As many of you would know by now, I decided to do the archaeology field school this summer. Once I worked through all the issues I was worried about initially, it seemed like such a dumb thing to be hesitant about. I've always wanted to try my hand at archaeology and what better than chance than to do it for free?! Oh and Tim (or Prof. Riordan officially) didn't mention that he was offering me the Colonial Dames Scholarship, which not only covered my tuition but most of my room and board too! How freakin' sweet is that!? I am one lucky girl. I forgot that all too often, and have been making more of an effort to remind myself of all the wonderful things in my life. Sometimes it feels like nothing has changed, other times I look back to a few months ago and times over the past few years and I realize I've come such a long way. It's a long, hard road, but what isn't in life? That's what I'm starting to realize. The best thing you can do is not let yourself succumb to the darkness or relish in your emotions, as strong and overpowering as they feel and are at times. And to surround yourself with loved ones and keep yourself occupied with things that make you happy. Archaeology makes me happy.

I enjoy spending my day out in the yard, with the sun beating down and physical and mental challenges around every corner! It's a very satisfying and rewarding way to spend the day. Every evening, I feel like I've actually earned whatever luxuries or recreational activities I participate in. I'm generally very tired at the end of the day, but it's gotten significantly easier over the past few weeks. I've discovered that I love to dig - I mean...hardcore ripping and shaping of the earth in front of you, sweating buckets as you put your whole self into it. I spent a good 4-hour period today just digging my square on my own. It was great!

We have an amazing site. Though you should go read about it here www.stmaryscity.org (especially if you click on "History" and then "What's So Important About St. Mary's City") I'll tell ya a lil' bit about the site. I have a bunch of pamphlets that go in greater detail about the site itself than the website which I will pass along next time I'm home, but you should definitely check out "Dispatch from the Field School". It's a weekly report written by Tim about what we've been doing and finding each week. There are pics of the possible Jesuit relic ring and some other notables. You might even see me in a pic or two ^_^

I've spent the last week giving countless tours to visitors of the historic city (we rotate every week, today was my last day thankfully). Here's my little spiel:

We are excavating Leonard Calvert's backyard


(read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Calvert), first Governor of the colony of Maryland. His house stood 70' x 40'. This ghost frame stands where the left side of the house would have stood:






And just to the right is our site. We have 4 sifting stations, and multiple squares going at the same time with people being rotated as needed. There are 13 students, one TA and Prof. Tim. These are our picnic tables, where we take our breaks and hang out:



Anyways, this house was one of the first buildings here at St. Mary's (1634) and it played a number of vital roles across the centuries. Being that there was no brick statehouse at the time, and being that it was the home of the Governor himself, it served as the statehouse for many years - hence there were lots of important people coming through on a regular basis. It also served as an inn or ordinary at various times, so there were lots of travelers and traders passing through here as well. Since St. Mary's City was all but abandoned after the capital was moved to Annapolis in 1695, the site fell into disrepair and would eventually serve as a farm (meaning we have lots of churned up artifacts in the plowzone soil layer). In 1840, the Broome-Howard Inn was built there. The building has since been moved a little way down the road.

The site was also home to an important period of violence in Maryland history (go here http://www.mdoe.org/inglesrebellion.html#). In 1645 there was a Protestant rebellion against the colony of Maryland, in connection with the English Civil War. The rebels had possession of the house at the time and turned it into a fort, the very heart of the rebellion. It was called Pope's Fort. We don't know too much about it, and we will be digging into a 10' x 10' portion within the next few days!!


The main aim of our excavations this summer is to identify the various fence lines and figure out where the two known outbuildings are and what purpose they served. We are constantly finding artifacts! The most common that we have to deal with are tons and tons of brick, coal and oyster shells. But we frequently find various ceramics, fragments of clay tobacco pipes, bones, colonial and modern window glass, architectural objects (lots of nails, some mortar and tile, a few clumps of window leads), bottle glass, aboriginal ceramics and "flakes" (sharpened stones, like arrowheads).


The moment of discovery....a ceramic sherd is discovered!!


A close-up. This is an example of tin-glazed earthenware, and based on the decorations it probably dates to late 17th century. This was the cheapest type of decorative ceramic available at the time. It could be English, Dutch, French or German.



This was a very significant find that came out of my first square! It's one of the largest pieces of window glass found at St. Mary's. We usually find bits the size of a thumb-nail, but this piece allows us to see how they cut the glass. This definitely dates to colonial times, but we aren't sure of the specific dates yet.



We find tons of animal bones all over the site, mostly from deer and a few cows and pigs. This is a femur of a deer.


We also find teeth. Here are some deer molars.



Hopefully you all can see this easily enough. Notice the lines we've drawn in the soil? Those are fence lines we found when we reached subsoil. When we find evidence of a fence-line, trench, post-hole, etc it's called a "feature". You notice it by changes in the soil. If you come visit the site, I can explain this much better!! We were pretty excited to have found this. We have since opened an adjacent square to get more information....

Of course there have been major notables! There was the ring - pretty F-ing sweet! A nice shoe buckle! A farthing that dated from 1632 - 34!!! I found one of two belt buckles! And one of my favorite finds was at first glance just a wheatstraw penny (I've seen plenty in my time, but it was still cool to find a coin). When I turned it over and cleaned it off, I saw that it was an Indianhead penny!! I remember Dad telling me about them, but I've never actually seen one. I was pretty excited. Then I read the date - 1899. It was pretty awesome. I took a pic, but the corners got cut off.



To my loving family, I have 4 free admission tickets to the city (2 of which have been claimed by Corky and Theresa). I didn't realize how quickly the summer is passing, but I have only 3 more weeks in the field. Here are the dates I will be on site:

Wednesday July 9 through Sunday 13 (this week, we will be sailing the Dove late Saturday afternoon and first thing Sunday morning....otherwise we'll be at the site)

Friday July 18 through Sunday 20 (we aren't there that Wed & Thurs cause we'll be on a fieldtrip at Williamsburg and Jamestown)

Wed July 23 through Sun 27

The following week I will be in the lab :( We rotate shifts in the lab and unfortunately I stuck with the last week!! You can still visit the site, but I won't be there. So there you have it. All of the above dates I will be at the site from 8:30 am to noon, then back from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Hope to see you there!!!

I haven't posted in a while. I haven't really felt like talking about what's been going on. Life is an odd mix of good times and really shitty times. C'est la vie, right? I don't really feel like getting into all the negative right now. Here's where I am though:


My SMP (St. Mary's Project) is my senior thesis. I've been researching West Virginia folk culture, with a specific interest in the music. I started this whole journey with an independent study last year. It's finally coming to a close. It's been a long, arduous road and I'll be glad to be done with it. I figure I'll write more about it when it's done. Right now I don't even want to think about all the bullshit. It's due in 3 days. I have 40 pages drafted, another 20-30 to go. Then there will be endless revisions and crap. Woo. I am more or less freaking out, but it's actually coming along so yeah.

