Oops!

Eric and I took a bus to the south coast today, since it was pretty nice out. He has a family friend studying at a boarding school in Eastbourne, which isn't too far from a nice beach in Brighton. We spent a little while hanging out (pebbles not sand!) then hopped onto on a local bus to head towards the school.

Incidentally, South England is strange country. On the way I fell asleep for a few minutes and when I awoke we were surrounded by rolling fields, sheep, and millions of brick houses. I fell asleep again and suddenly we were in urban grit, which eventually gave way to a quaint sea-side town (Eastbourne) before long. Very inconsistent!

Now with Brighton and Eastbourne, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good feel for most of the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland). Earlier this month we took a train up to Edinburgh and took a tour of the Highlands. Then two weeks ago they took us up to Liverpool for the weekend. Oh, and last Saturday Maryam and I spent the day in Cardiff, trying to get a feel for Wales.

Later on I think we're taking a day-trip to Oxford, but for the meantime my attention turns to continental Europe (Stockholm next weekend!) -- I hope you'll trust, this busyness accounts for the infrequentness of my updates.

Anyway, Eastbourne was really quaint. Eric's friend's school had a big rugby match going on, so we caught most of that -- still trying to figure out all the rules, though. They lost horribly (15-3), but the other team was undefeated, so I guess that stuff happens.

Overall, boarding school seems fine, though I'm not sure I'd have perferred it to public education. I'd probably have suffered it better in younger grades, but at sixteen, seventeen all the restrictions must be difficult to cope with. Eric and I had a discussion about it on the way home. He has a diverse background of education (private and public school, home schooling, and tutors -- depending on the grade), but he argued that public school is better equipped to train coping and problem-solving skills just because of the diverse student body. I didn't disagree, but it's hard to write-off the resources of a private institution altogether! Or else what are we spending all this time at NYU for?

Pretty soon I'll write a post about the play I'm writing. It's just really starting to get underway, but I've set myself a schedule to be done with the first draft in six weeks. Right now I'm calling it "The Telescope," but I'm fairly certain that'll change.

I think I could live in a little seaside English town like Brighton. It wasn't entirely unlike the better parts of New Jersey -- though it wasn't very flat at all.

I haven't tasted saltwater in a while.