Class stories, and London late at night

So it's Friday evening, and I just finished another week of class. It was an interesting week, on Monday in Fiction we talked about The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. First we watched a movie about the making of the movie that features Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. From the clips they showed, it looks like a pretty good movie, but I've heard from kids in my class that it is not that good. Well maybe I will see it one day. The reason I mention class is after the break, we talked about how it is a war novel (affair round one takes place during WWII), and what the characters have to do with this. One of the main characters is a politician, but he's the one who's wife cheats on him, he's a little weak, and we were talking about what Greene is trying to say about this. Sara, my teacher was saying that there was many mistakes made by politicians in this time, and anyone not Churchill was open to criticisms. I cannot remember all the mistakes she mentioned, but she mentioned, "sending too many men to Dunkirk, and the consequences of that." I looked up at that point, because I knew what she was talking about... I was just in Dover where the men evacuated from Dunkirk were brought, and those who went to get the men left from. It was just one of those cool moments, when I realize how much my traveling does for my education. I would never known about Dunkirk if I did not just go to Dover. I just love when I know these places that are mentioned, and after she mentioned, I thought that 'yeah 400,000 is a lot of men to send over'.

So then in Children's Lit, we talked about Peter Pan. Nothing bad was said about J.M Barrie, and she was nice to the book, which of course I loved. I've never read it, just seen every version of it, but it was nice to read. Got goosebumps when I read the part with the kite, and Peter saying, "To die would be an awfully big adventure." That is in Finding Neverland, and all I could think of was, when Wendy says, "Peter I'm frightened" and the camera does the whole turning thing, and then focusing in on Peter's amazed, awed and stunned face. Sammie my new friend from that class wasn't there, I was sad about that. I talked to her on facebook, and she said that she didn't read it, and was too tired. What an excuse.
But in the seminar, she was talking about Indians, and how at this time the West in America was not open, but it wasn't that long since it was the frontier and everything, and all a sudden she stares at me and says, "What year was the gold rush?" Ummmm, I've been so focused in on British history, that my first thought was, "what gold rush?" But I did manage to remember and say 1849. So then not 5 minutes goes by, when she stares at me again and says, "What's that movie with that guy?" Um. I shook my head and said, "I need a little bit more than that." She said, "The Indian. Movie. Daniel something." And of course that morning I had been watching M*A*S*H as I was eating and getting ready so I said, "Hawkeye? Last of the Mohican's?" I was right. So weird though. Do not like being stared at, and then put on the spot like that. No thank you.

Of course after Tuesday I had two days of calmness, well I should have. My computer problems started then, I lost the internet, went around the world trying to find an answer, and this morning around 4am, everything was fine. Of course this involved an hour conversation with my Dad... yeah that cost a little bit of money, but it needed to be done. Computer working fine now, thankfully.

But one more story before I end this post, Jessica Potter and Nils are here. We stayed with them when we went to Spain. Jessica is Kathleen's friend, and Nils is the kid from Germany, who I will be beating up if he mentions his opinion of woman hockey players ever again. But I like them a lot, and they are here for the weekend. They cam in last night at 10:55pm. Into Stansted. Stansted is about an hour outside of London, and far away. The underground shuts down around 12:30am, and the buses start their night schedule, but still it's not good to be out late. So I went into London with Kathleen to pick them up at Liverpool Street. It was going to be close time wise, and I went for moral support, and my knowledge of London. I rely more on the Underground, so buses are not my thing, but I went to help. So we went in early, well like 8ish, went to Covert Gardens (where Kathleen fell and everyone saw... haha), and to the Pic, Leicester Square. Well we started from Waterloo and walked to Trafalgar Square, and then went these places. We got ice cream at the cool place, and I got a Chocolate Cup (Italian ice cream, hot fudge, whip cream, and shavings of chocolate), it was to die for. Kathleen got spaghetti ice cream!! It was neat looking. So after that, we went in search of Covert Gardens, and just somehow ended up by the theatre where Equus is being shown. Now we are seeing that March 20, um in that group is Kathleen, Jenna, Danielle, and myself. In Equus is Danielle Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths, aka Harry Potter and Uncle Vernon. So we past the theatre, turn down a street, and end up by the back door. There is a crowd gathered, and really before we knew what was happening, Danielle Radcliffe walked out. Um. Okay. So that was cool. No pic of him on the camera phone, I got mobbed, but I did get Uncle Vernon to prove that I was there. It was cool.

So Hollyoaks is on in a few, so I will end this, we picked up Jessica and Nils, got back here at 2am, we took the train to Surbiton and walked home. Poor Nils was carrying the bags, but we offered more than twice each to help him, and he said no. We were running to Waterloo though, we caught the last train home.