I dropped my Sociology of Religion course - it just wasn't giving me what I needed. And the people were pretty fucking lame, if I might say so. At this point in school, you should be past taking disagreements in discussions personally. I guess some of them haven't hit that yet. Well....fuck you then.

Life goes on in my Egyptian Archaeology class. I love it and am so glad I decided to switch into it! The professor (Tim Riordan) is amazing and it's incredibly interesting subject matter. I've never taken archaeology before, though I've been interested just out of curiosity, and it's really opened my eyes new things. My professor has said he's impressed with my work. It's nice to finally get some good feedback from a professor here.

And here's what I'm leading up to. Prof. Riordan made me an offer.....one I'm not sure I can refuse (not like that!!) I had expressed interest in the Historical Archaeology Field School here at the historic city. It was one of the reasons I was interested in St. Mary's in the first place. I've heard great things about it and have always wanted to go on a dig. I don't think I'd want to spend my life doing it, but I definitely wanted to give it a try. I looked into it earlier in the semester. Conveniently, my Egyptian professor is the guy that runs the field school.

A while ago I told him I wouldn't be able to do it cause I didn't have the money. We dropped it and I moved on. But just the other day, he pulled me aside and said that the school had recently received an endowment and that'd like to offer me full-tuition paid at the school!! I was blown away! I didn't think he thought that highly of me.

I've spent the last few days ripping my hair out trying to figure out what to do. It seems kind of stupid of me to stay down here longer, when I've been looking forward to May 10 for so long now. I don't want to be depressed like this anymore and this place exacerbates my issues. Why would I agree to sacrifice my entire summer (10 weeks!) to stay here? Well that's one side of the coin.

The other is very positive and enticing. It will be a small group of committed students, and if there's one thing I've learned in college it's that I need to be a part of a community. And a community of students is a great place to grow. It will give me great experience that will not only look good on my resume, but might also open doors for traveling in the future.

The site they are working on this year is much better than recent years, from what they're telling me. It's also in the shade, a huge advantage in the hot summers down here. Here's a description:

Field School excavations for 2008 will take place in the historic Town Center of St. Mary's City. Archaeologists will be examining the property where Maryland’s first and fifth governors (Leonard Calvert and Thomas Stone) lived. During the colony’s first years, this home was used as a meeting place for the General Assembly. In the 1640s, Pope’s Fort was constructed around the building. In 1662, the colony purchased the property to use as the first official State House and it became know as “Country’s House,” as it served the country of Maryland.

It will be 40-50 hours of unpaid work a week. I get 8 credit hours, but I will have graduated by then so I'm not sure they will be useful to me. It's 8:30 am till 5 pm Wed-Sun with Mon and Tues free. It runs May 28 till August 3.

AHHHHHHH!!!! I think I know what I have to do, but I feel pretty uneasy making that step. It's scary. Do I want to spend my entire summer here?!?!
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All I can really do is try to occupy my time with things that make me happy. I am miserable and melancholy down here. I've tried. And tried. And failed, then picked myself up and tried again. You get to a point where it's not worth the effort any more. I'm out of here in a few months anyways right? Then I can say fuck you to all the lame people here and never look back. May 10 is not too far from now, but in these lonely evenings it feels so very far away.

Yes, I have made friends here. They're good for the occasional conversation in passing, or maybe some company for a meal. I can make plans with some, but recently those plans have let me down and left me in a terrible state. So why bother? I need intimacy with people, I need honesty and genuineness. That's really hard to get from immature, sheltered college kids. Yes we all put faces on for the social arena, but generally I am very genuine with people and I expect the same from others if I'm going to invest my time in them. Is this asking too much? When I've explained this to the few friends here, they say yes it is too much to ask. They say I should just relax and have fun. Well sorry kids, I grew out of that a long time ago. Not that I don't have fun, but I don't like shallow, superficial relationships with fickle friends.

I feel so lost and so ridiculously out of place here. I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things.

Here I am, back in my insomniac mode. This tends to happen when I'm away at this school. It has a lot to do with the depression. And it's been a rough start to the semester. So it doesn't surprise me.

I was really excited about coming back. I was happy that I had good friends from Oxford who would be here with me. I wanted to try my hardest to find my place here. Stay down here more than 3 weekends a semester. You know, be a St. Mary's kid? Things weren't meeting my expectations. Dad said it best, that's the problem with expectations. They always disappoint you. And in clinging to your expected outcome, and getting upset at it not being that way, you miss all the good things around you.

There have been good things here since I've been back. But I've been weighed down by everything else, to the point where I wasn't letting it sink in. Let's discuss the bad before moving on to the good. I like ending on a positive note.

My friends have made plans and cancelled on me several times, and not bothered to follow through with making it up. This has really bummed me out and hurt my feelings. And since I didn't have much work the first two weeks, I had A LOT of down time with absolutely nothing to do. Long evenings, along in the room really make you feel crazy sometimes. I kept myself busy with watching some Science channel, reading, and working on my Oxford scrapbook (a very tedious, but pleasing experience). But still. Then the insomnia kicked in and it got worse, obviously cause I couldn't sleep when I needed to and was practically bored to tears. I've been having problems with food again as well. It never really goes away, just goes into remission. So it's really not surprising how miserable I've felt. I went to see my counselor here yesterday, and plan on seeing her regularly.

My 8 am MWF class has been disappointing. At the beginning, it looked really promising. Native American Spirituality and Religious Beliefs, taught by the director of the historic city here. Know this - 8 am is EXTREMELY early for me. It's painful to get up before 9 (some of you early birds may laugh!), my body aches and I'm in a terrible mood. But I really wanted to take this class. So I was willing to make the effort. Well the professor has not met my expectations. (Ah, there's the problem! Expectations again.) Basically, he goes on ridiculous tangents and we're now 2 weeks behind in the syllabus and it's only the 3rd week of class. Something's wrong there. I've skipped two classes now, cause I couldn't get out of bed. Bad Sara, I know.

In all honesty though, I think it's ok for me to have high expectations with my academic pursuits. I need a challenging structure, and he can't stick to his structure and does not challenge me mentally in the least. The way I see it, what's the point in forcing myself to get up that early (which has been especially hard with the insomnia) if I'm not getting anything out of it?

But here's the brighter side. I found another course to replace this one. I checked it out yesterday to see how the professor was. Much better, more challenging and enlightening, and he seems very organized and strict about the syllabus. I will officially be switching into Egyptian Archaeology tomorrow! I'm excited; I've always been fascinating by Egyptian culture (who hasn't?), but it never seemed practical. Well it's my last semester of college and I need intellectual satisfaction. And I will continue my research on the Hermetic writings (from my Occult course in Oxford) for the research paper. So there.

