London Two - Oh

A play on words of the new crime drama “Hawaii Five-Oh,” fitting considering that in the wee hours of this morning was the twentieth anniversary of my birth.

I really wanted to say something like “first there was the Big Bang and then I was born;” but that’s pretty tacky and not as funny as it used to be.  So, really though, on my birthday (which is today if I forgot to mention it yet) I wanna hang low and relax.  I’ve got my internship with London Citizens today, so I hope at the least that goes well and I can make some progress on my semester-long assignment there.  I still feel that although I’m firmly assigned to all media-related things in the Living Wage Campaign, that my role isn’t as clearly defined as other people.  I want to get started on the filming and editing, and I think today we’ll be covering that and starting work on a script.  After that’s over, I honestly want to just go for a walk, and reflect upon this past year.  

A mantra that I feel like I’ve mentioned before is just not having any regrets; and a nice little walk (don’t worry I’ll take someone with me so I’m not walking around alone) where I can just clear my head and think about what’s on tap for the next year would be the best way to make sure I’ve got no regrets, nothing I would have done differently.  Before I forget though, I just want to get across the fact that the internet really stinks here.  I feel like sometimes I could write these blogs on papyrus, roll it up and put it on the leg of pigeons (there are definitely enough here that I don’t think anyone would notice if I took a couple) and send it to you guys that way…honestly internet is like insanely poor here.  I used my iTunes gift card to buy a couple movies.  I think I struck gold when I bought Saving Private Ryan on sale this past weekend.  I’ve seen it once before on T.V., so the edited-down version.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a movie for the faint of heart, but the following quote forced me to stop the movie and copy it into my immortal quote list (along with the likes of Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Rudyard Kipling and F. Scott Fitzgerald to name a few):

“…I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

~Abraham Lincoln.

This is just part of a longer quote read by the Army Chief of Staff in the beginning of the movie when he finds out three out of the four sons of a single Iowa mother were killed in action.  Right after he reads this, he sends a team of Army Rangers to get the last son.  The part of the movie that moved me, that made me include it in this post, is at the end of the movie where Tom Hanks tells the last son (Matt Damon) to “earn this.”  To earn the life Hanks’ team laid down there’s to save.  So I guess what I’m circuitously getting to is that I hope I’ve made the most of my life up until now, that I will continue to be the best person that I can be, both true to myself and others and that I have in fact earned the opportunities afforded to me and the experiences I’ve had over the last 20 years; today is my birthday btw.

Tom Hanks (left) and Matt Damon (right)

 

I promise that I will post more pictures as I take them.  I’m looking forward to an “easy” weekend of site-seeing with Dennis.  We’ve been waiting all semester to actually go into Westminster Abby, and that – among some other sites – is going to happen.  It’s so much easier to plan “excursions” with less people than a giant group.  I’m pumped to do this. Here are a couple pictures from our "excursion" this morning with Konstnatin to get that ever elusive English Breakfast (I regret that Konstantin had to leave early though....).  I was trying to think of the most British thing to do for my birthday, which I decided was to go to a cafe owned by Mayan immigrants in the morning for a meal reserved for only the best movers and shakers of England, the Full English Breakfast:

the remnants of the Full English or "Full Monty" breakfast

Dennis after his second Cranberry Juice and 3rd piece of sausage

We have an answer now for the contested argument of how America won the Revolutionary war; the British were simply to tired or bloated or just plain sick to fight anymore after too many of their infamous "breakfasts."

"See, I ate it all and I'm fine...."

The traditional English restaurant we went to for our English Breakfast!!

Until then, I’ll leave you another quote that has stuck with me for a long while...and maybe some of you actually heard live (*cough*...old):

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

~Ted Kennedy

In my humble opinion, that's what politics should be all about.  Did I mention it was my birthday?

Stay Tuned…