Finished!

I just finished my first big paper for grad school! I want to celebrate, but it is 12:30 at night and no one is around except for the guy blaring Indian music in the room above me, so I'm blogging instead. I think this Friday I will finally let myself go shopping in the city centre to reward myself for finishing. There are so many stores here, it's killing me that I have no money to enjoy them. Despite the stressful past couple of weeks, (I've been sick and had a lot to do for school), I've had a fun last few days. I taught my Thai friends how to carve pumpkins, went out to an amazing Italian restaurant with my flatmate for her birthday, and traveled to the Lake District with Ashley this weekend. If you ever get to come to England, definitely try to make it up to the Lake District - it's a beautiful area filled with mountains, lakes (hence the name), lots of sheep and quintessential, cute English villages. I will have to come back and edit this post later to add more stories from the weekend. I just realized I am really tired and ready to go to bed.
Here's a teaser to get you to come back and keep reading though: overboard
Another possible teaser word: headboard
Guess you'll just have to check back to see what I mean, huh?

So this is autumn

It's been a good few weeks, minus the fact that my first big paper has been looming over my head. I usually don't have a problem with papers, but I am nervous about this one. I don't know if my writing/researching style will translate to professor's expectations in the British system. I've heard that grading is quite critical, and this paper is half my grade for my class. We shall see.

On a more interesting note, here's some of the things that have gone on in the last few weeks:

• I went to the opera. It was my first time to go to one, and I actually really liked it. It helped that it was in English.
• One of my friends had a birthday recently and her family owns a limo company, so her dad picked us up from a restaurant and took us for a ride around, then dropped us off in front of one of the big clubs in town. We were cool for about two minutes.
• I finally found a church I like and joined a small group there. I'm excited about getting to know people. Everybody has been really nice, and I went out to coffee with one of the student ministry interns who just made me feel really welcome.
• I finally got a taste of British sports culture. England played South Africa in the Rugby World Cup last weekend. We lost, but it was still fun for me to see the frenzy. I watched the game in a pub that was filled with students. Everybody was singing rugby songs and people were dressed in costumes (which is typical for a night out in Leeds). The guys around me were crying at the end. I have to say, I think I liked watching rugby a lot better than American football. It moves a lot faster. That's right. When I refer to football now, I mean the REAL thing.
• I went to a KT Tunstall concert in the Refectory on campus. The Refectory is where all the big acts come through and it's famous for being the site where The Who recorded their albums Live at Leeds. KT sounded fabulous in concert. Sometimes it's disappointing when you hear people live because you find out they just don't sound that good. This wasn't the case for her. Loved it.
• I was really mad to discover that ABC and NBC won't let you view the full length TV episodes online from outside the U.S. So, I finally discovered some sites where all the episodes of The Office and Grey's were posted online, so I caught up on my television this week. Kind of pathetic, I know, but that's me. I also have become addicted to Britain's Next Top Model. The shows have been a good distraction from working on my paper.
• I've gone to a few dinner parties with people from my course. It's been really fun to get to know everybody. There are about 30 of us in the program, and we are all international students, minus one. I think our group is really bonding, so it makes going to class and seminars more fun.
• Finally ... I've been really boring this week and spent waay too much time (though probably not enough) in the library doing reading for class and for my paper.

I'm really excited because Ashley is coming to visit this week. She staying a night with me in Leeds and then we are going to go to the Lake District in England for the weekend. It's supposed to be beautiful and should just be a really relaxing time together. I'm so excited to see a friend! It'll be nice to be around someone who really knows me. Plus, I had been bummed out hearing about everybody reuniting in Waco for Homecoming this weekend and not being able to be there with them, but then I realized I'll be with a wonderful friend for Homecoming after all. We'll do a Sic Em Bears on top of some big hill or something. I just hope the cold stays away for one more week so we don't freeze while we're hiking. For all the grief England gets about the weather, it has been beautiful since I've been here. It's only rained hard once since I've been here. The air is just now starting to cool off, but it's a nice, crisp autumn cold. The leaves on the trees are changing colors, and it's gorgeous. I guess I will actually get to experience four full seasons this year. Yay!

Cultural barriers/miscommunication story of the week: I finally met my upstairs neighbor this week. The one who insists on playing Nickelback around 12:30 every night. (Nickelback, really?) Anyways, he is from Trinidad and Tobego and after we had talked for a while and were parting ways, he said he would stop by and, I quote, "Knock you up some time." Oops. Maybe next time I'll explain what that phrase means.

I think the honeymoon is almost over.

Yesterday marked a month since I arrived in Leeds. Eleven more to go! I don't mean that statement to say I'm homesick or having a horrible time because that's not true. If you gave me the option to go home tomorrow, I wouldn't take it. It's just starting to hit me that 12 months is a long time to not go home. Hopefully the rest of the year will fly by like this month has!

Have I mentioned that I only have class one day a week? Yes, somehow it worked out that all my classes fall on Thursdays. At first, I thought it was amazing, but now I am realizing that I need a lot more things to fill my days. At this point, school isn't enough. But even if I had THAT much work to do, I need other things in my schedule to keep me fresh and help me be more disciplined in my time management. I'm so used to being the over-committed student, that this new free time idea just isn't working for me.

I joined the Christian Union, a Christian club on campus, and went to my first small group meeting this week. It was the first time I had been around other believers on campus, and I realized how much I had been missing Christian fellowship. Hopefully, I'll make some good friends through this. Friendships have been coming a lot slower than I expected. I keep having to remind myself that it's only been a month and these things take time. I also joined a volunteer organization that works with refugees in Leeds and will start with that next week. I am still looking for a church. This is the first time in my life that I have had to go to church alone, and it hasn't been fun. It's actually been really scary for me. Why is that? Church should be the one place I shouldn't be afraid to go alone. Anyways, I've visited one church that I might go back to, and one I definitely won't try again. The one I liked was actually an Anglican church but it was pretty contemporary and I could tell it was filled with people that truly loved God. I have a couple more on my list though that I want to visit before I make a decision. Please keep me in your prayers!

