Losing my voice

Well, it's official, I'm losing my voice. Having to talk loudly, inhaling tons of second hand smoke, and being out way too late in the cold London summer air due to absurd night buses have left me struggling to speak. Well, I can speak, but it's not so pleasant. Fortunately, I have a Colombian girlfriend who knows the magical Colombian cure. I took her to La Bougadita (the Colombian restaurant I frequent) for lunch today. There is a little shop associated with the restaurant which sells Colombian goods. She bought this sugary concoction - it's essentially processed, tightly packed sugar - maybe akin to brown sugar - that you melt in hot water and then add lemon to. It's supposed to help. She swears by it and says her grandmother has been using it for years and it never fails. I'm giving it a go. At the least, it's very tasty.

Anyway, last night was a good time except that I was feeling sort of assilicious. When we arrived at the place, after a very long and confusing walk from the Tube station, Smooth Like Butta' was pretty much trashed. He'd been out with a British woman that he really likes but never hit it off with since about 3 pm and we got to the bar at about 10 pm. A gaggle of people arrived shortly thereafter. Colombians, gringo's, Europeans - it was quite a mix. What was really funny was the number of women that he's hooked up with that were all meeting each other for the first time, none of them knowing that they all shared something in common.

Real World managed to make it as well. I was fairly accurate with my prediction. Instead of inviting an ex, she came with her personal trainer from her gym. He's pretty much a total jackass - within about 10 minutes of meeting me, he offered me "some cocaine". Not only is that bad form (who the hell offers cocaine around like that?), but he seriously could have gotten his ass kicked by a couple of people in our group. One thing my Colombian friends feel very strongly about (justifiably) is that cocaine is the root of all the problems in Colombia and the people that use it are scum. They have no issue with kicking the crap out of someone or turning them into the police.

I find it hard to argue with them. I've written a bit about this before I believe. I have no problem with drug consumption in the abstract - as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, I feel people should be free to make their own choices about how they conduct their personal affairs. But, when that sphere of personal conduct effects other people, then that's where I draw the line. The war on drugs in Colombia (Plan Colombia), sponsored and paid for by the US, has created a wealth of violence, injury, and death in Colombia. Consuming Colombian cocaine directly contributes to the cycle. Not only that, however, the distinction between "drug kingpin" and "revolutionary" is now blurred to the point of irrelevance. FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), a marxist revolutionary movement that is known for terrorism and kidnappings, now controls the drug trade in and out of Colombia. Purchasing Colombian cocaine means that FARC can by explosives, firearms, and other weapons that they use to attack innocent civilians to prosecute their own political aims. This is a topic I've been investigating for some time (wrote a paper about it) and one of the reasons I want to go to Colombia. I have excellent contacts in the Colombian police/military, so it would not be difficult for me to get access to the people with "on the ground" knowledge and experience from which I can build a story and argument from. Hopefully, those plans will come to fruition.

Anyway, back to the story (enough ranting for the moment). We left shortly after 1 am. I was exhausted from this cold and Ms. Colombia is just not a late night person and wanted to get out of there. The place was closing anyway, so we opted out of the post-bar clubbing and headed home. The night bus situation here in London is not so stellar, but we had hopes of a speedy journey as we were not going that far. No such luck. We ended up taking a bus to London Bridge which seemed like a good idea at the time, except that it was cold as ice (it's right on the Thames and the wind of the water was frigid), and the signs we followed to our connecting bus were totally wrong, thus we waited for about 30 minutes in the wrong place. That pissed me off, for sure. After we realized that, we ended up missing our connection by about 10 seconds, so we decided to take a cab the rest of the way. It was almost 3 in the morning at this point and I was fading fast. Fortunately, the cab was not too pricey as we were relatively close to home.

I went back over to Earl's Court today to gather up the remainder of my belongings. I couldn't turn in my key though, so I'm going back over there tomorrow. I left a blanket and a few kitchen items as well, so I'll grab those tomorrow. There are a couple places in that area I may be able to stay at in September and I talked to a few people about them while I was there. Essentially hostels, but they do short term stays and they're not as hostile and rule driven as the student house I was at. Tonight, I'm going to work on my thesis and relax. I have a lot of reading to do, but fortunately, I've made fairly good progress overall. I haven't written anything yet, which is always the competition with Real World - or at least it is for her. Our methodologies totally differ, though. I don't rush to get words on paper so that I can feel good about "progress". Instead, I take my time reading, digesting, and planning arguments, so that when I do put words on paper, they make sense and they appear almost effortlessly. Tomorrow, I start a series of harassing phone calls in pursuit of a job. Ms. Colombia and I are going to Spain in September, so I need to make some money. Plus, I'll need to pay rent and stuff as well.

Highlight of the night:

Real World: "So, are you learning to speak Colombian?"
Me: "It's called Spanish."
Real World: "Oh, yeah. Hehe. That language."

She never ceases to impress with utter nobbery.