Other happier things now. Even though I still get pretty anxious about sitting in the middle of the Great Room (cafeteria) when I have no one to sit with me, I'm making myself do it. Last year, I would NOT leave the corner of that room. I'd say that's a major improvement. I'm talking a bit more in class, another issue of mine from last year. It feels good to know that I've got the social anxiety under control now. What to do about the rest though....

My room is fucking awesome! This dorm hall was just renovated, so the bathrooms are really nice. My room is bigger than the single last year, so I can properly organize my shit and enjoy my space. The girls in the hallway are a hell of a lot nicer than the ones last year. And there's this ridiculously awesome RA who I kind of have a crush on. Her name is Erin. She's also in my spinning (indoor cycling) class. She's been one of the friendlier faces in the dorm, inviting me to hang out with people and such. We'll see what happens...

I also met some good people this weekend. Becca and Sam (a couple from Oxford) were around and we went to a girl's birthday party on Saturday. What happens at parties should stay there, but let's just say I had a great night. Becca will be going off to study in France this weekend, Sam is staying behind here. He's the only friend here making an effort with me. I'm gonna miss Becca though.

My senior project is really getting me psyched up! I will tell more about that later, but it's half of my academic workload this semester (my other class is Sociology of Religion). I'm working with Brad Park, my favorite professor here. We had our second meeting today (in similar style to the Oxford tutorials) and it was great. My intellectual confidence is coming back. It's damn time.

Anyways.....I realize this post has been really choppy and not my best. But hey, cut me some slack. It's 3:26 in the morning.

So it's been a rough start, but things are improving now. I'm not going to let myself sink into this again. I'm going to make this an awesome end to my college career.

I have finished three of my essays. I'm down to the last 500 words of my last essay. All I have to say about that is FUCK YEAH!!!!! All of it will be behind me come tomorrow evening - I'm going out for a pint and will just enjoy my last few days here with the amazing people I'm going to miss so much. Soon...

As I try to let the coffee wear off, I figure I might as well get some pics up of my trip this past weekend. Thursday morning we hopped on the train to York. It was definitely my favorite part of the trip (even though Edinburgh is definitely one of my favorite places in the world...SUCH a cool city man!)

I'm back safe and sound from Edinburgh, but time is really short right now so I'll hopefully be able to post about it later this week. Things are going to be crazy in my world this week. I have four essays to finish off by the time I go to bed Wednesday night (kill me now!) Thursday I'm going to London to check out the British Museum and see the Christmas tree lit up at Trafalgar Square. Friday is my last day in Oxford (sniffles) so I must say my goodbyes and all of that. Saturday I head home. It's going to be an emotional roller coaster of a week, but at least I have home to look forward to.

I was hoping to get some ideas for you all to help with this one essay. I already have my ideas, but I'm really missing having discussions in my classes cause it helps me think of new things. I'm hoping that you all might come up with some ideas I haven't thought of. Any thoughts, experiences, whatever you want to share would be greatly appreciated! Here's the question. Thanks!!!!

What problems arise in attempting to use the experience of visiting an historical site to interpret the past, and how would  you go about solving those problems? Illustrate your answer with reference to any TWO field trip destinations.

So I went to Liverpool with Camilo and his mom for a night. It was a great trip! I had been pretty stressed all week, so it was nice to have a break from it all and see some Beatles stuff! My cold got worse there, since it was a lot colder and very damp there. But I'm kickin' its butt now with vitamin c and zinc.

Upon arrival, we went to the Beatles museum at the Albert Dock. When I had been there a few years back with Mom, Dad, and Kate the museum was closed for renovation. I highly recommend it! You really come out of there feeling like you had an intimate glimpse into the lives of the Beatles and it made the sights around Liverpool that much more exciting. Then we spent a nice, quiet evening in the hotel room. I had the best night's sleep I've had since I left the states, cause the bed was actually comfortable. I forgot what a comfy bed felt like to sleep in!!! It provided me with the rest I needed to have an AWESOME dream!

I was to be in Harry Potter, the Musical! I was in the chorus and we all wore the Hogwarts' student wizard robes. I saw grandma and grandpa, and grandma owens arriving at the auditorium where we were performing. The show opens suddenly, with no warning, as the audience is still waiting for the lights to dim or some other cue to occur. Snape runs down through the audience and signs out to open the show. In the storyline, we still don't know if he's evil or not so he got lots of sneers and boos.  We sang a little intro song, which I wish I could remember. Then it goes to a crucial wizard battle between Dumbledore and some female witch who's not in the books. She's was fucking scary though! This took place on the roof of some old haunted mansion kind of thing, with a fierce storm pouring down around. Very cool! Unfortunately I woke up after that. I should claim copyright before they decide to make a musical!

Anyways, after we got up we headed down to hop on the Magical Mystery Tour! This was the same tour I did with the family before, but we took a slightly different route this time. And unfortunately, we didn't have the replica bus on this one - our guide said she was "rather ill". It was really cool to see the places again, from a different point in my life. I can't really put it into words, but it was different. After that we checked out the Cavern Club and Mathew Street - I got myself a super cool magical mystery tour t-shirt!!!!! That album, along with Revolver and Abbey Road, are my favorite albums of theirs. And MMT is kind of obscure, so I was happy to find a shirt.

Before hoping on the train, Camilo and I spotted an awesome comic book/action figure kind of store! They had a bunch of cool aliens and star wars stuff, but by far the coolest thing I spotted there nearly made my heart stop. They made a Garthim bust, the soldier-crab type things in the Dark Crystal! It is so well-done and amazing! It's going on the top of my christmas list. It was too expensive at that store, but I looked it up online and found an amazing price on it. Here's the link:

And now for some pics of our journey:

Liverpool!

from the Albert Dock

the entrace to the Beatles Story (museum)...unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pics inside, so you'll just have to visit and see for yourself!

are you cool? do you have your own pair of Holly Poffer glasses? if the answer is no, I will be sad for you. very very sad.

yay for christmas decorations! Liverpool with be the European Capital of Culture in 2008, so they have all sorts of major construction going on. And they seemed to have spent A LOT on Christmas decorations.



the house where George Harrison was born

the gate of Strawberry Field



John's Aunt Mimi's house

one of Paul's homes, where over 100 Beatles songs were written (in the room above the doorway)

Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
of every head he's had the pleasure to know....

On the corner is a banker with a motor car
the little children laugh at him behind his back

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
(the shelter is now called "Sgt Pepper's Bistro")

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Wet beneath the blue suburban skies

The Cavern Club

I always have to get one ridiculous tourist picture. This one does the job!

