Getting things done.

So yesterday I slept in, took my time getting ready, and then met a friend for some coffee and some shopping. After that I came back, was productive and got some homework done. After that, I got to go meet another friend of mine, Catherine, and a friend of hers for dinner. They're studying in Rome this semester, and it's their travel break. We ended up going to the Royal Oak pub, mostly because it's the only pub we could find that was still serving food. So I ordered the fish and chips, cause I love fish and chips, except when they served this fish, it still had skin on it.

Now, you have to understand, I have a rule. I don't eat things that look like animals. And fish with skin...looks like an animal. Yuck. So I didn't eat a lot of it.

So after that I came home and went to bed.

Today I slept in (through church...oops), and then went to meet Catherine for lunch at the Eagle and Child, where I had the Sunday Roast, that was wonderful. Then after that we walked to Port Meadow and relaxed with the horses for a while, and then after a stop by to show them the houses I live in, we walked by some of the more important Oxford monuments. After that I came back home, and was productive some more, then had nine at nine, and now have to be productive again.

Strange fact: I've recently, as in the last two weeks, picked up an interest in coffee mugs. Who knew?

I don't want to be sick.

I don't want to be sick, but I think that I am. I've been really achey all day long, and have spent most of my day in bed. I slept as often as I could, cause that's the only time that I didn't hurt all over. And now I've got the chills as well, my head is pounding, and I still have sinus issues from when I had that cold a few weeks ago.

I really don't want to be sick. I have a lot of school work to catch up on, and I'm going to Paris in a week.

Although, me and my roommate make quite a pair. I haven't gotten out of bed all day, and this last week she suddenly developed symptoms of diabetes, and has an appointment on Monday to get tested.

What a pair.

A lovely weekend.

So yesterday I got up, and went to the Ashmolean, the oldest public museum in the world. I walk by it almost everyday, but it took me until yesterday to go. It wasn't really all that amazing yesterday, they're doing a lot of remodeling, and so a lot of the museum is closed. But it was still cool to say that I've been. I also went grocery shipping, so now I have food!

The only other thing that really happened yesterday was I signed up for classes for the fall. So that was cool.

Today I went to C.S. Lewis class, and had some cool discussions about Perelandra. Then I talked to my teacher about a grade I disagreed with, and got a better grade.

Since then I've been unproductive, but I figure it's okay, cause I'll be here in Oxford all weekend, so hopefully I can relax and continue to catch up on homework.

A Day of C.S. Lewis

Okay, first, yesterday not a lot happened, I had my tutorial meeting, and went out to dinner for one of the girl's birthday's. It was a lot of fun.

Today, we took a bus out to the graveyard where C.S. Lewis is buried, right next to the parish church he attended. I've decided that I would much rather be buried in an English cemetary than an American one. American cemetaries have chain link fences around the outside, roads running by, and very industrialized graves. English graveyards, on the other had, are normally by churches, they're quiet and peaceful, and very lovely.

After that, we went to the Kilns, where Lewis lived with Mrs. Moore and his brother Warnie for a long time. We went out to the forest where it's rumored that he sat to write the Chronicles, we walked all through the house, saw the study where he did most of his writing, his bedroom, the attic that reminded one of the Magician's Nephew, the "Children's Room" where children evacuated from London stayed, and all of the rest of the house. It was really cool.

Although, here's some news for the day. I've been planning on spending the summer in Mexico City on an internship, but one missionary was on furlough, and just today I found out that the second missionary has something preventing him from taking interns, maybe a death in the family. So now, plans are in the process to transfer me to Morelia, Mexico. Hopefully all of this will work out with my finely tuned scheduling for the summer.

Scotland

Okay, so I had a wonderful short little trip to Scotland over the weekend. We traveled to Edinburgh by train, a very long seven hour train. But we made it there on Wednesday night, took the shuttle to our hostel, looked around the hostel a little bit, and then went to sleep. This hostel was cool because they gave each person a locker for their stuff, and you had a curtain on your bed to make your own mattress sized room. Plus they had a computer lab, and a free movie room, which we didn't use, but it was still cool that it was there.

We woke up on Thursday morning and walked up to the Royal Mile. It's basically the main street in Edinburgh, with the castle on one end, and the palace on the other. We did most of our shopping this morning with all of the shops lined up and down the mile. After wandering around for a while, we went to the Elephant House for lunch. This place is known because it's where J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter. She's from Edinburgh. So we ate there, and I got a coffee mug from there. We also saw the nearby statue of the Greyfriar's Bobby. After lunch, we walked up the mile to Edinburgh palace. It was pretty, but we didn't pay to go in, because we were already spending money on other things. But it's very lovely from the outside. From the castle we also got our first glimpse of Arthur's Seat, the really big hill/little bitty mountain. You'll hear more about that later.

