Many spontaneity. Such luck.

Things other than blogging I should be doing right now:

• Prepping an essay, topic: "Discuss the representation of the body in Mistriss Henley" as I will need to hand it in at least a day early.
• Ringing round various hotels and conference centres to ascertain prices for a grand, black-tie event in May. It's going to be cheap...right?
• Learning approximately 100 new cocktails
• Learning five new words in Russian
• Tidying my flat
• Reading the frankly spine-busting pile of books about French secularism I have accumulated
• Reading the impossibly thick book on the same that is its own pile
• Re-reading The Great Gatsby and annotating the life out of it
• Preparing exercises on further trigonometry (ie doing them)
• And other things which I have, for the moment, forgotten - but will no doubt spring up on me half an hour before their due date.

Things I am actually doing:

• Looking at doge memes
• Blogging
• Seriously considering taking a nap.



The Internet. It speaks the truth. In a Pythian sort of way.

The thing is, there is much new in my life and all of it seems so dull compared to last year - I genuinely think I'm never going to get over the time I spent there. Everything will be compared to it. It is the ultimate in awful breakups, when you never quite get over the other person and everything reminds you of them. Food - is that a baguette I smell? Sights - was that a glimpse of a beret worn non-ironically? And sounds - my head now pivots so quickly when I hear spoken French that my eyes roll the opposite way as inertia takes over. If you can't picture it, don't worry - Walt Disney could. And did.

"Et moi, je lui ai dit...mon dieu, qu'est ce qui t'est arrivé ?!"

However, to take my mind off that French love, I'm going transatlantic for a short fling with a country I only recently left - those fifty United States of America. More specifically, I'm going with the Politics and IR society, and we're going at the end of the month - on the 27th. This is why I need to submit that essay a day early; I'll be somewhere over the ocean at hand-in time. Once Stateside, we've an interesting itinerary with a lot of free time - so I think introducing my classmates to The Book of Mormon or Matilda, if it's still running, might be an excellent idea. 

The itinerary includes a tour around the UN and watching a game at +Columbia University (and hopefully chatting to professors about postgraduate possibilities!), and then we're off to DC to have a tour around +The White House and the Pentagon and various other internationally renowned buildings. Plus more free time. I am disgustingly excited. Friends of mine on politics/IR courses are threatening that they shan't be my friends much longer if I open one more conversation with... 

So the Capitol building, is that where the President lives? Oh, never mind. I'll just ask on the tour.

...or something similar.

I am a good friend. Honest.

Tickets are booked, thanks to the voucher I got from +American Airlines for being a good sport and giving up my seat coming back from Chicago, and all is in readiness. Now I just need to make back the money, which will hopefully be a little easier now that I have a job at TGI Friday's. The whole process was surreally easy; I dropped in and asked if there were vacancies, someone took my CV, and then a second later I was chatting to the GM. The next day I came in for what they call an "On Job Experience" - essentially a trial shift - and was offered the job on the spot. I signed my contract today and got my training book. (Nerd alert).

I'm actually really excited about this because it reminds me a little of Revolution, which has (to date) the best training program I've ever experienced - really well structured and with good supervision and coaching.  In addition everyone on the bar seems wicked and the floor staff seem to have fun all the time, so I cannot wait to get stuck into the cocktails. Unfortunately I can't share them with you here -

Those are some serious legal words, but you can understand why - can't have people nicking recipes.

- so you'll just have to come in and try them.

Since TGI Friday's started in New York, I'm actually planning to see if I can blag my way onto the bar where it all started - and interestingly, the company actually has an internal social network, so I'm hoping to connect with the staff over there beforehand. Hopefully then I can jump on for some photos and Anglo-American high-fives and collaboration. It's going to happen people. Let's do this. Hashtag getJonathanonthebarinNYC

All joking aside, I'm really excited about this new job and the energy everyone has, and I can't wait to feed into it.

Alright, enough soppiness. I have a job, I have good friends (to whom I'm not always a great friend, so - sorry), I have ten thousand projects to keep me busy and I have you, mostly anonymous 100-odd people who read this weird ramblings. I am incredibly lucky. Plus, soon there'll be ASCAs and then...the world.

Oh, and why's it called the Pentagon? Ah, you know what? I'll ask on the tour.