Crisis: My dissertation topic is due in a month. I am definitely fumbling with this one.

Fun British word of the day: day planner=diary
(It's very funny to hear people use this word, especially men. For instance, I went to meet with one of my professors, and he said, "Let me check my diary and get back to you.")

More signs I'm not in Texas anymore

• A couple nights ago, I was playing the game Life with a couple of Brits, and they put their drivers in the right side of the car. The money was in pounds. I thought Life was like the classic American game but apparently it's not.
• Today I went to the gym for the first time over here and had to give my weight in kilograms and the treadmill used kilometers per hour. More metric conversions to learn.
• I haven't seen a single pair of flip flops or sweatpants on campus. Everybody dresses up all the time. Even in the gym, girls didn't work out in T-shirts. I feel very uncool.
• I use words like loo paper, rubbish, lovely and queue now. I think cheers and blimey are my favorites.
• I had to change the spell check on my computer to English (British). Programme, cheque, globalisation ... words seem much fancier now.
• Stores close around 7 p.m., a few convenience stores will close at 11 p.m. Gone are the days of going to the gym at 9 p.m. and the library at midnight, they aren't open. This is probably why everybody hangs out at the pub. The only things open past midnight are clubs and the kebab stands outside them.

I started classes last week, and I think I will really enjoy my course (major). The classes are mainly seminars each week, led by different student groups with the professors as moderators. My grade in my modules (classes) is determined by a final essay. The British system is very self-taught. My professor explained that they want students to form their own opinion and make their own academic discoveries rather than rely on the opinion of lecturers and textbooks. For each class session, I have a reading list of about 10 books, but it's just for my benefit to learn about the subject and be able to contribute during the seminars. It's all very different. No reading quizzes or homework checks here. Somehow I was assigned to lead the first seminar sessions in both of my classes, so I have about 20 books that I'm trying to plow through and become familiar with before I give my presentations this week and next. I'm discovering it's a lot harder to get back into the swing of studying than I thought it would be. There's so many distractions (like this) and I can't seem to stay focused while I'm reading.

I think I'll call it quits on the post for now. There's more going on, but I have some studying to do. Enough procrastinating. Cheers!

High: The sun was out today!

Low: I had a bottle of juice in my bag, and it leaked all over my iPod. The iPod no longer works. :(

Beginning of week 3

I have been avoiding posting because I just don't know what to write. Every day has been a new adventure or obstacle or discovery. How do you sum all that up in a 300 word post? It's not easy. I went to London last weekend for Fulbright orientation and met all the other Fulbright scholars in the UK this year. There are 18 of us, and they told us there were over 700 applications. Holy cow. Why am I here? I expected all the other scholars to be really intellectual and make me feel out of my league, but I was wrong. Everyone was really nice and well-rounded, interesting and fun. So I had a good time, though we were so busy I didn't get to do a whole lot of sight-seeing in London.

Of course, none of my solo travel expeditions would be complete without some kind of mishap. This time, I bought my train tickets online ahead of time and then tried to find my train at the station, only to be very confused because it didn't seem to exist. Turns out I bought my ticket from Leeds to London for the day I was supposed to return. I apparently had the wrong dates in my when I buying the tickets. That mistake only cost me 22 extra pounds - much better than my $200 pound luggage fiasco on my flight over here. I'm still upset about that one.

I took a day trip to the old Roman city of York on Saturday with my Norwegian friend, Kirsti, and her British flatmate, Vicki. It was so fun! I seem to have a knack for visiting places on the days of special events. This time, there was a big parade going throughout the city for the Yorkshire troops returning home from Iraq. It was a neat experience to see the patriotism and support of the troops in another country. Also, the Duke of York was there. I have no idea who he is, but everyone was excited about it.

I guess the last pieces of exciting news are that I'm moving to a new flat today, and that classes finally start this week. My old flat was just in a bad location and I didn't feel safe there. It actually worked out for me to move to a flat closer to campus and the other friends I've made her so far. The only downside is that I will now be sharing a bathroom with four other people - a British girl, a Chinese girl and two guys from Thailand - instead of having one all to myself. I think the trade-off will be worth it though. I'll send y'all my new address soon. Cheers!

Fun British words of the day: "jumper"= sweater and "pants"= underpants ... oops!

York=Quaint

Some things are universal

Last night I was playing pictionary with students from Nigeria, Thailand, Canada, Vietnam, Norway, Finland and Britain, and I just kept thinking, "Is this really my life?" It was surreal. Also universal: girls having crushes on Prince William. Leeds is in a tizzy because Prince Harry's girlfriend is starting uni here next week. My odds of having a siting actually seem to be going up.

I'm finally in Leeds. I'll write a true post later.

Fun British phrase of the day:
Going "to spend a penny" means to go to the toilet.

This time next week,

I will be here:



Right now I'm staring at my two suitcases on the floor. There are so many pieces of clothing on the floor, I don't even know where to begin. How do you pack for a year? Especially when I'm limited to 20 kg per suitcase. Damn the British for giving us the standard system and then switching to metrics. It's made me completely useless for figuring out weights, measurements and temperatures outside of the U.S. All the weather Web sites I've been looking at for England only give the temperature in Celsius. I had to go look up the Farenheit to Celsius conversion formula and figure out the temperature myself. I hadn't done that 9th grade algebra homework. I think I'm going to have to find a big metric conversion chart and tape it up on the wall in my room in Leeds.