My life of late

I know it’s been ages since I’ve written anything, so I’m going to try to get everyone caught up with the goings on here.  I‘d like to say I’ve been busy with schoolwork, but we all know that would be a lie.  My term ended on Friday and I have an essay to write over Christmas, but that can wait.  There are too many other fun things to do.  I have blogs to write, and films to see, and boys to flirt with, and people to chat with.  I can’t be bothered to actually do what it is I came here to do.  Don’t be silly. 

Life has been going well, other than the cold and rainy weather that has led to the skin on my toes falling off.  I should probably look into that.  Luckily they have a national health plan here so I can go it anytime for anything.  So apart from the diseases, things are going great.  I really like it here and have informed my parents that I may never come home.   I’ve mixed a few new idiomatic phrases into my vocabulary and I’m using the English slang mostly correctly.  There is still the occasionally ‘pants’ incident, but for the most part I’ve avoided embarrassing myself too much.  I think I’m getting the hang of things over here and I’m becoming a proper Brit.  I’ve made some friends in my course and they’ve even started inviting me out for drinks after class.  Hooray!  There are even plans in the works for next term to get together on Thursday nights for pub quiz night.  I’ll keep you all posted on that, but I can’t help thinking that I would excel at it considering my competition will be drunk.    

One the best things about being here, though, is the proximity of Reading to other exciting locations.  I just popped over to Bath last weekend for the Christmas market and got rained on the whole time, but loved it.  Bath is a beautiful town and plus, I got kissed under the mistletoe a couple times. (Just on the cheek, mom.  Don’t worry.)  Then on Thursday I got to go to the British National Archives in Kew.  It…was…amazing.  I know I’m a history nerd and everything, but still, it was cool.  We got a special tour that took us into the actual archive rooms.  I’m amazed at the amount of information contained there, and the interesting people that spend their days there.  There were some wicked old men in really interesting clothes scattered throughout studying ancient manuscripts and maps.  Next time I go, I’m planning to wear an odd hat and mismatched clothes so I’ll fit in better.  After our visit, some of my classmates and I went into the city (London) for the rest of the afternoon.  We walked through the Hyde Park Christmas Fair and wandered along the Thames.  It still amazes me that I actually live here.  I just hop on over to London every now and then like it’s nothing.  Who does that?  I think it’s fantastic. 

Anyway, that what’s going on here.  Life in England is good and getting better every day.  

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

Things I miss the most about America:

      1.   Functional deodorant (I’m going to stock up over Christmas)

      2.    Mexican food that has flavor (The Brits really don’t like spicy food)

      3.  The Bill of Rights (No explanation necessary)

      4.   Crunchy peanut butter (No one does it like the Americans)

      5.    Central heating (This radiator business is killing me)

      6.    Driving (I’ve walked more in the last 3 months than the previous 3 years)

      7.    Clothing and shoe sizes I understand (I still have no idea what size I wear) 

      8.    Funny TV (Luckily I can watch the good stuff online)

      9.    A large selection of cold cereals (I’m getting tired of Cheerios)   

      10.  Baggers at the grocery store (I have a new-found respect for their skills)

A Thanksgiving to Remember

Thursday’s Thanksgiving will go down in history as my strangest.  Even on my mission and study abroad we had relatively normal Thanksgiving celebrations.  This year, unfortunately, I had to go to class.  I had been invited by my friend Sara to a proper American Thanksgiving, but had to turn it down because England apparently couldn’t care less about our American holidays.  The lecture I usually have on Tuesday afternoons was switched to Thursday from 4-6.  This led to me having the exciting opportunity to spend my favorite holiday listening to a fairly boring lecture about the new British history.  Definitely not Thanksgiving related.  Luckily, I did have something to look forward to later that evening.  I had been invited to a murder mystery dinner party.  We started the evening with potato and leak soup, then had chili over rice, and finished up with apple crumble.  Also not really Thanksgiving related, but delicious nonetheless.  While we ate, we became involved in a murder.  As part of the fun, I was given the part of an American journalist who was in England to cover a big horseracing event.  I was supposed to be loud, brash, and “American,” whatever that means.  Anyway, it was set in the 1920s, which is one of my favorite time periods because of the mob.  I’ve sort of always wanted to be a 1920s mobster’s girlfriend.  I realize that’s not possible, but it has always held a fairly romantic appeal to me.  Now, back to the murder.  The group of us was on the train to the races when the jockey was killed.  Through the course of the investigation, it was discovered that I had ties to the American underworld.  That’s right, I worked for the mob!  My dream had come true.  Incidentally, I was also the murderer.  Darn Americans!  We had a really good time and I was glad to have something to do so I didn’t mope around being jealous of the turkey and pie everyone was eating at home. 

