WARNING: This entry is mostly pictures

That's my plate in the bottom right corner. I CLEANED
that thing.  

Thanksgiving in England is very interesting. Quite a few people will ask what it celebrates. Here's a tip, when in England, play up the survival/feast aspect and not the "You see, the pilgrims were being persecuted in England..." part. Not really a dinner topic of choice here. I was very THANKFUL (haha, see what I did there?) that I got to celebrate the holiday right, which of course includes tons of food. Andrea, who is from Texas and conveniently lives across the hall, has some other friends in the area from America, who were kind enough to include me in their holiday invitation. Dinner was phenomenal. We ate, drank, and were merry. I contributed the mashed potatoes for the meal. I tried to make them like Mom does, but a lack of sour cream led to some MacGyvering. Luckily, Richard Dean Anderson never lets us down, and they came out really well. Enjoy some pictures of our meal and get hungry!


Other than Thanksgiving, the last couple weeks have been pretty slow. I've been working on another paper, which is unfortunately far less interesting than my first. I also have to put together a poster presentation, and two power points before the term ends in two weeks. Weeeeeeee! At least the weather has been helping me focus by keeping me inside. Apparently we had the biggest storm for this area in the last eighty years. I'm not sure I believe that, but it was more rain than I've certainly ever seen. The aftermath however, outside of the flooding, was some beautiful scenery.

A little bit of flood damage.

And some beautiful aftermath. 

Outside the library.

St. Mary's after the storm. 

I like this one because there's a bobby!

Rainy streets in town. 

Out by the River Wear.

 I love this picture of Belinda!!!

Unfortunately with the rain comes ice, and today the city was under a sheet of it. Not nice ice either, but black ice. I almost fell at least five times and had to play soccer on a frozen field in shorts. Needless to say I could not feel my legs this afternoon. I don't think it broke 35 degrees F all day. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely beautiful, but I don't want to have to worry about cracking my head on the pavement every time I step outside. 

Lastly, I found this outside of a place called Stephanie's Flowers. I wish I lived here simply so I could justify buying it. 

"Sorry about that chief."-Maxwell Smart

I am super apologetic that it has taken me so long to update my blog! The last three weeks or so were a bit rough. I got very sick (fever, cough, the whole nine yards), and spent a good chunk of that time putting together two power point presentations to present to my professors and fellow grad students, and writing a paper on the archaeological evidence for the perfume production industry in Pompeii.

Hard at work drowning in books. 

 Thankfully, there were some wonderful non-academic times as well. The greatest of these was a concert in the Durham Cathedral. Let me tell you, there is no place else in the world where Mozart's Requiem could sound as beautiful than in a thousand year old church. I went with six other people who thankfully all enjoyed the concert as well, and afterwards we walked out into a cold, clear, starry night, and went to the Shakespeare. Fun fact: that's the most haunted pub in Britain. Our outing was free of non-corporeal shenanigans, but it's very cool to be able to say I've been there. It was a practically perfect night.

Just a little more gorgeous autumn color. So THIS is what seasons look like. 

I saw a few Guy Fawkes Day fireworks, but it really wasn't too exciting. Honestly I did much more for election day. I stayed up with three friends to watch the live coverage until four in the morning. I'm not super into politics, but I'm glad I did it. It proved an interesting refresher course in American politics, and provided an interesting and rare opportunity to see how interested the rest of the world is in America and its political workings.

All of you who know me well know that I'm not really the going-out type, but I actually had the opportunity to go out and do things this last week. SHOCKING I know. A large group of international students got together for dinner and went to Chaquito's Mexican restaurant. It was by far the best Mexican food I've had here (which doesn't say a whole heck of a lot) and the company was great. Belinda and I spent the bulk of the evening dancing to the Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias music they played.

Dinner at Chaquito's

For whatever reason,
 Sabrina is not at all impressed with
my fantastic dancing skills. 

Nerdy fun was to be had as well. My friend Katrina managed to get her hands on Lord of the Rings extended editions so we watched Fellowship. I lip-synced the whole thing (because I'm that cool) and we have Two Towers planned for this coming week.

Girls' night out for desserts and fun

This last Monday I had a girl's night out with Belinda, Katie, Marin, Helene, and Veera. It was fantastically cliche and amazing. We had tap water and desserts, which we stuffed ourselves with while complaining how fat we are and talked about boys. It was hilarious.

WAY too much fun with the photo booth. 

Most recently, I got all dressed up and went to a 1920s themed dance. It started slow, but ended up being one of the most fun nights I've had here thus far.

