When the Sun Shines in Britain...

...its way more exciting than when the sun shines in New Mexico. This is what I have realized: Britain sees the sun about as often as NM sees clouds. It's a bit odd to be on the flip side at present. BUT, I will say that I am learning to appreciate clouds... or something. Anyway, that isn't the point of this blog; it is merely an observation.

Ok, so moving on. I went to Cromer this weekend for a retreat or "house party" as it is so affectionately termed here. The idea of going out of town (about 1/2 hr north of Norwich) for the weekend with a bunch of people either I had never met in my life or had met only briefly seemed a bit dodgy to me. I don't actually remember ever being in that position before. So, I pack my bags Friday night, or rather attempt to shove a whole lot of stuff into ONE small bag that I have, while running errands as well. I had to go get my perscription filled so that I could take the meds with me on the trip b/c my tonsils were still the size of Texas. The good news is that they are quite better now, though I am finishing up the dose of meds the doc gave me.

So, I finish my laundry, because I needed clean clothes to go on the aforementioned trip, right? I finally finish all the preliminary stuff and head out the door, in true Joanna fashion, about 5 minutes late. About halfway through the walk I realize that I have forgotten my pillow. That, on top of all my other aprehension about the trip, was an excellent revelation. I would have had one of my flatmates bring it to me but they couldn't get into my room, seeing as how I'm the only one with a key. So I resolved myself to spending the weekend sleeping with my hoodie as my pillow; apparently that seemed appropriate.

So I make it to the group meeting where we're all waiting for the bus and everyone is talking to someone, and I sit down and talk to no one. I finally knew, right then and there, how all those "new" kids felt when they'd go on trips with my church back home. After thinking for a split second that I could back out now and no one would care, we made our way to the bus. I sit down, and hope and pray that I make friends otherwise the weekend was going to be absolute rubbish. So we're about to leave and this girl sits down next to me and introduces herself. Her name is G. We chat for a while about the CU, about snowboarding, and evolution.... in that order. It made for an interesting 1/2 hr conversation, and it set me quite a bit more at ease.

So at first I felt awkward not knowing anyone and going to the meetings and sitting alone and stuff, but it was cool b/c Becca, one of the girls I had already met was really nice and I got to chill with her and her friends. Amidst all of this, my cell phone freaks out. It starts sending this one text message to a bunch of different people in my contact list that I never intended it to go to. Fortunately all it said was "sounds good", BUT it went to the vice president of the CU, Lucy, who I had only met a few times. So, she's there and I figure I should probably explain to her why I had sent her a text that just said "sounds good", literally, about 20 times! We got a laugh out of it, and it became a running joke for the weekend.

Anyway, I won't bore you with MORE mundane details, but lets just say that I DID, by God's infinite goodness, make friends and enjoy myself. I slept on the hardest floor I had ever slept on in my life in a borrowed and far-too-narrow sleeping bag, with a hoodie as a pillow. I ate porridge for the first time in my life. I braved my un-comfort zone. And I felt the odd sensation of cold humidity on a dreary beach on an overcast day (talk about weird). Also, they had this caberet/talent show thing the last night, and I actually sang the new and dumb Superpoke Song for everyone. They all seemed to get a kick out of it! So, in short: the weekend was a success, I'm glad I went, and I now have friends in the CU so going to the meeting last night was quite a bit more pleasant than it had been. Thank God.



On a different note, the Superpoke Song is up to over 2600 views on YouTube and we even had a goofy little blurb written about us on a technology blog/gossip site! Check the link out HERE. I started screaming when I read it b/c sure, they're making fun of us, BUT they DO quote us so I think the joke *might* be on them. Or at least thats what we're telling ourselves.... well, that and that we're getting free t-shirts from Slide.com. Hehe.... but I'm not excited about this or anything.