Dover

Alright, so I just got back from Dover. Wow... amazing. I went with Danielle and Jenna, and we took the National Express there. It was a good trip, we made a stop in Canterbury, and yes Jenna and I decided that would be going there. So beautiful. We stopped at the bus station, and I just got that feeling that I should be looking at something- so I looked up outside the window and saw ROMAN something. There was a Roman little tower right by the bus station. If I knew the White Cliffs were waiting for me, I would have gotten off that bus.

So we get to Dover, and we are on this little road, Jenna and I are talking about something, and I just looked out the window, and there it was... the castle and the English Channel. Amazing, it was so beautiful. We got off at the bus station, and I just looked back up at the Castle, onto of the hill, and got deja vu from Salzburg. Once again I would be climbing a big hill, and I had no idea how to do it. But first we got lunch, we went to KFC. I was very hungry for Popcorn Chicken, and I really did not want to waste hours at a pub. So we got a really quick lunch, and then went to the shore. There I got my first good look at the cliffs, and I was impressed. We went down to the sandy beach of Dover... um just kidding. It was like Brighton, rocky. But the rocks are smoothish... I picked up two. There it was pretty windy, and the waves were pretty good, I was ready to jump in. After taking some pictures of the beach, we started our trek to the Castle. Jenna and I agreed on one thing.. we don't need directions, it was that way. Of course when we said that we pointed up to the Castle. Danielle commented a few times that we should ask, but it was in front of us, we would find a road. So we were almost right under it, when we saw these ruins, probably Roman, if not just a few hundred years after the Romans. Of course pictures were taken, and we continued on. Up, up, up the stairs we went, to a road, where we followed that up, and it led to the Castle. It was really easy. Not an easy walk up, but easy to find. At the ticket booth, we were told that the 'secret' tunnels from WWII were opened, and if we wanted, go get a tour, and that was included on our ticket. I had read that that was closed, so I got really excited. Jenna was excited too, it was one of the things she really wanted to do. So we went there first. It was so funny, we are walking to the entrance and there is a sign that says, "Secret Tunnels" Yeah well not so secret if there is classical music playing, and there is a sign. But during WWII they were somewhat secret. The Germans knew something was going on there, but not the extend of it.

The tunnels were a lot like the War Rooms in London, but some people had a good time ransacking that place, most of the rooms were empty. When the war ended, they didn't just leave, and the tunnels forgotten about, like the War Rooms, they were used in the Cold War, in case of any radiation problems, but um yeah chalk has no protections against radiation... so yeah, they put a wall of lead in, but that would lead to lead poisoning, so either way not good. The tunnels were actually first built in the wars against Napoleon, but extended for WWII, there was offices, living quarters, there was even plans to put in royal living quarters, but that was abandoned when the caves kept collapsing. But the tunnels are extensive, our tour lasted a half an hour, and we went through some of them. There is a hospital in the tunnels too, but work was being done on them, so we couldn't see them. Sad.

It was interesting because in our group, there was two gentlemen, one who's grandfather spent some time in the tunnels, but died at Normandy, our tour guides relative died at Dunkirk, and I think the other gentleman's grandfather was shot in the face, and spent a lot of the war in a prisoner of war camp. So I overheard these stories, and was just amazed.

Of the secret tunnels I've seen, I prefer the War Rooms in London, because there is so much more. That was literally just abandoned when the war ended, and everything was left. Here, as I said, there was a lot of empty rooms. It was a very interesting tour though, I was in the white cliffs of Dover. Of course all I could think of was Newkirk, and all his talk of Dover.

After the tunnels, we spent some time outside, we saw the statue of Ramsey, who was in charge of the tunnels, and Operation Dynamo, which was when 335,000 soldiers were evacuated in like 9 days from Dunkirk, which is in France. They thought they would only be able to evacuate 65,000 men at the most, but yeah the English Channel was nice and calm, and ships were able to get back and forth, and every boat that was seaworthy was sent over.

We then I think we at the highest point outside, on top of this hill, where I took a video of just us complaining of the wind. I thought we were all going to be blown away. We did get sick of the wind, so we went up to the Castle. Now I have always wanted to go visit some place that Most Haunted has been to, and I did... they went to the Dover Castle. Now I'm not sure completely where, but they were there.

So we go into the Castle, see the Keep, and most of it has to do with Henry VIII. Whenever I think of him, I think Hampton Court Palace, which is course down the street from me. But there was all this stuff about him, his many wives. It was kinda weird. I loved this one room, it has his throne, and if you got too close it would yell at you. Well actually, it yelled at Jenna. So she kept going close on purpose, just to hear what it would say to her. Haha. You could also see his private bathroom, and IT STILL SMELLED! It was gross, I couldn't stand in there for more than 2 seconds. It was amusing, but ick. It had a horrible smell.

