Week 9 - Monday + Tuesday
I have to go to Religion and the Environment in 20 minutes, but i'm updating my travel blog now!
Break's coming up real soon and people are starting to plan. Qian's gonna be in London on the 20th so I'm going to go harass her because apparently she forgot how desperately I wanted to meet with her in London and got confused when I said I still wanted to go >.<
So that'll be the first week.
After that week, Jackie gets break so I'll be going to Ireland to meet her and then WE SHALL TRAVEL THE WORLD!
I keep running into people who are like 'yeah, my brother's coming up and we're going to visit friends studying in Florence and we're going to Germany and blah blah' and I'm sitting here like 'I'm gonna travel on my own'. I'm so happy that I managed to find people to travel with too. I could totally travel by myself, but it's really not as fun if you don't have someone to blabber to. Like when I went to York- but I shall go through the week in chronological order as I usually do.
Uhhh..... I don't remember what happened this week. I was sick.
I did my usual grocery shopping on Wednesday, but Cat wasn't there and I ran into Perdy, one of the girls who I met and danced with at the club I got ditched at a few weeks ago). She wanted to go shoe shopping which amused me because I had attempted and failed to go Shoe shopping the Saturday before. She found shoes. I found sweets. There was this one store that had shoes I kinda liked, but they were a size too small. They also had these awesome pants that had cm measurements on them and said they were for 'age 14'. They fit my hips, but not my calfs which was funny. Mary Ann would've liked a lot of it. I was upset that the awesome pants were not for my age group, but I'm determined to go back and turn the store up-side-down this Wednesday and see if they have anything as cool for older people. Maternity sections are also a lot more common here. I totally could've sworn England was an aging country, but I've never seen so many babies + tots in my life. The standard marriage age must be younger too or something because there's definitely been a few times where I was like 'oo. Nice, attractive looking, young male over there and- oh he's pushing a stroller with his wife. Never mind' Tis weird.
Thursday I made a new random Zelda thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzAMebkBzo). If you want to know how sick I was that day, you can watch it. Thursday evening we went to see 'Paranormal Activity' at the school theater (which was a lecture theater with a projector set up on the 2nd aisle/pew/desk/table thing. You could bring any junk ya wanted and it was only 2 quid ^^ The speakers were up really loud just to make it worse. I actually found it more upsetting than scary. I actually started crying part way through because I felt so terrible for the main girl. She must've been so absolutely terrified and helpless (and her boyfriend wasn't much help). I didn't look at the very end so I was able to sleep, but the whole movie is getting scared when hearing random things so I was a little freaked going to sleep because I hate horror films so much. I comforted myself with the stupidity of their conduct. If I was haunted by a demon and my boyfriend was being stupid, I'd lay down more rules and I'd totally start throwing salt around or getting crucifixes. The things already pissed off so I'd try to defend myself a bit more. Read a whole lot of the bible. Ya know. Just ward it off a bit. I also would've broken the ouija board over the dudes head for being so unbelievably stupid. Whoever played that girl was hella good at screaming bloody murder, I can tell you that much.
On the way back, we passed these 'Twilight - New Moon' posters and I was like 'we should go watch New Moon. It was cancel out all fears we could possibly have.' It was weird because after watching the Trailer for New Moon that played before Paranormal Activity, I kinda wanted to see it again. The trailer is pretty awesome- now if only the who movie was like that: just a bunch of people breaking stuff by throwing people ^^
Friday... uhhh... I went to Creative Writing, totally ready to have my Peter Pan story critiqued, but then the teacher didn't show and we found out that he had written an email 20 minutes before class (an email I would've have been able to read because that's when I would've had to leave for class) and he wouldn't be there. So I suppose we're doubling up next week or something. I made sure to go to be early Friday night because on Saturday I went to York!
I went on my lonesome because I found out the morning of that the email I had sent to my potential travel buddy didn't work so that was sad. I had picked up a free travel booklet thing from the Lancaster Tourist information and it had a plan for '24 hours in York' as well as a map so I stuck to that. I went to the Railway Museum which was free and actually pretty cool. The English had some pretty classy trains, I can tell you that. There were so many little ones there!
On the way to the Ministry there were these "castle gardens" (which turn into a popular teen meeting place in the evening) and I was so happy because it had ruins! Very beautiful ruins. It made me really wish there was a wedding there or something because it would've made some great photos. It was a bit muddy so perhaps that day wouldn't have been ideal, but it was a lovely spot. Even though I was taking my own photos, I did take a few where you can see the top of my head in the photo too ^^ Just to prove I was there.
Then I went through Shambles (which is the most photographed medieval street in England. It wasn't that exciting, but I did get pictures). I almost went into a 700 year old haunted house, but because I was by myself and had seen Paranormal Activity the day before, I really just didn't feel like being that level or terrified so I didn't. If I ever go back, I will, just to see a 700 year old house.
