Good Evening All!

I am so reliable. Updating once every month, like clockwork really, ha.

Anyway, what's been up with me? Um, been busy with class, though admittedly not as busy as I should be with it, shh, don't tell. I have four day weekends this term, which is fantastic, though I manage to get even less done in them, ha! I have been hanging out a lot more with people. I actually have friends, so that's been fun and distracting!

Currently though I am a nervous wreck waiting to hear about my results for next year. I had to reapply to take the second portion of this course next year and have another 6 days to wait and hear if I made it in! As everyone knows, I'm a massive worrier, and this is way too much stress for me. I think my interview went alright, but it was very short, only about 20 minutes when they were supposed to be 45! The practical part of my interview is on Friday, and, knock on wood, it should be much easier than the spoken portion. I'm just such a wreck, I signed onto this program to do all three years, I don't have the option to not go on! So keep your fingers crossed for me!

Typical tourist sight seeing is down this term though. I think that means I'm becoming a bit more of a local! Well, maybe not, but I don't stick out as much as a tourist anyway. I did go to Temple a couple weeks ago. It's the hub for all of the barristers and the like, and is usually (at least partially) closed off to the public. But, they had a really big anniversary last month so they completely opened it up. It was sooo cool. It was like stepping back into the 1800s, old buildings, cobblestone roads (that hurt like the dickens to walk on in flats!), wrought iron lamp posts, the works. I took quite a few pictures (which I intend to upload to my flickr account eventually haha). We got to go into the Templar church (they filmed a bit of The Da Vinci Code in it), it was a really cool building. It was just neat seeing some of the actual Templar graves/ tombs/ whatever you want to call it. There were also some really great molded heads all along the walls inside. Another building we got to explore was the Middle Temple (picture), which was sooo familiar to me while we were there and I couldn't figure out why. Well, I watched the second Bridget Jones movie last weekend and the ending bit was filmed there, and that explained that! Haha.

I've been doing a ton of walking lately. Well, I was up until a week or so ago when I got ill, blech. Anyway, I have managed to explore and/ or visit Notting Hill, Bayswater, Belsize Park, Hampstead, a bit of Hampstead Heath (pic on the right is the view of the city skyline from Parliament Hill), Regent's Park, Primrose Hill, Golders Green, seen a bit more of Hyde Park, etc. There are some really beautiful areas around here that I would have never though to visit as a tourist and that are just great to walk around and take in. And since we have been having pretty consistent sunny weather in the mid-50s (mwahaha, sorry about the snow guys! :P) I've just been walking about everywhere. Doesn't hurt to get the exercise either!

So, I guess I do have a bit of news. I am moving in like two and a half weeks! I am kind of nervous, more nervous than when I moved to another country, yeah, I'm quite odd. A friend of mine lives in an attic room in a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb and recently another room in the house became available, so I jumped on it. It's cheaper than here and it'll be great to live with a friend right there. The room is also quite a bit bigger, I think the walk in closet I'll have is the size of my cell now! I'll also have a bathtub which my neck and back have been aching for for months. There will be my own fridge (no more jerks stealing my orange juice!), microwave, and cooker/hob combo. I admit I absolutely love my location now, I am smack dab in the center of London. Hyde Park is a block away, the tube, the grocery store, everything, is just around the corner, there are tall buildings, it's the city city- and I'm about to move to a suburb. It's a bit further out (though the same travel time to campus basically), but it's an insanely nice area. I mean, it's a suburb in London. There are trees, and kitties(!), and people own cars, and my room overlooks a back yard garden. It was built at turn of the century 1900s, and hasn't really been touched since due to conservation laws. I'm scared that if I open my mouth when I walk down the street people are going to realize I don't belong and kick me out. And while I won't be near Hyde Park anymore, I'm only a block north of Hampstead Heath, which as far as I am concerned, is far awesomer (yes, it is a word:), especially since I have yet to have any scary encounters with strangers at the Heath, and considering the area, I'm far less likely to. Anyway, I'm excited, and as much as moving is going to suck, a lot of the girls in the program have already been really nice and offered to help me! If anyone is interested, a guy on flickr has taken tons of really great pictures of the Suburb which can be seen here.

