. Too much of a good thing is bad for you, as they say. Today – right now – is the first time I’ve heard this music in a hell of a long time and it’s amazing. I’m not sure if I’d get the same kick out of it or the build up if I had it with me at all times. I enjoy relaying the rhythym and lyrics inside my head, humming it and looking forward to getting home, laying back and listening to the music. Perhaps I’m being a little overambitious in thinking even in everyday life, there’s too much to see, to hear and discover to be rendered semi-deaf because of an MP3 player. I can’t imagine in the next few days being able to listen to music what with all the work I have to do, all the people I need to catch up with… on the plane journey to California I’ll probably be too excited/nervous and excited to be on my way to the States. I want to take in everything, remember it all.

But the MP3 player is on its way to me as I type this. I’m not sure if I’ll risk having this effect the music has taken on me being worn off by having all the music in the world at my fingertips of continue my old fashioned ways.

MUSSAKKKKKK