That's the Garthim. Amazingly awesome!!!!


And now, a brief telling of our train ride back. The first hour of the ride was living hell. There was a group of nine guys, drunk off their asses and getting drunker. It's amazing that it's illegal and heavily fined if you walk on the street with an opened container of alcohol, but you can drink to your heart's content on the trains. Where's the logic in that?? So these guys were being super loud and obnoxious, but it kept getting worse. There was a 45-60 minute period where they sang, continuously and progressively louder. They were spilling beer on passengers, including one angry Camilo, one was hanging down from the luggage racks above people's heads, and one tried to fight with someone who asked them to calm and quiet down. I was sick of it, so I went and found an authority on the train. He came back, asked them to calm down and they sang in his face. Then they rubbed his little balding head, which is what put him over. Two stations later, 9 policemen came on to the cheers and applause of the entire car and kicked the assholes off. The police handled it very well - I was impressed. American cops would have been pretty rough these guys, but they didn't have to lay a finger on them. One of the guys noticed I was videotaping them (along with four other people, cause it was so ridiculous) and his face went from a gleeful little boy kind of face to the saddest face I've ever seen. He turned around to complain to the cop behind him, who said I had every right to tape him and that he was making a scene, so what else did he expect? Haha!

I've included two videos of this event for your viewing and listening pleasure. The first is not much to look at, I just wanted to capture some of their singing. The second one shows them singing away, unfortunately though I couldn't rotate the video so you'll have to crank your neck to get the idea. Enjoy!

This year's Thanksgiving has been an emotional one. It's made me realize just how special the holiday is. They don't have anything like it here. That saddens me, it just feels like something really nice and warm and cozy (not to mention yummy!) is missing at this time of year. As I walked around and saw people going about their errands and such, I was just thinking about how in the States, just about all the stores would be closed cause everyone would be inside with their families and friends. Instead they were out being rude customers at Noodlebar.

Speaking of which, it was my last day working there today. Another reason for being upset this evening. It was hard to say goodbye to so many wonderful people and to a place that brought back a lot of confidence for me. Last night, I called in to see if I was covering a shift for someone and spoke to Ellie. She keeps telling me "I'm in a mood with you!" cause she really doesn't want to see me go. She told me to come in for a meal and to bring some good friends.

So I asked Anna, Becca, Hannah, Daniel, Sam and his little brother, Ben to come with me. As we waited to order our food, Ellie brought out some large bowls of prawn crackers (which we usually give away for promotions anyways, so it didn't surprise me). She then brought over three orders of spring rolls, much to our surprise and delight. Then she shows up with three orders of salt and pepper squid (it's much better than you would think!). The excitement and happiness was building in our group, cause keep in mind we had no idea she was going to treat us to something as awesome as this. Then she proceeds to bring out three orders of chicken satay!!! It was incredibly sweet of her and quite touching. As we saw there and tucked into our delicious appetizers, I pointed out how this might as well be our Thanksgiving dinner. Here we were with all our best friends on this side of the planet, enjoying food and each other's company. Everyone agreed that we would look at it that way. Even though we were all missing our families back home, this was the next best way to celebrate Thanksgiving.


Once we finished, my group went off for a pint.  I stayed after to say some goodbyes to people I wouldn't be seeing during my shift today. Jimi was shocked I was leaving and hugged me, saying "But you can't go! You trained me!" Brian joked that they were going to get a ball and chain and never let me leave. Ellie gave me a million hugs.


I walked away feeling pretty sad about it. They're some of the best people I've ever met. And tons of fun to work with! As I walked away, I couldn't help but cry. And I did, hiding myself under a broken street lamp for a while before going back to our hall.

And today, as I said, was my last shift there. I said more goodbyes to more people who weren't around last night. Mott put me on the back station, since she knows it's my favorite position in the restaurant. I talked to my favorite chef, Sha, and told him I would be going back to the states. He was sad, he says I'm really good at running back station (if someone is bad at it, it makes the chefs' lives a living hell). One of the reasons I like working back there is I get to talk to him. Here's some highlights of the day.

This is Sha, with the other chefs in the back.


Me at the Back Station


Me, Jen and Alision

a silly balloon faced-employee of ours    :-P

Jo, from across the drinks bar

After work, I came back to the hall where we were having a Thanksgiving 'Bake-Off' kind of evening. Everyone baked something or cooked something to their best abilities and we all sat around and enjoyed the fruits of our labors together, with some nice Christmas music in the background. I contributed a bottle of wine, cause I didn't have the time to bake anything.



mmmmm.........sugary, buttery goodness!!!

To tell you the truth, it was really the Christmas music that made me feel so homesick. I realized what time it was and thought it would be a good time to call up the family up at Mulungushi. I had been looking forward to talking with everyone. Mom picked up and I started to get a bit choked up. Then Dad came on and I pretty much started crying. Then as I yelled to Grandma and Grandpa (gosh, we're a LOUD crowd!) it got worse. Then Carl came on and I lost it. I don't think he knew how to deal with it really, which is ok, I doubt he was expecting his cousin to be bawling on the other line. Then Erik came on and I got more upset. And then Kate got on and luckily took the phone out of the room and talked to me for a bit. And it was nice to hear Theresa's voice, even if it was brief. I would have loved to continue speaking with people but I couldn't stop crying.

I wasn't expecting to react this way. I know I'll be home soon, but it's tough not being there for Thanksgiving. I miss home and everyone that comprises it so very much. I'm looking forward to Aunt Em's Christmas party, the day after I get home! I always knew how important family is and how amazingly lucky I am to be part of a wonderful family like ours. But it's different, being here away from it all. You see it in a new light. And you appreciate it in a new way. While I'm sad I missed Thanksgiving this year, I'll be home for Christmas. And not only in my dreams. Though maybe I'll sneak a visit in a dream tonight   :)

A tribute to the best sister I could ask for    :)





I hadn't quite noticed the slight variation in eye color we have


we never seemed to grow out of the whole hambone thing


oh no you did'ent


and then we discovered the cool effects on photobooth - things would never be the same














I love you dude!!!!!!! Keep your chin up! I'll be back soon and we'll get our chill on!    :)

Yet another post of random pictures. Mainly cause I'm relaxing right now after a long day of school work with Camilo, watching Robin Hood (the amazing and wonderful Disney version).

First, a close up of Remington Hope that someone finally put up on facebook.

don't ya love the curly little chest hairs?

And now, my day trip to Cardiff! Anna, Becca, Hannah and I took the train in the morning just for the hell of it. It was a wonderful day and very nice to get out of city and see some new sights (and hear new accents!).