But yeah, that's it for me, exciting as always! Anyway, I miss everyone back home and hope the weather gets pretty soon :) Take care!

Excessively long update :)

Wow, so I just realized when the last time was that I updated this thing. I'm apparently rubbish at keeping a blog! Anyway, it's a new term, so maybe I'll try this again!

Part of the reason I became so rotten at updating was because the end of last term was insanity. I had five papers and a poster project due before I could go home, and being the procrastinator that I am, they end up piling up rather quickly! But I made it out alive. I just keep telling myself that the first semester has to be the hardest and it'll get better from here.

The flight home was a nightmare. Actually I lie, the first half was quite nice. I found out another girl in my program was on the same flight to Chicago so a lady at the airport set it up so we could sit next to each other. So that 8 hours went by way faster than it could have. It was once we got to Chicago that things fell apart.

My plane got canceled due to weather and I was told the next flight wouldn't leave for another twelve hours. I wish I could say I handled this stoically- but after being awake for nearly 19 hours already, having no way to contact my family, and being told they wouldn't put me up but just let me sleep on a cot in the lobby, well, there may have been tears. Thanks to a series of nice strangers who let me use their cell phones I was able to call home and give them a head's up I would be late, then I went to work finding a flight on another airline. After waiting in line at the customer service desk for an hour I was put on another flight, that was in another terminal, and I had ten minutes to get there before it took off. So, I ran across the freaking Chicago airport (and I am sure it was quite amusing to those monitoring the security cams), only to get to my gate and be told the plane wasn't even here yet. It got there about three hours later and I was on my way home. The flight itself was terrifying, I have never experienced that much turbulence on a plane before, and I have been on a lot of planes. In the end I made it, landed in Lexington at about 2AM and my mom and step dad gave up their sleep to come get me.

It was great being home, but it went by too fast. Three weeks sounds like a long time, until it's during the busy holiday season, the first week is spent partially recovering from jet lag, and there are so many people you want to see, and so much you want to do before you go back, oh, and when there's a paper due the day you get back looming over your head you haven't even started on. I did get to see almost everyone I wanted to and spend a good time with a lot. It was wonderful spending the holidays with my family and I don't think I would have made it much longer without seeing my mom. My cat and I were also inseparable nearly the whole time, he was my shadow.

The date of my departure came up way too fast. I spent the last several days scrambling to get some kind of paper written and pack, yet again, procrastinating is my pastime. Sunday I managed to get myself ready to go, but I just didn't feel ready. Just as well since my flight was canceled, again. So I got another day with my family, and had some extra time to polish up my paper, though now it was late.

The flight home wasn't too bad at all. Went much quicker and I managed to sleep. I got to London at 10AM, stopped by my dorm to drop my stuff, then had to run to campus and turn in my paper. The next morning I had a 9 AM class, and I hardly remember it haha. I had a 9 AM the morning after that too. I was a zombie for those two days. Anyway, from what I remember, I like my classes a bit more this semester than last. I am taking Understanding Objects, which means we actually deal with concrete objects now, YAY :) I am also taking preventive conservation which I think will be interesting, I really like the prof. And we write reports instead of essays, which will be a nice change. My option course is Antiquities and Law which is fascinating so far, and really good at getting me enraged haha. I'm also just sitting in on the second half of the archaeometallurgy course, just for the knowledge, we'll see how long that motivation holds up! I also get four day weekends this term which is just brilliant. Watch me still not get things done haha.

Thursday night I did my first celeb stalking since I've been in London. Most people who know me know that I am a huge Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and Alan Rickman fan, and I had seen Sweeney Todd twice while home for the break. Well, two days after I got back to London was the Sweeney Todd premiere in Leicester Square, so a friend of mine and I went after class. We got there hours before it started and the mass of people that had already gathered was insane. We were rained on the entire time until people started showing up, then it was kind enough to stop. Anyway, I managed to get some autographs and some pictures (though most didn't turn out because my camera is on its last legs, also check out my mad Paint skillz). I would go into more detail, but I sound enough like a crazy fangirl as it is haha. Just email me if you really care :)

The day after that I went out to dinner with a girl in my program and then a group of us went to the Uni bar for drinks. It was a lot of fun. We were able to just talk about the program and how it was going this semester, and just hang out in general and talk. It was really nice. I took off about 9:30 to head back to my dorm and ran into one of my profs at the tube station. And while I had only had two pints of cider the whole time I was at the bar, when that was combined with my massive jet lag, I'm fairly sure I sounded like an idiot when she stopped me to chat, though I can't really remember haha. Oh well!

