Thursday

i am on another one of those literal losing streaks. in the past week i have lost my keys, my drum hoodie, my notebook, 2 pens and a pouch of baccy. the keys cost 80 bucks to replace! bastards. it is so frustrating, and i feel like as soon as i mission to find one thing i lose something else.

was vaguely searching the web for alternative living arrangements and came upon a house with a 'small room with big windows' that was only 450 a month (instead of 680 which i am paying to SHARE A ROOM with 2 other people) so i decided to go full swing to try and move out. but guess what? i have signed a contract saying i HAVE TO STAY on campus ALL YEAR unless i can prove i have suddenly become poor, or ill, or expelled. which is fucking bollocks. even if you have a morgage you can get out of it within a year. you could get out whenever you wanted at dinwiddy. BASTARDS. the more i find out (or rub up against) this university, the more it seems like a shitty corporation, which essentially i think it is.

so i went to visit the house that only costs $450 a month and WOW it is amazing! it is hard to find becuase it is surrounded by trees, it has a porch with a sofa, then a dog, a cat, a piano that belongs to the house, front and back garden, lots of instruments and 3 undeniably beautiful girls (and one not so beautiful girl) who are looking for a male roommate 'incase any shit goes down'. my room is about the same size as my room in dinwiddy, but with one of those raised (1 1/2 size) beds so there is quite alot of floor space. all the residents were well chilled, all in education, they 'try to limit parties to weekends', blaze and, judging by the short amount of time i was there, eat lots of avacados. and they liked me enough to offer me the room there an then, which i was chuffed about. so big emphasis on getting out of halls if at all possible. i think i upset max though, i told him earlier today that iw as thinking about moving out and he seemed quite sad (i would be well sad if he moved out- the people left don't even really add up to one persons worth of friendship) and then i got a call about htis house and went to see it straight away, btu couldn't be like 'yeah im off to view this house' cos my other flatmates were there and i wouldnt like to not be able to move out then have to live with them knowing that i want to. when i got back just now he was asleep, and we were due to go jam togehter so i woke him up and he didn't seem very happy and just went back to sleep instead of coming to jam. i will apologise and explain in the morning. also in the morning i am going to go and state my financial hardship case to the powers that be. i have put together a mostly truthful compelling case that can be backed up with mostly truthful evidence but after that night spent on york station platform i don't trust anyone in authority to trust or believe me.

perfect example of the climate of fear that is all around here: when people do their laundry(the room is right outside my front door) they sit and wait for it to be done, even though they live a minute away, incase it gets stolen, even though the washing machine doors lock!!!

the naked run happened two nights ago, it wasn't when i thought it was before. it was actually really brilliant- at one point there were at least a few hundred people, all running right around the campus which is quite big. a few people from my classes were on it, and i feel that has broken the ice a bit. unfortunately max didn't come, he was dillying and dallying and in the end i just had to go without him, but he was a bit annoyed at himself for not doing it in the end i think. i got cold after a while and went back and put some clothes on, then heard there was to be a drum circle, so took my sax, and when i got there it was indeed a drum circle but a naked drum circle, with everyone huddled close togehter and dancing. there was a girl there from my jazz class and so we had a bit of a duet to the drums. then someone came round with white body paint. there were some 'militant' naked people on the run who shouted at all the bystanders to join in, and occasionally one would go up and hug someone and they would run away or scream. it was justified i guess, because people were gawping and taking photos, but aswell it is sort of elitist in a way, like 'i dare to take all my clothes off and you have loads of inibitions and i feel great and you don't even know how great and liberated i feel', which is entirely against the spirit of it. but i guess it only matters which stance gets more people joining in.

went to san francisco on sunday and monday to watch a free bluegrass festival called 'hardly strictly bluegrass'. it was in a massive park in the centre of the city with 5 big stages, one called the 'porch stage' and anothe rthe 'rooster stage', and saw some great music. a guitar player who played bass, rhythm and lead and great political lyrics all at the same time can't remember his name, then elvis costello, looking cool, then bob weir from the grateful dead playing grateful dead songs. i had never heard grateful dead before but apparently they were huge. loads of people here have tshirts of them. i had only eaten 2 bananas and some cereal all day and i fell asleep whilst everyone danced around me. it was good though. they played electric guitar solos on an acoustic guitar.

we stayed at max's friend aileen's flat at san francisco state uni (they have a university wide network of unis called UC that i go to one of, then each state has its own uni aswell), where some people dress up as somethign every day (we saw a doctor, a 20s frenchman or something, 2 nurses and loads of people who looked like the most stereotypical hip hop pin ups constantly adjusting the ridiculous position of their caps). we travelled with a russian girl called anna who lives nearby who ha other friends at the uni, one of whom turned out to be a poet, and who spoke over the Mbira and talked of feeling lost but being ok. anna says in russia they call newly arrived immigrants as 'FOBS', 'fresh off the boats', and share with them a collective hate of rich persians.

on sunday night max took me on a huge badly planned mission around the whole bay area to try and catch thetrain to go home,- the train left from near where we were, but he took us to the furthest connection on the other side of the city, and we missed all the connections. we hadn't eaten all day and ended up stuck in the middle of industrial zonage just outside the city, but then we took a deep breath and found a fajita shop and then took a long walk in a random part of the city, midnight coffee and doughnuts and then back to san fran state with apologies.

i have met a guy in a punk band from LA who wants to bring his band and play a gig here, so i am going to try and put a night on and raise some of the £4200 judith and mariah need for school fees (a IT college in Holloway) so they can get a good chance of a full 2 year visa and good chances of ok employment after. i don't really know if being deported will affect their chances of getting a visa, but the website www.joskos.co.uk (i think) promises 'employment in the field within 6 months or your money back' and also offer help with visa applications. they specialise in foreign students i think. the band sound cool and thrashy but i havne't the first idea how to market a punk gig here. i havne't even been to one since i got here, even though there are loads going on. maybe something for next term.

oh! this morning i woke up to my first shoot from the seeds lauren gave me; it is tiny but there none the less. it has two mini leaves. someone gave me a basil plant on tuesday when i enquired where she got it. it was looking a bit yellow and ill, and still is, but i think it just needed some love.

in my Uc and the Bomb lecture (for which i had a presentation today that went quite well- all about Bechtel Corp and influence of big business on US nuclear policy aswell as project for new american century and all that ) we have to do a 'creative project' to get a good grade, and from about 20 people we had to split into groups to do either 'education, long term planning or direct action'. there were only 2 of us who wanted to do direct action! and all my proposals were met with an arkward silence, either they didn't understand me or thought i was being too radical. but they didn't say ;your being too radical' they just sort of sidestepped what is aid. and my ideas weren't even that bad, just stuff like having loud noises of war (bombs, planes etc) in the regents (managing board) meeting, or doing a sit in of the stage or a die in or whatever. so we are just going to fuck about wearing masks and handing out flyers and writing letters.

tonight alice showed me the hidden away studios, and played me some the tunes she is making. she has a truly exceptional voice, and can write much better tunes and words than i expected. got a bit of confidence back playing clarinet with her, you really don't have to do much to make the clarinet sound beautiful with piano, and it put into perspective all the worry i have about being substandard and not progressing musically. but anyway, going to try and record a song a month. i have even found a nice female vocalist (it is hard asking someone who already sings so well like alice to sing my songs, cos i always feel like they could just be singing their own songs instead).

ok, enough rambling. my flatmate edmund has been bitching about how the kitchen is 'always messy' and makes a point of washing up things i have alredy washed up up when i get in to make a point. so now i am going to wash up a bit.