A nuclear power plant at Didcot Parkway, where we transferred trains.

On our way back later that night, we were stuck here due to a security alert at a nearby station. They cancelled our train several times and we waited in freezing air on the platform for an hour and a half (it was that cold actually, plus bone chilling wind)!!


hot menu man? saw this in one of the arcades in cardiff.




the traditional Welsh greeting, which I saw on the side of a pub


the red dragon was everywhere in that city!! even this here rubbish bin (trash can, haha)


this is more for Aries than anyone else. a self-labeled dragon to attack!!!


a bit of Welsh for ya!

If ever you go to Cardiff, make sure you visit St. Fagan's National History Museum, also known as the Museum of Welsh Life. It was an AMAZING place! It's only a 20 minute bus ride out of the city centre (and free entry!). It's roughly 100 acres of land covered with over 40 authentic buildings from all over Wales, such as a farmhouse, cow shed, water mill, wool mill, a Celtic village, a timber circle (before stonehenge there was woodhenge and strawhenge, hahaha), and even a cock-fighting arena (looked like a mini gladiator arena! We just spent several hours walking about and checking everything out. Everyone who works there speaks Welsh of course and demonstrate various crafts and works. Here are some highlights:


We entered by the garden area, which was quite beautiful   :)


I needed a bit of nature, it was very calming to be there.








A 1790s farmhouse, painted red to keep evil spirits away (the rowan tree is also said to keep them away)


old-fashioned bee yard or apiary


sexy Welsh man and his mill cat, Whisper


the cock fighting arena


ye old general store


Celtic huts!


Timber Circle


but where's Mr. Tomnus?


one of the main streets in the city centre, all lit up for christmas


it looks a bit strange, but it was delicious Welsh rarebit!!! mmmmm


the castle, all gussied up


that's town hall and the national museum in the backround. they had a christmas fair in town, complete with ferris wheel and ice rink!




a fitting close to a lovely day in Wales

:)

I'm not trying to accomplish anything in this post, other than getting some random things up. I finally uploaded pics from the last several weeks.

First, highlights from my camera during the mom and dad visit. Dad was taking pictures most of the time, but on a few of our outings I had mine. So here we are.


If Camilo owned a plant, this would be its scientific name.


giant lilypads!!!


pretty    :)


momela and tolkien's tree (anyone speak entish?)


momma and me


daddums and me (our feet are in unison!)

Now...on to the Murder Mystery! This was the night after Halloween. Lots of people participates and it was good fun. There were clues, money and a murder being played out, obviously. My character was Remington Hope, a distinguished writer:

I make a pretty sexy dude, I've been told   ;)


my lil' buddha buddy - i found him at the antiques market in gloucester green. he has ridiculously good energy. anytime I look at him, I feel extremely happy.

being sneaky and silly

some grotesques on the side of the bodleian. take good note of the humping dogs. on the side of one of the most distinguished libraries in the world.


and now just playing with the cool effects on photobooth.





enlightenment?

Saturday morning and I just woke up from a nice, long night of sleep. I haven't had one of those in a long time. It was nice! Ellie gave me the day off today cause someone else wanted more hours, so that's pretty neat. I'd be at work right now if she hadn't. Awesome - cause I'm sitting in bed getting ready for my lovely Saturday instead. I feel really good right now. I hung out with some good people last night and we watched the Big Lebowski. Then I talked to Cami for an hour or so - felt really good. I miss that crazy girl! Soon enough....in fact, exactly four weeks from today I will be arriving in the States. AHH!!!!!

I've been thinking about the culture shock I know I'm gonna feel when I get back. It's been nice not having copious amounts of Hispanic men being all skeezy towards me. I can walk around and not have people make sexual comments and such, even though they still happen from time to time. That's been nice. It's gonna be hard to go back to sexual harassment, cause that's exactly what it is. How to deal with it? Is there any way to call people out on it, without getting into an argument or confusion situation?

I am looking forward to being at a gym with NORMAL PEOPLE! Let me explain: in the aerobics classes, no one speaks to each other and everyone pushes them to the absolute limit. I'm sorry, but I have to stop every once in a while cause I'm not in the best shape and the last thing I want to do is hurt myself. I am the only one who does this. It seems like everyone else can't bear to embarrass themselves and well, fuck that. That's pretty dumb. And the other thing is I am honestly the fattest person that goes to that gym. I am not fat, ok, I know that even though I feel it sometimes. But I really am the fattest person there, which is super strange to me cause back home all sorts of sizes and shapes go the gym. But here, it's like a club for all the really skinny, fit people. I feel very out of place there. Luckily for me though, I don't give a shit! I'd rather be the way I am today than revert back to my eating disorder. Speaking of which - there are a lot of obviously anorexic people here. Not just at the gym, but in Oxford.

There's my rant for the day. Here's some more positive stuff. I will be going to Cardiff next Friday for the day with Hannah, Anna, and Becca. YAY! We're going to the museum of welsh folklife (or something like that, they've changed the name and I'm too lazy to look it up right now). But I've known about it for a good 5 or 6 years now and have really wanted to go, but it didn't work out last time I was here. Then who knows what we'll do. Probably just walk around and enjoy being in some Welsh culture for  a change.

Today, I'm taking advantage of my day off and am gonna read for 6-7 hours or so. I'm also gonna go check out the tattoo parlor that's been recommended to me. See how clean it is, how the quality is and then get a quote on some tattoo ideas. Then tonight, I think I'm making everyone watch Aliens with me in the common room (my favorite movie of all time, if you didn't know that)        :)

The last three days have been exhausting, but very much entertaining. our festivities started a day early on tuesday with a Rocky Horror Picture Show party in the common room. I was pleasantly surprised that so many people turned up in costume. I guess everyone likes to show off how good they look in lingerie? Here's a few notable pics:


Ashley, Me and Anna


Me and the lovely Kaiulani

Ok so that was Tuesday. It was lots of fun. But I was so looking forward to Wednesday the most, because afterall it is one of my favorite holidays. It actually runs in second place, just behind Christmas. I always like putting crazy costumes together. This year was no exception. Whilst mom and dad were here, I asked mom to help me make a mad hatter's hat. She ended up making the awesomeness that it was! There's no way I could have done it, but mom done it and it was good! I also finally found a set of coat tails that I've been trying to find for years now! And then I had this pink corset I found at a charity shop - but enormous amounts of pink isn't really my thing. So I covered it in this neat fabric. It all came together rather nicely, if I do say so meself.

So the first part of my hallowe'en night was going to this cocktail bar with Hannah, Christa and Julia who decided to dress up like the girls from Sex and the City. We were an odd bunch - three classy women and the Mad Hatter. Anyways, the bar kind of sucked so we left after our first drink that took only 40 minutes to be made. Yeah.


