Better late than never

Well so much for posting within a week or so.  That obviously didn't happen.  Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived back in California I got a terrible cold and was incapacitated for a whole two days which somewhat set the tone for the next two weeks or so.  I suppose more like three weeks now...

Anyway, I'm home, safe and sound, and will do as I previously intended and post several blogs relating to my European adventure and follow it with the final post about returning back to california and settling in.

Well, as promised, here is London:

I arrived in London early in the day on the thirtieth as planned.  I had with me one huge backpack weighing in at about 10k, a stuffed animal, a barely functioning computer, and a camera, ready to see everything in London that I hadn't gotten to see before.  I'd love to direct you at this point to my flickr page filled with photos of my whole trip, but unfortunately, Flickr has decided to suck, and I therefore can no longer access it.

Anyway, I stayed at Astor's Victoria Hostel just a few blocks down from the Victoria Coach Station.  It was a lovely hostel, or as lovely as one can expect from a hostel.  The beds were made of a very squeaky red metal and the luggage storage consisted of wire mesh cages under the bed upon which we could place a lock to secure our belongings.  I was only able to access the internet in the lobby, but that wasn't too bad.  I did try to skype once or twice in the kitchen area, but it was no good, mostly because of noise from the rest of the guests watching tele and talking or, on one night, getting quite drunk together.


My first day I went first to Kings Cross to take a photo with the iconic trolly, only to then learn that they charge somewhere in the realm of ten pounds for the photo, so I decided that I was happy getting a photo outside of the platform and spending a considerable amount less on a silly souvenir.

Here I am, looking like an exhausted dork:

Backpackers never wear makeup, didn't you know that?

So I left the station and found a Pret A Manger where I could have lunch with a view of St. Pancras.  From there I went to the British Museum, where I saw the Rosetta Stone:

Not my view from the cafe, this is much pretier.

British Museum!

Rosetta Stone

Although there was a lot to see and a lot to take in, I find that I have very little to actually enumerate.  I wandered and I observed and took an obscene amount of photos, all of which will be up on Photobucket as soon as I get my act together.  It was, like the Stonehenge experience, quite remarkable and not very easily put into words.

After that I went back and tracked down some dinner before heading to a ghost walk.  

Old school gaslight.  Probably the best part of the tour.  There are around two hundred of them scattered around the regions near Trafalgar square.

Now, I would like very much to tell you that, like the Jack the Ripper walk I took at Christmas time, the Ghost Walk was a little spooky and a lot of fun, but unfortunately, this guide really didn't hold a candle to the last guide.  He didn't seem interested in giving the spooky tour advertised on their website, but made it quite silly.  Maybe because there was a seven year old in the group (okay, who brings a child on a tour that is advertised to cause nightmares for weeks? I mean seriously, check your parenting handbook, I'm pretty sure that's in the "don't" section), but here I was expecting a slightly spooky, sort of eerie tour, and what I got was a few uncomfortable giggles, mostly silence, and a slightly judgmental guide.  Lame.  I was looking forward to being spooked for weeks!  I'm a masochist like that.

The tour wasn't that bad, just a bit disappointing.  I did get to snap this lovely photo while we were wandering through St. James Park, however:

Well, after that I went back to my hostel but decided to stop on the way for a glass of wine at the pub round the corner.  It was an incredible wine, and the bartender flirted with me for a bit and I wrote a beautiful letter to Molly which is still in it's envelope on my desk, and damn, I really need to send that.

Am I rambling yet?

Well, I think I was then, because I hadn't considered that, since I'd been up at five to catch my bus and barely slept during the ride, I was exhausted and probably a bit dehydrated because that wine went straight to my head.  So I stumbled back to my hostel on my first night a little bit drunk and feeling very nostalgic and pretentious.  As J.K. Rowling would say, "not very rock'n'roll."

