Summer 2011 – the long holiday – and graduation!
Confession: I have been stealing pictures… Continue reading
Tagged: Bristol
Back in Brizzle…
(And I’d promised myself I’d never call the city that… )
So… I was on holiday/vacation for the last month. And for the first time traveling, ever, I didn’t write so much as a word.
On top of that, I pretty much “forgot” to take any pictures. Woops.
I got to spend time with my family (which, when you only see them once a year and live on a different continent, is a glorious thing indeed!). After running around Nice and Paris and briefly dropping by Cambridge (long enough to find me a place to live next year)…. Continue reading
As we tweeted it…
We tried – the few of us that remained seated – to restore some peace… (Photograph taken by Nicole Llyod. Borrowed because I’m in it.)
Quite a week to be on twitter, isn’t it?
Assembling these for an essay (twitter hashtag as piece of material culture, mediating personal experience, archiving the ephemeral) and thought they might be worth sharing. Tweet of a friend and myself during the second Stokes Croft Riot. There were many others tweeting, as well, although the main use of #StokesCroft has been post-riot, as we’ve been sharing updates, news, follow-up discussion and analysis
As we Tweeted it (most recent at top):
Stokes Croft Riots: It started out complicated, then got worse
Everyone’s asking why there were protests in Stokes Croft, and how they turned violent.
I think we have the questions backwards.
We need to be asking how we protested – because what we’ve been doing obviously isn’t working – and we need to know why it was violent.
And so we sat down (Stokes Croft Riots)
I was at the protest-turned-riot-to-chaos in Stokes Croft last night with two friends. We managed to be the last three sitting in the middle of the road, in our attempt to regain some semblance of a peaceful protest. (The two of them both happen to be wonderful writers.)
@Smasherkins has written a good, clear account of the evening at Thoughts Uncensored (which I’m hacking into excerpts: read her full story!) Continue reading
Rioting in Stokes Croft, Bristol
The people are rioting in the streets. And it’s not about the Royal Wedding.*
Yes, I did say “riot”, its not hyperbolic, and it’s in my backyard. (Technically, my front street.)
I got home at 5am this morning. After having sat in the middle of a street full of broken glass, surrounded by police dogs, riot vans, and mounted horseback police.
I watched the police charge a crowd, watched a man go down under a horse. I watched the police march in, watched the neighbourhood transform into a post-apocalyptic re-imagining of the Haight Ashbury. Continue reading
Not that kind of girl – or am I?
When people ask me where I work, I tend to laugh.
“That bad?” they ask.
I look at the floor, pull my lips into a side-grin, and shrug. I explain, briefly. Could be worse – I’m a night-owl anyway. It’s a job. First and only one I could find, and I spent months looking. I’m never certain if I should be embarrassed, defiant, or nonchalant. I try to settle for amused. I’ve gotten past the jokes from my friends and the vaguely concerned sighs from my mother.
I work in a nightclub.
Technically, I’m a “hostess”. I work in a pricey nightclub. A very pricey nightclub. (We had a national sports team in a… Continue reading
Summertime – and the living is grumpy.
Summer has always meant two things.
Summer is when the travel-bug hits me the hardest. Summer is when, as a born-and-raised bone-fide Californian, I need sand and salt-water. I need a large body of water and a coastal breeze.
I always lived within an hour of the sea. As a child, I never learned to ride a bike, wasn’t a fan of the great outdoors, and could rarely be bothered to get my nose out of a book – but damn, could I swim. Every year I’d celebrate my (June) birthday at the beach. Most summers we got in the car and headed south, rented a house (when we could afford it, otherwise we camped) on the beach in Baja. Teenagers in California take to the beach every summer, all summer Continue reading
All’s well that…
[Synopsis]
I’m back, I’m fine, I’m busy getting things all sorted out, don’t have internet where I’m staying (with friends) but I’ve found a flat and should be moved in and hooked up by the weekend.
[Summary]
I’ve made it back to Bristol – in one piece!
One piece, minus my appendix and a litre of mysterious unidentified pus that had been in my abdomen, the last remnant of an infection that I’d probably had for weeks if not months. We’re still not certainly what exactly happened – typhoid fever? bacterial infection? – but appendicitis was only a secondary infection to the peritonitis. It was the last straw to finally get me to admit I was ill. I’d put the fatigue, cramps, and nauseia that I’d had on and off for weeks down to
Trowels and tape; hangovers and side-streets.
I’ve always tried to keep my travelling mixed up – a party here, a home-stay cultural immersion there; volunteer placement and aimless wandering – but, as I’m faced with a trip a bit different than what I’ve done before, I’m beginning to wonder about how to mix – authoritatively, presumptively, intentionally – work and pleasure. It’s one thing to step out of the office and into your social circle; it’s one thing to take your spontaneous adventure and twist it back, folding and editing, into a story – or even a study – when you realize in retrospect that there are larger ramifications; its wonderful to have a private room or two that isn’t fodder for analysis and its shielding to be fortified within a uniform as you work; it’s… Continue reading