I went to the Ministry, which is supposively the biggest cathedral in northern Europe. However, they were charging 8 pounds to get in, which is totally bogus. I haven't had to pay to enter a single cathedral I've ever been to and that includes the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peters, Nortre Dame, and the Pantheon. There was no way in heck I was going to pay 8 quid to turn the corner in a church I had never heard of. I might if I ever go back there one day, but there was no way then. I still got some pictures ^^
I went to the Jorvik Viking Center which was amusing. The gift shop wasn't as impressive as I was hoping it would be.
I went to the castle museum which was just overflowing with all sorts of fun stuff from different time periods and everything. I'd like to go back there with a bunch of people one day. And I got real dairy icecream after that. I had done everything on my list and then just walked back and stopped in a few stores and walked through the market. I didn't buy anything.
I got all the way back to my bus, past the wall where the railings vanish so that you could potentially fall to your certain pain, when I realized I still had 20 minutes and wanted more icecream so I walked all the way back to the Shambles, went the wrong way and almost ended up back at the Ministry, and then wasn't the last one back on the bus!
So I had 2 different kinds of mint icecream and some Buffalo Mozzarella & Herb chips/crisps for dinner that night. I had chicken things and carrots when I got back to the dorm.
Sunday, while being weird, also was a happy day. After wanting to argue with the priests at both the Free Church/Church of England mass and the Roman Catholic mass as my school's church, I decided to look elsewhere for a church. Sunday morning, I managed to meet up with the dude I adore and go to 'Christians Alive' which had a band up in the front and there were lyrics up on projectors and a lot of singing. It was completely and utterly structureless! There was fun, Christian Rock type singing which was fun, but it was one of those places where people just say what they want and improv which is kinda cool, but then you don't know when to sit and you feel like you're surrounded by a bunch of fanatics who are raising their arms up and I just felt odd after the first bit. The head guy was speaking in tongues at one point and I didn't know people still did that anymore. There was no group prayer. The sermons were about sacrificing animals in the temples which made me really not want communion because it had suddenly been spoiled in my mind. He kept talking about blood raining down and sacrificing a young lamb at passover and whoever didn't have this young lamb's blood over their door had their first born children killed and I was just like 'uhg. Please stop.' The other sermon was all about being generous with your money which I've heard so many times that it's really starting to annoy me. They did fund raise enough money to fix up this children's home in the Phillipines, though, which I'm happy about, but they always have such a weird way of talking about money and gaining converts that it kind of makes me nervous.
The communion was an actual loaf of bread, though, which made me really happy. They just took a big loaf of bread and broke it, sent people to the corners of the room and then all at once, everyone just stood and went and there was no method to it. I don't think it's my type of mass, but if I abandon this one too, I will be starting over from square one and not have any church to go to and I won't have any reason to talk with Levi which would make me sad, so I figured I'd give them another chance to not weird me out before I start looking elsewhere.
After the mass, there was cookies and tea and we talked with the kids there. We then went to a seemingly random partitioners house for lunch. Seemed harmless enough except they kept us there until 5PM (We gathered for the bus at 9:20AM, and we didn't get back until 5! I spent a whole work day out!) Levi's pretty sure he's not going to have lunch out again and although I did enjoy the nice, home cooked meal, I think I'll have to agree with him. We'll have even less to talk about next week if we did go to lunch. Cry. These people confuse me so much, but we were all very polite.
I finished my Baha'i book and I don't like Baha'i. I like the message behind it, but I don't like the history so it makes me not want to read all these books on it, but I'm still going to write my paper on it! But after this paper, I hope to never have to do anything with it ever again.
Monday I got up for my RST220 class, hoping to be able to talk to the professor because I had missed the essay consultations the week before and then I couldn't find his email anywhere because he oh so prudently didn't put it on the syllabus or anything and I couldn't find it online! But the class was canceled so I went back to reading. I started reading 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' which was randomly left to me by one of my English friends. I had always been a bit curious about it and so far I'm finding it amusing. The way it's written, it feels like a 'relationships for Dummies' book. I've only read the first chapter, but it makes sense. I recommend it to all.
I picked up more Baha'i books after RST280 and my teacher okay my essay topic of 'Baha'i and Ecofeminism' where I can use a few other religions to help me/fill in the rest of Baha'i's giving me trouble. I don't want to read them. Cry.
Pagan talk had a grandmother workshop where we got to sit in comfy chairs and be told stories. We had a guided meditation too where we walked into a dark cave, which made me think of Ruggles Mine. I didn't feel very grandmothery by the end, but it was very relaxing and she gave us a bunch of sweets afterwards which I will always welcome!
Now it is Tuesday and I'm going to have lunch and then read until it's time for my RST220 seminar. Yay.
I'm going to go drink more water now.
