Not dead yet

No really, I'm still alive!

It has been about a year and a half since our move now. I'm still working at the IoE and still enjoying it.

I have been riding my bike to work a few times a week. I really enjoy it. The streets of London are not as scary as I thought they would be. My commute is about 7 miles each way, which is a great length--just long enough to make me feel I am getting some exercise, but not long enough to be daunting or to take too much time.

I'm still doing roller derby and still a director. I have been in a total of six bouts now. There's video of each one, except the most recent, available on YouTube: The Great Rock n Rollerderby Swindle (intra-league, lost), New Year's Retribution (intra-league, lost), Riots of Spring (inter-league, won), Mutiny on the Mounty (inter-league, won), Summer Shovin (intra-league, won finally), and First Blood (intra-league, lost). [Warning: the music on some of those videos is quite loud, so you might want to turn sound down/off before playing them.] Next up, an inter-league bout against Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames, in Birmingham.

The US government took $2100 in taxes from me. I made money in both the US and UK in 2007. My tax rate is lower here than it would be in the US making the same amount. Yes, everyone is surprised by this because we are always given the impression that the US tax rate is so much lower than the rates in Europe. That is true if you are rich, but if you don't make that much money, income tax is actually a bit lower in the UK than in the US. It's a little complicated, but basically I had to compute the US tax rate on my entire income, subtract what the UK took, then pay the US the rest. So yeah, I had to pay the UK and the US tax on my UK income. And yes, it feels really unfair. Fortunately, this was the case only because I made money in both countries--in future years when my income is all from the UK I won't have to do that... unless I make over $85K, which won't happen soon. But I have to keep filing US taxes for the rest of my life, no matter where I live or earn my money.

Losing an unexpected couple of thousand of dollars has meant that we can't take any holidays that we wanted to, like going to the Lake District or going to Portland for the US derby nationals. Sigh.

One year!

The first of March was the one-year anniversary of our arrival in London! The time has gone by rather quickly.

It's very nearly the one-year anniversary of our moving into our current flat, which means that our lease is just about up. We never considered staying in our current place; it's just a studio and it has no phone line (which also means no broadband). We set out to find a flat in the Herne Hill or West Dulwich area of South London. We know people in Brixton and W. Dulwich and wanted to move near them. Well, the search did not go well at all. London is not very pet-friendly, or at least its landlords and ladies are not. Loads of places would not allow pets. We saw a selection of places that would allow them; nearly all were too expensive or crap, and some were both. We found two places we liked enough to live in and in both cases we were told that one pet would have been OK, but two was too many. I can't imagine what they think the second pet is going to do to their flats that the first would not have done.

We were feeling very frustrated and were getting very worried that we literally would not find somewhere to live. Fortunately, one of our fellow rollergirls is moving back to the US soon and she and her husband were looking for tenants for their flat. They aren't leaving until Sept but are going to be living with his parents from April to Sept. The flat is on Isle of Dogs, which is not a place that we really have any desire to live, but their flat is very nice (fully furnished, including a nice flat-screen TV) and they are happy to take our two pets. There is even a vet in their complex!

So sometime later this month we will be moving to the Isle of Dogs. If you have seen the movie 28 Weeks (not Days) Later, you will have seen Isle of Dogs. Right now, we are just going to do a short-term let until the end of July. We'll then either look again in Herne Hill/West Dulwich area or just stay in their place.

Glasgow Visit

Back in the beginning of November, a bunch of us from the London Rollergirls went up to Glasgow for the weekend to hang out and skate with the Glasgow Rollergirls. We went up on Saturday and returned on Sunday. On Saturday night, there was a big get-together at a pub. On Sunday we went to their practice, then went straight to the airport to return home. Six of us (Sarah, Emma, Jess, Jenny, Kat, and I) stayed in the house of one of the Glasgow skaters. It was a rather tiring weekend, but a lot of fun as well. I have pictures up on my flickr account.

Benelux without the lux

(Title stolen from Chris)

Back on 12-15 Oct, K and I went to Brussels and the Netherlands with my brothers.

I got up bright and early on the Friday to get to the Eurostar station by 7:00 AM. K had an interview that morning so had to take a later train. The train ride took two and half hours. The Chunnel portion was about half an hour, I think, but I dozed through it, so barely noticed it.

We arrived in Brussels in the late morning. It was very quiet! After London, it seemed strange to walk around and see barely anyone on the streets. After an initial wrong turn coming out of the station, we made it to the Grand Place then had some lunch. We then headed north to see the Royal Park and the palaces on the park perimeter. While we were in the park we heard some music and headed towards it. We found a band jamming in a gazebo and stopped to listen to them for a bit. They were mostly drums and brass plus an accordian and a violin. After resting there for a moment, we went on to the Cinquantenaire Park, then the EU Parliamentary Buildings. We stopped for some tea, walked through the Sablon area, then rushed back to the station to meet K. We took another train to Utrecht, checked into our hotel, then went to sleep.

The next day we went to Utrecht's city centre. We met up with Chris's friend who lives there. It was a market day, and the centre was incredibly busy. We all really like Utrecht a lot; it's a picturesque city with a lovely canal. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect. We spent the entire day walking all over the place. We finally had a tasty dinner at a Thai/Indonesian place on the canal, then returned to our hotel.