So far this semester is off to a much better start than last! With the exception of some nasty neck issues I've had since flying back, everything has been going pretty well. I'm a bit homesick, of course though. I miss everyone, especially my mom, I just had enough time to get used to being back before I had to leave again. Thank goodness I have some friends here now or it would be just dreadful! Anyway, that's it for me for now. I am going to attempt to read for class or something. Bye for now!

I haven't disappeared!

So I've been terribly remiss about posting, yet again. I can assure you it won't get better lol. The last two weeks have been pretty busy. Two weeks ago my Aunt and Uncle came into town for five days. I hadn't seen them in about five years so it was so great to catch up and hang out. They're just really cool people and really fun to talk to and seeing them helped me a lot with my homesickness. They took me out to dinner every night (from this really good, affordable Thai food pub only two tube stops away from my hall, to a fancy, absolutely delicious, foam-filled French meal that is not quite in my price range lol, but as Aunt Liz said, is a great place to have my multitude of dates bring me haha) which was so nice of them and we did a lot of sightseeing - they treated me to one of the bus tours around London, a ferry ride down the Thames, and a visit to the Tower of London and the British Museum. I had such a good time with them and was really sad to see them go.

Then last week I had to catch up on all the school work I had been putting off to spend time with family lol. Unfortunately at the same time I got really sick. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for the first several days, but it felt like I had strep throat. I went to the doctor who saw me for (no joke) less than five minutes and told me I was going to be alright, just gargle salt water. Monumental waste of time. So I waited it out and then at the beginning of this week it calmed down to a simple cold and I'm about over it. But being sick and feeling like crap without friends or family around? It kind of blows. No one to listen to you whine :)

Class is still going well and yesterday I went on my field trip to Westminster Abbey. It was sooo cool. They unrolled the carpets covering up the cosmoti mosaic floor (which they rarely do as it is) and their conservator told us all about the floor. It's the area of the church where they do royal weddings, funerals, and coronations. It was really quite interesting and it was pretty large, about 25 square meters. Once she finished her introduction she told us that (if we took our shoes off) we could walk on it to get a closer look. I seriously can't explain how surreal it was to be able to inspect 800 year old mosaics like that. The tourists who were watching us got pretty jealous too lol. She also took us to look at the tombs of some of their most famous kings, like Richard the Lionheart, and showed us more mosaics in the tomb area. She also showed us their conservation lab. It was simply one of the best field trips ever.

Other than that I have really just been spending all of my time reading. This grad school stuff is hard believe it or not lol. I still don't have access to my money and I have been here over a month now! It can't be too much longer though.

I finally got my student oyster card so that I can get a discount on a monthly tube pass. I have been riding the bus, and after a full out brawl between the bus driver and some teenager last week which caused the driver to pull over and stop on the side of the road indefinitely, I would like to get back on the tube!

I'm kind of bummed out though because Halloween is so not a big deal over here at all. It's my 2nd favorite holiday, so it's sad to see it kind of just skipped over. My mom and stepdad sent me a care package with some Halloween candy and a Halloween card in it last week though which was so nice and cheered me up!

Anyway, I guess that about sums it up for now and I'm sorry about the delay. Take care everyone!

Happy Friday!

So I'm finally finished with week one of classes, and I'm still here. That's always a good sign!

Before classes started though I went to Stonehenge last Saturday. It took about an hour and a half to get there by bus and some hungover kid puked all over himself across the aisle from me about 30 minutes into the ride the way up there. That was fun, let me tell you. Anyway, the day was pretty cold, in the low to mid 50's and drizzling. Which I assume is really the way you should see Stonehenge (or at least that's what I kept telling myself as my teeth chattered lol). It was quite similar to the way I remembered it. A bunch of cool rocks with fields as far as the eye can see. with the exception of the major highway running right past it, which unfortunately takes away some of the magic. Apparently within the next ten years they are planning on burying that highway and making it into a tunnel instead, that will make it a lot nicer up there I think. Yet again I took tons of pictures and I think a few of them turned out ok.