Some of my gorgeous friends. 

Daniel is such a ladies' man. 

Oh heyyyyyyyyyy

Belinda had a great time making me up and spent the evening showing me off as her creation. I felt like at any moment she would ask me to dance to Puttin' on the Ritz. I told her as much but she didn't get my reference. Of course this is the girl who hadn't seen Singin' in the Rain until today. That was something that needed to be fixed asap, and it was accomplished along with brownies made in mugs. YUMMY!!! Anyway, the dance was great. I took a bunch of photos (some are missing and I will post them as soon as I get my hands on them), ate WAY too much caramel corn, and I actually danced. I looked like an idiot, but thankfully I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't care. For anyone who isn't there yet, hurry up and get there because life is so much better when you do!    

MUG BROWNIE!!! 

“A year from now you will wish you had started today.” -Karen Lamb

A year from now seems like a really long time even though I know it isn't. I was talking with my dad today, saying that I was remembering living in A&I back at UCR, and how that doesn't seem like very long ago, when in reality it was four years. Looking ahead at the next ten months feels like forever. Time is funny that way. 

A little more Durham Beauty 

 Speaking of time and its funny ways, can you believe I've already been here a month?!! SO WIERD. It's a been a rollar-coaster, and this week was a good reflection of that. I was sick as a dog for a good portion of it, and my professor kept asking if I needed an ambulance. Okay, seriously, did I look that awful? Plus, please, I feel like crap, stop calling attention to me in the middle of class when I'm trying really hard not to cough up a lung onto my desk. Six days later, and I finally feel like a person again, and besides that rough patch, this week was actually pretty good.

So, being sick, naturally I ran out of tissues. I went out to
buy some and found these Cluedo (Clue for all you Americans) tissues.
They are creepy as heck but seriously, how do you NOT buy these?

                                       

A lovely tea and cake outing with Belinda.

                                     

I finished my first grad school assignment, hooray! It's formative, which means it doesn't count for a grade but tells you what you need to work on and for me, is an introduction to the British grading system. Apparently here a 70 is fantastic work, while at home it's a C-. This should be interesting. I also got the rest of my projects for the term sorted (I hope) so I have a stepping stone to go forth and conduct research...starting tomorrow.

I took the weekend off. The week was pretty uneventful, besides the fact that a guy recognized my UCR sweatshirt for what it was. He ended up being from LA, and we were both very excited. This weekend was amazing though. Friday night, it snowed. And when I say it snowed, I mean it SNOWED. White blanket in the morning. There were a few flurries earlier in the day on Friday. When I was sitting in the dining hall eating lunch, someone mentioned it was snowing outside and I flipped out. I pushed my chair back with a great squeak across the wood floor, grabbed my keys, and ran out the door in front of thirty plus people yelling, "Don't laugh at me!!!" Which of course they did. It was totally worth it though. And when it snowed hard that night, I went out twice. Once I took Belinda but she, being Canadian, was less than thrilled. The second time was after midnight and I went into the courtyard alone. It was quiet and dark, and the snow was falling in the silence. It was nothing short of magical.

Luckily the snow didn't affect this week's football match, or should I say, rematch? We played Ustinov again in the knockout round, finally getting our revenge for that 2-2 draw two weeks ago. We won 5-2 (two goals by me-yah!). We are finally coming together as a team and everyone gets along so well. It really is lovely.

 Lastly, yesterday I went to the Durham food festival with Belinda, Sabrina, and Andrea. It was freezing cold, but an absolutely gorgeous day. I found sourdough bread, which was way more exciting than finding bread ever should be. I ended up with two loaves of bread, an Italian pistachio dessert thing (which, despite my inability to identify it, was very tasty) and a bottle of ginger wine. Plus some cookies and a brownie for a couple friends who couldn't make it. It was a lot of fun.

Did I mention that I got to hold an owl.
Yeah, that happened. 

Oh, and side note, I went to a meeting for the MCR (Middle Common Room), for officer elections. I made the mistake of asking what the secretary does out of curiosity,  so I am now St. Mary's College's MCR secretary for 2012-13. Why do I do these things to myself?

Ginger wine, sourdough bread, and sea salt,
rosemary and olive loaf. 

Pistachio canole type thing. 

Oh and just one more thing (said, of course, in a Peter Falk voice) I realized you guys haven't seen my room, so here are some pics of where I will be spending a good portion of my year.

My beautiful bulletin board filled with my beautiful friends and family.
Oh, and Harrison Ford and Shakespeare posters.



At least I get my own sink, which is nice. 

Covered with books, typical.