Day two I awoke bright and early for a hosteler's meager aproximation of breakfast and went out into the world for my second walking tour.  The day's main attraction?  Westminster Abbey.

I am faced again with the challenge of explaining why I did not hate my tour, but why it pretty much sucked.  These are the memories that stay, of course, no matter how badly I try to replace them with the good memories, picking out souvenirs and snapping secret photos of various people's tombs (That's not weird, is it?)  Well, the walking tour got us in with group rates and between that and the cost of the tour itself I was saving about five quid, and that seemed a reasonable goal, so I went for it.  The tour was fine in itself, although they led us through quite quickly and there wasn't a lot of stopping and wandering to be done.  We followed the woman with the umbrella who told us the moment we were receiving our id badges (which were actually just little white stickers we put on our shoulders), that photography inside was strictly forbidden once we were inside the actual church.  So naturally I got in trouble while still outside for taking a photo.  Color me confused.

Westminster is lovley, though I won't go into too much detail, mostly because my memory is fading, but also because you can read that in any travel magazine.  I want to tell you what I remember: it was crowded.

Not with people, though there were TONS of people.  It was beginning to feel much more like a tourist attraction that an actual working church.  No, I mean it was crowded because there were tombs and relics and just things everywhere.  Everything was so busy.  And it was small.  I know you're probably confused when I say that.  You're probably thinking "Westminster Abbey is HUGE!" but alas, it is not.  If you've ever been to a cathedral at all you've probably been in something roughly the same size as Westminster, at least when it comes to the central cross.  That might have to do with it being so busy, but it really didn't have that cavernous awesome feeling that I expected.  It also lacked the hallowed feeling of Tintern Abbey.  That, again, goes back to the tourist attraction.  It was just... empty.

There's the main cross of the church, then a small back room area that I can't entirely remember the purpose of except that there were chairs with names on them, and there was an area off to the side where all of the tombs and memorials were.  I almost forget now who all was there, because I wasn't allowed the to take photos, but also because this was the section that were ushered through the fastest, and where we wanted to linger the longest.  After that we were taken back into the hallway outside and the guide explained that the tour was over, the bookshop that way, and have a lovely day.  A few of us wanted to go back and finish looking, but we were informed that was all there was to it.  Great, we pay for the tour and then learn that that is literally all we get, the tour, and that's it.  Oh well.  Such is life.

At this point it was about two in the afternoon.  I was exhausted and my feet were killing me.  A quick lunch and I was back at my dorm for a nap before going out again.  This was one of my lazier days, as my feet adjusted to near constant walking.  So I stayed at the dorm until around five when I dragged myself up to find dinner and then went in search of my final walking tour, this time with low expectations.  The only thing is, walking tours could be set aside during the day when I could wander around and explore myself.  In fact, I set aside a Sherlock Holmes tour knowing that it would probably disappoint, my feet were killing me, and I was starving.  But the thing about traveling alone as a woman is that I don't feel comfortable wandering alone at night.  So, either I was to resign myself to a glass of the same wine at the same pub every night of my stay, or I was to do walking tours.  So I did walking tours.

This was a pub walk, and as it happened, it was held by a woman who was the daughter of the man who runs London Walks.  So naturally it was about eighty million times better than the previous two tours.  Plus, alcohol.

We started in London proper, then crossed into Southwalk (say "Suth-uck"), where we learned about the Blackfriars and many other things forgotten in beer fog later on.  I had a fun moment where I explained why a man had exited the Globe theatre in full regalia, blew on a trumpet six times, and then ran back in.  I got a round of applause, it's cool, I'm kind of a big deal.  Then we stopped at a pub on the Thames where I had a reverse hobbit moment and got extremely excited that "it comes in half-pints", and then promptly realized that I needed to pee.  After we'd left the pub.  Oh to be me.