Love!
Wish you were here to laugh at this guy with me.
Break's coming up real soon and people are starting to plan. Qian's gonna be in London on the 20th so I'm going to go harass her because apparently she forgot how desperately I wanted to meet with her in London and got confused when I said I still wanted to go >.<
So that'll be the first week.
After that week, Jackie gets break so I'll be going to Ireland to meet her and then WE SHALL TRAVEL THE WORLD!
I keep running into people who are like 'yeah, my brother's coming up and we're going to visit friends studying in Florence and we're going to Germany and blah blah' and I'm sitting here like 'I'm gonna travel on my own'. I'm so happy that I managed to find people to travel with too. I could totally travel by myself, but it's really not as fun if you don't have someone to blabber to. Like when I went to York- but I shall go through the week in chronological order as I usually do.
Uhhh..... I don't remember what happened this week. I was sick.
I did my usual grocery shopping on Wednesday, but Cat wasn't there and I ran into Perdy, one of the girls who I met and danced with at the club I got ditched at a few weeks ago). She wanted to go shoe shopping which amused me because I had attempted and failed to go Shoe shopping the Saturday before. She found shoes. I found sweets. There was this one store that had shoes I kinda liked, but they were a size too small. They also had these awesome pants that had cm measurements on them and said they were for 'age 14'. They fit my hips, but not my calfs which was funny. Mary Ann would've liked a lot of it. I was upset that the awesome pants were not for my age group, but I'm determined to go back and turn the store up-side-down this Wednesday and see if they have anything as cool for older people. Maternity sections are also a lot more common here. I totally could've sworn England was an aging country, but I've never seen so many babies + tots in my life. The standard marriage age must be younger too or something because there's definitely been a few times where I was like 'oo. Nice, attractive looking, young male over there and- oh he's pushing a stroller with his wife. Never mind' Tis weird.
Thursday I made a new random Zelda thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzAMebkBzo). If you want to know how sick I was that day, you can watch it. Thursday evening we went to see 'Paranormal Activity' at the school theater (which was a lecture theater with a projector set up on the 2nd aisle/pew/desk/table thing. You could bring any junk ya wanted and it was only 2 quid ^^ The speakers were up really loud just to make it worse. I actually found it more upsetting than scary. I actually started crying part way through because I felt so terrible for the main girl. She must've been so absolutely terrified and helpless (and her boyfriend wasn't much help). I didn't look at the very end so I was able to sleep, but the whole movie is getting scared when hearing random things so I was a little freaked going to sleep because I hate horror films so much. I comforted myself with the stupidity of their conduct. If I was haunted by a demon and my boyfriend was being stupid, I'd lay down more rules and I'd totally start throwing salt around or getting crucifixes. The things already pissed off so I'd try to defend myself a bit more. Read a whole lot of the bible. Ya know. Just ward it off a bit. I also would've broken the ouija board over the dudes head for being so unbelievably stupid. Whoever played that girl was hella good at screaming bloody murder, I can tell you that much.
On the way back, we passed these 'Twilight - New Moon' posters and I was like 'we should go watch New Moon. It was cancel out all fears we could possibly have.' It was weird because after watching the Trailer for New Moon that played before Paranormal Activity, I kinda wanted to see it again. The trailer is pretty awesome- now if only the who movie was like that: just a bunch of people breaking stuff by throwing people ^^
Friday... uhhh... I went to Creative Writing, totally ready to have my Peter Pan story critiqued, but then the teacher didn't show and we found out that he had written an email 20 minutes before class (an email I would've have been able to read because that's when I would've had to leave for class) and he wouldn't be there. So I suppose we're doubling up next week or something. I made sure to go to be early Friday night because on Saturday I went to York!
I went on my lonesome because I found out the morning of that the email I had sent to my potential travel buddy didn't work so that was sad. I had picked up a free travel booklet thing from the Lancaster Tourist information and it had a plan for '24 hours in York' as well as a map so I stuck to that. I went to the Railway Museum which was free and actually pretty cool. The English had some pretty classy trains, I can tell you that. There were so many little ones there!
On the way to the Ministry there were these "castle gardens" (which turn into a popular teen meeting place in the evening) and I was so happy because it had ruins! Very beautiful ruins. It made me really wish there was a wedding there or something because it would've made some great photos. It was a bit muddy so perhaps that day wouldn't have been ideal, but it was a lovely spot. Even though I was taking my own photos, I did take a few where you can see the top of my head in the photo too ^^ Just to prove I was there.
Then I went through Shambles (which is the most photographed medieval street in England. It wasn't that exciting, but I did get pictures). I almost went into a 700 year old haunted house, but because I was by myself and had seen Paranormal Activity the day before, I really just didn't feel like being that level or terrified so I didn't. If I ever go back, I will, just to see a 700 year old house.
