Trains deaths

Last Wednesday night when I arrived at the station to head home I was told that there were no more trains running due to a person jumping in front of a train.

From time to time when traveling on the tube you'll hear that trains will be delayed due to a passenger under a train. That is sad as well, but when someone jumps in front of a train at the Harrow and Weadlstone you just get such a vivid mental picture.

Harrow and Weadlstone is an open station and has six platforms. You get the Bakerloo line, trains and then the fast trains.

Let me tell you the fast trains fly by there, so fast that the noise is deafening. They rip through the station at around 225 miles per hour.


It's just so sad. Apparently the Harrow and Wealdstone train station is a popular spot for this such activity. On my very first day of work services were delayed because of a person jumping in front of a train. I remember being a bit unsettled by it.

It's just something that I wouldn't have encountered in Minneapolis. I know it's not the most cheery of subjects to blog about, but it's part of my life now. It just makes you stop and think when you're faced with something like on the way home from work.

Delays after death at Harrow and Wealdstone train station

5:39pm Wednesday 18th November 2009

By Jack Royston »

A PERSON was killed after being hit by a fast train at Harrow and Wealdstone station today.

Paramedics raced to the scene after the incident, at around 3.30pm, involving the London Euston to Wolverhampton service.

The person was found dead at the scene.

The British Transport Police have confirmed they are not treating the death as suspicious.

London Midland and London Overground services have been hit by severe delays and cancellations, while the Bakerloo Line is suspended between Harrow and Wealdstone and Kenton.

Lunch dreams

Takeout Lunch From Marks & Spencer, originally uploaded by ComeUndone.

As I am sitting around doing nothing on my lunch break it occurs to me that I could perhaps write a blog post. Considering that it's been a month since I last posted anything. So what will I write about?

Lunch.

Lunch time in Harrow (where my office is located) is somewhat of a dismal affair. The offerings are slim and depressing. We've got some chicken and chip shops that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, a McDonalds, a Tesco Express (which just opened a month ago) and a smelly Budgens.

There is one good restaurant, a small Thai place that does a really good lunch for a fiver. As much as I love Thai, you can only eat so much of it.

I've selected this M&S photo montage to represent what I wish I was having for lunch. To be fair there is a M&S over in Harrow and I have taken the bus there a few times to spice things up. It's about a 25 min round trip journey. I know I will sound like an utter snob, but I just can't do the Tesco sandwiches.

The other option would be to plan ahead and just either make my own lunches or go to M&S and stock up for a few days at a time. That would be the sensible thing to do, but then what would I have to complain about?

I am also not the kind of person who likes to spend her valuable time shopping for lunches after work. Once I get off the train I want to just get home. I know it's going to sound incredibly lazy, because there is a Waitrose right next to the overground station in Westfield. I could pop in there, but I have to be in the mood to be shoved around by all the other after work shoppers.

Oh well, for now it's lunch in Harrow......

Thoughts from Seth Godin that make sense

Traction and friction

A big car on a wet frozen lake goes nowhere. No traction, no motion.

A small bug working its way across a gravel driveway takes forever. Too much friction, too little motion.

If you're stuck, it's probably because one of these two challenges.

There's not enough traction online. Too many choices, too few boundaries. It's easy to get stuck because there's nothing to push off of, no box to think outside of.

There's too much friction in stuck industries. The walls have been expanded for so long, you just can't get over them.

Matthew's suprise trip to Paris

Very lovely book about Paris, originally uploaded by rhea o'connor.

So last year I missed Matthew's 29th birthday. I was back in Minneapolis waiting for my marriage visa to come through. I had arranged for our flatmate and friend Wayland to take Matthew out for dinner, the plan was to celebrate with him when I got back. I wanted to Wayland to take Matthew to KFC and treat him to a big family bucket with all the trimmings and I would pay him back. I can't stand KFC and thought it would be a nice treat for Matthew.

Well, Wayland did end up taking him there. He didn't mention that I had asked him to and Matthew ended up paying! I also didn't manage to phone Matthew to wish him happy birthday until late in the day and I didn't get a birthday card in the mail in time.....

So, I thought that I would make it up to him. It was Matthew's 30th this past Friday and I knew I was going to take him away for a surprise trip. He took me away to Barcelona for my 30th, so I thought I would return the favor. I also like the idea of starting a going away for a birthday tradition. Matthew knew that we were going away, but he didn't know where. I really wanted to surprise him and do something special. I came up with the idea of maybe going away the week before, so he would think we were going the weekend of the 25th but he would be surprised that we went before that. That didn't really have the wow factor that I was looking for, all I was doing was shifting some dates around.

Then, I thought hang on a minute! Why don't I take him away for a weekend to make up for the fact that his 29th birthday involved him buying himself and Wayland dinner at KFC? I thought a nice weekend trip to Paris on the Eurostar would do the trick. I arranged with Matthew's very lovely boss to give him the day off. I was going to show up at around 2:30 p.m. at Matthew's office with our suitcase and we would head off for St.Pancras station, next stop Paris.