            Fortunately, Friday I did get a proper Thanksgiving dinner and it was fantastic.  My friend Lindsay is also American and her parents came over for her graduation.  They brought some of the necessary ingredients for preparation of the required elements of Thanksgiving dinner.  There was turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and the required sharing of what we’re all thankful for.  I was put in charge of that, I guess, because being thankful is an American thing.  The food was delightful and we all ate until near bursting, which of course is the best part of Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, there was no fat dogging afterward.  So despite my rather strange Thanksgiving of the night before, I still got my turkey and stuffing.  Alls well that ends well, as they say.

Swedish highlights

Most of you know I went to Sweden a little while ago.  What you don’t know is that it was fantastic.  I had a wonderful time there.  My cousin is living in Stockholm so I had a personal tour guide for the entire trip.  We wandered around the city and visited a number of museums.  A fair amount of time was also spent commenting on the general good-lookingness of Swedes.  I had no idea that everyone in the whole country is beautiful.  I was flattered when people actually mistook me for a Swede.  I may have to return to Sweden if this England thing doesn’t work out.  Anyway, we also ate a fair amount of delicious food.  There’s this one thing they have there that is heavenly.  It’s a cookie of sorts, but better than any cookie I’ve ever had before.  It’s a really soft, chewy cookie with a layer of chocolate butter (I know!  Why haven’t we thought of chocolate butter in America?  Forget honey butter) that is then covered with a hard chocolate shell.  Delicious.  We also ate some meatballs that we’re still not sure of the ingredients for.  On the English translation of the menu it was called “wildforce” meat.  So if anyone has any insight into what a wildforce is, I would love to hear it.  My favorite was lunch the last day.  We went to what amounts to an indoor market where some of the stalls have a sort of deli counter.  There’s a bunch of prepared foods and you just choose what you want and then they warm it up for you and you sit at their counter and eat.  I felt very authentic.

Anyway, enough about delicious food and even more delicious people.  Now on to the actual trip.  The first day we went to the city hall where they hold the Nobel Prize banquet every December.  It was pretty cool.  I had a definite history-nerd moment there.  Unfortunately no one there could answer my question as to why President Obama was given a Nobel Prize this year.  Erik said it was because the committee was Finnish this year and they’re all a bit off.  Who knows?  After the City Hall, we wandered around town for a bit and then went to the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa is a giant warship that sunk after 25 minutes on its maiden voyage.  Funny story.  It sat in Stockholm harbor for 300+ years and was finally rescued in the 1960s.  They spent 30 years restoring it and now it has a museum built around it.  It was pretty cool.  Next on the list was the Swedish culture museum.  It had an entire floor dedicated to table settings, which I’m told are a big deal in Sweden.  It looked a little like an IKEA showroom.  When we finished there we went to the old town and wandered around.  That’s where we had the meatballs.  After dinner, we headed to a YSA dance where people from all over Scandinavia were competing for who could speak English the best.  I’m not kidding.  I thought some of the people were American.  Well, we danced the night away and I met some lovely people, who I’m sure I will never see again.  The next day was Sunday and we decided to get some delicious breakfast before Church, which ended up costing us more than dinner the previous night.  Oh well, it was tasty.  Church was the standard testimony-meeting-with-a-bunch-of-people-who-are trying-to-impress-each-other stuff.  The only thing that truly impressed me was the level of English proficiency.  Impeccable, once again.  Monday morning we went to Skansen, which is an outdoor museum, I guess.  There’s a zoo with native animals and some typical houses from different areas and time periods in Sweden.  My favorite was the glass-blowing demonstration, mostly because one of the guys kept looking at me.  I rewarded him with smiles and the purchase of a vase.  After Skansen we had lunch at the market place and then I had to leave for the airport.  All in all, not a bad weekend.  I think next time, though, I’ll go in the summer and without a guy who I’d like to think deterred the hot Swedish guys from hitting on me.  

The interior of City Hall.  It's pretty impressive

This is the Vasa.  Sorry it's so dark.

        Lovely me in lovely old town wearing my new coat, which I'm glad to say passed the Sweden cold test.

The view from Skansen.  Stockholm is a beautiful city.

Erik and I freezing to death at Skansen.  

Who's Guy Fawkes?

