where is the weather is really no good, but most everything else is

i've only been at cambridge for a little over two weeks, but i have already made quite a mental compendium of all the strange inefficiencies of the institution. i have not seen enough of the rest of the island to allow the following generalizations to carry over to the rest of england.
1) muddled in unncessary detail
2) cumbersome/inefficient
3) hell bent on ritual

you see this at:
- the bank--HSBC, Lloyd's TSB (my bank!), Barclay's, etc. the queue is just massive, at all hours of the day, and not even just the line for new accounts...
- the dining hall aka the "slops" where i always feel like i am speaking a different language.

i have quite a few annoying stories. they're not at all funny, so maybe you'll just be annoyed if you choose to read any further, so perhaps i'll spare everyone.

but, i attribute england's inefficiencies to:
1) the lack of sun
2) the rain
3) the incessant blowing of the wind

in fact, everthing can be in some way or another attributed to the weather. it has shaped an entire culture!
- I walk into Marks and Spencer the other day, looking for a pair these so called tights/hoisery/stockings/leggings that i see all the women wearing (you see, this is how one manages to wear shorts and skirts all year around. and here i thought that stockings and its close cousins were a thing of the past, and that women just wore pants when it got cold. but really, where's the fun in looking like men?). the department store (which is a grocery store as well...strange, no?)

the following are pieces of british words vernacular that i've since or soon will (inadvertently and maybe even unwillingly) adopt:
- rubbish-- used extremely liberally, good for replacing all sorts of words and phrases including: nonsense, stinky cheese, dirt, trash, low grade, bs, bad prices on foodstuffs, or just plain bad.
- keen-- eager. "get keen"
- dodgy-- shady, sketchy, questionable, dubious. can be used to describe anything from a bad ankle to a bad character
- balls-- fancy word for dances
- knickers--undies.


but then again, if cambridge were not all these things--the good, the bad, and the just plain funny--would it still possess it's old school charm? unlikely. take this as a lesson in appreciating something/someone for what it is/who they are. =D the finer qualities of life are not so conveniently had.

Anyways, life is good.