Oooo shiny.

I slept in a bit today, huzzah! Then a few of us met up and went to the V&A- Victoria and Albert. They had a lot of cool rooms, I got through almost all of Asia, and then the fashion room (with items ranging from Princess Diana's pearl-covered dress, to garments from the 1700's and 1800's, to a Juicy sweatsuit, to Calvin Klein boxer briefs awkwardly stuffed. There was also an excellent 80's-tastic orange fur sweater). We also went through the wrought-iron hallway (soooo cool, I want one!) and the musical instruments room (which was really nifty, I liked the Roman clock) and then, finally, the jewelry collection. When Caitlin and I were going to head over, we called to Hilary to see if she wanted to come with us; her face completely lit up as she said, "yesssss," and walked almost trance-like away from the case she was at. The man standing behind her had to fight very hard to not laugh too hard. All of the jewelry was very sparkly, though they seem to have stolen a few of my tiaras. Hilary and I were trying to get a picture where it looked like she was wearing one, but security yelled at us so we had to give up. It was sad :-( Though we did continue to take pictures afterwards, we were just stealthy.

Waiting for the tube, we noticed a scarecrow. It was designed to look like tube security. Picture pending.

When we got back, I went on Skype with Mum for a bit, with the webcam. She brought the dogs over, and Lilo couldn't have cared less, but when I called Nemo's name, he cocked his head at the computer and then started trying to free me from inside it. Erin had to come free the computer from his efforts.

UF Kevin, Caitlin and Vanessa all came over and we made Cadbury chocolate chunk brownies. If those sound fantastic, imagine how they actually tasted. Yuuuuum. We then watched Clue, since Caitlin and Velossa had never seen it, and then talked for a while. Overall it was a pretty good day, cheap and chill (just the way I like it).

I'm not even kidding.

So I got out of bed when my alarm went off this morning, and realized I was up with a full forty minutes to spare. I figured that meant I had plenty of time to eat breakfast.

I'm still trying to figure out how I ended up almost late for class.

Adventure stories was pretty good today, I contributed a bit. I think my shining moment was when I brought Dinosaurs into the conversation, since we were talking about how the humor in the version of the Odyssey that the guy from Blackadder wrote wouldn't be appreciated by children. I mentioned Dinosaurs as a prime example of something that children can enjoy watching and not really understand, and as you grow up you get the satires and are able to enjoy watching it with your children; someone else then tied in Shrek, and our professor said we were talking about something she'd hoped we would hit on. HA. It was fun.

I then killed off two hours reading about the ten worst foreign remakes of American films and things like that, then had Diff Eq, killed off a bit more time, and had Actuarial Maths. Class 4-5 on a Friday is going to get really, really rough. Especially if the people who sit behind me continue to be tipsy.

My friends and I went to the Banana Cabaret, which was a comedy club. It was loads of fun! The performers of the evening were Rich Wilson, Miles Jupp, Steve Weiner and Al Cruttenden. They were all fantastically funny; Al's was really interesting because he started by ragging on the US a bit, and then went on to do a lot of Australia bashing, which surprised us (we anticipated at least one comic saying something about the inauguration and the recession). I don't even remember what bit he was running, but I was almost crying I was laughing so hard towards the end. Maybe it was when he was talking about the obesity epidemic, and how he wished it was a disease so he could go breathe on skinny people and run off shouting, "haha! Now you're infected!" I think it was Steve who had a bit about a supermarket, and got onto this thing about mothers who keep their kids on leashes, and then threatening them by invoking the father, the son, and the archangel next door that "I'm going to smack your face off, I'm not even kidding." "Boy, I'd hate to see her jokes... 'knock knock.' 'Who's there?' 'I'm going to smack your face off.'"

I love being around comedians. I need to go to comedy clubs every couple weeks, I think, or I'll suffer from withdrawals (between the CCE and the Comedy Connection, I was well covered for about a year solid).

I'm going grocery shopping again sometime this weekend, which is good. I don't know why, but my bananas are funny colored. They're half brown, half green. They sort've felt like skipping the ripened stage, I think, and it's very sad.

Also, I have Sprite in my fridge now thanks to UF Kevin, and it's making me very happy. Yuuuuum.

The Phantom of the Opera Is There...

So I successfully hit snooze for forty minutes this morning, still managed to eat a quick breakfast and take a shower and get to class on time.

I got the majority of my actuarial maths homework done, so I headed back to my room, cooked up a nice lunch, and debated taking a nap. I successfully overcame that urge and went to the gym instead (yay willpower!) and then helped Velossa with her probability homework, and went over our architecture notes a little bit.

