Wow...

... it is really hard to remember to write on this thing. Again, as I seem to do at the start of each of these, apologies for those of you who are actually trying to follow what I am doing. I am not making it very easy. What have I been doing. Much of the same really. I suppose the most trying thing has been dealing with the nasty weather. It snowed once even. I know I am such a pathetic california boy but I've never really been in proper falling snow. It was great. We had snowflakes the size of chicken feathers. I spent a really great night in our local pub, The John Hewit, sipping Guinness by a fire watching the snow come down outside. The next days, however, were not so great as the snow would melt a bit then refreeze then melt a bit. Absolutely dreadful for walking much less bike riding which is how I get around here.

But the snow is gone and we are left with harsh winds can just about knock you off your bicycle and rain that A) never seems to quit and B) seems to come at you from ever direction with a majority of it coming up at you from the ground. I didn't know this was possible, but apparently the rain drops here don't believe in gravity or the water cycle. Who knows?

My work is very very very tiring but starting to become rewarding. Things are happening and I am able to take part in things that are more... I guess significant is the best word but not exactly. Here's an example: Saturday nights i work at a youth club, which basically is a place for kids from the neighborhood to come on a night and blow off some steam where they won't have to be out on the streets. Running the youth club was sort of dropped in my lap when i got here it seems like because the woman who was running it moved to the states. I didn't ever really feel like I was running it because I was in so far over my head that I had a hard enough time remembering all the volunteers names much less plan events or what not for it. I tried my best to keep things going though and made up for my faults by pitching in on some of the grunt labor. I sweep, wipe, mop, pick up, just so I don't look like a total prat from America who doesn't know work from his own elbow. Anyway, Maura, the woman who went to the USA has come back. Which is great because, trust me, she knows the score. We chatted the other day and she has some great ideas for the club and I am very excited. So I still mop and sweep and what not, essentially my job hasn't changed but I feel like I am arranging fancy deckchairs on a posh oceanliner rather than swabbing the decks on a sinking ship. I just re read that paragraph and I rambled. Sorry. But you get it yes? good.

The other fun challenge is trying to figure out things to do when you have no money and its too cold and wet to go anywhere. We spent quite a bit of time watching television because it was new and exciting. BBC and ITV rather than ABC and CBS. But at the end of the day, TV is TV and it gets weak if you watch too much I think. So we keep ourselves busy. I've been writing a lot more. Little stories and poems and what not. Mind you I haven't finished anything yet though... maybe if something good comes out of it ill post it here. I've also started making a stop motion movie from recycled cardboard pieces. I knew I needed a time consuming project and what could be better than constructing a mini desert island and a pirate ship in my room out of bits of cardboard then taking hundreds of pictures of it, all slightly different and then string them together. I doubt I'll finnish it but stay tuned i guess. jessica and I also completed an 1000 piece puzzle in less than two days.

So there you go. That's my life in a snippet i guess. If any of you have requests for things to post about please send them my way. Apparently I have tons of free time and will oblige.

know that I am well and think of you all often
alex