Last Thursday was Guy Fawkes Day.  It’s not a holiday we celebrate in America so I’ll give you the rundown, as I understand it.  A long time ago, there was a group of people who didn’t like the king.  Apparently he was abusing his power or something.  Well, this group decided that they needed to do something about it, so they planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  They put the plan in action and planted a bunch of gunpowder under the building.  Guy had one simple job to do.  Guy was the triggerman.  Unfortunately for Guy, he was caught, then hung, drawn, and quartered.  In celebration of his failure, apparently, the Brits make effigies of Guy and burn him.  Then they shoot off fireworks.  I’m not kidding.  That’s the whole story.  Well, my roommates decided that I needed to have an authentic Guy Fawkes Day experience and so we made an effigy, lit him on fire, and shot off fireworks.  Here are some of the pictures from the night’s festivities.  

My roommate Kim and our friend Lindsay creating Guy.

Guy gettin' a little fresh.  He deserved to die.

Some wicked awesome firework action.

Guy meets his end to the cheers of the onlookers.

Autumn on campus

Everyone has been asking for a few pictures of what campus looks like, so I carried my camera around last week like a total dork and took a few pictures.  I hope it was worth my public humiliation.

This is one of the older buildings on campus.  It houses part of the law school.  I'm considering hanging out in front to pick up a lawyer.  I'll keep you posted.

These are some of the lovely trees on campus.  The campus is fairly old (like over a hundred years) so there are a lot of old trees.  It's beautiful.

This is the way I walk to class sometimes.  Don't worry mom, I don't walk there alone after dark.  And Jack the Ripper died long ago.  

This is the lake on campus.  Pretty posh, having a lake on campus.  I have grand plans for what to use this lake for, but haven't yet found anyone with which to accomplish those plans.  

Time flies!

I have now lived in England for a month. Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love it here.  I may never come home.  Here are some of my observations so far. 

1: England is cold.  I had heard this, but didn’t really understand it until I got here.  I wear a blanket wrapped around me pretty much all the time at home, and it’s only October.  

2: English food isn’t half bad.  They have some really delicious stuff here.  For example: pickle, a delicious spread eaten with bread and cheese and made of I don’t know what; HP sauce, to be eaten with anything traditionally part of English breakfast, but also good on almost everything I’ve tried it on; every kind of yogurt I’ve tried; and squash, which is actually drink mix, not a vegetable. 

3: English teeth aren’t that bad either.  They’re not perfect, but they’re also not as wonky as we think they are in America.

4: English accents really are fun to listen to, especially when they’re kids.  Sometimes I find myself not listening to what’s being said because I just like the sound of what they’re saying.  And, there are so many different kinds of accents.  It’s great. 

            5: English drivers are insane.  I have feared for my life on multiple occasions.  The streets are very narrow and the drivers have to swerve around parked cars and cars that are coming towards them.  It also doesn’t help that it feels like we’re turning into oncoming traffic all the time.  

Introducing...

I realized I have not yet introduced my other roommate.  So without further ado, I give you, Nicole.  She’s brilliant.  She’s of Jamaican descent, so now I have a black friend.  Yahoo!  (I know what you’re all thinking and no, none of her relatives work on any cruise ships.  And her brothers are too young.)  Anyway, she’s from the east, actually very near Kim.  We sat on her bed and talked for a couple of hours the first night we met.  It was great.  She’s full of energy and loves to shop.  I think we’ll have a great time together.  Being around her makes me feel like I’m young again, which is great.  We laugh all the time when we're together and have had many extremely important discussions on such topics as chips and hair.  When we first met, she wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matter and asked if there were any guys I thought were cute and about my love history.  She has promised to help me find some worthy snogs.  She also agrees that our house is freezing and has agreed to take my side on the heating issue.  

Lost in Translation

Here’s a sampling of how many of my conversations with my roommates go:

Me: “Do we have any dish soap?”

Them: “What’s dish soap?”

Me: “Umm, soap you wash dishes with.  Don’t you call it that?”

Them: “No. It’s called washing up liquid.”

Me: “Washing up liquid? That takes so long to say, though.”

 

Or

 

Me: “Is it okay for me to say _______.”

Them: “No. That’s a swear word here.”

Me: “Good to know.”

 

Or

 

Me: “I hate it when it rains. It gets my pants wet.”

Them: “How does it get your pants wet?  Are you sticking your bum out?”

Me: with a confused look. “No. (Then remembering that ‘pants’ are underwear) I mean. I hate it when it rains because it gets my trousers wet.”

Them: “Right.  That makes more sense.”

 

Or

 

Them: “We need to (some idiomatic phrase).”

Me: blank stare

Them: “Don’t you say that in America?”

Me: “Nope.”

 

Or

 

Me: “Should I be offended by ______.”