We stopped at two more pubs.  I spoke to several other walkers, made friends with four of them and enemies of one woman who, upon hearing that I was studying in Swansea furrowed her brow and said, in the way of one trying to ask a difficult question without appearing to be a racist old hag, "There are a lot of foreigners around there, aren't there?" When I looked seriously back at her and gave a thinly veiled, "Obviously" (What I actually said was, "well, it would be hard for me to tell, since I basically only hang out with the international crowd"), she clarified that I wasn't to worry, she was referring specifically to Syrians.  "There are quite a few Syrians in Swansea, aren't there?"  I, who hadn't met a single Syrian in Swansea, and even if I had wouldn't have informed her, announced that I'd seen a friend heading downstairs and hurried off only to learn that downstairs was the men's restroom.

Day three I spent mostly at the Tower of London.  I went first thing in the morning, collected my ticket and my audio tour, and then made a bee line for the crown jewels, which I'd heard was the way to do it.  I got in fairly quickly, and they were fascinating, but I think it's one of those things that I'll never be interested in.  I don't really care what Kate Middleton wore or when, and I don't care what jewels belong to whom.  I'm not a diamond person, I never will be.

Anyway, after I was back outside and allowed to take photos again, I found a good spot for my audio tour to begin and gave it a go.  I had thought of doing a tour with a yeoman of the guard, which is what most people do, but I'd read online that it was more trouble than it was worth, and this was pretty much true.

There were at least one hundred people clamouring to get in on this tour... thanks but no thanks.

He looked pretty cool though...

Then I parked it outside, listened to my audio tour, and began the day.  There's quite a bit to see, and I won't pretend that I saw it all.  The bloody tower was by far the most interesting and heart wrenching, where two young boys went in but never came out.  I had an ice cream on the same square where Anne Boleyn met her grisly fate, and watched as the line for the crown jewels stretched to Disneyland proportions.

This was before the crowd, after, the line was forming beyond the metal bars...

Tower bridge!

This is the main castly bit in the middle.

Guardsman station.

After the Tower I spent quite a bit of money on souvenirs and lunch and ate outside watching a man play the bagpipes.  He was quite good, actually.  The rest of the day was really just wandering around and getting my things together and searching for a Paddington Bear that I would't have to sell my firstborn child to buy (turns out this doesn't exist).  I did go to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, but by then I had had it to there with museums and spent the majority of my time downstairs in the cafe journaling, and I haven't much to say about them.  National Gallery: "They had amazing artwork that I saw and then I left."  And the Portrait Gallery, "they had portraits that I stared at confusedly and then left."  That's all there's to say there.  

Well, hopefully I can get Paris written before I die, but that's all there is for now!  Hopefully it wasn't too spastic.

On Being Alive

I don't have anything to report, not really, so if you're looking at this and expecting a long in depth description of the nothings that I did while I wandered around in Cardiff on Wednesday, you can stop reading.  The problem is, I have again found the problem of having little to say about the trips I make.

Okay, so Cardiff wasn't meant to be a big excursion.  I didn't leave the St. David's shopping area except to go to the national museum.  And while that was interesting, there's not much to say.  It was a museum.  Better than I'd expected, not as good as the Natural History Museum.

I suppose the only thing to say about Cardiff really was that I thought it would be a good idea to wear Converse sneakers.  I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was only shopping, and I wanted to look a bit more fashionable.  Much as I love my sketchers, they're not exactly what one might call "fashionable."  So now I'm sitting in my living room, feet elevated, arches wrapped, wondering if tomorrow I'll be able to walk to the store and buy taco shells for cinco de mayo.  Such is life.

But I feel like writing a blog, feel like sharing with you the interesting thing that has been happening in my brain lately.

Earlier in the year I was staring some serious financial difficulties in the face.  Now, I am happy to report that I have saved enough to make, not only a trip to Germany to visit Lea, but also to stop in London and Paris along the way.  The tickets are booked, the hostel search has begun, and in less than a month I will be Europe bound.  It's more exciting than I can possibly put into words.  But it has also led to some interesting contemplation on my part.