After seeing the castle, we walked down the mile to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's residence in Scotland. We didn't go in, first because we didn't want to pay, second because it was closed. But we walked by. After that, I went back to the hostel with Holly, while the other two girls with us went on a ghost tour. We saw most of what they saw the next day. But back at the hostel we relaxed and did some homework due the next week.

On Friday morning we woke up, and went to the cemetery where some of the ghost tour was. It was there that J.K. Rowling found some of the names for her characters in the Harry Potter books. We found McGonagall, Tom Riddell (Rowling changes the spelling), and we heard that a Crookshanks was buried there, but we were never able to find it. It's a big grave yard. We also saw the school behind the graveyard that was the inspiration for Hogwarts. After exploring the graveyard, we went to go hike up Arthur's Seat.

We started hiking up, it took us around forty five minutes to get up. The view from the top is amazing, and we looked over the city and the sea. There was a storm out over the sea, but we didn't really worry about it. We took some pictures, and then we sat down to have a Good Friday devotional. We had only just started when we looked out and saw the storm moving remarkably fast towards us. The several teenage boys who were playing around decided it was time to get off. We decided likewise. The snow started coming down, but not the light fluffy snow that's nice. Since Scotland in generally is very windy, and we were at the highest point for a long long ways, right next to the sea, the wind at normal rates can knock you over. And this is storm rate winds with pelting snow.

We began our decent, clinging to the sides of the rock so that we wouldn't fall over. For a while, I was really scared we wouldn't get off. It was intense. However, it was very fitting that the storm moved in just as we were starting our Good Friday service, and "darkness came over the whole land" (from Luke's description of the crucifixion.)

But as quickly as the storm moved in, it moved out again. By the time we were down, the sun was shining again. All was well. After the excitement though, we went and had some dinner, and then went back to the hostel to sleep.

On Saturday morning we woke up very early and went to go on a Loch Ness tour. We meet in town at eight, and began our 13 hour tour. We drove in the tour bus for most of the morning, stopping for breakfast and lunch. We got commentary along the way of what we were passing. We passed by the Birnam Wood, which was quoted of in Macbeth. "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him." We drove through the Highlands, which are beautiful, and saw Ross Castle. A little after lunch we finally made it to Loch Ness, and Urquhart Castle. We saw the castle, and got to see the Loch, no Nessie though.

After an hour or so at the Loch, we headed back to the bus, and on through more of beautiful Scotland. We saw a lot of film sights, such as the forests from Last of the Mohicans, the Mountains that Mel Gibson ran across as Braveheart, the site of Hagrid's hut, and the cool train bridge that is in Harry Potter when Ron and Harry steal the car. We traveled through the moors, saw the mountains, more of the highlands, and got a whole lot of history. It was amazing. The sights were great. So far, I think that Scotland might be my favorite scenic place.

Always on the Move

There's always somewhere to go. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Scotland until Sunday. But, I think after that, I get to stay in Oxford for almost two weeks before Paris.

Today I still felt really sick. I got dizzy and lightheaded, and I'm still stuffed up and coughing. I'm hoping it's all on the way to being better though. It's too expensive to be sick over here.

Today I mostly laid in bed, resting up for my trip to Scotland, and trying not to get more sick.

More rain and clouds.

So last night my group led our Sunday night chapel, 9@9. It was really cool, and since this week is Holy Week, we did stations of the cross. More specifically, Everyman's Way of the Cross, the stations that we do at Happening. And it was mostly Church of Christ kids who had never even heard of stations, so it was really cool. And after that we had a time of worship and scriptures. I thought that it was really cool.

Today I woke up and went to work at Oxfam. Today we talked some about the differences in British and American currencies, how our coins have names, and none of theirs do. Also, I found out that while I say "math" they say "maths", for some reason. Interesting.

Well, most of the rest of my day was spent reading or doing homework. Cause that's just incredible fun. I did go shopping and I bought a purse at Primark though. I'm kind of anxious, but I think that's mostly because I keep thinking of all of the homework I haven't done. Oops. There's always something more to do...and there a whole lot due at the end of the semester that it's soooo hard to bring myself to do now. Lame procrastination. Hopefully I'll get some of it done tomorrow, and maybe I'll feel better. Hopefully.