There it is folks. It was fun running around Oxford as the Mad Hatter! The man whom Lewis Carroll based him off of had a shop on the High Street, named Theophilus Carter.

The second part of the evening was just wandering around the streets with Kaiu, Danial and Martin. We just wanted to see what other people here were doing. A vast majority were dressed as zombies and devils. I didn't see a whole lot of creative costumes, mostly just 'scary' stuff. But it sure was fun! I constantly had stares at the hat (good and bad, lots of smiles from people passing by). I even had a guy in the Kings Arms pub hit on me, breaking the ice by asking how much I would sell the hat to him for. I told him it wasn't for sale cause my mom had made it and then he went from there. He didn't stay too long, but it always boosts your self-esteem a bit (especially when it's a classy, handsome British boy like he was - not some slob or creep!). A few people asked if they could try the hat on. There was one other girl in there with an attempt at a mad hatter costume, though I must say, it was a pretty crappy attempt. She gave me many evil stares and I just laughed.

Anyways, after that I took our little crowd to Holywell Cemetery. Overgrown and awesome! I love it! It's the one where Kenneth Grahame is buried that I may have mentioned before, author of Wind in the Willows. Also my dear Theophilus Carter is supposed to be buried there, but I've been unable to find his grave. It would probably involve crawling through overgrowth and I can't say I'm that interested. So we just walked around and explored. We tried to spook each other. And I have to say, it was a bit creepy. But I'm not freaked out by cemeteries like I used to be. I actually find them very peaceful. Some images from the adventure:


The Mad Hatter and the Valkyrie!

Notice the little details, such as my bowtie!

A little freaked out in the cemetery.

Just to give you a sense of what we were dealing with.

Sara should not attempt to take pictures of herself whilst drunk. Or maybe she should, cause this picture turned out awesomely!

I know it's hard to make out, but that's the beautiful Radcliffe Cam behind me. I would say it's my favorite building in this whole city. So I made sure we passed it this night. I had to lighten up this pic a bit, cause originally you couldn't see it at all. But now you can see it looking all ghostly and ancient in the background. cool stuff!!

Kaiu and me! I'm glad there is someone in this program who gets as excited about Halloween as me!

It was a great night! It left me a bit hungover and tired the next day, so I didn't enjoy the Thursday night festivities as much as I could have. We had a murder mystery in the common room. It  was fun, but dragged out too long. Pics have not been posted by others, so I can't share them with you now. But later, my pets, later.

As I mentioned before, term started at the beginning of October. My work load started out a bit easy to say the least. I kind of wish it hadn't, cause now I feel like I'm getting kicked in the ass. Maybe I need a good kick in the ass? Probably. It keeps you on your toes.

My seminar course is held at a theology facility down near the Eagle and Child. Father Bernard Green, a Benedictine monk who was one of the best lecturers during the introductory course, is the professor. There are three students, one of which I would consider a good friend by now (Julia) and the other is a super uptight little boy named Patrick. He's an odd one, but he knows soooo much about the Christian theology that he's a good addition to the course. We meet once a week in Father Green's little study for about an hour and a half. All of us expressed an interest in understanding early Christian theology, especially as it developed into the kind of discourse we're more familiar with today. This week, I'm putting together a presentation on Origen's methodology for interpreting the Bible. Not too exciting at the moment. Last week was cool though - we explored martyrdom. I presented on Polycarp, Justin and his companions, and Perpetua and Felicitas. I especially liked the first and last. So that's my "Classics of Christian Spirituality" course.

As for the tutorials, it's going a bit opposite of how I expected it to be. I wasn't all too excited about my "Music and Liturgy" course, mainly cause it involves learning Catholic liturgy (rituals they perform in church). No offense, it's just that church was never my cup of tea. But it's surprisingly quite interesting. I'm especially enjoying learning about Gregorian chant (and some other more obscure ones, like Ambrosian, Beneventan and Mozarabic). This week though, I write my first paper and it's quite a doozie. I have to find this REALLY obscure book first of all. Read all about early Christian fathers' writings about music. Then think about how they would react to later developments in polyphonic music in the church. So that's even more reading, cause I only know a little bit. Then write 2500 words about all of that. Luckily, that class is on Thursday. But I have so much to do before I can even get to it. AHHHH!!!!!!!

The other tutorial is not going as well as I had expected. It's the "Occult Sciences" one. My professor is first of all impossible to contact, which made for some complications at the beginning. In the syllabus-type-thing, he explained that he didn't first conceive of this course. Our friendly and insane librarian, Mr. Feneley was the first tutor to develop it. His interest lied in theology, philosophy and psychology (basically, where my interests lie). The current tutor's interest is in how literature and art have treated the occult sciences. That's all well and good, and don't get me wrong, I love art and literature. BUT - I don't know enough about the occult sciences to understand how they are being (mis)represented by these arts. I explained this to him quite clearly. Then he told me to read Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" and then write about the literary treatment of the magus (pl. magi) figure. Um.....ok.......did you not listen to what I said? I've already talked to Dr. Feneley and he will be recommending some reading to my liking. He also said I could drop in whenever to discuss magic. So I think it will work out alright, but still.

I have my work cut out for me the first half of this week. It's going to be a bit tough. But hey.....I got through the trials of scholars alright. I'm still not sure how this compares in terms of difficulty and the challenge-factor. But it's scary nonetheless. I have mom and dad's visit to look forward to on Friday though!!!!! I can't wait!!!!

Camilo was here from last Thursday morning till just this morning. It was a bit stressful to have a guest around, but he did a good job of entertaining himself and staying out of the way when I needed him to. Other than that, we had an awesome time!! I showed him some sights around Oxford (it was fun finally being able to show it off to someone new to it!).

I got Friday afternoon off (in exchange for a longer, much more stressful Saturday night shift) so we went to London. Our first stop was Notting Hill, only because the OxfordTube bus had a stop there and we saw some thrift stores out the window. Then we headed over to Abbey Road so he could see it (I went a few years ago with Momela, Daddums, and Kate). It was cool to see it again. They took down the sign for the road with all the writing on it unfortunately. But the wall, as ever, is covered in writings of all the visitors from around the world. I'll post some honorable mentions. He also got a pic of me crossing. When us Owenses were here last, we had some dumbass try to do the same thing. I guess they haven't seen the album cover or something, cause only two of us had made it into the road when they pressed the button. Some day, I will photoshop it so we have a proper one.

