Life Passing By The Window of a Train

all right, so still no pictures of my room yet, but that's for two reasons. the first being that i still haven't gotten all of my posters and stuff from the loft in my last place, so i'm still not fully decorated. the second being that the internet access here has been down for the last two days so even if i wanted to post pictures i couldn't. however, if that is the case, you may ask yourself how i am posting this entry. great question! through the wonders of modern technology i am able to link my laptop to my mobile phone via an infrared connection and then use GPRS on the mobile phone to connect to the internet. brilliant! the only problem is that GPRS is really, REALLY expensive, and they charge by the amount of data transfered, so it's not really practical for anything more than e-mail and blog entries (generally text-based activities). it is kind of cool to think that i could send an e-mail from anywhere i can get a mobile phone signal though.

at any rate, it has kind of been nice not having regular internet access the last couple days. well, in many ways its a pain in the ass, but it has forced me to get settled in and get to know the other people here, which is a good thing. oh speaking of which, i guess i should describe the place where i'm living.

well, it's called "The Old Mission Hall" (or Mish for short) because it used to be, well, the old mission hall for St. Clement's church. At some point it stopped being a mission hall and they converted it into living accomodations. So now I am one of 10 people living here...5 on the top floor and 5 on the bottom. We each have our own room that locks but share kitchen, bathroom and living room facilities. Everyone I've met so far seems to be in their 20s and they have all been really friendly. It's a great location in Oxford and the rent is super-cheap, at least by Oxford standards. And the rooms, man, they're just incredible...I can't wait to get pictures up here!

In other news, I love the BBC! Don't get me wrong, I love the CBC too, but they just don't have the same quality programming that one can find on the BBC. Last night I ended up randomly watching this documentary on BBC2 about this muslim lady in Dubai who was running a shelter out of her house, essentially. She took in battered wives and children who were forced into camel racing and stuff. I think the lady was born & grew up in the United States but her parents were Arab? I'm not sure...anyhow, it was so inspiring to see her and the work she was doing...nothing short of incredible! You just don't get stuff like that anywhere else...

Well, I'm going away to Wales this weekend with some friends from hOME. This will actually be my first time in Wales, seeing as I've yet to make it there. But hopefully I will post some more before that though. Maybe even get some pictures up. Until then...