Planning this surprise was a bit nerve racking. Well, very nerve racking on the day we left. I get very nervous about trying to get somewhere on time if I am traveling. I like to get to the airport or station with lots of time to spare. I hate having to run for a train or plane. I was a bit worried about the timing, of getting to Matthew's office and then us getting to the station. Then the worry came when I started to work myself up thinking about what if I couldn't get in contact with Matthew when I got to his office. What if he was in a meeting or if he stepped out? Oh dear.....I started to panic when I got to his office and rang his mobile and he wouldn't answer. I am sure he looked at his phone and wondered why his wife had been calling him like 15 times in a row.

I finally got him to answer while I was down in the reception area. I told him he needed to hightail it downstairs. He told me he was in the middle of something and would be down in a bit. Well this through me in a tizzy and I demanded that he come down right now! I said I've cleared it with your boss down get down here. I am sure that by the way people were looking at me in the reception area that I sounded a bit mad.

Long story short, Matthew was very pleasantly surprised. We had a lovely departure from St. Pancras. It's so nice to travel by train and not have to deal with getting to the airport. The train journey was fantastic. We had some nice cake from Peyton and Byrne and we washed it down with some red wine.

Paris was beautiful. I had been there 10 years before, back when I was a travel agent and Matthew had been there about 12 years ago. We had a great time. We strolled around, ate beautiful macaroons, went to cafes, rented bikes and rode around... It was the perfect weekend. I think it pretty much lets me off the hook for when I was in Minnesota.

Unfortuantely I dropped my camera on Saturday, but here are a few photos!

Celebrity Spotting

As most of you know by now one of my favorite things about living in London is watching  EastEnders. It's a soap and I am hooked. It's the best thing on telly. I've never been the kind of person who watched soap operas. No One Life to Live or Days of Our Lives for me, but EastEnders... Now that's completely different.

EastEnders is a long-running, popular and award-winning television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985. It currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the United Kingdom. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. The series primarily centres around the residents ofAlbert Square, a Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, namely Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street, and which encompasses a pub, street market, night club, community centre, cafe and various small businesses, in addition to a park and allotments.

Last Friday I was meeting Matthew after work at our local shopping center, Westfield. Westfield is right outside the tube stop that's near our flat and it happens to be the largest urban area indoor shopping center in Europe. Brag brag...

Anyways, I was waiting for Matthew so we could walk home together and all of sudden he phones me up and tells me to get down to the entrance outside of Waitrose. Once I got down there he very discretely pointed out that none other than Bradely Branning was standing just about 30 feet away! I was over the moon! Seeing a character from EastEnders in real life, what a treat. 

I didn't go up to him and ask for an autograph, I try to be respectful of these huge celebrities. I was satisfied to follow him and his friends in Wagamama and eat dinner just one table away from him!  

Busy Bee

Deep down I feel like there's nothing more boring than writing a post about being too busy to post..........

Although it's true, I have been busy and in a good way. I say that I've been busy, but it would be more honest to say that I've also been pretty lazy as well :) 

I originally turned to blogging as a way to chronicle my journey looking for a job, but it became more of an outlet for my loneliness while adjusting to life in a new country. When I look back at the months with the most posts, I know that I was going through a hard time. 

Being too busy to blog does come down to a lack of discipline, but on the upside it means that things are taking off. I've been pretty busy since starting my new job in June. I haven't really posted much about it. From June 1st it's just been go go go. Now that I am a bit more settled at work I should feel more inclined to write. Cheers to being busy! 

Moving abroad

stinkin' pink, originally uploaded by simple moth (taking a break).

I never really wanted to live in another country. I was never against it, but it was never a dream of mine. I thought about living in another part of the States maybe Chicago or New York, but I was pretty happy with things in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a great place to live. You can feel a bit landlocked at times, but I am definitely proud to be a Minnesotan gal.

To be honest I wasn't even all that keen to study abroad. In my major you spend your last semester either doing a full time internship or studying abroad. MCAD also has relationships with other colleges in the states and I really wanted to do a semester at Parsons. Parsons in New York City had a great program in design management. I went through the process of trying to make that happen and it turned out it was going to cost more than going to MCAD for the semester. I had earned a scholarship for my senior year and it couldn't be used at Parsons, but it could be used if I studied abroad at one of the colleges that we partnered with overseas.

Since my high school French isn't what it used to be, I decided that it would be good to go somewhere people spoke English. That gave me a few choices, London, Brighton or Ireland. The universities in Brighton and Ireland were fine arts based so that left London.

At the time MCAD was only sending graphic design students over to the London College of Communication, but I discovered that they had a relevant course to my major in Marketing and Advertising. I worked with MCAD to let me go and in the end another classmate of mine went along as well.

Now going back to when I said I didn't want to study abroad. In hindsight it's a really silly thing to say. I would definitely recommend it to everyone. At the time I thought that it might not be the best move since I wanted to stay in Minneapolis and try to make contacts to find a job after graduation. I had also traveled abroad before and it wasn't like I was 22 and going to be on my own for the first time. I was worried that it was going to be too expensive and it wasn't sensible. I am so glad I decided to go for it.

I can't tell you how happy I am that I decided to do it. You just learn so much about yourself and the world.

So it was decided that I would spent eight weeks studying in London. Before I got to London I did a little traveling in Ireland. Two other MCAD Vis students, Zoe Peterson and Katy Smith, were going to do a semester in Dublin. I hung around with them for a bit before heading over to London. Little did I know what was in store......