The 11-Year-Old in Me is SO Happy

Went to London with Alex this weekend. Had so much fun! Don't have time to give many details at the moment (coursework, flat dinner, putzing around, etc.), but here's my favorite picture from the day.

Memories of Freshers Week

Yay, someone's finally updated the DramaSoc website! There are pictures from our play now! That's very exciting to me, because it's the only physical record of the production I've got, seeing as the attempt to film it was a complete and utter failure. (No, I'm not bitter. Honest. In truth, I was bummed for a while, but now I'm over it. We all have our own memories of the event, and we all get together regularly now anyway, so that's good enough for me.)

Anyway, I snagged a bunch of pictures from the website, which, if you're interested, can be viewed here. Also, below are a couple of my favorites. : )

Some girls backstage on opening night. L to R: Sarah, me, Anni, Caroline, Katie, Marine and Libby.

Rehearsal: awkward flat meeting. L to R: Caroline (Lavinia), Meghan (RT Smith), Katie (Emily), Ez (Connie), Ben (Marcus), Anni (Flora), and me (Heidi).

English Thanksgiving

Last night I went to a great belated Thanksgiving party in Anna's flat. Everyone was asked to either give £3 or bring a dish, so I decided to put my non-existent cooking skillz to the test and make baked apples. Happily, they turned out to be really delicious! I didn't know how many people would be there so I only made 8, and it turned out there were about 25 of us, so we ended up slicing them up and putting them in ice cream. They were a real hit. The rest of the dinner was great too: there was cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad, green beans, corn, and of course turkey -- plus a lot of other stuff that I'm sure I'm leaving out.

Moments before the 15 other people arrived with a turkey in tow.

And with so many of us crammed into the tiny flat kitchen it felt very family-like. Out of everyone I think only 8 or so of us were American, so it was fun to bring that tradition to the English peeps. They all kept saying, "This feels just like Christmas dinner!" It was really nice.

Yummers!

Feedback, Finally

Halfway through week 10 and I finally got back a piece of assessed work. Today I was able to pick up my creative writing coursework, which it looks like my professor really liked! I'm pleased about that, obviously; her feedback was really positive. The grading scale is really different here, though, so the mark that I got would actually be really terrible back home. In theory they use a 100-point scale like we do, but in practice teachers rarely give above a 70%. One person explained it to me by saying that above a 70 is like post-graduate level work; undergrads basically could never write a good enough essay to merit a mark that high. So anyway, I got a 67% on my short story, which is actually the equivalent of an A-!

Here is a little UK-to-US grade conversion chart I found, for reference.

Weekend in Bath

Lena and I went to Bath this past weekend! Really good times all around. We left Norwich at 2:30, so we got to London around 4:45. We then had some time till our connecting train to Bath so we visited St. Paul's Cathedral. We arrived just moments before Evensong started so we listened to the choir boys sing for a few minutes, which was very nice. Then we blagged our way back onto the subway ("You mean we were only supposed to use these tickets to get from Liverpool Street to Paddington Stations? OOPS!"), grabbed some delicious bagels for dinner, and then caught the train for Bath. When we got there we found our way to our hostel, St. Christopher's Inn, which was right about a bar called Belushi's. They checked us in, the Australian guy behind the bar gave us each a free coke, and then we hung out in the Chill Out Room upstairs with two New Zealanders, an Australian and a Canadian for a while. It was cool to hear about their travels -- what they'd done, where they'd been, how long they'd been away from home. One of our roommates, also from Australia, had been in Bath for two months, working two jobs to save up enough money to start traveling again.

Next day we saw lots of cool Bath stuff, starting with the Roman Baths. It's really pretty there, and they've set up an excellent museum in the old buildings so you walk around and learn about the history of the place before going out and seeing the big bath. They tell you not to touch the water because it's untreated, but of course we did; it was slimy and smelly (and green) but nice and warm. The weird thing is that at the end of the tour they let you take a sip of the spring water as it comes out of a pretty fish fountain, so I don't know why we can drink it but not touch it. Maybe the fountain water is treated? Couldn't tell you. Anyway, Lena took some pictures of us in front of the bath so I'll share those when I get them, but for now here's one of the smelly green water and some people.

The big bath.

"The King's Spring," from whence we drank.

After the baths we looked around at some of the pretty buildings of Bath, including the Royal Crescent, Bath's prime real estate; and the Royal Circus, where, our guide was pleased to inform us, Nicolas Cage just bought an apartment for £4 million. Bully for him, I say. Later that night we went on a ghost tour around the city, which was really fun and creepy. All the ghosts the guy talked about were from Victorian times and stuff, and they had died in duels and hunting accidents and the like, so you know it's legit.

We also visited the Jane Austen Centre, where we had tea in Jane Austen's Tea Room. I don't even particularly like tea or Jane Austen, but even I had to admit that it was very classy and fun. We also met up for a while with Jenny and Carol, who both go to UCSD (and UEA, for the semester) and who were just passing through Bath on their way back from London.

Carol, me, a Victorian man, and Jenny outside the Jane Austen Centre.

My conclusion: Bath is a lovely city, and Lena is a lovely friend and travel companion. So that made for a lovely weekend.

Happy Evacuation Day!

I love Gawker, because it makes history fun! (Well, that's one reason among many.) Here is a great "article" about Evacuation Day, the anniversary of the day (November 25!) in 1783 when British troops finally left the newly independent US of A.

Also, regular visitors (Dad...) will know that one of the best parts about the site is the hilarious comments people leave. My favorite this time is, "What's great about this post is the conclusion, unspoken but obvious, that we all lived happily ever after."

Happy Evacuation Day!

Dad's Visit!

Dad was here last week! Woo! We had fun and got a little lost, but mostly had a lot of fun. Here's photo documentation of the fun stuff we did. (Minus go to the pub, that is. We never took pictures there, and we were in a few good ones! Especially the Dirty Duck.)

Failed attempts at MySpace-style photos.

Luckily we ran into Alison, who took our picture for us!

Driving on the left!

This route was the source of some agony on the trip back to Norwich.

I hear they really know how to have a good time there.

At William Shakespeare's childhood home.

Acting Shakespearean, I guess.

Hey, that's me, walking awkwardly out of a red phone booth!

At the BBC Radio office in Norwich.

Norwich City Hall and market stalls in the foreground, seen from the top of Norwich Castle.

And that was his visit! Yay, good times. : )