Film review: Amazing Grace

Go see it.

If it doesn't inspire you that a small group of people can help change the world than I'm not sure what would. I can only pray that God would give me that kind of passion, direction and dedication in my life.

The Denial Rule

I am currently reading "Watching the English" by Kate Fox. It's a fairly interesting book (if somewhat of a slow read) that discusses all the unspoken social rules of the English. Some of them I hadn't really noticed but once she pointed them out I did notice them.

One thing I had already noticed was something Fox described as the "Denial Rule." This rule basically says that when people are riding on public transportation they do everything possible to deny that others exist. They avoid speaking to and even making eye contact with others. Lastly, they also try their hardest not to draw attention to themselves. I noticed this right away because it's almost painful the way people avoid eye contact. To me it's almost more uncomfortable to avoid people so resolutely than to accidentally look someone in the face. God forbid we would acknowledge others around us with a little smile.

There are several exceptions to the rule. People might speak or make eye contact if speaking is required out of politeness (ie. "excuse me" or "sorry") or to ask for vital information. They may also share a brief moment of conversation to complain if something goes wrong on the train or tube. Another, possibly less "book-worthy" exception I've found is drunk people. They generally don't care if they are drawing attention to themselves and will try to talk to anybody. One time I was on the tube with a crazy homeless, drunk guy singing. I was trying to make eye contact with someone to laugh with but I got nothing. Everyone just kept staring at the floor - a perfect example of the rule at work.

In addition to the drunk exception, some people are also oblivious to the rule when they are talking on their mobile phones. They just talk as loud as possible no matter what the conversation. This is something I find particularly annoying and at one time someone even broke the rule and made eye contact with me and we shared an eye-roll over the loud teenage girl in our train car!

Because the behavior is so pronounced, it is painfully obvious whenever the rule is broken. Trains are especially quiet in the mornings because people are tired and generally aren't traveling with companions like they might be in the evening. However, yesterday I was riding the train to work and I happened to be sitting near 2 Americans (gasp!). The one guy was going on and on, talking very loudly. He wasn't just talking, he was one of those loud, obnoxious, belligerent people. I was almost embarrassed for him because I knew everyone around was rolling their eyes at him (in their mind anyway) and grumbling about the loud American.

No Man is an Island

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if the promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

-John Donne

It's been a long time since I read this poem but I recently saw it written on a poster and was struck by it. Of course I hear the phrase "no man is an island" fairly often but I didn't always think of the rest of the poem. I think I find it so striking now because I'm trying to deal with the change involved with leaving friends and family.

It so vividly paints how important people are to each other and I particularly like the line, "any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." It doesn't necessarily have to be about death, but it highlights that friends and family are so valuable and will always be a part of you wherever you go. Being "involved in mankind" could take on another meaning on a spiritual level as well.

So I haven't eloquently analyzed it (I'll leave that to Melissa) but I just wanted to post it for your reading pleasure.

Best Ever

Saturday we went to Borough Market which is a fresh food market near London Bridge. It was lots of fun! There was all kinds of food available. I had a really good chicken burger and a great brownie. I can't remember all the brownies I've ever eaten in my life, but I think this was the best brownie I've ever eaten! I like fudgy brownies, not cakey, and this was so fudgy it was practically fudge. So if you're looking for a brownie I know where to get a good one.

Just for fun I thought I'd post this picture of a banner that was hanging in the market.

Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Tonight I saw a performance by the London Community Gospel Choir. They sang a great version of Amazing Grace. It was written by an ex-slave trader, John Newton, who became part of the abolitionist movement in England. According to Wikipedia:

"Among his greatest contributions to history was encouraging Wilberforce, a Member of Parliament for Hull, to stay in Parliament and 'serve God where he was,' rather than enter the ministry. Wilberforce heeded the ex-slaveship captain's advice, and spent the next five decades successfully working for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire."

At the risk of being repetitive in my posting topics, although slavery is now illegal, there are still millions of people who are bought and sold today. I saw a moving exhibit at St. Paul's Cathedral yesterday that portrayed the lives of people who had been trafficked. Get online now and see what you can do to help stop human trafficking today.

Coffee + Books

There's one smell I can't resist...the smell of coffee and books. The bookstores must have been targeting people like me when they started putting coffee shops in all their stores. I just can't walk away from it without buying something. Last night I stopped in the bookstore on Trafalgar Square and picked up a few things. These are my latest acquisitions, in case you're interested.

1. Time Out London's Eating and Drinking Guide for 2007. There's no way I'm ever going to get to all these restaurants but I thought it would be fun to have so I can figure out places I want to go. That way when people say, "What do you want to do/Where do you want to eat?" I will have an answer.