For years I was sort of wandering through the education system, listening to teachers who liked to tell me that I wouldn't get anywhere, and maybe with the attitude I had, they were right.  But I wouldn't have had that attitude if I had more confidence, and constantly hearing about my continual failure wasn't exactly bolstering my confidence very much.  I was a dreamer, and dreamers have trouble paying attention to things they are told they have to pay attention to.  Sure, every so often we were given interesting books to read, poems to write, drawings to make.  I didn't hate all of school, but when a math problem was put in front of us and everyone else was determinedly scribbling away on their papers while I sat there completely baffled, I wasn't exactly a fan.  When the questions were about how George has ten apples and Miranda has eight pears and Bernie has six lemons, so how many sandwiches can their mother make?  And the answer is sixteen.  Just sixteen.  How the hell did they get that answer?  You can imagine why I struggled.

I went through school believing that, if I was lucky, I might snag a job.  If I was lucky, maybe I might marry rich.  Because if left to my own devices, I would be living with my parents until I died.

I finally dragged myself into an amount of self confidence at continuation school, where the teachers never once said I was a failure, even though I was literally there because I was a failure.  No, those teachers were the ones who smiled when I got confused and asked me to explain the problem as I understood it, and then help me to understand it properly.  These were the teachers who gave me credit for the work I wanted to do, the work I was good at, but still pushed me to do more, to do better, to do everything and anything, and who encouraged me to reach for something better than a job I could get, or marrying rich.  According to them, I should get a job not only that I could get, but that I wanted to get.  And marrying rich?  Really?  Don't be so prosaic.

Because of them, and because of the confidence they helped me find, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment in Swansea, Wales.  I have a trip to Europe in less than a month, I have a manuscript finished, another started, and six more in my brain just waiting to get out.  I'm wearing a dressing gown I bought at Primark, and I say things like "naught" in everyday conversation.  I had a breakfast of a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam (probably why I needed to go to cardiff in search of a new jacket, since my old, light weight jacket no longer fits.  Again, such is life).

Whenever I say that I owe this to my old teachers, people say I should give myself more credit.  And I do, I am not in any way saying that I'm not here because of me.  I am here because I have worked hard every day for the last eight or so years.  I am here because I put my nose to the grindstone, and though I've spent some time deciding what I want to do, I am here because I pulled my grades up and dedicated my mind to study and work.  I'm here because I believe in myself, and I would never have believed in myself if someone else hadn't believed in me first.  So do I believe that my 12th grade teachers deserve a bit of credit?  Definitely.

The thing is, now I'm sitting here and thinking about this trip I've planned.  I am going backpacking in Europe.  Not an extensive trip, but a trip nonetheless.  I'm in hostels for six days and on planes, trains, and automobiles (read: busses) for 36 hours in total.  I am twenty five years old, studying abroad, attending a real, big kid college, with international friends, running for president of an English Honours Society, have written a novel, going to write more, and going to be published (come hell or high water).  After a quarter of a century of being alive, I finally know where I am, and where I'm going, and that it's where I want to be and with the people I want to be with.  I have one best friend whom I love more than life, with whom distance will never matter, another best friend whom I love more than life, and with whom time will never matter.  I have a family that supports me, faith that strengthens me, a mind that will never fail me, and a hope that sustains me.

And now there's this little girl who pops her head up every so often and looks at this life.  There's the sixth grade me who didn't think she was worth it, who sincerely believed everything that witch of a teacher told her, and she sees these things that I'm doing, and she weeps.  Someone please go back in time and tell her how her life will turn out.

