“That’s Ridiculous, You Don’t Even Have a Queen!” – Sarah Wareing

After traveling around all weekend, it felt a bit strange to be expected to wake up and go to work the next day. But what felt wonderful was waking up in my own bed with no one else in the room and getting dressed and ready from clothes in cabinets as opposed to a backpack and having everything else I needed in it’s place. Privacy is something I think I’ve come to appreciate more and more the longer I spend here. As it turns out, it was a very good thing I went to work after all as it was a very eventful day, and all of said events were not work related.

When I get in who do I notice is making toast, but the man from the village, Freelance Ben! (Whose last name I found out is actually Wicks, which explains why everyone calls him “Wicksey”) As we’re chatting and making tea and toast, Josh comes over and is trying to join in on all the ‘still can’t believe you live in/call them villages’ talk.

JOSH: Have you ever heard of a Hamlet?

ME: As in the play…?

JOSH: No, a Hamlet. It’s a small cluster of like 3 or 4 houses that’s too small to be considered a village.

ME: Whatttt? Those are just houses! There’s no such thing as a Hamlet.

JOSH: Yes there is

WICKSEY: A hamlet? I don’t know if I’ve heard of that before either

ME: Ha! See, not real!

JOSH: Yes it is. I’m being genuinely serious.

Pshh. Unfortunately, further google research proves that Josh can sometimes be considered a credible source and there is such a thing as a Hamlet, which is exactly what he says it is. Damn it.

JOSH: So what did you do this weekend? Anything fun?

ME: Yeah actually, I did a bit of travelin.

JOSH: Oh where to? Did you go to Scotland?

ME: No I went to Oxford, Stonehenge and Bath.

JOSH: Are you going to go to Scottland?

ME: No, I don’t think so. I mean I wanted to, but nah.

JOSH: Why not?!

ME: Because I don’t think I have the time nor the funds. Why do you care so much about Scotland anyways?

JOSH: I’m from Scotland.

ME: Na ah! Really? As in you were legit born and lived there?

JOSH: Yes.

ME: Well, then where-

JOSH: Where’s my Scottish accent?

ME: Yeah!

JOSH: I lost it when I went to Uni.

ME: Can you do an accent still? Bring it back!

JOSH: Ugh, well what do you want me to say?

ME: I dunno! Just say something!

Again, turns out Josh wasn’t lying and he could pull off a very soft and subtle accent. Well now this makes more sense about shortbreads being a traditional Scottish dessert and why Josh called them a taste of the ‘homeland’. Ahhhh-ha! So on I went to gather any last bit of ‘interesting information’ to spark TV show ideas before our development meeting today when Paul and Ben announce that we’re having a meeting. Paul is joining our meeting? Along with like half the office? What is going on? So in everyone gathered to the ‘Crisps room’ which was freezing. Josh was the lucky person sitting next to the thermostat and every time someone new walked in they would comment on the cold and then tell Josh that he should put the heat on to which he would reply, ‘I’ve already put it on!’ Haha. It’s the little things I have to cherish.

BEN: So right. Paul and I called this meeting together to kind of regroup and refocus. As most everyone knows, Matt is leaving us-

ME: What?

BEN: *points at me* Oh Devon! You don’t know! You weren’t here! Yeah, Matt is leaving.

Well that explains why Wicksey was sitting at his computer this morning! My first thought was, how sad. I was just starting to get to know Matt. Who’s going to sit by me at my computer desk now? And my second was, how sad. He’s not going to get to hear my Uncle sing More Than a Woman in Johnny 5’s voice now. Too bad Matt. The rest of the meeting was full of all that don’t worry this won’t effect us and we’re going to continue going strong talk! I imagine this had more impact on the people who’ve worked in the office longer than three weeks and were close enough to Matt to have a longer conversation other than “How was your weekend?”

After that meeting, Josh, Wicksey, Super Star Intern Sarah, Dan (who I call Thomas in my head) and I went into another room to talk about Blah Blah Blah, a TV show we’re currently in the midst of developing. Only problem was that we have a problem getting on or staying on topic. Today’s issue was all about the U.S. high school right of passage known as Prom, something they don’t have in England and that the whole group was fascinated with. I have no idea we got on this topic, but the conversation went something like this:

SARAH: Is it true you have Prom Queens? Like someone gets to be Queen?

ME: Oh yeah, you have a whole Prom court. Let’s see there’s Queen and King, Prince and Princess, Duke and Dutchess, Baron and Baroness, ummm… I think there’s one more?

SARAH: That’s ridiculous, you don’t even have a Queen! What do you get if your Queen? Do you win money or something like that?

ME: Oh nah, you get a little sash that says ‘Prom Queen’ and a crown-

JOSH: A crown? Why do they need a crown?