2. Time Out London's latest weekly magazine. The cover story was weekend trips to Paris. I love Paris.

3. Pocket guide to Barcelona. Yeah baby.

4. Pocket guide to Madrid. Yes, April is Spain month. I had already planned to go to Barcelona with friends for a holiday, then I found out we have a meeting in Madrid for work!

5. Q Magazine. A British music magazine with all the latest reviews. This month has the 100 greatest singers and the 1000 greatest songs. I love lists like that. Plus it has Joss Stone and Snow Patrol on the cover. Snow Patrol is awesome.

Green Prince

I could have ridden on a train with Prince Charles. He's trying to do the trendy thing and go green. He must be buddies with Al Gore. Apparently he took a train to a speaking engagement today...a train I ride to work every day! I would be a little more disappointed if it had been Prince William or Prince Harry on the train.

"a stain on a civilised country"

Human trafficking and the London Olympics.

St. James Park

I haven't been to all the parks in London, but I think St. James Park might be my favorite. It's the one in front of Buckingham Palace and it's beautiful! This park really fits the definition of a "park." Some places they call parks here are not what I would consider a park, they are more open areas or green space. I like a park that has manicured lawns, ponds and lots of flowers. This has it all! And it has lots of weeping willow trees which I find I really like, they make things seem peaceful...and you can see Big Ben and the London Eye.

Here are a few pictures from last weekend. It was a gorgeous day. Unfortunately it's gotten much colder again but I have hope that we've turned the corner. (This is me trying to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist)

my newest discovery

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It's a Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry!! What a great idea...of course, McDonalds is a little skimpy on the toppings (I'm sure it would be better if it was a blizzard) but it was still really good. Happy Easter :)

around the town

I had several friends come in town this weekend so it's been a busy time. Yesterday we went to the London Eye and walked all over the West End. It was supposed to be the last of the really nice days for awhile so we thought we should soak it up. The best time was laying in the sun at St. James Park in front of Buckingham Palace. It felt like the rest of the world didn't exist.

Last night we had dinner at Bodeans, one of the only BBQ restaurants in London. We went there because my co-worker from Geneva has been missing barbecue since he moved there. They have great pulled pork, cornbread, chili fries, coleslaw, etc. They also show American sports there. We were also lucky to see the last half of the Xavier vs. OSU game. Wow, that was a crazy last few minutes! Everyone in the place stared at us when we screamed after OSU scored the last 3 pointer. I had decided to root for Xavier since they were the Cincinnati team...fortunately I wasn't really too involved so I wasn't really heartbroken at the end.

Nicknames...

Not only do people in every city here have different accents, some also have different nicknames.

Liverpool = Scousers
Newcastle = Geordies
Manchester = Manks
Birmingham = Brummies

I thought this was interesting since I don't think we really have any nicknames in the US. (I don't think "Cincinnatians" really counts as a nickname for people from Cincinnati.) I haven't heard if London has one...

middle of nowhere

I just spent the last two days in Dorchester-upon-Thames, near Oxford, for training and meetings. Let me just say it was definitely a small, English town in the middle of nowhere, although somewhat charming. Apparently the leader picked it because there wasn't any internet access. Nice.

TV showdown

I used to have NTL Telewest cable here. They were recently acquired by Virgin Media. Apparently the owners of Virgin and the owners of SkyTV are rivals. Telewest cable included SkyOne which is the channel that showed 24. Now SkyTV has taken away the rights to Sky shows from Virgin media so all my Sky channels are blank. That means I'm stuck at 3pm and I don't know what happens next!

Billionaires are feuding over TV rights and now the poor consumers are left hanging with their favorite shows and stuck in the middle of advertising campaigns to get us to stay or switch. Grow up! I want Jack back.

Extreme Home Makeover

This week at church the minister related our lives and the church to Extreme Home Makeover. Think about it...ABC finds a really needy family who is stuck where they are. They live in a house that doesn't suit their needs and are facing unbelievable obstacles due to any number of factors. Then they bring in an amazing team to demolish their house and re-build it from the ground up. Once it's finished the house is a transformed, beautiful, state of the art mansion!

Similarly, God finds us where we are. We are broken and fallen, separated from him and unable to redeem ourselves. Once we accept God he transforms us. It doesn't pan out exactly like Extreme Home Makeover where we end up getting everything we ever wanted...but God restores us into the beautiful works of art he originally created us to be and gives us life as it was intended to be. The only problem is we can't see it all yet- we're still in progress. It doesn't quite happen in 7 days, but God is faithful and he will eventually complete what he began. This could also be applied to the church on a broader scale.