We did see the Roman lighthouse, which is always cool. It's in pretty good condition, considering it's age. I got a picture on the roof of the Keep, and behind me is the lighthouse, and of course the water.

After that, we went back down to the town, saw the Roman Painted House, but it's closed Oct-March... not sure why, but that was a little disappointing. Oh well. We got some tea after that, and then walked around a little bit more, and then got dinner.

It was an awesome day, the Dover Castle is amazing, the White Cliffs are beautiful, and it's a cute little town. I had a lot of fun with Danielle and Jenna.

Parks, Movies, Fridays

Hey, so since I last wrote, I finished another week of classes, and been having fun as always. First let me gloat... I wore shorts on Tuesday, and this morning (Saturday), Kathleen, Amaya and I were outside playing in the park, kicking a football around, kicking goals, and Kathleen and I even ran a lap. It was soooo nice outside, I love it.

Though on Tuesday when I wore shorts everyone thought I was nuts. It wasn't that cold out, it was a little windy out, but I just wore shorts and a sweatshirt, and I was good to go. Classes went well again, still love all of them.

This post thought is going to be about Jenna and Danielle. Thursday night we (Amaya, Kathleen and I) met up with Danielle and Jenna at Fridays. I'm not big for going to American restaurants in England, but since Danielle works at Fridays, we get a 50% discount, so yeah I'll go and be forced to have some mozzarella sticks. Hahah. We had a great time, sitting around just talking, and exchanging stories. Jenna I have talked about in this blog, but I haven't said a lot about Danielle. Danielle I met at the Superbowl party, she was in the girls British Life and Culture course, and is from North Carolina. She also lives at Seething Wells. So that was cool, it was great hanging out with them. After that we went to the movies, and saw Hot Fuzz. This movie doesn't come out in the States until like April, but when it does go see it. It's wonderful! I'm usually not one for comedies, but this is a British comedy, and it is just so funny. It takes place in a small English town, it could have been any town in England, since they all look alike. The movie is about a cop from London, is reassigned to this small English town, because in London everyone is sick of hm being waaayyy above average and making everyone look bad. I love how I get all the jokes now about England. And when they say quid, I get it. It's just awesome. Though there was one part of the movie, when the main character was looking at a Chuck Norris movie, and only 6 girls laughed... us. None of the British got Chuck Norris. Oh well. It was a great night.

For the second week in a row, we went to Seething Wells on Saturday. Last weekend was movies, and this weekend was more of just sitting around doing nothing. Jason joined us again, and he's nice. He's from Michigan. It was a great night, I really do like hanging out with them.

So this post has been in the works for a few days, I just can't seem to finish it. Today is now Tuesday, and I have a great story to tell. I was in Children's Lit seminar, and I was sitting with my new friend Sammy. We were discussing Black Beauty, and in groups making up a list if we were pro or con Black Beauty. Sammy and I were so pro, we both love Black Beauty. So our teacher asked us to write reasons on the board why it was good or bad, and Sammy pushed me up there basically. So I wrote on the pro side, "Childhood Favorite." Sammy whispers to me, "It has a u." I looked at her and asked, "What does?" Favorite does in England. I didn't change it. Sammy then said, "Color has one too, and neighbor." I had to think about neighbor for a moment, I couldn't think where the 'u' went. We had a few minute discussion about how 'annoying' it is that Microsoft Word's spellcheck is always English (American). I responded to this, "well think of who made Microsoft!" It was great though. Sammy has posted on my facebook a few times about spelling.. hahah.

So another good two days of classes, tomorrow I am going to Dover with Danielle and Jenna. SWEET!

Mal Peet

Hey, so just thought I would write and inform everyone that I have found the British version of Patrick Collins. It was quite funny. I went to a children's literature talk, the illustrator and author Mal Peet came to give a talk at Kingston. I almost didn't go, it was pouring outside, but I went, and I am so glad I did. So I go to school, and go in the room where this older guy in jeans and a purple shirt (so not Patrick, but I'm getting there), is sitting on a desk, just talking to the other person in the room. When I entered, he introduced himself, and so did I, and then I took a seat. He mentioned being in the States like two weeks ago, so I asked where. He told me Seattle and NY, and I said that I was from Boston. He was really interested in that, he had a novel published by Cambridge Press, and he asked how I got here. I decided to be witty, and I said, "Well other than an airplane, I go to college in Maine, and I always wanted to go abroad, and my college gave me the opportunity to come here." He liked the airplane comment. But he first reminded of Patrick, when the other woman in the room, she's a teacher said something about the Borders here, and a talk was being given by someone high up. And Mal Peet said, "Oh I know him, what is his name? I got completely pissed with him last autumn. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that's probably why I can't remember his name."