I am going to Europe.  I am going and I'm not looking back, not considering the money that I'm spending, the debt I'm potentially accruing because I know that it's worth it.  I'll return to my school and write my book and finish my degree and go to grad school and get a phd and become a professor and I am never, ever, ever looking back at those teachers and those jerks who used to say that I was nothing.  I wonder if they feel big, if they feel stronger for their criticism, if making themselves feel better and stronger than a small, lost little girl, has given them strength, and if by reclaiming my birthright, I am also reclaiming that strength.  I wonder if they'll see this blog and think that they've done right by me, convince themselves that all I needed was reverse psychology and that a drive to prove them wrong was what gave me strength to begin with, and in that way, they'll convince themselves that they had a hand in this strength that I've found.  On the off chance that they do read this, I want them to know that they're wrong.  That if it were up to them, I would be working at Noah's bagels in my home town, asking if they want lox on their bagel, or just a hefty serving of misanthropy on the side.

But I'm not.  I'm a student at a university in Wales.  I am a student at a university in California.  I am a student studying English, chewing Chaucer for breakfast and Chinua Achebe for lunch.  I write blogs and novels and poems and I speak with the strength I have found in myself and read in Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros, and Toni Morrison.  I am a person who is capable of standing up for what she believes in, then buying a ticket to Paris.  I'm a person who isn't afraid of failing anymore, you can't scare me with your threats, because failure is just a lesson and a lesson is just a day in this life.  Life is risks, and risks fail, and without those failures we never learn.  So let me fail, let me learn, and in learning, let me live.  I'm tired of just being alive.  I want to live.

I'm going to London.  And then Paris.  And then Berlin.  And from there?  Who knows.  But for now I'll look forward to that trip and imagine the days after it, when I will look back, smile, and remember that life is made up of moments and moments have to be lived.  So if you don't see me, look to the horizon.  I'll be there.  Don't worry, I'll write.

Sunshine and Ocean Waves

So I'm going to try and share more things on here, at least photos and things.  So here are some photos from the last week or so.

So you may have heard, we've been having a bit of a storm here recently.  We get a lot of hail generally, just whenever it rains we tend to get hail or a bit of sleet.  It's been particularly bad during the last few weeks.  Last wednesday I had to walk to class though rain and sleet, and that was awful.  These photos are from that Tuesday when we got pea sized hail.  Luckily, I was home for that:

These are from the random sunny day we had on Sunday.  I haven't seen the beach this busy since I've been here.  Everyone came out to walk along the shore and soak in the sun.

  

  

And by request, this is Singleton Park, which I walk through every day to get to class.  It was a particularly nice day, although as you can see, it's always a bit wet here.

So yeah, hope you enjoyed my little slideshow.  I've a bit of a cold right now, so I might end up posting tomorrow if I get bored.  Probably not.  

School blues

Oh, school.  Ooooh school.

The reason I'm here.

I'm signed up for three classes this semester: Grammar, Postcolonial Literature, and Chaucer.

If you know me at all... that's a pretty hefty list.  I am not a medieval literature person.  I am not a fan of Chaucer, I don't think he's funny.  I just think he's confusing and hard to read and going to lead to a very very big essay at the end of the semester.

Grammar...  Grammar sounds like good times, right?  It's just grammar!  Ali has great grammar, so this should be totally easy, right?  WRONG.  Any English student who is reading this  and has taken a grammar class knows how difficult a class it is.  It's like grammar to the max, grammar to the end of time.  The professor has just thrown all of this information at us on slides that only half explain what the hell we're supposed to be learning, so we're frantically trying to take cohesive notes and then suddenly the slides are gone and we're onto a new word class.  And then on top of it, she throws an exam at us in the third week.  What?  I have three grammar textbooks open next to me and a sneaking suspicion that a poor mark is in my future.  Commiseration in the comments, please, ladies?

