Issue date: 3/27/06 Print Email Page 1 of 4 next > Junior Jeffrey Parker, a history major from Winston-Salem, N.C., is spending the spring semester in Oxford, England, after also spending the fall term there. Twice a month, he will share his experiences and observations from England as one of GW's many expats. God save the Queen.

Modern life. . . is so mediated that authentic experience is much harder to find . . . we've all got this idea of what [life] should be like-from movies, from pornography.

It tastes exactly the same. Jesus, halfway around the world, and it tastes exactly the same. It looks the same, too, just like on the poster. I'm at a Subway in Ireland, and I have the option of dressing my sandwich with Chipotle Southwest Sauce in a land where southwest means Cork and not Arizona.

But I have other concerns right now beyond my cheesesteak sandwich, namely the prospect of writing a column for the sex issue. What to write? I contemplated analyzing the phenomenon of every straight girl I know inevitably, when discussing Angelina Jolie and/or Jenny Lewis, getting a glazed-over look and saying "I'm not a lesbian. . . but I would totally have sex with her." Then I realized that I was probably clueless, and my own admiration for the pair wasn't going to provide sufficient insight for an entire column.

Then I thought about spending my thousand words or so lambasting Michael Bay. You see, I just found out that Scarlett Johannson wanted to do a nude scene in The Island, and Bay didn't let her. That went out the window when it occurred to me that I cannot possibly discuss this rationally, as I still can't process why the director hates happiness and freedom and America, which is the only logical explanation for his decision. Damn you, Michael Bay.

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