Ireland

So this weekend we went to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day. Although there weren't really that many celebrations. See, the date was changed from the 17th to the 15th so that it wouldn't conflict with Holy Monday, but the Irish are still celebrating on Monday anyways. But, for all technicalities, we were in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day!

Well, we got there Thursday night, and didn't really do much other than going to bed. When we woke up on Friday we took a bus out to Killarney. We went to the National Park there, and walked the trails and saw Ross Castle. The place is beautiful and a lot of fun, even in the winter. We tried to walk to the waterfalls there, but we walked around 5 miles, and then found out it was 4 more miles, and we still had to walk back. So we just walked back. But it was such an amazing place.

On Saturday we woke up and went out to Blarney, and saw Blarney Castle. I got to kiss the Blarney Stone, (being a Communication major...this could be a good thing!) but my camera didn't work. However, a friend got a picture of it, so I'm going to try to get her to send it to me. We walked around the Castle, explored the caves and dungeon, and the Rock Close (garden). It was wonderful.

When we got back to Cork (where we were staying), we walked around the market on St. Patrick's Street (a fitting thing to do on St. Patrick's Day), and I got a wonderful Nutella Banana Crepe from a guy from Paris. After going back to the hostel for a little while, we had some dinner, played some card games, walked around town for a little while, and then went to bed early.

We woke up at 4:30 am to catch the 5 o'clock bus and get to the airport to check in. However, the guy traveling with us couldn't find his passport, so he went back to the hostel to get it. Problem: he didn't make it back in time for the flight. He doesn't have a cell phone, so we don't know if he found his passport or not. If he found it, he should be on his way back. If he didn't, he's gonna have to go to the embassy in Dublin. No good. Hopefully everything works out okay with that.

Oh, and also, over the counter drugs are very expensive in Europe. I've been sick all weekend, and spent almost $4o in medicines. First I bought some cold and flu medicine from a grocery store, but later I found out it didn't have anything to help my nose. What kind of cold medicine does nothing for your nose? Well, then I went to an actual pharmacy (chemist), and he gave me some drugs that helped a lot. However, possibly due to the cold/sinus/whatever's wrong with me, my ears had a terrible time on the plane, and they wouldn't pop. So for the first day in Ireland I could only hear out of one side. So I also had to buy some ear drops from a different pharmacy to regain my hearing. And each of those was 7-8 euros. That's like $36. Yuck.

Benefits of Being Sick.

So today I've discovered some benefits of being sick. For me at least, it seems to produce productivity. I cleaned my room today, washed laundry, and did four hours of volunteering. Mostly it was the cleaning and laundry that were productive. But I was proud of myself.

So that's pretty much what I did today, cleaned my room, did my laundry, and went to work. I still need to write a paper and pack for Ireland tomorrow. But it'll get done. We're also planning for our April Italy trip tonight, and it's a little stressful. ugh.

So, you won't hear from me again until Sunday at least, but when I get back, I'll let you know how St. Patrick's Day was in Ireland.

Poor Immune System

I don't think my immune system can completely hold up under months of living and traveling in foreign countries. I didn't get sick when everyone else did last month, but I think that I am now. No fun.

Today I went to class in the morning, felt terrible through the whole thing, and then later I fell down half a flight of stairs because my slipper fell off. That didn't make it any better. But all in all, I'm okay.

I spent most of my day resting, and working on some homework, and reading my book. I really should have given up bookstores for lent. It would have been far more productive for my life.

I also got the first C I've gotten on a paper in college, and it's one that I think is very unfair, and I'm going to talk to the teacher about it. Which is hard, because he lives downstairs. That's the only problem with hanging out with your teachers. When you have complaints, it's kinda awkward.

So this weekend I'm going to Ireland, and the next weekend to Scotland. So I have about a full day to recover from whatever I have.

Back in Oxford.

Well, first off, there's some things that I didn't post yesterday that I think deserve posting.

It was interesting to me to talk to our tour guide on the way back from the concentration camp and find out a lot about the current state of Berlin. I think I remember him saying that something like almost 70 percent of people in Berlin were on some sort of welfare. He also said that 30 percent of people who lived in East Berlin with the wall now think that their lives were better with the wall. It never hit me looking from the side that won that the transition from Communism to Capitalism would still be hard for some people, but it is.

Also, something else I noticed in Germany was that a lot of people had those little bitty "smart cars", that are very eco-concious. It was very interesting.

On the way back from Berlin, we also made a friend in the airport who offered me chocolate and also had an all night layover in the London airport. So we talked for a while, and he was really cool. He was about to spend a month and a half traveling Spain to learn Spanish.