I just wanted to share that because I thought it was a great illustration!

8 sunny days?

It's been sunny for the last 3 days and the forecast says it will be sunny through Friday with highs near 60...can this be too good to be true? Possibly. I'll believe it when I see it, but either way, it was a great weekend! I just relaxed but also got to take some nice walks with Wakako. Saturday afternoon we walked around Wimbledon common and today we walked along the Thames near Hampton Court. It was beautiful!

Hiya

Lot's of people here say "Hiya" instead of "hi." I don't really think anyone in the US says that so I thought I'd say "Hiya!"

It's been a busy week so I'm glad to have a day to relax. I've been out every night of the week with gym, dinner, church, dinner, etc. Yesterday I had to get up really early to get the train and bus to Oxford for work meetings all day. It was a sunny morning though so the drive through the country was nice. I got back just in time to bake some killer brownies and head out to the jazz night we had a church.

It was a great time! It was fun to get dressed up, hear great music and eat lots of food. The band was really good and I had a little crush on the singer. He wasn't quite as cute as Michael Buble but he was still rockin' it. I thought I'd post some pictures of me and my friends since I haven't had any pictures of my church friends before. The first one is my friend Patricia. She's in my small group and we also work out together so we see a lot of each other. The next two are Suzi and Sarah who are also in my small group!

I love Haribo

One of my favorite kinds of candy is gummy bears. If I'm not craving chocolate I prefer gummies.

When I first looked for gummy bears when I got here I couldn't really find any. All I could find was this stuff called Haribo Star mix. It was a combination of regular gummy candy (although in very odd shapes) and other foamy/creamy white gummy candy. At first I was less than impressed, I just wanted my basic gummy bears. This candy is in the shape of coke bottles, rings, hearts and bears. Oh wait, I also forgot the fried egg! It's like they had this creamy white gummy candy and sat around thinking, "What shape can we make with this?" then someone came up with the brilliant idea of a fried egg- a blob of white with a yellow dot in the middle. So the mix of shapes is completely random which put me off initially... But now I admit, I can't get enough.

They also have all kinds of other mixes. My favorite is definitely the cherries which I discovered in Athens but haven't seen in London yet. If you check out the website you'll see they also make PEZ...I bet you didn't know that before today.

Don't mess with success...

Imagine walking down the aisles at the grocery store and not seeing any mixes for cake, brownies, muffins, pancakes, pudding, cookie dough, icing or any other desserts...you might be in the UK! I usually use mixes to bake (although I am capable of cooking without them) so imagine my surprise when I was looking for brownie mixes and cake mixes and instead of finding an aisle full of choices I only found one lousy cake mix.

I mentioned it to a few of my friends here and they quickly gave me a hard time about being an American and using mixes for everything...blah blah blah. Undaunted, I had Mom and Dad bring me over some Bisquick and have been bringing back cookie and brownie mixes with me. So far I have made pancakes for 2 groups of people and everybody loved them. And last night it was our group's turn to bring snacks for church so I baked brownies...everyone was raving about them!

Don't mess with success.

So I use a lot of mixes to bake- if everybody likes them what's the problem? I understand there are certainly merits to baking without them and there are plenty of amazing recipes that couldn't be accomplished with a mix but so far I'm getting along ok with my mixes. I can make it from scratch if need be. Maybe I'll start my own home-making empire like Martha Stewart.

Fun Weekend

This weekend was quite packed but in a good way! Friday night I headed off with my church for a weekend away together. It was a great time of hanging out and getting to know more people away from the city. I really feel blessed by the friends I've made there and I am starting to feel like I have a family here which is great.

But, I accidentally bought concert tickets for the same weekend so I left on Saturday afternoon to see the Fratellis with Ruth! It was a really fun show! We felt hip to be at their show since they were recently voted "Best Breakout Band of the Year" at the Brit awards. I'm not one to be a critic but I would say the performance didn't deviate much from what was recorded on the album but it was still a great show.

Today was also my friend Wakako's birthday (Happy Birthday Wakako!) so I went to her house for lunch with all her friends which was fun. I ate a lot this weekend so I will have to work extra hard at the gym this week!

Faithful

Yesterday was pretty strange weather. I was all excited because it wasn't supposed to rain, unfortunately when I walked to the train station it was rainy and windy. Nothing puts me in a good mood faster than that. But when I was on the train the weather started to turn and I saw a rainbow. It continued to alternate between rain and sun all day.

The rainbow, along with an email from my grandma, reminded me that God is faithful. He never changes even when everything else does.

Today is a beautiful, sunny, blue-sky day!