Postcolonial is the most interesting class I'm taking.  We're reading seven books this semester, the first of which I'm meant to give a presentation about on Friday.  She told us not to worry about it, it's no big deal.  Then when I went to talk to her about it, she told me to treat it as a term paper that I will be presenting.  I asked if she meant that it should have something akin to a thesis whereupon she said, and I quote, "Oh, right.  You're American.  So you don't really know how to write a term paper."  I may have thought something very not nice to her at that moment.  As someone who hasn't gotten below a high B on any term papers here yet, I take that as an insult.  Plus, you don't know me.  Where do you get off informing me about my capabilities as a student before you've ever seen my work.  So in other news, I basically have to put on the best damn presentation that teacher's ever seen or walk home with my tail between my legs.  And of course, my presentation is the day after my horrible grammar exam.  Kill me please.

Interestingly, I opened my email after starting this blog post to find an apology from her. So that's something, I guess.  I'm going to write back and ask for a meeting on Wednesday and I have a revision session planned with the other girl giving a presentation on Friday, so I think I'll be able to muddle through it.

But aside from that presentation, it is the most interesting topic.  The class examines the effect of colonization (or, as I'm supposed to spell it here, colonisation) upon those colonized.  Among the books we're reading are Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (that's the one I'm presenting on) and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga.   I've only just started Nervous Conditions, although on top of everything else, I'm supposed to have it finished by Thursday (did I mention, "kill me now"?), but I have finished Achebe's book, and I do love it.

Anyway, I did promise a second blog about classes to follow my blog about my birthday, so, as promised.  I have another one I want to write about traveling and sightseeing, so there is another blog on the horizon.  I would say check back next week, but... maybe give me another week or two before I post anything else.  I'm pretty much going to be sleeping at the library this week...

Bonfire Night!

So last night was bonfire night.  I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't hordes of people swarming to the cricket stadium near my house, gathering on the beach, lighting small bonfires, and watching a truly spectacular fireworks show.

For starters, one of my roommates thought that it might not be as big here as some other places, since we are in Wales.  Another of my roommates was talking about joining a bonfire put on by the club he's part of.  But most importantly, leading up to, say, the fourth of July, it is all anyone can talk about.  "Do you have plans for the fourth?" "We're going here for the fourth." "We're bbqing/picnicking/tailgating/camping for the fourth."  Here, I maybe heard two or three people in total mention it at all.  Thus, I had no idea that the cricket ground was putting on this huge fireworks show.

Walking home from class at six I immediately noticed something was going on.  Traffic was backed up halfway down Bryn Road and all the way along the Mumbles road, so that I had to sort of leapfrog across the street.  I heard music playing from the field, and as I passed the bowling green, I realized that they had opened the parking lot to members for something.  I realized it probably had to do with bonfire night, but I figured it was just for members of the bowling club- perhaps they were going to have their own bonfire in the parking lot.

Then further along the road, a police officer was standing beside a guardrail blocking traffic to the rest of Bryn Road, and by extension, the cricket ground.  It was then that I realized what was happening.  I passed the ticket office and there was a line of people trying to pay for entry.  A small group of people had already gathered inside, and groups of people were setting up outside with lawn chairs, blankets, and scarves.

After dinner, all of my roommates were talking about going out to the beach to wander and see what was happening.  We left the dishes, bundled up, and went out.  The beach was covered- and I mean covered in people.  We are talking more packed than a public park offering a free firework show on the fourth in the states.  Almost immediately open arrival, or maybe before we arrived, I can't quite remember, the fireworks show began.  It was decently long and pretty spectacular.  There was music, but we couldn't hear very well.  So instead we watched and had fun and I explained to my roommates that thanksgiving has absolutely nothing to do with America's independence from the british monarchy, which apparently is something that at least one of them thought.

When the show was over, we turned to the beach and wandered.  Everywhere people were setting off bottle rockets and roman candles and grouped around beach fires.  The air was full of smoke and the smell of cordite.  People were laughing and cheering and setting off fireworks or writing in the air with sparklers.  It was amazing...

fair warning- I swear right at the beginning, so maybe don't watch this with the audio up high while in a library or something...