So today, I went back to Oxfam again to work. I was wondering how I was going to get all of my service hours, because I only do one hour a week at Oxfam. Well, as soon as I got there, Nihal, the manager, asked me if I could work a full four hour shift on Wednesday. Problem solved. Apparently my Texas accent came out today too. One of the other ladies said she'd never been able to pinpoint a Texas accent when I talked until something that I said today had an accent to it. So we laughed about that for a while. And then I came back and worked on homework, and finished my book.

This particular book was interesting, because it was the story about the woman who escaped from the crazy fundamentalist polygamous mormon group. So reading her story was really interesting to me.

And I finally got in touch with the other intern I'll be working with over the summer in Mexico, and she seems so sweet, I think that it's going to be a lot of fun to work with her.

I did get a little homesick this weekend. Everyone seems to be meeting up with people they know, a boyfriend or parents or siblings. It just makes me miss mine knowing that I won't get to spend a whole lot of time with them for a long time. I have the rest of this trip, then a few days, a maymester, then a few days. Then the whole summer, and just a few weeks before I have to move back to school, and then only some weekends will I get to see them. I guess this is my shove toward independence. Not financially, but physically at least.

But anyways, I love looking back and seeing how I'm becoming who I am. It's so interesting in retrospect, and so encouraging for the future that things I don't understand now might make sense in the future.

Germany

So this one time I took a trip to Germany.

We left on Wednesday afternoon, took a train to London Paddington, transfered by the underground to Liverpool St., and then took another train to Stanstead Airport. I say all of this because I'm really getting proficient at public transportation. Trains, subways, buses, and walking. And sometimes planes. I'm now pretty good at all of them.

So anyways, we got the the airport, checked in, and went through security. Security and immigrations seem to be a normal part of life now. After that, we got on a plane, and went to Berlin, Germany. After arriving around 9, we walked to the train station, took the train, and walked to our hostel, a process that took about two hours, and we got in around 11. After a day of traveling, we just settled in and went to bed. There were five of us in an 8 person hostel room, but we didn't have any other roommates other than the people we came with, so it was nice.

When we woke up on Thursday morning, we walked to a cafe for some breakfast, and then went off to explore Berlin. Most of the public transportation was on strike, but luckily the train running was the one we needed all weekend. We took a train to museum island, and saw the Dom (dome), and the Pergamon and the Bode museums. After that, we walked to the Brandenburg Gate, saw the German Parliament (Reichstag) with this huge glass dome, went to the Holocaust Memorial which was really cool. It was a city block of gray pillar type things that you could walk through. We also went to the museum underneath it. After that we walked to the Berlin wall, which is not really that impressive with what's left of it, but it's still pretty cool. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, and wandered around town for a while. After that, we bought some dinner from a supermarket, and then spent the night relaxing at the hostel.

On Friday we woke up, and went on a tour of a concentration camp called Sachsenhausen just outside of Berlin. It was one of the headquarters of the SS, where SS officers were trained, and a model for many other concentration camps. We saw where the administration offices were, where the prisoners lived, and the types of conditions that they lived in. We saw the roll call area, the barracks, the place where people were hung, and the isolation area.

One of the harder places to see were the showers where people were gassed. They weren't killed in masses there, but the camp was a testing center for other mass murder camps. We saw areas were the prisoners were shot point blank and where they were shot by the firing squad at the execution trench, and the crematorium. We also saw the infirmary, where under the name of medicine and science terrible inhuman experiments were preformed on prisoners. There's a lot of information that I wish I could tell you, but it'd take me the three hours of the tour to relate it all to you. All in all to say that it was rough to hear, but amazing. I'm so glad that I went.

After that, we came back to Berlin and saw the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a church that was bombed in World War II, but a lot of the structure remains and a new church has been built next door.

On Saturday morning we slept in a little bit, and then went to see Charlottenburg Palace, and then took a train to the nearby city of Potsdam, where we walked for what seemed like forever and saw Sanssouci Palace, the New Palace, the other Brandenburg Gate, the Gate of Fortune, and Nicolas Church. I had some Currywurst, a local German/Berlin favorite, and some local gelato. After that we came back to the hostel, and relaxed before making the two hour trek back to the airport.

Our flight got delayed for an hour, but it didn't matter, because even after the two hour flight, we still had to wait for six hours overnight at the airport. See, we decided to take the train there and back, but the guy at the train ticket counter didn't tell us that the last train left an hour before our flight originally got in. So we spent the night in the airport, and then took a train to London Liverpool. However, when we got there, the underground was closed for another hour and a half, so we took a bus to Paddington, where we waited for another hour before taking an hour long train to Oxford and making the half an hour walk home. And finally, we got to sleep.