I went to the Ministry, which is supposively the biggest cathedral in northern Europe. However, they were charging 8 pounds to get in, which is totally bogus. I haven't had to pay to enter a single cathedral I've ever been to and that includes the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peters, Nortre Dame, and the Pantheon. There was no way in heck I was going to pay 8 quid to turn the corner in a church I had never heard of. I might if I ever go back there one day, but there was no way then. I still got some pictures ^^
I went to the Jorvik Viking Center which was amusing. The gift shop wasn't as impressive as I was hoping it would be.
I went to the castle museum which was just overflowing with all sorts of fun stuff from different time periods and everything. I'd like to go back there with a bunch of people one day. And I got real dairy icecream after that. I had done everything on my list and then just walked back and stopped in a few stores and walked through the market. I didn't buy anything.
I got all the way back to my bus, past the wall where the railings vanish so that you could potentially fall to your certain pain, when I realized I still had 20 minutes and wanted more icecream so I walked all the way back to the Shambles, went the wrong way and almost ended up back at the Ministry, and then wasn't the last one back on the bus!
So I had 2 different kinds of mint icecream and some Buffalo Mozzarella & Herb chips/crisps for dinner that night. I had chicken things and carrots when I got back to the dorm.
Sunday, while being weird, also was a happy day. After wanting to argue with the priests at both the Free Church/Church of England mass and the Roman Catholic mass as my school's church, I decided to look elsewhere for a church. Sunday morning, I managed to meet up with the dude I adore and go to 'Christians Alive' which had a band up in the front and there were lyrics up on projectors and a lot of singing. It was completely and utterly structureless! There was fun, Christian Rock type singing which was fun, but it was one of those places where people just say what they want and improv which is kinda cool, but then you don't know when to sit and you feel like you're surrounded by a bunch of fanatics who are raising their arms up and I just felt odd after the first bit. The head guy was speaking in tongues at one point and I didn't know people still did that anymore. There was no group prayer. The sermons were about sacrificing animals in the temples which made me really not want communion because it had suddenly been spoiled in my mind. He kept talking about blood raining down and sacrificing a young lamb at passover and whoever didn't have this young lamb's blood over their door had their first born children killed and I was just like 'uhg. Please stop.' The other sermon was all about being generous with your money which I've heard so many times that it's really starting to annoy me. They did fund raise enough money to fix up this children's home in the Phillipines, though, which I'm happy about, but they always have such a weird way of talking about money and gaining converts that it kind of makes me nervous.
The communion was an actual loaf of bread, though, which made me really happy. They just took a big loaf of bread and broke it, sent people to the corners of the room and then all at once, everyone just stood and went and there was no method to it. I don't think it's my type of mass, but if I abandon this one too, I will be starting over from square one and not have any church to go to and I won't have any reason to talk with Levi which would make me sad, so I figured I'd give them another chance to not weird me out before I start looking elsewhere.
After the mass, there was cookies and tea and we talked with the kids there. We then went to a seemingly random partitioners house for lunch. Seemed harmless enough except they kept us there until 5PM (We gathered for the bus at 9:20AM, and we didn't get back until 5! I spent a whole work day out!) Levi's pretty sure he's not going to have lunch out again and although I did enjoy the nice, home cooked meal, I think I'll have to agree with him. We'll have even less to talk about next week if we did go to lunch. Cry. These people confuse me so much, but we were all very polite.
I finished my Baha'i book and I don't like Baha'i. I like the message behind it, but I don't like the history so it makes me not want to read all these books on it, but I'm still going to write my paper on it! But after this paper, I hope to never have to do anything with it ever again.
Monday I got up for my RST220 class, hoping to be able to talk to the professor because I had missed the essay consultations the week before and then I couldn't find his email anywhere because he oh so prudently didn't put it on the syllabus or anything and I couldn't find it online! But the class was canceled so I went back to reading. I started reading 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' which was randomly left to me by one of my English friends. I had always been a bit curious about it and so far I'm finding it amusing. The way it's written, it feels like a 'relationships for Dummies' book. I've only read the first chapter, but it makes sense. I recommend it to all.
I picked up more Baha'i books after RST280 and my teacher okay my essay topic of 'Baha'i and Ecofeminism' where I can use a few other religions to help me/fill in the rest of Baha'i's giving me trouble. I don't want to read them. Cry.
Pagan talk had a grandmother workshop where we got to sit in comfy chairs and be told stories. We had a guided meditation too where we walked into a dark cave, which made me think of Ruggles Mine. I didn't feel very grandmothery by the end, but it was very relaxing and she gave us a bunch of sweets afterwards which I will always welcome!
Now it is Tuesday and I'm going to have lunch and then read until it's time for my RST220 seminar. Yay.
I'm going to go drink more water now.
Love!
Wish you were here to laugh at this guy with me.