Then we headed to Piccadilly to see Segaworld. This is a huge multi-level arcade that was supposed to have a giant Sonic statue (that was my interest in going) out front, which they have apparently gotten rid of. It was an interesting place. About 90% of the people there were East African Muslims. I didn't know they liked video games so much (?). Then we met up with some of my friends here to see Spamalot. Ahh...spamalot. It was fun and all, but don't waste your money. For how closely they followed "Monty Python & the Holy Grail" the movie, you're better off just watching the movie with the amazing cast it has. The show had a few added funny moments, but none of it compares to the movie. Kind of disappointing.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing, checking things out, and I did some work on top of working on Saturday. It was quite tiring, but I had myself a nice restful sleep last night and feel great today. After seeing him off, I read in my room. Then I went to the Bod and read all about Christian martyrs (Perpetua and Felicitas is especially interesting; I also read Polycarp and Justin). Then I had dinner, went back to reading. Gym. Reading. Noodlebar for provisions (mmmm....noodley soup!), and now I'm writing to you. I'll be heading off to the St. Peter's library in a bit for some more late night reading till I tire my self out. I love the fact that it's open 24 hours a day!!!!

Things with the new roommate are working quite well. No complaints really. I am much happier and less stressed out. MUCHLY!!!!

I can't think of anything else of interest. My parents will be here in about 10 days! Can we say, super excited?!? I know I am! Can't wait!

Life has taken a big turn here. But all in very positive ways. It's nice   :)

First things first, I have a new room. And roommate. Ashley and I successfully switched all of our crap first thing on Satyrday*
       a note about the spelling: recently I've been spelling it this way for fun, inspired by my discovery of and reading of a book of the same word.
        Highly recommended, written by Steven Bauer.

       oh and hey, while I'm on the topic of notes right now, Happy Birthday to John Lennon (and Sean Lennon for that matter)!!!

I can't tell you how much calmer I feel in this room. I have places for all of my things, with the ability to organize and keep tidy. It's been a little hard adjusting to not being in the dark of a bunk bed, but this is definitely worth the minor losses. I still haven't taken pictures yet, but soon my friends, soon.

The other big change is the official onset (or onslaught) of term. There's this weird and intense energy everywhere. It's really exciting, but intimidating as well. I guess it's meant to be, at least it's meant to challenge. Well, I always say I love a challenge. It's been a while since I've really tested myself. Here goes nothing and everything!

edit: ok so I wrote this last night originally and now I'm gonna post the pics I took today. more to come later about my classes

A lot has happened in the last few days. It's been extremely emotional, both ups and downs. It started out much worse than it's turned out.

I came to a sudden conclusion the other night. Given that I've had so much space from everything, I realized that I can't deal with a serious relationship with someone. I had the talk with Camilo and was pretty sad and upset about it for a while. But judging how everything is between us, I know we'll be ok. He's one of the best friends I've ever had and this is definitely not the end. The situation just needed to change. And yes, he's still coming into town next week and I'm looking forward to having a loved one from back home to see me.

The other day, a girl from next door came to me and asked if we could switch rooms. Her and her roommate are not getting along well at all. I talked with her roomie and mine; we've all come to the conclusion it would be better for everyone's mental health if I moved in with Jenn and Ashley moved in with Bethany. I will be upgrading in terms of roomsize and amenities, which I'm very pleased about. This small room and the amount of socializing I've had to do in it has been getting to me. I make the move on Saturday, so I'll let you all know how it works out sometime soon. I'm excited!

We had our Integral course exam today. Everyone has been getting progressively more wound up about it all week. We're all glad it's finally over. It wasn't necessarily tough, but I think it could have been put together better. I'd guess I got a B, but I won't know till after the term is over. My advice to anyone stressing themselves over a test or something like that:


Pour yourself a nice cup of tea (or several!!)

That's my new teapot by the way. I think it's adorable!!!  I got it for 3 quid (slang for pound, like "buck" for dollar) at the charity shop.

Tuesday was a pretty exciting day! We went to the Bodleian Library finally to get our reader's cards. After getting an overview of rules, we had to read an oath and sign our names. This is the oath:

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

I particularly like the part about kindling fire or flame. Apparently back in the days before electricity and heating, the Bod would get freezing cold and super dark cause of the no-fire policy. I'll write more about the library when I actually start spending time in there, which will be as soon as possible once I've recovered from the exam this morning. Here are some pics from that day:

That's us waiting in line to read the oath and get our reader's cards. This room has been used for meetings of parliament, though I can't remember when the dates were. We then walked through a door that led into the Divinity School:

Look familiar? The Divinity School was used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies, specifically this is where the sanitorium scenes take place (nurse's hall).




the fan ceilings are amazing!!

Wednesday was "Fresher's Fayre" (or Fair, if you must be modern about it), a HUGE event where all the clubs of the University set up information booth. Ok so I've been to things like this before, but uh...seeing as how Oxford is a large university, this was probably about 5 times larger than anything I've seen of its kind. I signed up for lots of email lists, so I can hear about activities going on. I found two groups like Dagorhir, one uses authentic Middle Ages weaponry and the other uses hard foam weapons that actually look authentic. Not sure which I'll get involved in, but I signed on to both! Here are a few pics from the day:


Yeah, I was taking the picture and I kinda cut my face off. Oh well, you get the idea. From left to right: Christa, Julia, Hannah and Rebecca. There was a LONG line to get in to the fayre.

It was held at the university "Examinations School". I particularly liked the sun clock and the roses at the top of the gates:


Rebecca and I then went to Blackwell's bookshop to get our free coffee mugs. One the way there, I found a few neat little guys:

Pan - one of my favorite of the Greek gods, he is also the son of Hermes, one of my very TOP favorties :)


And the wind.....there's really no need for words.

Whilst at the fayre, I came upon the "Oxford Union" table. This is a world-famous debating society of sorts, though now they seem mostly to hold speeches by famous people and celebrities. They have their own little gated grounds (right around the corner from us actually) with a lovely library, debate hall, bar and nightclub. The sign says it all:

And see, to get past this little issue, you have to pay a "discounted" membership fee of £170. Methinks not. But here's the coolest thing. The next few weeks they're having free events to try to get people interested in joining. Last night the actor Christopher Lee gave a Q&A evening in the debate hall. You may remember him as Dracula, Count Dooku in the new Star Wars trilogy and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. FREAKING AWESOME! Daniel was the only one interested in going, so after we got our studying done we headed over last night and sat in. I couldn't get very good pictures from where we sat, but I did get a video of him singing "The Man of La Mancha", which I will leave you with today

I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it, I love working at Noodlebar! The pay is great when you're not paying for the usual living expenses in the UK (like rent and bills) and when you convert it to American dollars, even though I'll still be spending it as pounds. When I was first hired, they told me I'd be making £5.75. Well, Ellie (the head manager of our location and one of the most awesome people I've met here) got a fax the other day saying that wages were being raised. Since I'm twenty-two years old, I will now be making £6.05 an hour! I asked her what does being 22 have to do with anything, she replied that everything is based on age here. Ok, well I did some thinking and I'm assuming it has to do with adulthood and dependency on parents. Perhaps they expect you to be on your own once you're 22? Frankly, I don't care what the reason is. All I know is that's more money in my pockets! Tips have been great as well - I made £20 on the Saturday shift!