I nearly died laughing when he said that, it could have come out of Patrick's mouth without any hesitation. Half his stories included him being pissed somewhere, with some big publishing guy... it was just awesome. The way he moved, and talked, expect the heavy British accent just reminded me of Patrick. It was just so funny.

Mal Peet, I've never heard of, but I will be reading his novels in the summer, because they sound so interesting. I can't now, I have too many novels to read for classes, oh well. He just won the Carnegie Award for Children's Lit, with his new novel about WWII. I guess it's kinda based on fact, his friend's father ran an Underground radio in Holland during the war, and lived! He did it for about a year. I think he said that his friend's father was one of maybe 3 in the Underground to make it out alive, that radio operators had a life expectancy of like 3 months. He was a British spy. Unbelievable, so he got the idea from that. He asked if anyone had ideas of being a writer, and then gave this advice to get on it now, or wait 40 years! I was like ok, note to self.

Other than that, not a lot has happened, um I started watching HBO Rome Season 2, it's sooo good. I'm trying to get a hold of Season 1 so Kathleen and Amaya can watch it, they would both love it. I think I got it, Shorty is going to help me out, woohoo. Of course, I'm surprised I haven't heard from her about this sooner, she cannot download stuff, doesn't know how, so she hasn't seen it, while I am now caught up. Classes are well, I read 3 novels this week, some George Orwell (not a fan), Alice in Wonderland, and Diana Athill. Both main characters had huge money issues, like the lack of it, and I just wanted to wring their necks and tell them to go out and get a job. In class today, someone told me that my attitude is very American. Hahah, who knows.

Second week of a new term

So my next week of term has come and gone, and it was good again. I think my favorite class is Narrative, Character, Voice in Prose Writing. My teacher is really cool, and we did a writing exercise. We had to read them out loud, and I got positive reviews. We had to write about 10 lines describing something in a child's voice. I made up something about Jay telling me there was sharks in the lake at the cottage, and stuff like that. We had like five minutes to do this, and my mind was pretty blank. My teacher liked it though, so all is good.

Fiction and Social Change is good too, though in the seminar we practiced on the spot essay writing, thinking of thesis statements and figuring out what kind of a question we were dealing with. I guess here, they grade you on the type of question you choose, and not just on what you actually write. Like you will get a better grade if you choose a harder question. I don't know if they do that in the States, I usually just pick the question that I actually know about. Oh well.

My accomplishment for the week though: I read a 339 page novel in 3 and a half hours. The novel was really good, I was really into it. It's called The God Of Little Things, and it takes place in India, and it was really good. That was for my Narrative class. We barely talked about the novel though, so I could have gotten away with not reading it, but I'm glad I did.

In Global English, we got into groups and we have to make up a survey about global english and what people think about it. Yeah my group has two other people in it, one from Hungry, one from Greece and me. There are other members of our class, but they were not there. It is certainly going to be an interesting survey. We have to give it out to people, so yeah I'm sending it to everyone I know in the States basically. At first it was just for Kingston, but between the three of us we knew like 8 people, so our teacher decided it would be better for it to be open to everyone.

Last night was awesome. I went to Seething Wells, with Jenna. Jenna actually came over here to watch the new Lost, and it took ohhh 13 hours to download. So we got pizza, Jenna and I ate one ourselves... yesss. But then we sat down to watch it, Kathleen asked to make it better, I didn't think we could, but Amaya pressed the zoom button (who knew), and then a new window opened up, and it started to redownload. Great. Jenna tried to do a few things with my computer, and got one going, but it would take like an hour. So I was just looking at things on my computer, and I went to facebook, and saw that I had a message from Danielle. It said that Kathleen was coming at 8, if the rest of us wanted to join her for the movie night. Well it was about 10 minutes to 8pm, and Kathleen was sitting in front of me. Opps. Kathleen said 'keep me posted' so that kinda means I'll be there. So yeah, we decided to go to Seething Wells and depending on the situation we could watch the new Lost which Jenna had on her computer too. So we went to Seething Wells for the first time. We took the uni bus from Penhyrn Road, and of course as we were walking down Penhyrn Road, the uni bus went by us. So we ran full out to the stop, and we made it. Of course we weren't even sure if this was the uni bus going to Seething Wells, but we got on anyway. So we got off at Surbiton, and walked to Seething Wells. Surbiton is really nice, basically Kingston, with all the important stores. They have a KFC and Blockbuster. Lol.