Update: This video took me a million years to figure out how to get up here, since apparently Murphy decided to cite his law to mess things up.  Of six videos taken last night, only this one was remotely worth posting, and it of course was the one video that was also broken.  Enjoy!

On Munchies

A quick blog today, just for some photos and little descriptions of some of the food I've been experiencing here.  

So for starters: Hot chocolate and a mini mince pie.  I quite literally went into a little shop- Greggs- to get out of a sudden downpour during my frantic shopping trip a few weeks ago.  I decided I may as well wait it out with something hot to drink, so I got a hot chocolate (having finished a late only an hour or so before, and it being somewhere around half five, as stores were about to start closing).  There was a whole display case, and I asked the woman working what was good.  She suggested the mince pie, and since I wasn't allowed to ask what was in it as per the rule I made before leaving for the UK, I went for it.  It probably helped that it cost 40p.  Oh my gosh, so good.  I am in love.  

Then here is an English version of "chili," which is a bit like spicy bolognese, and is served over white rice.  It isn't bad, but... nothing at all like chili.  We had it with cheese and "soured cream topping."  The fajitas Rob made were better but, alas, I do not have a photo.

And here is an British staple: Apple crumble, served with custard.  This was my second serving.  No words needed, its damn good.

And here we have my milky way experiment.  I was told after freshers fayre that the milky way bars here are different than in the states.  I've avoided trying them for a few weeks, but curiosity got the best of me, so I went ahead and bought one.  Right next to it in the store, however, was something called a "Milky Way Crispy Roll."  In total they came to £1.09.  The bottom bar is the regular milky way, and the top is the crispy roll.  For size comparison, the crispy roll is about the same size as a regular candy bar in the states.  So you can see the thing I was immediately aware of: size.  

I tried the regular milky way first, so I would have a fresh mind.  Here's what it looked like:

Notice any difference? NO CARAMEL.  WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS.  On top of that, it turns out that without the caramel, milky way bars are seriously boring.  So I moved onto the crispy roll bar.

You can sort of see that it is a white sugary filling wrapped in crispy covering, sort of like a pirouette wafer stick, and covered in chocolate.  Let's just say, I may not have regular milky way bars here, but these crispy things are freakishly good.  I move to begin exporting these to the states immediately.  Mind you, while eating them, you can feel cavities forming, since they're basically straight sugar.

On School, Lectures, and Roommates

So this “term,” I'm taking three classes, which is a bit odd for several reasons.  Firstly, I have never taken fewer than four classes, at times even as many as six.  Secondly, all of my roommates are taking at least five, and those are classes that meet several times a week, giving them around eighteen hours of instruction per week.  I have eight hours of instruction per week.  Its nice, since the coursework will in general be a bit more difficult once exam time rolls around, but annoying because it means I have a lot of spare time and not a lot to do just yet.

Because of this, I have joined a two societies, the film society and the English society, though unfortunately they both seem to meet on Tuesdays at the same time, so we’ll see how long the film society manages to keep me. 

Anyway, I was talking about classes.  I'm enrolled, or “enroled” as they spell it here in Wales, in Arthurian Adaptations, Shakespeare and the Idea of Comedy, and Debating texts: Theory in Literature. 

Arthurian adaptations is the only class on that list that I requested, and it also happens to be the only class that I am not sure about.  The teacher is willing to cater to the classes requests as to what part of Arthur we look at, so it appears we will mostly be looking at origins which pertain to Welsh characteristics, the feminine, and supernatural aspects of Arthur legends.  The problem is, he doesn’t write lectures ahead of time, so he just sort of talks about what he knows, ad nauseum, while we frantically try to take notes that will later make sense to us. 

Shakespeare and the Idea of Comedy is supposedly about the origins of comedy and how they pertain to Shakespeare, but right now it seems to be mostly about several of Shakespeare’s plays. 