Caitlin, Vanessa and I ended up getting tickets for The Phantom of the Opera... and tee-shirts, which are really really cool. It was a fantastic show (I almost put "phantastic" to be a tool), I'm so glad I finally got to see it. Although I thought Raoul was a little too old and aggressive and that Christine probably should've had a little more dance training. But the costumes were insane (especially the ones for Masquerade, which is one of my faaaaavorite numbers) and the set was ridiculous. The scenes where they're on the boat were very well done, and the phantom had lots of cool places to appear out of. I think that I liked how Andre was portrayed the most, very goofy and awkward.

Getting the tube back was sort've crazy, it was jam-packed full of people and I almost had to get off a stop before ours, but it luckily cleared out. (If you didn't know, I'm a bit claustrophobic, and when there are big, tight crowds I start to feel like I can't breathe any more since I'm short and tend to not have open air around my head). We were going to make brownies, but decided we were tired and might do that tomorrow instead.

Some random thoughts of the day, since today's entry is pathetically short (or normal length, depends on how you look at it...):

Munchies look like a fantastic candy. Each one has a different phrase written on it, such as, "munch me," "nibble me," "fancy me," "scuff me," etc. Caitlin had to come back and drag me and Vanessa out of the store since we were looking at them all.

Oranges are almost more effort than they're worth. Almost. But they keep me from purely eating nutella when I'm in my room. And smell nice. I like orange tictacs, I haven't had those in a very long time. I used to eat them incessantly, but then they got more expensive which was a sad, sad day :-(

The British version of Jerry Springer probably would've been more entertaining if I'd plugged the headphones in. I might've stayed on the treadmill a bit longer.

Oh, fire alarms.

A story I forgot about from yesterday:
We were waiting at the tube station for our train, and this guy was not looking too hot- eyes really blood shot and eating a bag of crisps and sort've glaring evilly and standing awkwardly close to us on a very empty platform. All us girls pulled our bags in closer and the guys tried to shift round a bit to be closer to him. He gets on the train and again stays awkwardly close to our group, and when he finishes his crisps, pulls out some charcoal and writes "NO SURRENDER UVF 1690." I guess UVF is some sort of Irish terrorist group? He got off at the next station anyways, and that was the end of that sketchy encounter.

So last night this British girl was having a meltdown for about three hours outside my window, so I fell asleep well after three AM, with my alarm set for nine. Let's just say I was not a happy camper when we had a fire DRILL at eight AM. Yeah, not even someone accidentally setting off the alarm, it was a drill. And they were trying to lecture us on fire safety and we're all out in our pajamas in the cold glaring blankly, if you can do that. I guess it was still better than the time they forgot the key to turn off the alarm in Edmond's so it went off for an hour and a half.

I ended up getting up at 9:50 for my 10AM class. I was somehow still the first one there. Though it was weird, I guess tutorials in the maths department are more like the math lab, there were four tutors there and you work on problems and they come help you do them if you need it. Pretty nice, actually, though I'm probably going to start going to the Thursday one next week so I have Wednesday mornings off.

I went back and took a two hour nap, ate and worked on my homework more... class makes me feel smart and the homework makes me feel dumb. How on Earth do the others manage?

I had my first meeting for my volunteer group today, there were two British people- Ray and Erica- an Albanian girl who's lived in like fifty countries (Lauren), a Canadian (Amanda) and a girl from Iran (Shidvash). The two coordinators of the program were very nice as well, it seems like it'll be fun. Next week we get to meet with the people from the nursing home who are participating, and ask them about themselves and whatnot.

After that I went to buy my books for Grand Tours, so I took the tube to the DLR (it's the "light railway," an above-ground train) and found a Waterstones at Canary Warf. No luck. So I went to the other Waterstones- again no luck. So I had to go back home and will now order my books online. That was a waste of a good few pounds of tube fare. ...not a complete waste, actually, I did get a British copy of the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

I took another nap after since I was arbitrarily exhausted, and worked on some more homework, and then Vanessa, Caitlin, Hilary and I went to Drapers since it was free admission before ten. We decided to go ask to sit at a table with these two guys watching a football match, and talked for a couple hours. We're going to all get in touch again, so huzzah! I might've made British friends.