In the morning we got up and took a train on to Eindoven. The ride was through the countryside. It was very green, and very flat. I was very interested in the many miniature ponies I saw on the trip! I haven't been able to figure out why there were so many. In Eindoven, we met up with another of Chris's friends. There was a marathon going on in Eindoven that day, which made it a bit challenging to get around, with all the crowds and roped off areas. We explored the area in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, then went for dinner.

The next morning we went to Antwerp. We didn't have too long before we had to head on to Brussels to get our train home, so we just walked around a bit aimlessly for a few hours.

I have photos from the trip up on my Flickr account.

Bout video

Check out this video from our 8 Sept bout, shot and edited by the boyfriend of Belle De Brawl.

Metro Article

Here it is. I am Missyle Elliott.

Better Ch5 link

This official Channel 5 clip is a big longer and is much clearer.

The Metro article is out on Monday, and I'm quoted in it!

LRG on Channel 5

There was a bit on the LRG on the Channel 5 news. You can watch the clip on YouTube.

Quality is not so good, which makes it hard to recognize people. You can see my back in a few skating scenes--I have number 4 on my back. Right around 0:26, someone falls and I skate around her to the right. And I am standing on the far left in the background over wonky helmet's shoulder. That's about all you will see of me.

I have added pictures from April's going-away party on my Flickr account. They were taken on our camera phone, so the quality is not so great.

The rest of the week

I'm at the end of my week back at work, but I realized I didn't describe the rest of my week off.

On Friday we had lunch at Mildred's in Soho. After that we went to Oxford Street to look for a suit for K. We failed, so we went to the Odeon nearby and saw the Bourne Ultimatum. A standard movie at an Odeon is £9.90. Yeah, that's basically $40 for two people to see a movie. Needless to say, we don't see movies in the theatre very often.

We do like to go to the BFI, though. Movies are somewhat cheaper there, especially if you can go on a Tuesday. Right now there is a Bresson series on and we are going to see a couple of his films next week.

Anyway, back to last week. On Saturday we went to practice. That generally takes all day, because we get up a bit late and by the time we have breakfast, shower and get ready, then have lunch, it's time to leave for practice. We get there around 3:30, finish at 6:00, then generally go hang out at the pub after practice. Yeah, it's about the only time we hang out at the pub. Loads of the skaters go, and it's the main time we get to chat to new folks and try to convince them to join us. We also have informal (and sometimes formal) meetings and discuss league business. By the time we get home from that, there's just time for a late dinner and then a movie or some reading before bed.

Last Sunday we went down south of the river to look at some neighborhoods that we are considering for when we move. Herne Hill is the area we are most interested in. The south is cheaper and nearly all the people we know from derby live south, so we are starting to feel isolated up north. We can't move until next April, though, so this is just a vague idea at the moment. Emma and Sarah, who we know from derby, met us at Herne Hill station. We had lunch, then walked through Herne Hill and on to Dulwich Village. Dulwich is really lovely, but most likely out of our price range. After loads of walking, we took a bus back to Emma and Sarah's place, where we had some tea (as in a cup of).

At Tuesday night practice, Channel 5 news taped us, and we are on today's news. There's no way to watch it on the internet so I won't be able to see it until someone from the league uploads it.

Now it is Friday again. Tonight is the going-away party for one of our league members who is returning to the US. She used to be a director.

Next weekend we are off to Belgium and the Netherlands. I hope to actually take pictures during the trip!

A week off

I have taken this week off from work. It's my first extended period of time off. Our academic year ends at the end of Sept and we can't carry our leave over, so I figure I would take one of the two weeks of leave that I had.

On Saturday at practice, a reporter from Metro asked me some questions for an article she was doing on the the London Rollergirls. I think her attention was drawn to me by the large and colourful bruise I had on my arm from sliding into a bench at the previous practice. We'll see if I'm quoted in the article. I think it is supposed to be out in a week and a half.

I can't remember doing anything interesting on Monday. On Tuesday, we went to Kingston to let out a fellow rollergirl's dog. Kingston is just outside of London in the SW. We took Cricket with us, which means that he got his first tube-riding experience. We had to take a bus, then the Tube, then a train. He was very good, aside from some whining when we first got on and ended up right across from a guy eating KFC. It took nearly two hours to get there, another two to walk the dog and feed her, then another two for the return journey. It was longer than we had expected, and we ended up missing practice. The dog we were letting out is a Staffordshire Terrier. They are very popular here. She is shorter than Cricket, but very sturdy and strong. The rollergirl and her partner live in a flat that is right on the Thames, so we walked the two dogs along the river. I did take a few pictures of the two dogs, but none of the view. I really need to take more photos!

Yesterday, Wednesday, we had lunch with a high-school friend of mine. I had not seen him since high school, i.e., 17 years ago. He is a really sweet guy and we had a good time hanging out with him. He took us (we should have been taking him places, as we are the ones living here, but he knew a couple of cool things) to the Soane museum. It was really cool; it's a house (or a few houses together) that he designed and his collection of artifacts. After the museum, Brian headed back to his friend's place and K and I went on to a derby meeting.

Today we are taking it easy, just hanging around and doing a couple of little tasks. Tomorrow we are going to go buy K a suit for an upcoming interview.

I am listening to Arcade Fire's Neon Bible right now.