Insomnia

Well, yesterday was an entirely productive day. I rose with the idea that I would finish my Japan paper and I was successful. It took a lot of work, but I have only a few modest modifications to make before it's ready to be turned in. Today, I'm focusing on the Intro paper, which I have done the research for, but have not really written anything. I'm a little behind my personal deadlines (I had hoped to have Japan finished on Sunday), but with some good work today, I should be able to catch up.

Reading the political news from the States I'm still surprised no one has a really good explanation for why some polling companies have Bush with a 12% lead and some have the race dead even. I did read an interesting argument a couple weeks ago that the methodologies were different, but I don't remember the specifics of the argument. If anyone out there has a good read on the issue, I'd love to hear it.

There has been a call from one particularly testy reader for a report on the food here in the UK. Fair enough. I'm neglecting my duty in that regard, especially since I'm a total foodie. Here goes:

British food stinks. As this Italian guy who used to live in my house said, "Brits don't know dick about cooking." It's true. You can take any cross-section of traditional British food and you will find it bland and flavorless. It's almost like the Brits just didn't understand that those frilly green herb things could make food taste good.

That being said, the Brits know this. That's why you can go into almost any pub and get decent food that is NOT British. For example, one of the big pub chains here sells inexpensive and quite decent Indian food. It won't be as spicey as an Indian restaurant would make it, but it is good. Other pubs might have Thai or other varieties of Asian.

But outside of the pub, there are plenty of delicious food options. Right down the street from where I live (to the South), there is an excellent italian restaurant that I discovered totally by accident. Very good pizza, although not that similar to the American standards (and that's a good thing). In the other direction is my British Chipolte - Star Kabob. This is a persian restaurant that also serves Indian food. But I've never tried the Indian food, I only get the kabobs. Basically, they are open from 10 am to 5 or 6 am and they always have cheap, tasty kabobs. Now this isn't just meat on a stick. No, no, no. This is meat that been roasted slowly and spiced nicely, chopped, and then put into a pita that they grill before stuffing. Then they put hot sauce (or sweet and sour or mayo/garlic - but the hot sauce is the best) and a cabbage type salad on top. It's great, as long as you don't think about the quality of the meat. All that costs like 3 pounds - which is less than 6 dollars. Not too bad.

There's also Wagamama, which I believe I mentioned before. It is quite delicious Japanese food, if you order the right stuff (stay away from the Yaki Soba - not even close to the real thing).

Really, though, I haven't eaten out that much because it's damn expensive. I have had some nice Indian food, and I had a fantastic creme puff type thing at a bakery yesterday, but I haven't really had too many sit down meals. I have some places on my list that I want to go to, so I'll report on those when the time comes. A friend of mine has ranted and raved about this late night place near campus that sells what he calls, "the best shwarma in town", so I'm eager to try that soon. For those of you who don't know, shwarma is lebanese and totally delicious.

At any rate, the reason this post is title Insomnia is because I couldn't sleep last night. I tossed and turned most of the night. But, all was not lost, at about 4 am I had a very coherent thought about the conclusion of my Japan paper that I was wise enough to write down (about 3 sentences worth). I ended up passing out some time after that. Of course, sound sleeping was not possible because at 930 this firm called me about a job interview. I went back to sleep after, but still, it was not the most restful sleep. However, when I looked at what I wrote at 4 am, it makes me think I should always write my papers at 4 am. I really nailed it rhetorically and argumentatively.