Seething Wells is where I almost went to, they have the cheapest rooms there, and yeah I'm glad I didn't go there. Um. They have their own bathrooms and it's basically an airplane bathroom with a shower. I mean you can stretch out your arms and touch both walls. Jenna's room is wow, maybe 4 steps from the door to the window. Everything touches in her room. I would go crazy, and would have to keep my door open at all times. Seething Wells has more of a campus feeling though, which I miss a little bit. There are 26 different buildings in Seething Wells, they aren't that big, but nice. They have a common area with a TV and stuff. We had a nice evening though, we watched Without a Paddle, and Indiana Jones (the first one), but yeah we talked through that movie. I and Anna were the only ones who didn't talk, and it was pretty annoying. Kathleen, especially cannot stay quiet for more than 2 minutes.

So after the movies we walked home, and Jenna said to follow the Thames and we would make it home. So we walked the Thames, and it wasn't a bad walk at all. From when we started walking the Thames we could see the Kingston Bridge, and though it took awhile to get there, it was so nice. We even stopped at the new 24 hour store, Jenna told us about. We went back to the road, and we were nearly blinded. It was a really cool store.

So that was my week, and now it's Saturday and I have to read three novels by Monday. Oh boy, shall be fun!

Elyse's first weekend

Hey
So this post is basically about Elyse, and her first weekend in England. For those who do not know, Elyse is my best friend from Maine. I met her my first day in Maine, she lived in 503 Dickey, and I lived in 501 with the sisters, and the following year I moved to 502 just to be next to Elyse. And I complained every day to her for making me move from the 1st floor to the 5th floor, and having to go up all the stairs. At first we were going to come to London at the same time, but with Monica going to Oxford, and that being a year long program, I knew I had to follow my heart and go for the year. I could not allow Monica to be in England without me either, since she would be mean and send me e-mails about what a wonderful time she was having... oh wait, that's what I would do to her. Oh well. Elyse is more of a homebody, while me, well I think I'll just keep going. I've been really looking forward to her coming, I wish she had come for the year with us, but she didn't want to be away from home that long. But anyway, Elyse and I are just a bus ride away from each other, it's not that far at all. We thought it would be closer, but it's still easier, and much closer than Oxford.

But our day together in London. It was fun. Elyse and I went to London on Saturday, she had been the day before, but what does that matter? She and the other kids from Roehampton did a tour of London by themselves, they had to find certain things, this tour took them all over Westminster, and as far as Tower Bridge. But I got a call about noon asking where Trafalgar Square, 10 Downing Street, and the London Bridge were located. I just laughed, and told her all I knew.

But Saturday, I went to Roehampton and picked up Elyse. I brought her a gift- Seasons 1 and 2 of Hogans. I know she has missed it. But we walked to the bus stop, and got on. This bus 72 goes to Hammersmith, but somewhere I saw that it goes to Shepherds Bush, which is on the Central line I believe, so I thought, hey why not go there. Note to self: Stay off buses as much as possible. Traffic. But it was fine, we took the Underground from Shepherds Bush to Nottingham Gate, and haha, we started walking and I realized, wait, we were going the wrong way. I saw a sign for Holland's Park, and thought, um no. So we turned around, and walked to Kensington Gardens, which as always is so beautiful. People were out laying in the sun, playing both types of football, it was a nice spring day. Elyse said to me a few times, "Bowl, we're in London." I just laughed. Oh can I say, I LOVE MY NICKNAME! I have so missed it, and for those family members who have not heard my nickname, yes it's Bowl, yes it refers to the thing you eat out of, and it's my college hockey nickname. I was named this shortly after getting to USM, and though I was first introduced to Elyse as Courtney, that was soon forgotten. I dropped the nickname upon coming to England because they would not understand it. But Elyse calls me Bowl, it makes me happy, and we are good. Back to London.

I wanted to go to Kensington, one to show Elyse it, but also I thought what a perfect time to retake pics of the Peter Pan statue! I did not go to James M. Barrie's house even though I know it's on that road basically, next time. But I did get my pic taken with Peter, and now I have good pics during the day, and not when it's rainy and gross out. From there, we were both hungry so I started thinking of a place to get food. We hopped on a bus, but I got off almost at once at the Marble Arch, one because I wanted to see it up close, two I thought, hey there should be food around here. I wanted to introduce Elyse to the world of pubs. Yeah, I didn't find one. So then we went to Oxford Circus, where we found a pub... woohoo. It was pretty good, and Elyse liked Oxford Circus. Of course it's all shopping, and was really busy, but she found one store that she really liked.

From there, we walked to Trafalgar Square, which was not that far at all!!! We turned onto Charing Cross Road at Tottenham Court Road (also an Underground station for the British Museum), and just walked through Soho, and came to Leicester Square, and there we were. On the way we stopped for ice cream, yes ice cream in February. It was warm enough outside to walk around with ice cream, which of course we did. Elyse did complain that her tongue was cold, but I reminded her that she was eating ice cream! LOL! So we walk to Trafalgar Square, one of my favorite parts of London, and Elyse reveals to me that she and her friend (forget which one), thought Nelson's column was ummm Napoleon. I'll give you a minute to laugh. I looked at her, and just asked, What country do you think you are in? First of all it was at the Battle of Trafalgar that the British fought Napoleon, and was the critical battle that Napoleon decided, well maybe I don't want to invade England, and also where Nelson died. Oh boy. So that day whenever I mentioned Nelson's column, I would call him Napoleon.