ME: Because they’re a Queen! And usually you get flowers and I dunno, just the title of being Prom Queen. It’s kind of a big deal.

SARAH: We’re you Prom Queen?

ME: hahahahaha! Oh no, I wasn’t popular enough to be Prom Queen!

JOSH: Who was your date?

SARAH: How do you become Queen?

ME: Oh, it’s basically a huge popularity contest but it depends on the school. At my school you just wrote down like the 5 girls you think should be queen and then those get added up and the top five choices of those are your ‘official nominees’ and then you vote again, and the one with the most votes is Queen, the one with the second most is Princess and so on and so forth. But I know other schools do it differently. Like at my friend Karina’s school, it was like the top five girls who raised the most money for some charity or something.

JOSH: Well that’s crap, they could just cheat.

ME: Exactly. It’s really just a popularity contest. But you guys don’t have a Prom or a big ‘end of school right of passage’ or anything like that?

SARAH: We have like an end of the year ball, but it’s really quite crap. Everyone just gets dressed up and gets dunk. We don’t have Queens.

ME: Haha, we’ll it’s more than a just a dance.

JOSH: What else is it? Who did you take to Prom? Who was your date?

ME: Oh god, I don’t want to talk about my Prom. There was so much drama and it just wasn’t fun and-

WICKSEY: Well you can’t say that. Now you have to tell us what happened! Why was there drama?

ME: Ughh *sigh* because there was all this confusion about limos and-

JOSH: Limos?

ME: Oh yeah, well see first you all meet at someone’s house so the parents can take all those embarrassing Prom Pictures of the little couples and guys give the girls corsashes and girls give the guys buteneers. And then you all get in a limo and go out to dinner and then you finally get to the dance. And then after you’re supposed to go back to someone’s house and have a huge after party and that’s where all those ‘Prom stories’ about getting drunk and having sex comes in to play. But see there was all this confusion because two different groups of friends wanted me in their limo and-

JOSH: You just said you weren’t popular!

ME: I wasn’t popular!

JOSH: Well you’re getting invited into limos, that sounds pretty popular to me. But who was your Prom date?

ME: Ughh. I don’t want to talk about this.

JOSH: No come on, who’d you go to Prom with? Was it someone like really embarrassing? Was he like super fat and ugly or something?

ME: No, my Prom date actually went with someone else-

SARAH: Oh gosh, that’s terrible!

WICKSEY: What’s the prick’s name? We’ll look him up!

JOSH: So that’s why you didn’t want to say who your date was! Who is he? Do you still have his number? Call him up! I’ll tell him off!

ME: Oh my god, no! It wasn’t like that at all!

JOSH: You just said this guy went with someone else.

ME: Yes, but-

JOSH: That sounds like a pretty messed up thing to do-

ME: No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. He’s one of my best friends-

WICKSEY: You’re still friends with him? That’s not on.

ME: Ughh, no see, Dan and I are like really good friends and were going to go to Prom together. But he had this crush on this other girl and at the last minute I convinced him to take her instead so I kind of got rid of my own Prom date.

SARAH: Aww, that’s quite nice actually.

ME: Yeah, so don’t be mean. He’s still one of my really good friends. And he’s like a super sweet guy. I don’t have any bad feelings against him at all.

JOSH: He still left you.

ME: Sooo. Any other American questions you have for me? Any other topics I need to set straight?

Oh my gosh, can we say one of the funniest but more cringetastic moments for me? The three of them were seriously leaning in around the board table to hear me talk about something you’d think was the most important thing in the world. And if you’re reading this Dan, I’m sorry it came out this way, I was trying very hard to ignore the question and I have no regrets about how the date situation worked. We eventually got back on topic to talk about the show but broke soon after that for lunch. Enter embarrassing conversation number 2 of the day for me that I also have no recollection of how we got on that topic. In someway or another Ben, Wicksey and Josh were teasing me about something or another (go figure, right?) when Ben asks,

BEN: Are you going to go write this in your diary?

ME: Ew, no I don’t keep a diary.

BEN: No? Not a journal? A blog?

ME: Oh, well I do have a blog, but it’s just about this, you know, being in London. I don’t blog in my everyday life.

BEN: I want to read your blog!

ME: NO!

BEN: Why not?

ME: Because you can’t! It’s all stuff about y’all!

BEN: Well now I have to, can you reach it through Google?

ME: No!!

Yup. THEY FOUND MY BLOG AT WORK. I turned super bright red and tried to hide myself in my scarf. This proved rather unsuccessful on both ends and soon enough, Ben has my blog pulled up on his computer and him and Wicksey start reading it! And of course, what’s the most recent entry on the top of the page, but the one about me going round his house. Greeatt. And then Ben notices the conversation bits and turns to me:

BEN: This is like exactly what happened! Like word for word. That's exactly what I said!