Them: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay.”

 

Or

 

Them: “It’s just the other side of the zebra crossing.”

Me: “The what?”

Them: “Zebra crossing.  Where you cross the street.”

Me: “Ahh. The crosswalk.  Gotcha.”

 

Or

 

Me: “I also bought English muffins.  Wait. You guys probably just call them muffins, huh?”

Them: “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Week one in review

I have now completed my first week of graduate school.  Here’s how it went.  (You’ll notice that there’s not a lot of class work being done.  This may or may not change in the future. I kind of hope it doesn’t, but realize it should.)

Monday: Woke up around 10.  Had breakfast.  Lounged around.  Read scriptures.  Eventually got dressed.  Did some laundry.  Watched most of Return of the King.  Went to FHE.

Tuesday:  Got up around 11.  Got ready.  Did more laundry.  Went to campus to open a bank account.  It took over an hour.  Should have gone to the library afterward, but didn’t want to.  Went to ASDA (English Wal-Mart) and spent $200 on food and stuff that I already own in the States but couldn’t bring with me.  Lame.

Wednesday:  Got up around 10:30 after staying up late to watch the end of Return of the King that I hadn’t finished on Monday.  Went shopping in the afternoon instead of going to the library.  Bought some new long-sleeved tops since it’s cold here.  Attended Institute and scoped out the guys. 

Thursday: Got up late again.  Puttered around the house doing nothing very important.  Intended to go to the library before class but didn’t.  Went to class from 4-6.  Talked to Nicole about guys.

Friday: Went to the library for an hour and a half.  Checked out 5 books.  Finally something productive is being done.  Ate lunch.  Chatted with my roommate.  Read one chapter of said books.

Saturday:  Got up at 11:30.  Played around on the internet.  Read my scriptures.  Didn’t read anything for my classes.  Ate a kebab for dinner.  Watched a movie.

The Wonderful World of Academia

I had my first class yesterday and it was great.  While I was relieved to discover that I am not the oldest person in our program, or the only one with a grating American accent, I was less happy to discover that we have an interrupter in our class.  For those of you who are not part of the discipline of history, I’ll explain a bit about the annoyingness of some historians.  (Now I don’t mean to say that this can’t happen in other disciplines, but I think historians are the biggest offenders.)  We have a tendency to think we’re smarter than most other people and that, as a result, we are duty-bound to share our knowledge and thus make the world a better place.  That’s all fine and dandy when you’re the only historian around, but when you get a room full of us, it’s just out of control.  Everyone has to try to prove how much more they know than everyone else by interrupting the presenter with snarky history comments.  It’s annoying and I never do it, unless it’s absolutely necessary.  Hopefully, “the interrupter” will be held at bay in future discussions.  Nevertheless, I am enjoying being a part of academia once again.  Even our discussion yesterday about how and what to research for our theses blew any discussion I had with my students out of the water.  It makes me feel kind of cool to be walking around campus in England as a Master’s student.  I’m considering wearing a tweed blazer and smoking a pipe in an effort to complete the transformation from American teacher to British student.  

September 16, 2009

Today was a fantastic day, partly because I got to sleep.  I finally figured I should make an appearance by about 1:00.  I showered in what may prove to be the one downfall of my stay here, other than the lack of a dishwasher.  It was alternately freezing and scalding.  I guess I don’t yet know how these English showers work.  It may help me to shower quickly, though, so maybe it’s not a bad thing.  After a quick lunch of a ham sandwich with the Queen’s mustard, which is delicious and very pungent, Kim and I headed into town to get my house key and do some exploring.  As we walked down the street, we discovered two charity shops.  I was beyond excited to have my first charity shop experience.  I was not disappointed since I found something special that a member of my family might just get for the Christmas white elephant gift exchange…if they’re lucky.  We then wandered onto campus and ended up gathering horse chestnuts for a game called konkers which all the English kids apparently play.  You drill a hole through the nut and put a string through it then alternately try to hit the other person’s konker until one breaks off the string.   Harry and Kim were kind enough to demonstrate for me later that evening.  When we got home, I finished unpacking and getting arranged.  Then I decided to have a quintessential English dinner, a kebab.  There’s a kebab shop just down the street from us so I walked down there all by myself and got a chicken tikka kebab.  It was DELICIOUS!  I think I’m already addicted.  Just writing about it is making my mouth water.  I predict that soon the people there will not even have to ask what I’ll have. Whether that’s good news or bad, I’ll leave up to you to decide.  Overall, I’m feeling very confident that I will love my life here, if I don’t freeze to death.  I have a bad feeling about the state of my internal temperature, which suffers greatly throughout the Utah winter and is already suffering here.  I’ve only been warm for a few hours total since I got here and most of them were while I was in my bed.  Unfortunately I can’t spend all of my time there.  Something drastic may have to be done.  Stay tuned for further developments in Andrea’s Quest for Warmth.  

