I'm so excited (and I just can't hide it)

I am taking the train to London tomorrow to meet my parents! I am so excited. It doesn't feel real that in the next 14 hours, I will see members of my family again. It's been more than 8 months. In the last eight months, I've learned to be independent and to not miss being around family. I've gotten used to making my own decisions without having to call one of my parents or the best friend first. And in 14 hours, my two lives are going to collide. I'm so excited to show my parents the world I've been living in and have adapted to over the last year. I've just in the last few weeks started to realize how much I will miss England. I'm excited to go home, but I finally feel like I've come to understand this place, so I'm sad to leave. I'm going to miss my church here, my classmates, being a Fulbrighter, going to the town square and shopping streets on Saturdays, beautiful gardens, the newspapers and media frenzy here, taking the train, and sitting on the bus and watching the old women gossiping around me. The old people and little kids are so much cuter here because of their accents. I love watching the little kids running around in the school uniforms and hearing them say the word "Mummy." I'm going to miss all the quirks and sensibilities of the people here. I'm also going to really miss London. It's one of my favorite cities in the world, and I can't wait to play tour guide tomorrow.

End of the semester

Some things just never get easier. I thought after I made it through exams and took a day off, I would be eager to dive into my dissertation. Time is ticking if I want to be able to finish it by the end of June, travel and go home on July 10. Unfortunately, it's been 4 days and I still can't find the desire to get started. I have never struggled as much with school as I have this year. I don't know what the deal is.

Enough about school. I went to a rugby match last week, which was a lot of fun. I think it was more interesting than American football because it moves faster. When someone is tackled, they have to let go of the ball and someone else picks it up, so the game doesn't stop every time someone goes down. Anyways, a rugby match was one of the things I had to check off my "England" list before I leave. Now I just have to learn to play cricket and my circle of English sporting experiences will be complete.

The picture is too small, but I would say check out their shorts.

The day after finals, I took the train out to the picture perfect town of Ilkley, which is in the Yorkshire moors. I could have taken a friend with, but I decided that I wanted to do some solo hiking. I walked up into the moors, which are really craggy and rocky and high, and just sat on top of some rocks, looking down on the valley and spent some time with God. It just felt like the right way to end the semester.

Other than that, I have been going to a lot of end of the year parties and banquets put on by friends and different departments. I have earned the (affectionate) nickname of "grandma" because I'm usually one of the first to leave a party. I can't help it if I like to be in bed around 1 a.m. I can't do the party till 4 a.m. thing like most of my friends here seem to do. This is a good example of cultural differences. Any time some one has a party, I, along with the Brits, show up about 30 minutes after we are told to arrive. The Europeans come about a half an hour later. Then the Indians show up about another half hour later. And the last people to show up, probably about 2.5-3 hours after the party is supposed to start, the Greeks, Spaniards, and South Americans in our group show up. My international group of friends can never all meet and get some place on time. It just doesn't happen. We all have very different ideas of what is supposed to be proper party etiquette. My Estonian friend doesn't go to a party with out baking and bringing a cake. She usually doesn't start said cake until the party is supposed to begin. Another interesting cultural tidbit ... The English have a thing for dressing up in costumes. They call this "fancy dress" and they particularly like to dress up to go for pub crawls (in Leeds it's called the Otley Run. 18 pubs in a row, and you are supposed to have a drink at all of them. There is a lot vomit on the streets near the end of the row of pubs). Any given night of the week in Leeds, I will pass at least one slutty nurse, one pirate, one jail bird, and one super hero on the streets around the university. Apparently those are the popular themes for Otley Runs. The other night at the pub, there was a whole group of guys wearing just shorts, blue body paint, and smurf hats. At the same pub, there was also a group of monks and pregnant nuns. What's funny, is that no body blinks an eye. You just see people in fancy dress and think, oh they're out for a fun night, and go about your business. So there you go. It's your cultural information about party customs in England.

July 10, baby!

I did something exciting tonight. I bought my plane ticket home! The big date is ... July 10. At approximately 3:40 p.m. that day, I will be back on American soil. I was initially excited about this, but I just realized that leaves me with only 69 more days in England. I have a heck of a lot to do in those 69 days. This includes turning in my last paper, taking exams, carrying out my content analysis project, writing my dissertation, and traveling through Scotland and the south of England. Plus, I'd like to go to at least one Meditteranean country before I head back to the land of flat prairie and blazing sun. (I have to admit, I can't wait to feel that blazing sun again. I am so pale and sun-deprived, I am going to have to slowly reintroduce myself to that yellow thing up in the sky.) At least now that there's an end in sight, I think I will be more productive with my time so I can get my work done and do everything I want to do.

So, today was a big day for another reason as well. I had my last class of the semester. But it wasn't just the last class of the semester, it was the last class of my academic career. Ever. 18 years of sitting in classrooms, and it is now over. Wow. I will actually miss going to class. It's the homework, reading, and paper-writing that I can't wait to kiss good-bye forever. Unfortunately, that won't happen for another 69 days.

I'm sad that now that classes are over, I won't get to see all my coursemates anymore. We are all going different places over the summer to work on our dissertations, and only a few of my good friends will be around Leeds. My classmates were one of the best parts of my year here. I will miss them. We have a lot of parties planned together in the next few weeks though, so that will be fun.

I'm getting excited about my dissertation. I'm writing about the peace journalism movement started by a correspondent for the BBC. I'm going to be analyzing newspaper articles about European conflicts and to determine how they are framed - as war or peace discourse. Peace journalism believes that the traditional way stories about conflict, war and violence are reported encourages violence, and that reporters have an ethical responsibility to think about the consequences of their stories. Thus, reporters should think more about the way they report on conflict and give a voice to all sides of an issue, explore the roots of conflict rather than focus on just the violent aspect of it, and give some attention to the efforts for peace that are being made. It's an interesting and controversial topic. I'm ready to be finished with exams so that I can focus on my project and see where it takes me.