Partay

So, I hadn’t left the house for almost two days. We stayed in on Thursday (miserable outside and exhausted) and since I work from home, I was at the apartment all day Friday as well. I would have gone out to get lunch or something but we were waiting for both a FedEx shipment and our cell phones to arrive (which never did – awesome).

Nic came back and said they were having an international student social thing in her school’s bar (yep, her school has a bar… inside the building… this country really likes to drink). So, having not had much contact with people in the outside world for 2 days, I thought it might be good to get out. We went and ate Indian at this great place a few blocks away called Sanam and then walked it up to her school around 8:30pm. When we got there, it was a bit overwhelming with people everywhere, but we quickly found a seat next to a couple Norwegians, an American, and a girl from Denmark. Cool conversations were had with everyone… the Denmark girl was going for Theatre Production, the American for acting, and one of the Norwegians (girl named Ida) was studying the Management program with Nic.

I have to say, it was a really rad experience seeing all of these kids with artistic ability be able to find an outlet for their talents. Let’s be honest, for kids who want to pursue the arts, it’s a tough world to get into. As formal education goes, there really isn’t a whole ton of institutions to get involved in (much less for Management like Nic). At UW, I majored in Poli Sci and Sociology, but all the while, I was doing internships, working in radio, and trying to network within the music community. You really had to work to open up doors for yourself (and I know so many of my friends know this as well and worked just as hard as I did), but I just thought it was really cool to see a school dedicated to helping open those doors for its students. I was impressed.

As we gained more and more liquid courage, it was very cool to talk to students from other regions of the world. That girl, Ida, was super rad and Nic and I had great conversation with her. It was interesting to learn how much American influence there really is in foreign countries. All of the movies and music she loved were all American. They started teaching English in second grade; part of the reason being because they want to be able to understand American entertainment. It’s very much like this in the UK as well. How crazy is that? As an American, my perspective is always very silo’d from the rest of the world. Sort of like, what’s going on out there? We have very few international banks, international papers that cover foreign stories, very little anything. You’re always forced to search it out. It struck me as interesting, to say the least.

Further, it was great talking to Darren, Nic’s International advisor. Super awesome guy from Manchester, very friendly. We started talking about music (big surprise), and I asked him what bands defined Manchester. Obviously, if you’re from Seattle, we have Nirvana, but also bands like the Fastbacks, Sunny Day, etc that represent, to me, what Seattle is. He said Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, and Stone Roses. Can I say awesome? Apparently, he saw The Smiths in front of 50 people once but has never seen Morrissey solo. I relayed my story about watching a panel with Morrissey at SXSW in ’06 and how pompous he was. He said “nah, he’s just misunderstood”. Come on…I think he’s a little biased… because Morrissey could not be more full of himself. Makes great music but I’m also certain looks at himself in front of a mirror for at least 5 minutes before going outside each day. He also got on a rant about how people in the NW can’t stand London because the people there are so heartless… and they copy everything the NW does. He said, name one good band from London. I drew a blank. “Exactly”. Funny.

- CT