So Drapers is a really cool club on our campus. They have some big screen tvs in the walls and a huge bar and some pooltables and fun lights, and then you go down this little hallway and there's a huge dance floor with a mini bar area and a comfy bench seating all along the wall, it was really fun! They played a ton of techno, though. We missed the Jackson 5 song they played, which was unfortunate.

Forces of darkness

I got a bit overcharged for my gym membership, which is sad. Fortunately, it's only ten pounds, but I was still pretty angry about it.
Also, I had to change my gym orientation time due to a walking tour we were doing that evening, but it turns out the stupid blond had signed me up for a nonexistent orientation time anyways. So I got one that actually works- and exists- and headed off.

Otherwise it was a decent day... I slept way in, got up to try to sneak in to use the gym before my orientation and wimped out, came home and showered (though I accidentally rushed the maids... I spent a half hour in the Curve drinking hot cocoa and watching Dr Horrible on my iPod to give them time, but they still hadn't finished my room. I need to remember to take the toilet paper out next time, too, she soaked through a quarter of a roll which is a bit unfortunate). I made a pizza for lunch and did some Diff Eq homework, went to Diff Eq where USC Kevin made fun of me for having done some homework, went and did a bit more work, and then met up with my friends. We went and did this "Ghost Tour" of London, which had a lot more history than ghost stories, though the ghost stories were still pretty fun and cool. I really liked the story of Scratchy Fanny of Cock Lane- turns out the whole thing was a hoax and the couple kept ripping people off by advertising the hauntings. We also saw where John Smith was buried, which is kind of cool. And Fred the Poltergeist's abode- the Viaduct Tavern. He rings the bell if he doesn't like his clientele, and switches out the beer and the soda.

I had a delicious ham and cheese pasty I bought in the tube station after the tour since I was starving (I was sort've upset around dinner time and that always makes me lose my appetite) and then we went to a restaurant called something about a cow, I don't quite remember, and I had fantastic cake, and then came back to my room where I was going to do work but got distracted.

I am pretty excited for this volunteer program I'm doing, it's called Magic Me. Tomorrow, seven other students and I are meeting to plan out what we're doing, exactly, then the next Wednesday we're going to an old folks home and doing arts and crafts with them, and then the next week we're going to a grammar school and doing something similar, and then the fourth week we walk the kids over to the old folks home and arts and crafts all together, "challenging age stereotypes." I'll keep ya'll up on how that's going.

Here's a snippet of an email from our study abroad advisor here, it was hysterical:
"Promotion/relegation operates between the various leagues. London has five clubs in the Premiership:
NORTH
Arsenal (hooray)
Tottenham (booooooo - forces of darkness)
WEST
Chelsea (ha ha)
Fulham
EAST
West Ham (your local team)

Pick a club to follow and learn the names of five players. Any conversation with a Brit that exceeds five minutes will turn to football so be
prepared.
For Premiership tickets , please visit the club's respective websites (just type their name into google) for details. You do not have a hope of getting an Arsenal ticket (except if you are willing to pay big bucks to a scalper at the ground).
Those of you who have no soul and want to watch a Chelsea match should have no difficulty getting a ticket."

And the naps begin.

I rolled out of bed at twenty of nine for my Differential Equations class. I was back in my bed by 10:05 after said class. Far too early on a Monday.

I bought my gym membership on the way to Westminster, so now I will be healthy! I figure, spending that much money will be great incentive to go regularly. I got to Westminster far too early for my field trip, so I bought a delicious hot cocoa in Cafe Nero and read a book for a half hour. Went over and met up with my class, and we walked around talking in detail about the architecture of the Houses of Parliament and the Foreign Offices. Our Professor had a blast making fun of Clive, who went to India and killed many, as well as a water fountain done in the "eccentric gothic" style. He's a riot, I already love this course.

On the way back to campus, I discussed at great length with a fellow US student what he described as "those spandex pants...? ... girls wear." I'm glad that guys disapprove of the "leggings=pants" mindset some girls seem to have.

I again felt very smart in Actuarial Maths, as I figured out a proof before our professor was halfway through it, and other students were very confused. I do like that British students aren't afraid to shout out a question if they're feeling lost. It must help them a bit more in the long run, really.

Vanessa, Hilary and I went over to Caitlin's room to try to plan out some of the stuff we want to do and make a bucket list. We spent almost three hours talking and looking things up online and in various guidebooks, it was fun and productive... neither of the Kevins made it, so we figured we'd catch them up later. I'm signing up for a couple day/weekend trips around Britain that should be fun (Liverpool with the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour?? Okay.) and we also settled on some free-to-cheap things to do in the near future, which is also pretty clutch.