From there we went to Buckingham Palace, where I really think Elyse expected to meet the Queen. LOL, just kidding. She liked it though, we took pictures, but one thing that I think disappointed Elyse was lack of guards. She wanted like 20 guards outside just hanging around, waiting for her to take a picture of. Oh well. On the way, we were passing by St. James Park still eating our ice creams, when of course I finished mine, and Elyse was laughing at me because she still had hers, when oh yeah, it broke!! I laughed at her. Serves her right. Oh well, we had a good time walking around, it is so great to see Elyse again, I really, really missed her. But it feels like no time has passed, we just picked up where we left off.

So from Buckingham, we went to Harrods, I know, I know, we completely did one big loop, but you know it was a fun loop! Harrods of course is always fun, there was some protest going on outside, about Harrods killing animals for their fur, and I really thought they were trying to stop people from entering. They had a guy dressed up as a rabbit or something, it wasn't that cute. Oh well. We walked all over Harrods, first to the food halls, and then I showed her the Diana thing, and then to the woman clothes. It was fun, Harrods is such a cool place, but yeah can't buy a thing. Oh well.

We actually went home after that, well back to Roehampton. We watched A League of Their Own, upon getting to Elyse's flat, which was fun. Love that movie, and then I went back to Kingston. Elyse had been going pretty hard since arriving in England, and was ready to crash.

The next day was the Superbowl, so she was over with Emma, Dominique, Suzie, um yeah that's it. I picked them up at the bus station and brought them to the Bridge House. That was an awesome day, well until the Superbowl. I was not impressed with either team, and of course I was very much like a Masshole that night because I dislike A LOT Peyton Manning, and the kicker who I will not name. I was going for the Bears, just because I do not like Peyton Manning, and though I guess they had a really good season, he does not deserve to win a Superbowl, especially the way he played. But um without American commercials, the Superbowl wasn't that great. We had a great party, though Nye and Baz retreated to Nye's place because they couldn't take my insults. Nye was being an idiot, showing off in front of the all the girls, cause there was a lot of us, so I told him to stop being an idiot. Martin then asked me if he was being an idiot, and I was like Oh Martin, you could never be an idiot. Martin is too nice. Stupid boys though, we bought food for our party, and they bought Hot Dogs in Cans! It said American Hot Dogs on the can, and they expected us to cheer and rush at them just to get a hold of them. Ummmm excuse me? They showed it to me, all excited, and I asked if they expected me to eat that. ICK! Then they started reading the ingredients, rule number 1, hot dogs do not come in cans, rule 2, never read the ingredients of hot dogs. Just eat them! Ick. Thankfully Kathleen had sense to buy real hot dogs, because every American was like, "What, why would you buy a hot dog in a can?" ICK. Jenna came over, and brought this girl Danielle, who um, well she argued with me about Rome. Not smart. We were talking about America, and how awesome it is, and she said, "Well in 200 years we are going to be conquered by some second rate country." I just looked at her, and she went on to say, 'Well it happened to the Greeks." So I quickly did the math, and at 1am, the Roman Empire did not completely fall to me until Constantinople fell, in 14 something. So I said no we actually have a while, and we argued. I guess this is the girl who 'accidentally' double majored, and thinks she is soooo great at history.

But I went to bed around like 3am, and Dominique and Emma slept over. It was so tough waking up the next morning, I had to be up at 9am for my 11am class. Ick. I know tough life. So that was Elyse's first weekend, pics are up on Webshots of our adventure. She did not go as camera crazy as I did my first few times in London but oh well. I also redownloaded all my London pics, and split them up, so now I have different albums for when I first went, to when Sammy and Mary were here, and all the other times.

A New Semester

Alright so classes. Now as much as I love going to bed at 5am, waking up around 1pm, going to the gym, eating, and doing nothing for the rest of the day, the idea of school was actually appealing. We were really bored, I took some time every day to walk around Kingston, but I really didn't feel like going too far. So classes started Monday, and I love them all. Let me go into more detail.

Monday is Fiction and Social Change in the 20th century, followed by Children's Literature. Social Change is a pretty good class, I recognized a few kids from last semester in it. The teacher is really nice, and we will be looking at 1930-1960, and how it was a time of experimental, and wondering if they should go back to the 19th century, or go forward with literature. Of course the social part is society in Britain with both wars, and how things were going. We watched 15 minutes of Bright Young Things, a movie that I need to see! It looked really good, so many people were in it, like Peter O'Toole, James McAvoy, the woman who plays Umbridge, David Tennant, Simon, Dan Aykroyd, and many more. So I'll be putting that movie on my To See List, it's a very long list now. Oh boy. I already read a novel for that class too, A Handful of Dust, it was really good, about really nothing, the characters lead pointless lives, but I enjoyed it. Different style than what I've had before.