After Stonehenge we went to the old city of Salisbury about ten minutes away. It was great. All of the buildings were old but had been converted into banks, grocery stores, libraries, you name it. We got a grand tour of downtown by this adorable 80 year old English woman who we could barely keep up with she walked so fast and kept telling us about how we're going to hell.

The tour ended at the Salisbury Cathedral which is just breathtaking in person, it's absolutely enormous, it has the largest steeple in England and is about 700 years old. The inside was beautiful with lots of stained glass. There were sarcophagi all over the place and everywhere you walked you were walking on top of somebody's burial, which was slightly unnerving.

Besides the large group of self-entitled, spoiled, pampered, undergraduate American brats that made the rest of us look terrible (seriously, they were horrid, I was scared to talk lest I be grouped in with them), the trip was really great and I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, there's no point in going to school in London if you're not going to check out all of the famous sites!

Monday was the start of classes. The way it works in my program is that you have two core courses and one option each semester and they want you to test out various options and see which one you like more. They actually suggest you sit in on a bunch of classes and then decide. So on Monday I went to sit in on a pottery and ceramics course. It was a nine o'clock course which meant I had to be up at 7, which was a nightmare lol. The tube got backed up quit a bit but I still got there with ten minutes to spare. The class was quite full (with only like 18 people in it lol), but come quarter after we still didn't have a professor, then come 9:30 someone showed up to tell us it had been canceled. Grrr. So I went home and went back to bed. I'm going to have to try it out this Monday instead, hopefully he'll email us if he cancels again!

It wasn't until Wednesday that I had another course, also at nine in the morning, one of my core courses on the context of conservation. It went really well and didn't feel the two hours long that it was, thank God! The way classes work over here is kind of interesting too. You go for two hours to lecture and they give you a break in the middle specifically to go refill your coffee. Then, later in the week there are small discussion groups with about 6-7 people. And we don't have just one teacher. We have someone in charge of the course, but lots of people come in to talk to the class, even from outside the university, from other schools or museums, etc. There is a lot of reading, 90 hours was proposed for this course. And then a 3000 word essay and a poster project. I started my readings that night, dreading having to read that much. But it's surprising how easy it is to read that much, and stay awake while doing so, when you're actually interested in the subject!

Thursday I had two courses back to back, yet again starting at nine (this may just very well kill me). The first one was my other core course - conservation management. Which really means just decisions in conservation, how you decide how to conserve an object. In two weeks we are actually going on a special field trip to Westminster Abbey where they are going to let us look at this special mosaic they have that they currently keep under a protective carpeting. Not too bad for a short midday field trip! I can't wait. We also have an inhuman amount of reading for that class lol, but it's interesting, so it works for me. We also have to write another essay in there, but we also get to do a risk assessment report for one of the museums here as the other part of the class.

My other class was on archaeometallurgy, one of the options. I was going to take this one definitively, but it's a lot more geared towards how the artifacts were made and the metals extracted than the objects themselves. So I'll have to see if I want to switch it with the ceramics option next week.

Overall it's been a really great experience so far and I'm excited about it all. Still nervous and doubting myself, but that's just the way it works in a new situation!

Take care everyone!

Yep, I'm a slacker...

Um, yeah, so I am horrible at updating. I really (kind of) have an excuse though! Pretty much nothing happened at the beginning of the week to even talk about, and then I was so incredibly busy the rest of the week I just didn't have a chance to really get on my computer and do much correspondence at all. Anyway, I apologize.

Monday:
I didn't do anything too exciting. I took the tube for the first time and it was really easy. And, since the last underground I rode on was in New York, I was astounded by how clean it is. It might just be the area I am in, but there really isn't much trash to speak of and not many 'undesirables' down there. I think a lot of that has to do with the crackdown on the tube since the bus and tube bombings. There are a lot of armed transportation cops around too.

