The bombings in London were all over the news. I felt a strange mixture of compassion and detachment. At points during the day tears just started streaming down my cheeks. At others I felt relieved that this time I wasn't near the scene, unlike 11/2001, when I was a freshman at Columbia. The more you think about it, though, the more you realize how close you are to people directly impacted. Around 4 in the afternoon I suddenly panicked, thinking about the scores of people and friends I know in London who went to school with me. I could see my sister growing anxious, calling friends in Cambridge, and feeling responsible but helpless. Mostly I felt upset, wondering why on earth any group thinks this is the manner in which to address a cultural collision, an inability to intersect two apparently polarized ideologies.

London is a tolerant place, more so than New York even, though perhaps less diverse. I just think of all the innocent Muslims out there who are going to suffer for this, and for whom subtle persecution is going to become a reality. It isn't right and it isn't fair, but more and more it is the reality of the world in which I live, I guess. I just can't help but wonder what we'll do now that terrorism is appropriated into our cultural consciousness, into the idea of globalism. What is happening to the East/West relationship? I feel achingly sorry for those people in London, for the city itself. I think of London and I think of Love Actually or Mrs. Dalloway; most of all I think of happier times when I used to write bad poetry about our local neighbourhood, or of carrying my guitar to school during the autumn. I am so sorry for losing it all. I've never supported the Iraq war, but in the wake of these bombings I can't help but feel that the people perpetrating such crimes have even less of an understanding of how to negotiate for human lives than the American government. There is no comfort in an "orange alert" but I am sickened at the idea of  a man strapping arsenal to his body. The body - individual/public - is a sanctified space, or at least it should be. 

In the evening I went to my first Spanish lesson. Never mind that it's elementary II and I don't know how to say "is your daughter well?" or "have another cutlet?" I have to say, I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to learning more. The reassurance of the classroom was intoxicating. It gave me that familiar sense of purpose, of wanting to perform and succeed. That smacks of dorkiness, but you can't resist what you are. 

Today I became a citizen of the US. Hurrah for not having to get any more visas! We went out with family friends to celebrate at dinner.

Who said life as an unemployed deadbeat was dull or uneventful? The drama continues everyday...