After we left, Vanessa and I decided to go to Budgens, bought a bag of chocolate chip cookies, and came back to my room and talked for a long time whilst eating cookies (talk included necessity of gym membership at rate we were going, as well as good paying job this summer, again at the rate we were going).

After she left I applied for a volunteer position... it was described as, "8 volunteers to get involved in a 4 week arts project with year 5 pupils from John Scurr Primary School, and older people from Pat Shaw Residential Home, both in Stepney, challenging stereotypes of young people and older people through arts based activities." It sounds really cool, so hopefully I'll get chosen. It'd start this Wednesday and run the next three afternoons after that. I also applied for my Oyster Photocard and did some Bridal Shower-y things.

You all lucked out that I'm fully exhausted now, it saved you from anything terribly rambling :-)

Adventures in cooking.

Jan. 11
I was really smart when I went grocery shopping this time, and only took one of the baskets instead of a shopping cart, and also invested in some Sainsburys heavy-duty bags with good handles. They were out of Sprite and only had Sprite Zero, which was a huge bummer.

So we decided to take the bus back this time instead of walking with all our stuff; the nearest bus stop didn't look like it took us back to campus, but Hilary asked just to be sure and the driver assured us that his bus took us to Queen Mary. So we hop on, he has us pay, and then he starts driving. After a few stops Hilary goes to check and see if we've missed our stop since the area doesn't look familiar. The drivers' response? "I don't know where that is. It's not on my route."

'Scuse me?? You told us it goes to QM. Why did you say yes if it doesn't??

We all pile off, lug our stuff back two bus stops to a tube station, and take the tube to Mile End and get back to school. He made me very angry, though, that was a waste of a pound or so.

I went to the library to print off my Diff Eq problem sheets and Odyssey readings for Grand Tour, and then Vanessa and I discovered two good trips- one's a daytrip through QM to Bath and Cotswolds, the other is an overnight through ISH (the Internation Student House) to Liverpool (including the Beatles Magical Mystery tour) that we're signing up for. I also stopped by the bookstore and got my QM hoodie, and then came back to my room. I got my reading done while I let Caitlin use my computer to try to fix hers, since hers is all virused and messed up; I also did laundry and cooked dinner, which was very productive.

Let's talk about cooking dinner. First off, we have minimal pots and pans. That's okay, I found ways around that- making my peas in the microwave, for instance. Cooking my chicken was difficult, though. As in, I have no idea how the oven works. I got the temperature bit, but the knob to turn it on made no sense... there was a lightbulb, what looked like a jar with a line at the bottom, then a jar with a line at the bottom and the top, and then a jar with stalactites (the rocks that hang from the top). I put on the lightbulb one. Which was apparently wrong, since my chicken remained frozen. So THEN I put on my stalactite setting, which was also wrong, as my chicken started bubbling and smoking and steaming, which made me think that my fire alarm would go off, which would be awful. The alarms are really sensitive, and it's a 200 pound fine if your alarm goes off unnecessarily. Plus just embarrassing. I turned the oven off, and when Vanessa came over this evening we puzzled out what we THINK the right settings are. My chicken ended up cooked enough, so it was okay in the end.

My mashed potatoes were equally fun. Let me grab the container they came in... okay. So for one serving, you mix 30g of the flakes and 150mL of boiling water and fluff with a fork. Ummm. How much is 30g? And 150mL? Plus we have no measuring cups. WTF??? I decided to just boil some water and pour some flakes in a bowl and keep adding water until they looked right. My water wouldn't boil.

Oh, hi stove, I'm glad that you decided to have your dials mislabeled!! That's very helpful.

Yeah so the wrong burner was on. Figured that out, put the water on the burner that was on, it boiled almost instantly, and figured out my mashed potatoes.

This is going to be a ridiculous semester if I have to guesstimate everything, the only thing I don't follow a recipe for is my mint brownies. Maybe I'll buy some measuring cups when I'm out. But then again, I don't want to spend the money. I'll let you know when I've got a system worked out.

Now let's talk about how I got locked out of the laundry room for a good half hour after my clothes were done in the drier, since the cleaning lady apparently needed it absolutely empty to wipe down the table in the corner. I had to go up and down my stairs three times unsuccessfully before she finally had moved the trash can from in front of the door so that I could rescue my stuff before someone came and moved it out of the drier.

On the bright side, Cadbury chocolate in my refridgerator is very yummy. And I have bananas and oranges for breakfast for tomorrow. :-)