I also tried my first shot at grocery shopping. I finally understood the story my mom told me about how the change in cultures when we moved to Saudi hit her like an avalanche the first time she went grocery shopping over there. It got me here. The first place I tried was in a less reputable area than where I am staying and it was cramped, crowded, small, and that made it even tougher when I was trying to understand what half the labels I was reading meant. I almost had a meltdown when I couldn't find white bread. Sad, but true.

Later I tried a supermarket much closer to where I live and it was completely different. The closest thing I can think of in the US was like going to Slone's. It was a lot less busy, more open, and I had a much easier time trying to figure out what I was doing. They also have really cheap cornish pasties that can be heated up just in a microwave, perfect for insanely broke college students!

Tuesday:
I literally did nothing. I watched TV and cross stitched, and missed practically everyone.

Wednesday:
This was kind of the start of school. I had orientation with the Institute. There are tons of archaeology grad students, a couple hundred easy. My department itself only has about fifteen, and all of us are girls except for one guy. It's also quite American heavy, we make up over a third of the program. The head of my program seems really nice too. I think she'll be great to work with.

I am a little nervous that I am in over my head. Everyone besides me went to better universities, or have been working in this field for years, or already have masters degrees in other things. So I kind of stay quiet lol. There have been moments when I think they let me in on accident, but I'm sure they knew what they were doing, and I will try my hardest, even if it kills me.

That night the Institute and professors threw us a party. It was on the top floor of our building, and the view was killer. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that there was massive amounts of alcohol (red wine, white wine, beers, and OMG Strongbow :D ) provided by the Institute for us to drink while hanging out with our professors. Kind of different from the Bible belt, that's for sure!

I made a few friends in my department and actually went out to a pub after the party for dinner with a couple of them. So I'm slowly getting there. We didn't finish with dinner until after 8, and it was already dark. I was only a block away from the tube though and it was a well lit area, so I wasn't worried. Well, I wasn't worried until I got down to the station and found out my line was suspended for safety reasons. I kept the panicking to a minimum and was able to follow some incredibly convoluted and quickly provided directions to find my way home using two different tube lines and making a transfer (much better than my other option - walking two miles in 50 degree, rainy, dark). It was a pretty proud moment for me lol. And as a reward, I got home to a care package from my mom and stepdad, full of ketchup packets and crystal light. I can't explain how much that meant to me. THANKS MOM, I LOVE YOU :D

Thursday:
We got together early in the morning to meet each other in our program more in depth. I hatehate talking about myself in front of a group of people I don't know. But it could have been worse. I got to see the conservation lab I'll be working in next year, and I absolutely can. not. wait. It is so cool and I'll even have my own work station.

After that I took a tour of the Petrie Museum of Egyptology. There is so much cool stuff in there. There's the oldest known piece of linen, tons of pottery, jewelry, tons cat sculptures(!), a head (which you can see here, but don't click if you are easily disturbed, but if you ARE into that stuff, all the human remains, including a mummified toe, can be found on their site). And the coolest thing of all? If I need to use any of the items for school I can have nearly any of them taken out so I can look at them better.

Today:
I went to another general grad student orientation, which I knew I should have just skipped since it was virtually the same as the international graduate student orientation. I also took a tour of the archaeology library, it looks about the same as any other library, but the amount of resources I have available is really quite astounding. I also took a tour of the Institute's collections and they are very impressive. I might get to work with some of them for my essays and dissertation, or I can volunteer to work with them just for the experience.

Today was also the first day that I got to experience true London weather first hand and not from my window. It was in the mid-5o's and raining. I went to take the tube home from school and Paddington station had been closed for security reasons, ugh. So I navigated the tricky bus routes and took a double decker home. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I had worried and I only got slightly more wet.

Tomorrow I am going to Stonehenge bright and early. I'm kind of excited, I haven't been there in going on 15 years. I will take tons of pictures to share with everyone and I'll try to update sooner next time! Take care everyone!

I've made it a week!

It has been a loooong weekend. I went from spending Saturday doing absolutely nothing to not stopping all day today.