And so basically I slept for all of today, and ate some pasta, and went to nine at nine.

Oxford Castle

So today I woke up, went to my C.S. Lewis class, and then for my Oxford Through the Ages class we went to see the Oxford Castle. It was pretty cool. Then I went shopping at Primark, got three shirts for 5 pounds, and then came home and had dinner. Tonight I'm trying to get my COMS paper done, and work on some Bible homework, and catch up on some of my papers due, and pack before I leave tomorrow for Berlin, Germany. So I won't be posting again until at least Sunday. See...now I've forewarned you.

There's so much to be done here though, schoolwork with everything else, there's always something that I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not. It gets frustrating sometimes, but, I'm in Europe, so it'll be okay. And I think that I finally have my living situation figured out for next fall. Now if only I could talk with the World Wide Witness leaders about scheduling for the summer...well, it'd get one more thing off of my never ending list of things to do. One day at a time. Well, I'm off to attempt being productive.

This day in Oxford.

This morning I went in to Oxfam again to work the till. There were lots of people using credit cards this morning, which was kinda strange. With mostly a cash economy, it's weird to see people using credit cards. Other than that, it was a slow morning. Not a lot of book donations, and not a lot of sales.

However, there was this older man who came in, and I think that he was lonely. He came up to me, and while I checked on the price of a book for him, told me all about how he was a little boy on D-Day and how that's when he started his coin collections from the extra change of American soldiers. Later he came back to check out, and we had an extended conversation about the United States and how his daughter is at A&M right now but she used to work at the Bodlian, and from there he proceeded to tell me all about the Bodlian library, where he used to work as well. I think that all of his family has moved away, and he seemed to need someone to talk to. He was very sweet, and bought a lot of books.

After Oxfam, I did my grocery shopping, did some homework, went to a meeting with my tutorial group, bought train tickets to the airport for my flight to Ireland, and booked plane tickets to Italy.

And then tonight I went to KEEN, the final Monday night session of the term. Because it was the last night, we had an end of term party. Not just any party though, a James Bond disco party. There were James Bond quizzes, card games, and of course, snacks. There was also music and a disco ball. And lots of dancing.

I spent most of the night with one of the members named Matthew, because his mother though he might be having a bad night. True, he wasn't very social, but he seemed to be okay. He likes to sing along very loudly to the songs that he knows, and not always on key, but he does have enthusiasm.

I did however, get pretend shot tonight more time than I can count after they learned about pirate weapons two weeks ago. Playing dead does get a little old after while.

Brenton Brown.

So today was a cool day. I woke up and went to St. Aldates, which was amazing. It's mother's day here, so I got a daffodil for being a girl. Woo! The service was wonderful, the bishop of Oxford was there and he did a confirmation.

After the service I came back and ate, took a nap, and did some homework.

And then, tonight, was awesome. I went back to St. Aldates for the evening service, because Brenton Brown was leading worship. You may not have heard of him, but he wrote such songs as Everlasting God and Lord Reign in Me. And a lot more...he wrote a bunch. And it was such an amazing service, God was in that place. It was wonderful. I'm so falling in love with that church.

Anyways, then tonight we had nine at nine, our weekly Sunday night chapel, and talked about the footwashing and being servants, and we all split up and washed each others dishes. Also, I love nine at nine, because when we sing, it sounds so wonderful, with 40 of us in a small room worshiping. Ahh...what a lovely evening.

Blenheim Palace.

Okay, so, I've decided that being in Oxford is kind of a conversation killer. Here's why. Okay, so I'm having a normal conversation, which leads to the question, "What did you do this weekend?" Well, since I went to Spain last weekend, I answered, "Well, I went to Spain." However, then when I ask them how their weekend was, the conversation dies. Europe - the conversation killer.


Well anyways, today I went to Blenheim Palace, a 20 minute bus ride from here. We didn't pay to go in, because it was really expensive, so we paid less to walk around the grounds. We walked by the lake and around the waterfalls and the formal gardens, the "secret garden" that was not a secret, and finally, to the butterfly house and the hedge maze. The hedge maze was really cool. It's the second largest hedge maze in the world, and the only one of its size that's shaped like a picture. And I made it through in 15 minutes. It was a lot of fun.

What the maze looks like, apparently.

And then I came back and did some more homework.

OH! And I got to watch Jeremiah walk over skype. He's not even ten months old and he's already walking. He's so proud of himself, it's sooo cute.