Children's Lit was fun, we talked about how it came about, the first stories, what we would be reading and learning, our experiences with Children's Lit. It was interesting, the class period is only an hour long. Those go by quickly, usually because they start late, and kids spend half the hour talking. Argh so annoying.

Now on Tuesday I go from 9-2. EW! I start out with Narrative, Character, Voice in Prose Writing, which is awesome. I love my teacher, she's really nice, and interesting. We did a few writing exercises, and talked about what we would be learning in class, and she did a long introduction about herself. She's written a few novels. After that was seminars for Social Change, Narrative and then Children's Lit. Between those classes, I had one hour break for lunch. But the Social Change seminar has one other American in it, I introduced myself to her. She is just a spring student, so I said if I could be of any help, just to let me know. We discussed movies and ourselves more than anything in that period, but also discussed a few pages from the novel. It was fun, I sat next to this kid Ben, who is really nice. Actually I think we talked about everything but the novel, we talked about Germany a lot actually, he use to live there, and I was just there. It was cool.

Narrative seminar, oh boy did I put my foot in it. She asked us what we read, what we write, and I said if I do write it's about hockey. Well she wants a sample of something, and I was like yeah sure. Dang! Now I have to write something! Oh well. I said that I am still trying to read Crime and Punishment, which impressed her, and she said to stay with it. Sooo trying to do that, but with all the novels I have to read, somehow I don't think I will. I only have 400 more pages! LOL! Oh well. We had a Harry Potter discussion after that, which is always fun. I really like my Narrative teacher, she is really down to earth, and a lot of fun to talk to.

Children's Lit seminar was last, and that was good. I was late to that according to my teacher's watch, 5 minutes early according to mine. ARGH! I hate that all clocks have a different time. Oh well. We read a few things, and discussed them. I said a few things, which were received well, go me! I cannot wait until we start reading Alice in Wonderland and the other novels. Not a big fan of early Children's Lit, which is what we were reading. Once Alice in Wonderland comes out, it changes! I wish we would read some A.A. Milne! Oh well.

My last class was today- Global English. Um. It might be interesting, today we translated some sentences from a language a Polish guy invented that he tried to sell as a global language, and that everyone should jump aboard it, but yeah it didn't take as well as he thought it would. This was like in the 1950's, and 1960's. When we were translating these sentences, my teacher came around and asked how we were all doing. Well I gave up foreign languages back in high school, and I basically said that to her. It was hard, languages are sooo difficult for me. It was easy for the two Spanish kids behind me, this language is basically a mixture of Romantic language. Argh, but I'll hold judgement on this class til next week, maybe it will get better if we stop translating languages that were invented 50 years ago.

Now also with this new semester is Elyse. She is currently at Roehampton University which is not that far from me. So before she came, I gave her my cell, and said if you need anything, call me. But I'll meet you at your dorm at 11am on Wednesday. So Wednesday I woke up, got ready, took the uni bus to Roehampton Vale, and started walking to her uni. I was about half way there, and my phone rings. It's Elyse. She's at Heathrow, and was forgotten by CIS. So I asked if she wanted me to pick her up, and she said yes. Alright then. I look up at the sky, and a plane is going overhead, and it's a lot closer than in Kingston, so here I'm thinking... SWEET! I run down to Roehampton and start looking at bus signs to get me to Heathrow. Well hindsight they say is perfect. I should have run all the way back to Kingston. I asked a few people in the area, what is the best way to get to Heathrow, and they all said the 85 to Kingston, and go from there. Well as soon as I got money, that is what I did. I took the 85, and then got on the 285 to Heathrow. I got there at like 1pm. The CIS people were coming back at 2pm to pick up the remaining people, and I wish I knew this before hand, but whatever, Elyse needed me so I was there. So once again hindsight is perfect, I should have taken the 285 back to Kingston, but no I went on the Underground. Elyse is suppose to be near the District line, so that is where we went. I did not get us lost... I just didn't get us close enough to Roehampton. We got off at East Putney, or Putney Bridge, and we walked for about 15 minutes with her giant suitcases. We ended up getting on a bus, this really nice guy helped us. The bus took us to Whitelands College, which is part of Roehampton, just not her college. So we walked more, now I've never been to her part of the campus, or have that much of a clue where it is. So we walked, and we did make it to her college, but boy was I glad to see it. I was so tired from dragging her bag around... I am not moving in anyone else! Monica and I had a fun time going to Oxford, this was a fun time... I'm done. My move in was so uneventful, I think I slept through it. Anyway, she's settled in a really nice flat, it's basically the same set up I have, except she's with 5 British girls, and I'm with 4 American girls and 2 British boys. Well lucky her, she won't have any boys peeing in the showers! ARGH! Still mad about that! Anyway, I've seen Elyse twice, and tomorrow I believe we are going into London, but I haven't heard from her. Oh well.

