Friday, October 2, 2009

A jumble of news

I have just an eclectic jumble of things to update about, so I'll try to organize it.  Hopefully I'm better at organizing blog posts than my desk!  It never stays organized for more than an afternoon... it's like I clean it up, it looks lovely and organized, and then I sit down in my desk chair.  Magically, even though I'm only sitting at my computer, stuff manages to strew itself all across the surface.  It just happens.


Anyway, we had another family dinner!  This time Anneleen and her sister cooked.  They made one of the easiest recipes I've ever seen, and also one of the tastiest.  So great for university students!  You take canned peaches with their syrup and mix them with cream of chicken stew, then cook some chicken in about inch sized chunks and throw them in and put all of that in a casserole dish.  Then you grate some mozzarella and put it all over the top, mostly covering it, and stick it in the oven long enough to melt the cheese and get it all toasty and brown over the top.  Then you serve it over steamed white rice.  It tastes amazing.  Looks really good, too.  We ate all of it!  Of course we ate all of it, we're all lean mean walking machines, and I don't think any of us have very big lunches on days when we know someone is cooking dinner, so that we're intentionally starving and eat all of it, because it always tastes SO good.

We also got a TV.  Anna found one for 21 quid (that's slang for pounds) on ebay, and I found a cord and programmed the silly thing without any instructions, just by experimentation.  We get 5 channels, which is better than the no channels and no TV we had before.  BBC has some good stuff, too, like the Manchester United game they had on last night.

Aaaaand because I'm lonely without plants, I bought two at a plant sale they were having at the University.  See, it's funny, because if you did something like that at home kids would be like, "Why plants?" and just point and laugh, I'm sure.  But here, I swear every student bought a plant.  Most bought bonsai trees which will be dead next week because bonsai trees are finicky little beasts.  I bought two succulents, because you never have to water them (or rather, you can forget to do so for two weeks) and they're still rather pretty, and don't take up much room.  One is a jade plant (I always have a jade plant) and one is some other cute little fuzzy succulent which mom says she's seen at home.

This is the cute little fuzzy one.  You can see the fuzz, it's that whitish silver that you see all over the plant.  And it even has a little bloom, which I'll maybe be able to use to identify the silly thing.  One succulent looks much like another, unfortunately, and I'm no great shakes at plant ID.  I like it though.  I was going to get cacti, but they're as finicky as bonsais in their own way and I was sure I'd kill it.  I always do at home, anyway.

This is the jade!  Not much to say- it's a jade plant, and they all look the same.  But it's just a baby, unlike the one at home, which I had to break off at every stem just to slow it down (and then I rooted the broken off bits in my tropical tree so they can grow there, and they do).  I love jades because they're just about the easiest plant I know of to grow.


And last night, I finally finished the first page of my travel journal.  I drew a very bad interpretation of a Union Jack flag on it, and copied "The Road Goes Ever On and On" right below it.  My roommate then said, "Why didn't you just draw the English flag?"  Oops.  Let me tell you how hard it is to draw a Union Jack flag.  It's a very cool looking flag, but it has the most ridiculous proportions ever!  The lines are none of them the same width.  Very silly.  I like it all the same.  I'll probably include pictures of my journal from time to time, if I have an especially cool page that I feel needs sharing.

I also had first meetings for several clubs that I joined, and I'm beginning to think it's really good that I don't have to maintain a 3.5 while I'm here- I just have to pass everything.  Monday nights at either 6:30 or 7:30, I have choir (depends on if I join women's chorus).  Tuesday I don't think I have anything, then on Wednesday I have archery at 2 til whenever I choose to leave before 6 (usually 4, I'm thinkin') and Thursday I have choir again at 7:30 til 9:30 (that's the large group) and Friday I have nothing.  Somewhere in there will be horsey activities, and I wish I could find a job but I'm betting I can't.  I also technically have at 6 hours of language homework (3 German and 3 Spanish) a week, plus whatever other homework.  I'm not sure I'm going to be doing the full 3 hours a week of every language.  I'd like to, but I'm not sure I can.  And then I have history reading too, but that's all for now.  In 7 weeks I throw two biology classes into the mix and go completely insane.  I think a lot of that work is going to get done on Fridays, weekends, and Mondays.

Choir is going to be a blast, though.  We're performing Handel's Messiah on November 28th, which is pretty crazy given that we only rehearse once a week.  I dunno what the small groups are performing yet, but I know we do a pub crawl caroling thing to raise money for a local charity.  I can't wait for that!  And everyone in the choir is really friendy.

I'm also really excited for equestrian club, mostly because I just like being around horses, but I've never been around so many people who like horses before in my life (just the crew at the barn, and that's like... a max of 5 or 6 at any given time).  There must be at least 20 people!  And they're gonna figure out lessons so we can go in groups and get the group prices, I hope.  It turns out England is really expensive.  I mean, clearly this month isn't typical of what I'll be spending, what with all the joining of clubs and outfitting my room and all that other one time stuff, but still...  I've come up with a couple brilliant plans for how to save money, which are all great habits to get into anyway, and I think will serve me really well when I get home.  So I am growing and learning and blah blah blah as a person.  Maybe I should write that down and send it to someone who would give me a scholarship for encouraging people to study abroad.

One question I'm still not used to is "How do you like England?".  I'm not sure quite how to answer.  I don't love England.  I like it alright, I'm content enough to be here, but I don't really love England, I love the people who I'm here with.  I usually settle for, "I like it.  It's a lot different than home."  That's honest, and I just feel dishonest saying I love it, even though all the other international kids say it, whether they mean it or not.  The amount of green is just amazing, but... the weather kind of is not, and I'm not real thrilled with the fact that the only social activities seem to be limited to loud parties with lots of alcohol.  Luckily, my foreign friends usually get together at a pub or something so I can go hang out with them, but I probably won't go to the Equ. club thing next week because A) it's really far away and the buses are ridiculously expensive and B) it's a loud party alcohol clubbing type activity and I really don't enjoy those, no matter who I'm with.  They all say there's other stuff to do, but really... there's not so much.  But!  I did find something cheaper to drink than alcohol or soda that isn't water!  It's blackcurrant (or raspberry, or banana, or pineapple... you get the point) and soda.  And it's only like 50 pence, as opposed to 1.20#.  Pretty awesome!  And it tastes good too!  Definitely awesome!

As soon as I get some green chili I'm going to buy some burgers, buns, and cheese, and make green chile cheeseburgers.  Oh man.  So excited for that!

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