My co-workers are all awesome and fun to be around. Even when it's insane in there (like last Thursday, when the entire computer system crashed and nothing was working!!!), they're always joking around and laughing. I've been trading British and American vocab with some of the guys there - I didn't know a "dressing gown" is a bathrobe! The weirdest aspect of it is how often I get asked where I'm from, by both co-workers and customers. That's not so weird, but people always follow this question up with a comment about my "accent".....now I realize that accents are perspectival, so it makes sense, but it's just strange to conceive of myself as having an accent. To me, they're the ones with the accent!!

Another funny thing, half the time when I'm thinking in my own head I do it in a British accent now. This happened within the first week, but it's gotten more and more prominent. It makes sense, of course, like when you're learning another language and you sometimes think in that language. Well British English might as well be a different language! It's amazing how many differences there are in the vocabulary alone. I'm compiling a list of these differences that I'll post periodically when it gets long enough to be worthy of a post.

Anyways, now on to my favorite thing - pictures!!!

Here's a cute image from the noodlebar website (www.noodlebar.net)

(the girl is supposed to be a server like me and there's one of the cooks in the back)

For Aunt Theresa, here's some pictures of the Covered Market:






On that same day, I stepped out of the market onto the High Street and found myself face to face with a gorgeous sky:


The beauty of the architecture looks amazing up against a sky like this:


Then I headed down to the thrift store to see what was new this week. They brought out their halloween stuff (as a result, I got a wicked pink corset [I'm trying to use more British words and slang just for the hell of it, I picked up wicked from Ellie]). I guess halloween stuff includes Alien action figures. Just for you Camilo:

A British Scorpion alien!! They also had Bishop and some Bull aliens (but they were a bit pricey). I wanted to get them just for the "space base" included on the backs, but it's just little pieces of cardboard and I'd have to buy 6 figures to get the whole thing. Not worth the money. Oh well. I'm still on the look-out for those marines though!!!

And finally, I leave you with a sticky note I found on a wall:

 Thank goodness the bloody (yeah, I said it) lecture course is over with! We had our last lecture on Thursday and I'm so thankful for it. Some of the lectures were great, don't get me wrong. And the field trip component really added a lot. But there wasn't enough structure to it. You would think since this program has existed for 32 years now, they would have developed a really strong program (I mean come on, I was in scholars 5 years into its inception and it was phenomenal).

  The range in quality of lecturers was mind-boggling. All are either fellows or professors of various colleges at Oxford. There were a few engaging and eye-opening lectures, but more often they were disorganized and sleep-inducing (why, oh why does the world impose early morning schedules on everyone when so many people are NOT morning people?! I'm suggesting a revolution by us night owls - TAKE BACK THE MORNING!!!). But it wasn't just the early morning aspect that put us to sleep. Some of these lecturers were just God-awful at teaching. I can't help but wonder if our senior tutor, Mark Philpott, had ever witnessed one of their lectures. It seems more that he chose them based on their research, which is great and all, but that doesn't necessarily translate into good professorship. This wide-range of quality gives us a rather unbalanced understanding of the Middle Ages. That and they still haven't found a replacement for one of the most important lectures that we never had, because the woman fell ill, on the Bible in the Middle Ages. Philpott has filled in for some other lectures that were thwarted by freak accidents and such, yet he never did the one on the Bible.

  And now a word or two on Philpott. He's a great guy, has a great sense of humour and is just plain entertaining to be around (imagine a very hyper Humpty Dumpty). His sleeves are always way too long for his arms, so he looks like a small child waving frantically when he flaps his arms around to illustrate an important point. I like dramatic professors!! He's got quite a quick temper though. But something I really don't like about him and our other senior tutor, Dr. Crowe, is how insistent they are on the correct and specific ways of interpreting history, literature, philosophy, theology or what have you. They are very well-learned obviously, but they are also very closed to different ways of looking at history. We have "colloquium groups" with them every other week to discuss one important book of the times (examples: Anselm's Proslogion, Capellanus's Art of Courtly Love, and Dante's Divine Comedy). Crowe started our first meeting by telling us that the point was to facilitate an exchange of ideas between the students, with little input from the professors who were merely there to guide us when we weren't saying much. This is not how the meetings go at all. The meetings are, in fact, a place where all our ideas are shot down if they don't agree with their own interpretation of the text. The first 20 minutes are an exchange of ideas, followed by the a lecture of sorts on how wrong we are and what the correct idea is. From their point of view, you might say our ideas are "historically heretical".

   The highlight of the lecture course has been the field trips though. Four glorious days we spent on a bus together with our junior dean, Quentin (a word about him later), and our walking encyclopedia on art, anthropology and architecture, Mr. Alun Thornton Jones. What a wonderful man he is! Within the first 15 minutes of meeting him, we were met face to face with just about every stereotype you can think of in an old British intellectual. He's full of odd information, silly British words and just plain funny quotes. I'm a member of a Facebook group called "The Alun Thorton Jones Appreciation Society", hahaha.  Our very last fieldtrip was ended with a spectacular speech by ATJ on English ale. I've posted the speech in two parts. Unfortunately, Bethany got the first few minutes and then Rebecca got the rest. They don't meet up exactly, but it's close enough. I wish the videos weren't of the seats of the bus, but they were both sitting at the back. I've included some pics of ATJ so you can see what he looks like. ENJOY!!!

I'm spending my Sunday lazing about and doing some reading here and there. I figured I'd show you guys what I've been up to this past week. We had a field trip to Warwick Castle, which was an awesome example of a fine English castle! It was given over to Madame Tussaud's group, so of course it's now full of (amazing, and sometimes cheesy) wax statues and gimmicky stuff (theatrical shows, like the trebuchet). All in all though, it was a beautiful place! It overlooks the River Avon and is settled in breathtaking countryside.

After that I've posted some pics from Friday night's festivities. A group of us went to the Turf pub (sooo cool!! I'll be posting more pictures of it over the months, as it's definitely my favorite pub so far) for a few drinks. I treated myself to more than a few with the tips I earned, in celebration of what a damn good mood I was in! Seriously, Friday was one of the happiest nights I've had in so long and for no particular reason at all. I was just happy and peaceful on the inside, despite being a drunk on the outside!

I'm really enjoying the company of all these people. After I got home from work last night, we stayed up and watched the Goonies till 3 am. All in all, a great way to spend the weekend.