It's awesome to have Elyse here, and she's met some cool kids. My favorite is Emma, who reminds me of April from the Gilmore Girls. Elyse agreed with me, and of course when I said this, she hit my shoulder and her bag went flying! HAHAH! Serves her right. We all went bowling, well it was a Roehampton thing, and since I was visiting her, I got a spot! They went bowling in Kingston though, which was fun! I've never been to that bowling place. Awesome! But bowling was fun, it was the big bowling balls, and not what we have in Mass, and Elyse won! I didn't do that bad... er, I did get a spare! It was a good time with her friends though!

Kathleen and Amaya came with me the second time I went to Roehampton, and they really like Elyse. I'm glad, I mean those two mean soooo much to me, and if they didn't like Elyse, or the other way around, that would hurt. I also love hearing Bowl again! I have so missed my nickname! But now whenever someone says Bowl, like if they are referencing to what you eat out of, I'm back again going, 'what... oh you aren't talking to me.' HAHA! So awesome.

Well that's about it, will write again later! SUPERBOWL PARTY ON SUNDAY! HAHA, we are planning on having a huge party! It's going to be so much fun!

Bringing it all up to the present

Hey, so for awhile (way too long), I've been writing about past events. So I thought I would finally get my blog up to speed with the rest of my life. So quickly, after Germany and Austria, I had another week of papers, which I finished, and I think all of them are pretty decent. I worked really hard on all of them, and am proud of some of the stuff I thought of... the brain was working that week.

Kathleen's friends were here for my a part of my week of papers, I took a few days to recover, well somewhat. Montana invaded England, and I really liked her friends. I saw Eric and Ashley the most who were sleeping on Kathleen's floor. Eric is great, he's a really nice guy, a little too interested in shopping. He also likes the Gilmore Girls... um, never heard of a guy liking that show. Ashley was cool too, she was my tea drinking buddy! I didn't hang out with them a lot, like they went to Oceania, didn't go, they went to Brighton, and there was no way I was going on a train for awhile, lol. When they were around the flat, they were nice to talk to, and I hope to see them again. Sheena was awesome too, but she really sick, so I didn't see her a lot. I can't think of the names of all her friends, but I did like the two who went to Ireland, we had a nice chat one night.

So after a week of papers, I turned them all in, Kathleen went home, and Cassie went to Rome and other countries. It was just Amaya, Baz and me in the flat. Oh wow. Nye came over every night, and we would stay up til like 2 or 3, talking, watching movies, and of course the snowball fight. One night we watched the All Star game, and I almost had to kick Nye's butt to get him to stop saying that hockey is like dancing on ice. It was weird because when they think of hockey it's all about fighting, hitting, and stuff like that. WHICH ISN'T HOCKEY! Yeah they fight, well the Avalanche don't fight really, but the All Star game is difference. They asked why no one was checking, and I tried to explain that no one wants to hurt anyone, and it's just for fun. They started saying that in football the best guys always get hit and targeted the most. That of course happens in hockey, but in hockey there is also some respect for players. Like it's a big deal if someone hits Joe Sakic or Peter Forsberg, if they get hit from behind or something. Look what happened to Steve Moore, when he gave Nasland the concussion.. he's still not playing because of that brute! But it was hard to explain parts of hockey to the boys, Nye just kept saying it's like dancing. So wrong. Argh.

I went to Ely, which I did post about, that was fun. I got lots of American food, and it was great to see Jenn and Arthur again. I got pancake mix, which we used Sunday morning for Kathleen's arrival. Amaya had me up at like 8:30am, because she was sooo sure that Kathleen would be in Kingston around like 9am, but she didn't get in until around 11:30. So we ate pancakes, and then made some more when she came. So missed Kathleen, it was great to have her back. We so surprised her with everything, the kitchen was all done up, and even Henry had a sign that said, "I missed you!" LOL! Oh Henry. He's the man of the flat. We took that to Baz and Martin, and they laughed, but were also a little insulted. Henry by the way is the vacuum... and we didn't name him, he has a name tag.

We saw Jenna that night, she was back earlier in the week. Great to see her again, we need to start up Lost night when it comes back on TV in the States.

Then class started the next day, and that will be another post. Once I have class tomorrow, I'll write about my first week of class, which includes Elyse coming to England!!!!!!