Debating texts is both the most difficult and possibly the most interesting.  We are reading three books for it, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolfe, and (what I'm most excited for) Beloved by Toni Morrison.  Then, we have three sets of three lectures for each book.  Three lectures on Realism, three on Sociolinguistics (they say language, but its sociolinguistics, which is now the bane of my existence), and three on “Subjectivity” or the idea of selfhood and identity.  So far we have finished the linguistics lectures for Hard Times, and this week we will be looking at the Subjectivity in it.  Which basically means by the end of the week I need to have read all of Viriginia Wolfe.  Goody. 

In general, I'm happy with my lectures.  They’re between 50 minutes and two hours, depending on the class.  Mostly they are in the morning, which is great because it means I get up and actually use the day, although so far I’ve been pretty lazy.  This last week I finally dragged myself to the shops to buy things for my room, to make it seem a little more homey. 

But here’s the weirdest part about classes here: people dress up for them.  And I mean it- they really dress up.  They dress nicer for classes than I would for an evening out.  After attending Chico for a year, this is not boding well for my wallet.  I'm used to rolling out of bed, pulling on a tank top or a tshirt, a hoody sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans, but here, everyone goes all out.  Hair, makeup, skinny jeans, heels, sweater (or jumper), scarf, nice jacket.  The problem is, I own nothing but jeans and tank tops, and I don’t own any skinny jeans. 

So after a week of dealing with people giving my boot cut jeans dirty looks, I gave up and bought three pairs of skinny jeans, two cardigans, a few colored undershirts to wear beneath said cardigans, and a few nicer tops.  I also bought a pair of black ballet flats, a pair of heeled boots, a pair of grey platform heels, two necklaces, and two scarves.  The game is to now keep my eyes peeled for more tops, and I think I need one more jacket, something lighter than my coat, but heavier than my cardigans.  I think one more green or grey scarf and I will be happy.  Unfortunately, all this money spending means I have to skip my first excursion, so I don’t get to go see the wilds of Wales until next month. 

You're probably wondering how I'm doing everything while I'm over here.  Well, mostly I am on foot, which is why my legs feel like overcooked spaghetti noodles.  That’s what happens when you're breaking in three pairs of heels at the same time.  My toes are probably going to fall off soon.  But I’ve also had a lot of help from my roommates.

So here’s a bit about my house.  It’s three floors, six bedrooms, two bathrooms, with a tiny little living room and a tiny little kitchen and a truly disgusting backyard.  We’re fifteen minutes from the school on foot, a bit more than that to the city centre, and three minutes from the beach.  We have a washing machine, but no dryer and no dishwasher.  We take turns making dinner, so you really only need to worry about what you're making once or twice a week.  There are six of us living here as of last Thursday: Rob, Sasha (read as “Sash-uh” rather than “Saw-sha”), Ross, Jeremy, and Osa (the only other girl in the house).  Aside from Jeremy, who is also an exchange student, from Canada instead of the US, everyone is English.  I find it both fascinating and hysterical that during my study abroad year in Wales, I am living entirely with people who are NOT Welsh. 

We’re all pretty supportive of each other.  We do shopping together, they all help each other with homework since they are all engineering students, and we all cater to each others culinary needs.  There’s not really a lot to say about them, other than the fact that they keep their jam in the cupboard rather than the fridge, which is slowly driving me to insanity.  I’ve bought my own jam and put it in the fridge and threatened the lives of anyone who tries to remove it.  I am also quite protective of my Hobnobs, which are crumbly biscuits (read: cookies) covered in chocolate, which one dips in tea and eats until they are sick.  They are delicious, I am addicted, it is a problem.  I may need help. 

Other than that, things are going quite well.  I’ll be posting periodically from now on, but for the most part, I'm going to be posting after exciting trips and adventures.  The day to day minutae may get a bit boring, but I’ll try to find interesting things to tell you about.  In the meantime, if you have questions or want to know about something specific, feel free to put it in the comments!  I’ll try to answer as in depth as possible.  Pictures of London to come soon!