I just sat around Saturday. I was feeling a bit homesick and culture-shocked, so I sat around, watched Bridget Jones DVDs, cross-stitched, and got out of my pajamas only for food runs. Go me! Anyway, I couldn't do a whole lot since my feet were so messed up from the days before.

I decided that today would not be the same.

I had breakfast and then headed out by 11:30. I started out by walking along one of the main drags near my hall. I found several supermarkets and general stores, which is so helpful since I keep thinking of things I need. I also found a Baskin Robbins right around the corner, but I doubt they'll give me the family discount like the one back home lol. And it's also right next to a Middle Eastern convenience store instead of Harry's Bar, but still.

I saw a lot of the sights today: the Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. All within walking distance of my hall. To make it even more interesting there was a HUGE bike thing going on today. Traffic was completely closed off in Royal London and a good bit of Westminster but there were thousands upon thousands of people out riding bikes. Kids, adults, the elderly, whole extended families, you name it. There was even this guy who was riding one of those bikes where you lay down and was hauling these huge speakers playing some interesting Euro music everywhere he went. You always hear about people wanting to share the road with bikes, but this was just insane, so much of London was shut down for it.

London is incredibly green as it is. Every block or so there are rows of recycling dumpsters labeled for glass, plastic, magazines, really anything you can recycle. And ads for walking, taking public transport, conserving water, electricity, you name it. I bought a bottle of water the other day and the bottle advertised the fact that it was compostable and then had a blurb on the back about global warming and Al Gore. I almost want to buy you a case Jeremy lol.

Anyway, where was I? I didn't get home till nearly four. I can't believe how many hours I spent wandering around without realizing where the time went. And when I look at a map, it looks like I barely touched Central London! At least I have a lot to keep me occupied for the year to come. I took tons of pictures, yet only a few don't suck and I've posted those already (I put this one up of some cool birds Jenny, you have to let me know what they are!).

I had my hall meeting tonight to learn about where I'm living. They really just went over the guidebook, but to start things off they brought down several bottles of wine and some cups to 'make us comfortable'. It blew my mind, and was totally awesome. I also met a couple people, some Canadians and Americans! That was very exciting. I'm also about to go to the bar downstairs to hang out with one of the girls I met who is here for visual/ material anthropology and to meet a guy who's here for archaeology. Maybe I'll have some walking buddies for class.

Well, I guess that's it for me. There you go Lisa, an entry for this weekend! Mwah :) Talk to you guys later!

P.S. My email has been REALLY messed up. I haven't been able to get into it for days, so I apologize for not being able to respond to a lot of people's emails. I think I have figured out the problem (my Firefox doesn't like my Gmail account or something), so I should be able to respond soon!

Day 5

I got my first real proof today that I am already starting to fit in. I was stopped, twice, today for directions, and once from a native Brit! And to top it off, I could help them both. I really should not be as excited as I am about that lol. I also finally got the courage to wear my iPod on the walk to campus, and man, does two miles go soooo much faster with music!

I'm not really fitting in though because I don't dress at all like Brits. Matt was right, everyone wears tights and flats. It doesn't matter what they're wearing with it, a dress, jeans, a business suit, it's always accompanied by tights and flats. Well I do have two pairs of flats, but I don't, and won't, own a single pair of tights. So I guess I'll keep sticking out like a sore thumb :)

I got all of my tuition fees sorted out today, but it's going to take them a good three weeks to get my refunds back to me! I don't think they realize how fond I am of eating daily, and of how much Lillian Penson would like their rent paid... But I'm not that worried about it, things will sort themselves out, they can't do anything else.

I don't have anything going on this weekend really so I think I'll use it to catch up on my sleep and do some sight-seeing on Sunday. I can't do any tomorrow because my feet are protesting way too loudly and way too much, but I really do want to see more of the sites.

I also have to note that not having TV is so ridiculously hard to get used to. I actually have to actively find things to do to keep me occupied now, it's crazy lol. I think it'll help a lot come class time, less of a distraction that way. But OMG what am I going to do without new episodes of The Office and Private Practice? I guess it's just a cross I'll have to bear :)

I miss all of you guys and will hopefully talk to you soon!