And so it begins

September 15, 2009 (I haven't had internet until now, so I wrote several of these entries and just saved them until I could post.  That's why the date is different.)

Well, I’m here.  And I love it!  It took me forever to finally arrive, but once I did, I knew I had made the right choice.  I even liked the bus ride from the airport.  The town of Reading is lovely.  Reading is a real city, in that there are not a lot of touristy things to do, but it’s also pretty.  There’s a park in the middle of the city; the Thames River that runs through town; and charming, old, red brick buildings everywhere.  I think it will be the perfect place to have a truly British experience.  Now I just need to wander around and get my bearings.  When I arrived at my house and met my roommate, I felt so relieved.  Her name is Kim and she is fabulous.  Her accent is classy and so is her carriage.  She is from Suffolk, in the East, and is studying philosophy.  Right away she made me feel welcome and comfortable.  I think we’ll be good friends.  I also think she’s as relieved as I am about our future together under the same roof.  Once the introductions were completed, I proceeded to unpack and had a moment’s-worth of pause as it set in that I was, in fact, living in England.  It passed quickly, though, so I feel hopeful that I won’t be too homesick.  I did find a letter from my dad nestled in my luggage that was very sweet and managed to make me cry just a bit.  Oh yeah, one thing I have to mention is that I have a wardrobe; an honest to goodness wardrobe.  It even has an old-fashioned key to lock it.  I believe there is a passage to another world in the back, but I haven’t had time to check that out completely.  After I got everything sorted (which I have concluded means taken care of) Kim and Harry (her boyfriend,) and I went to the Tesco and I bought some cheese and onion flavored crisps (chips,) a huge loaf of fresh bread, some English mustard (which is certified by the Queen no less,) and some yogurt with mix-ins that I’m told is quite delicious.  So I’m set.  Later that night after dinner at Harry’s family’s house, I fell blissfully to sleep, thinking, “I successfully completed my first day in England. I totally got this.”

Here Goes Nothing!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my blog. I'm glad you've chosen to use your precious time to read the ramblings I post here.  I hope you won't be disappointed.  As you already know, I'm moving to England for a year.  And yes, I am aware that people don't just do that. I thought a little bit of background might help those of you who are reading this without already knowing the whole story.  Probably the most important detail necessary for understanding this choice is that I'm single.  If it weren't for that, none of this would have happened.  So, thank you to all those guys who passed me up.  A thank you also needs to go to my friend Sara who planted the idea in my mind.  She got her Master's degree at the University of Reading in a year, which led me to believe that perhaps I could too.  Only time will tell.   Anyway, about a year ago, I was feeling bored with my life as a teacher of Utah Studies (pretty much the most boring subject matter that exists) to 7th graders (pretty much the most exhausting group of people that exists.)  I needed a change.  At that point, Sara entered the picture and the seed was planted.  I did a little research online and got pretty excited about the idea.  I told my parents that I was thinking about going back to school. . . in England, and bless their hearts, they encouraged me!  I don't think they really thought I would do it.  See, I have this tendency to get great ideas of things I want to do and then I never do anything about it.  I'm guessing they thought, "Here we go again.  We'll just go with it until she gets tired of the idea." Turns out I actually did something about it this time.  I applied to several unis (that's what they call universities in England.  Just throwing in a little British flavour) and eventually settled on the University of Reading because it felt right.  I hope it is. 

University of Reading Great Hall.  So charming.

Reading is about a half hour west of London, which means I can pop over just about any time I want.  (Stay tuned for future London adventures, some of which will not be shared on this blog, as my mom will be reading it.)  It's also apparently a railroad hub, which was naturally at the top of my list of important qualifications for my future hometown.  The Museum of English Rural Life is also in Reading, and anyone who knows me knows I love rural life almost more than life itself.  So, suffice it to say, Reading seems like a perfect fit.  

  Anyway, that's my story thus far.  I'll be working on a Master's in Modern History, which to the historian apparently means anything from the 16th century to the present.  Who knew?  When I applied for the program, I erroneously interpreted "modern" to mean like 20th century to the present. Clearly someone failed me somewhere along the way.  I will blame the BYU for my less-than-adequate education.  Hopefully any other mistakes will be quickly remedied by my stint across the pond.