Almost November

My "English 2-Month Anniversary" is approaching, but I won't celebrate in half months. So come November 16th, I'll pour myself a glass of wine and toast my own survival.

Nothing has gone right today, and yet I'm not in an awful mood. I will say I'm tired, but usually after days like today I'd be grumpy, so I'm extremely grateful for whatever reason the crankiness hasn't gotten to me. I woke up freezing, of course, though we were expecting to get mini-heaters in the mail today, and I was hoping it'd come by the time I was up and about (the mail comes between 9 and 10), but they very unluckily arrived as soon as I left the house at half past 10. I promptly slipped a few steps away from the front door outside, and skinned my knee through my jeans -- so I need to get my hands on some band-aids and a sewing kit to repair the hole in my pants (they never say pants here, pants mean your underwear, "trousers" go over underwear). I went into town to the post office to mail off my absentee ballot (don't even get me started on the hassles I've had with that process) and found that the post office has no FedEx services and was directed to the nearest one in Huddersfield, a mere 30 minute drive away.

So I trudged back to campus and wandered into the student center for a cup of coffee to find both my Wachovia and British debit cards rejected in two different coffee shops. Extremely alarmed I had to look up both of my balances online, was puzzled to find I of course still had money in both accounts, tried using each again, was rejected again, and then left the Union and walked to the bank to try the card there, and it worked -- apparently the student union card machines were all down. So I walked back to the union to buy a ticket to my friend Conor's play (his first theater performance!) and set my notebook down on the box office counter to put my ticket in my wallet. Then I walked to class, opened my bag to find my notebook for my Icelandic translation, and realized I'd forgotten the notebook in the union. I asked Alaric, my professor, if I could run and get it and of course he let me, but by the time I'd run back to the union, the box office had closed and wouldn't re-open for another couple hours. I had to go back to class empty-handed because my bag and coat were still there, and sat through an hour of valuable learning time, kicking myself because I couldn't correct my translation mistakes, something I'm having an awfully hard time with. And since I wanted to make a curry for dinner, I walked to the shop around the corner for a jar of curry sauce. And they were closed. I ended up borrowing some from my roommate Joe.

And at the end of the day, I'm warm. My heater is humming. And that's all I need.

This election is stressing me out. At a party last Friday I was pestered by several, several, several people about the media coverage and I wanted very much to walk away every time I was accosted. I've been arguing with the people back in the States about where I should send my ballot and I'm fed up with the whole thing. Before I left I tried to get my absentee ballot twice only to finally find out they wouldn't release them until after the 19th. So I submitted my request when I got here and waited for over 3 weeks to get my ballot and finally called them when I was worried about not getting to mail it back in time. The woman at the Fulton County voting registration office told me I couldn't get a ballot because I wasn't registered with Fulton County. I was so confused -- I'd called them before I left and that's where they had told me I was registered, because they'd asked me what address was on my driver's license and of course I responded my Fulton County address because I was looking right at my driver's license. Apparently, the woman who registered me to vote at the Blue Ridge DMV accidentally forgot to register me with Fulton, even though that's the address that's on my license. So I won't have time to submit another request. I have to FedEx (and FedEx only) my Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (an extreme case ballot) ASAP, only, when I paid for the postage online and printed it out, they have my voting details as registered for Fulton County, where I just found out I CAN'T send my vote. So I had to re-pay and re-print the ballot to get it sent to the right county. I'm done voting. I'm done, done, done.

I've started reading the most massive book of my life, "Clarissa," by Samuel Richardson. Needless to say, Clarissa is a complicated young lady who loves to write letters to other people describing her complexities and accomplishing little in her whopping 1,494 pages. I find myself empathizing with her woes but also wishing she weren't quite so verbose of a woman -- the book barely fits in my schoolbag. I've kept it quite near me over the past 2 days and I believe we'll be close for a decent while yet. I'm affected by her speech, though, and want to end all my letters the way she does:
"But here I conclude these unavailing expostulations with the assurance that I am, and ever will be,
Your Affectionate
Clarissa Harlowe."
"Here I break off to begin another letter to you, with the assurance, meantime, that I am, and ever will be
Your Equally Affectionate and Grateful
Clarissa Harlowe."

I celebrated Halloween Tuesday night with two of my roommates. I dressed up as an obnoxious American tourist, camera round the neck, hawaiian shorts, baseball cap, sunglasses, and swimming trunks. I had problems understanding people all night and "Say Cheese" was my favorite phrase. I also took a ridiculous amount of photographs.

My music life has very much improved lately. I'm listening to more music than I have all year and finally changing my old go-to's, branching out and listening to new things. It's unbelievably refreshing.

The stairs in my house are wonderful. I've always been fascinated with windows, stairs (and banisters), doors, and doorknobs. I have wonderfully frosted windows and wonderfully winding stairs here. They're not wooden, unfortunately, and the banister is a little less than lackluster, but they're still wonderful. We have so many -- I climb 2 sets to get to my room and the creak and pull and tug of my feet on the thin carpet makes me excited to walk up them. I'd climb them even if I didn't live on the third floor.

The antique shops around the corner make me ache -- ache for a time and place for old typewriters and faux-fur coats and elbow length gloves and the hands small enough to fit into elbow-length gloves. I tappered away at one of the typewriters, and the lady behind the counter was nice enough to lend me a piece of paper to practice on. The one I loved the most still had ink in its ribbon, no sticking or missing keys, a nice turquoise hard-cover case-top that snapped on to the top of it, and a swinging handle. I can't validate my reasons for wanting an antique typewriter -- besides the fact that it's heavier than all my books combined and so couldn't travel home with me to the States, I wouldn't exactly type my essays on it. But it makes me feel romantic. A poem or two typed out on it would be beautiful. I found another shop in town, very unluckily, that fits every little bit of me. Not one dress in the entire store didn't fill my heart. I have the worst luck. Is it worse to love and live without requite than not love at all? I don't know, but I wanted to take every dress out of that store home with me and couldn't. I love knowing it's there, but I hate knowing I can't have them. A poor little student like me shouldn't buy more than she can afford and more than she can take back to the States with her. But they're there, they're there, they're there.