ME: Yeah, I know. That’s kind of the point.

WICKSEY: How do you do that? Are you wired? Are you recording this conversation right now?

ME: No, I just have a really good memory. Please don’t read this!

BEN: *laughing* Oh Devon, this is fantastic! How do I bookmark this?

ME: Oh god, no!

Too late. All too soon it’s pulled up on at least three people’s computers and they’re reading all of my thoughts on them. I was so embarrassed and it took me a good five minutes to calm down. Oh god, well might as well embrace it.

BEN: Devon, who reads this?

ME: Oh I don’t know exactly, people back home. I know my mom, and my sister, and a few of my friends and my boss and stuff do.

BEN: Haha, oi look Josh, look, you’re in here too!

JOSH: I didn’t say that! *talking about calling President Bush a twat*

ME: Oh yes you did! I remember that conversation almost exactly! But don’t worry Josh, you’re like everyone’s favorite. I was telling my mom and my sister about the piñata story this weekend and they thought it was hilarious!

JOSH: So your family thinks I’m stupid now?

ME: No, not at all. But it was really funny. They couldn’t stop laughing. You just don’t get it. You’re not from San Antonio, ok?

Oh the piñata story. So last week, one of the girls on the Production team was in the kitchen talking about how she’s having her boyfriend round for dinner at her parents house when Josh accused her of never being invited for dinner at her parent’s house when I just had to intervene. The conversation went something like this *flashback mode*

ME: Josh, are you just inviting yourself over to people’s houses for dinner now?

JOSH: Yes. Devon, how come you’ve never invited me for dinner with your family?

ME: You know what Josh? The second you show up to Texas, you are more than welcome to come have dinner with my family. Although, it probably won’t be like a real ‘traditional Texas’ dinner or anything. Unless we BBQ or something.

JOSH: Great. I’ll bring the piñata.

ME: What? Why are you bringing a piñata?

JOSH: Well, you’re Mexican right?

ME: Yeah, but-

JOSH: You’ve had a piñata before, right?

ME: Yeah, at my 6^th birthday, but-

JOSH: Well, there you go. A piñata. Makes sense.

No Josh, it doesn’t. He was so cavalier and calm about the whole thing and so certain that he was doing the proper thing and that it all made sense. I tried to explain that you don’t bring piñatas for dinner. They’re usually for children at birthday parties, but I don’t think he really got it.

I ended up staying an extra hour at work today so I could actually attend the development meeting in the afternoon. When I left, Wicksey asked me if I was going home to transcribe this whole conversation. I would say ‘No Wicksey, I’m not!’ But it turns out I kinda did. And if any of you chums at work are actually still reading this well then, good for you! I don’t know why you would other than to see how you’re being portrayed by me because I certainly can’t change my format up now. Your comments just bring humor to too many other people back home and all of you have ‘fans’. Feel loved and admired and not made fun of please.

On I went to my film class where we talked about our upcoming paper due next week. As I sat down and started thinking about what I had to do that night, I realized that tonight was the night I had to leave early to go to the ballet! I honestly don’t know how I remembered that one, especially since I forgot my planner at home, but all I can say is thank the Lord for my wonderful memory and please please please don’t let me get Alzheimer's when I get old! So Chloe and I left at break (she couldn’t concentrate) and I headed off to the Royal Opera House. I had to come back through the Baker Street stop to switch lines, and who should I see there but Liam! The giant sheepdog and his owner were getting sandwiches! I had this huge goofy smile on my face and I don’t know if the owner recognized me as the girl who took pictures of his dog, but I so wanted to just wrap my arms around the dog and say “Liam!!!!” Instead I just smiled like a loon at them and the owner smiled back. When I got off the tube at Covent Garden there weren’t stairs that lead to the street, just lifts. In retrospect, this should have been a sign! But what did I do? I thought, pfft, why would I take a lift, that’s lazy. Oh look, stairs. Yeah never ending spiral stairs. Turns out the Underground is really far underground and I ended up climbing 195 stairs to reach the street. I know this because there's a sign at the top of the stairs when you reach the street that tells you this. They should really put that sign on the BOTTOM of the staircase rather than the TOP. But oh well, good for the legs, right?

The ballet was lonnng. I don’t think I got home till after 11. It was one of the performances we’re required to see for our theatre class and Jeni and I had pretty crappy seats. The theatre itself was probably the prettiest theatre I’ve been in ever, but wouldn’t you know it, I left my camera on my desk that morning after putting it on the charger after my trip. Damn. No pictures this time. The whole thing did make me want to start dancing again. Maybe I’ll take that ballet class again next Spring. It was fun, and this time I’ll have some idea what I’m doing. Who knows Caroline, I may just be Prima again! Haha

Love,

I-really-hope-no-one-at-work-is-still-reading-this-Devon