This is 1 Dec

I've been avoiding posting, so here you have a few very stream of consciousness updates on our life in London.

1. We still have no shower. It has now been 40 days that we have not had access to our en suite. We are super lucky that we have a second bathroom (which has a tub only). However, it has effectively now been 7 weeks out of the 8 weeks we have lived in this flat that we have been shower-less. In the last 7 weeks, I've taken three showers, which were in Rome. I recognize that we are very lucky overall and that this whole ordeal is a real first world problem, but it's also really stressful, obnoxious, and driving me crazy.

2. My ugly feelings toward plumbers has reached an all-time unfathomed high.

3. I am still working! In fact, on Friday, I worked an 11 hour day and won my first court case. Well, the barrister "won" it, but I did a lot of work with my colleagues and I was present at the hearing, so it felt very satisfying. Its good to feel like a real lawyer.

4. Our obsession with the International Street food fair on Sundays has plateaued. We still love it, but it has been kicked from being the highlight of the week.

5. We managed to find Americans to share Thanksgiving with us. On Thursday, we hit up Pepperdine's group and had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with our fellow law students. It was really nice. On Saturday, I baked three pies and a sweet potato casserole. The store only had pink and white marshmallows. We made it work. The pies turned out excellent. We took the sweets to a feast with our new British/American friends that we met in September. They've turned out to be lovely friends, and they introduced us to even more really lovely people. It was a great day.

6. My two new favorite phrases that will forever be incorporated into my verbiage:

"cant be bothered" = cannot bring myself to do that

 Example, "I cannot be bothered to do the dishes right now." 

"muppet" = a person who is worthless  

Example, "Those plumbers are a buncha muppets!" 

7. Brian and I shared the one year of our engagement last Friday. We were in Rome and it was a lovely day. Brian had never been to Italy, so we had a great time. I met a colleague from working in Madrid and spent wonderful quality time with her. On Saturday, we were filled with sentimental thoughts about where we were one year ago and how much has happened since then. I look back on that weekend with the fondest of memories with our closest friends and family. I was filled with warmth all weekend, still reeling from the event even if it was one year ago.

8. Grey doesn't bark like a Brit. Not yet, at least. But she has learned to pee on concrete. And she actually likes the cobble stone. Great success!

9. I think that Starbucks holiday cup "scandal" was one of the stupidest things in the 21st century.

10.  Brian and I will be in Cincinnati and Chicago for about one week around Christmas. I will be eat Chic-Fil-A at least ten times, Brian will demand Skyline at least fifteen times, and I will spend over two hours frolicking the aisles of Target.

The California Effect

After a year of living in California, I am heightened to seeing it absolutely everywhere while I am abroad. I see t-shirts walk past me with a colorful sketch and cursive Malibu letters and think, "I go to school there." Tshirts from UCLA or Santa Monica are common too. 

Yesterday, I was on the treadmill at the gym and I observed a student walk onto the treadmill next to me, and select "Los Angeles Run" on her screen as she put her headphones into her ears. I couldn't help but glance over as she was running next to me to see her screen lighting up with images of Palm trees, Venice beach, the Hollywood sign, sidewalk with stars... Incredible! 

It's challenging for people other than Americans to understand that Americans can be from all over the place. So when strangers or new friends ask a group of us (Pepperdine students), "Where are you from?" instead of participating in an ordeal of "I'm from Atlanta, he's from Boston, she's from Michigan, he's from Pittsburg and she's from California... but we all live and go to school in California now." We have deduced this process to "we are from California." One reaction was particularly remarkable when he swooned as if Angelina Jolie had just given him a kiss on the cheek. This is the California effect. Igniting envy in a stranger at the very words- I live in California. Yes, the same one in the movies. THAT Los Angeles. Yes.

Indeed, by many definitions of the word "from," we are from California. I've always battled this question. Where did I come from, as in where was I before London- Rwanda. Some people answer this question with where they were born. Texas. Where have you lived the most amount of time? Georgia. Where do you live now? London. Where am I going back to after London? California. 

Where do you call home? All of these places. 

This is always the time of year that I get homesick. And by homesick, I mean sick for HOME. Interestingly, more and more that seems to be some place between Atlanta and York, Alabama. It's very much both of those places. And it's very much where the people that I hold dearest to me are- which these days is just about all over the world. This only becomes challenging when they gather in one place and I have the worst "fear of missing out" pain in my chest, just burning to be there, with them, at home. As this past weekend was the LSU game in Tuscaloosa, many of my favorite people in the world were in some of my favorite places in the world. And I wanted more than anything to be right there with them. 

But this is the best part about being so far- when I do come home (to any of those homes) to those people, it's going to be the sweetest. It's going to be the best. It's a reunion that makes all the distance and time dissipate completely, and it will be a long series of the tightest of embraces. And for one second I just may whisper that I will not leave again. Although I know that this is something I incessantly chase- and to get it, to truly learn and to discover more of yourself, you just absolutely have to leave home. 

37 days.