Right, so anyway, I got home Sunday night and that was weird coming "home" to not-home. Jimmy said something like that in his blog, and I could identify. Sleeping has been a bit rugged for the past few nights, but I think I'm going to try not to drink so much coffee today and see if I can fall asleep a bit easier. I have a healthy chunk of homework thats all due next week that I need to get a move on, so hopefully I will sleep this week. Bonfire Night (their equivalent to the 4th of July) is being celebrated this weekend too so there should be this massive fireworks show in the park across the street from our dorm, so that should be cool.

Monday was alright, except that I accidentally slept through my first class. I don't know exactly how that happened, I think I accidentally fell back to sleep after my alarm went off and then woke up like 2 hours later. I ended up just rehearsing our scene for acting class w/ my scene parter. Tuesday was nice and boring also, just had rehearsal, and I was woken up by the ever faithful fire alarm test which goes off EVERY Tuesday between 10:30 and 11am.... while I'm sleeping. Emma thinks its funny; I don't. Oh, and we got to watch Friends yesterday! Emma brought all 10 seasons of Friends from her house b/c she went home this weekend and she and I have been having Friends withdrawls. Oh, but the most exciting part of Tuesday was mine and Emma's attempt at making chicken fried rice. I *will* say, however, that it turned out WAY better than I thought it was going to. And we made a lot.... Mmmm, it was so good!



So, I think I'm going to Germany (finally!) to see Jimmy at the end of Nov, b/c I found some ridiculously cheap flights to get me there. It should be cool, I'm excited to travel into mainland Europe. I'm hoping that over my Christmas and Easter holidays I can see some more of Europe and more of England. I need to send a letter to my grandma's (Hi Mema!) cousin Dolly and see if I can go see her, as well, sometime before I head back to the States. I'm excited to meet her!

Well I think thats it; Dani, I hope that is sufficient to keep you entertained in your marketing class. ;) I have some homework to do so I'm gonna split, but I hope you all are well! Oof... sorry that was so long!

I love Fridays. They're The Best.

So… I’m going out of town this weekend on this retreat with the CU, so don’t expect another blog from me til Monday, at the earliest. BUT, hopefully, on Monday, I’ll have some good stories for you.

Ok, lets see…. First off, the video I posted in the last post has become something of a legend in our flat. We’re already far past 600 hits on YouTube.com, which is ridiculous considering its only been up for two days! A lot of friends on Facebook (yay!) have commented quite positively, so that made us all happy. However, things got more exciting when we got an email from the company who actually developed the SuperPoke Application on Facebook (yes… the *company* contacted us on YouTube) and told us that the video is quite popular around their offices and would we like some T-Shirts. So Slide.com is sending us T-Shirts for our Superpoke Song! Haha, this really is quite entertaining.

Anyway, on a different note, school continues on like it always has. I have to do another scene in my acting class, but this time its Shakespeare and its just with one other person. So I’m doing my scene (Act II, Scene 2 of MACBETH) with this Canadian girl Emma. And I get to show the world my frantic, paranoid, evil side as I attempt to do justice to the part of Macbeth. *Ahem* Wish me luck. Other than that, its mostly just essays, so next week should be a nice busy week and I’ll get to do all kinds of homework… It’ll be something of a change!

So I went to the doctor’s office yesterday, because my tonsils feel like someone put them through a meat grinder. Anyway, it was kind of funny because I already have really big tonsils, so the fact that they are swollen now has got to be kind of a frightening thing for a nurse to look at. Anyway, she asks me to open my mouth so she can look at them, and I figured I should probably inform her that they’re already quite large tonsils, and that they are even bigger now. So she looks into my throat, and then pulls the light out and looks at me with this concerned look on her face and says, “Um… How big are they normally?” I had no idea what to say, and I was trying hard not too laugh. Its not every day you shock the nurse with your abnormally large tonsils. Anyway, she wrote me a prescription so I gotta go get that filled today. Which means I should probably go get in the shower.

Alright, well that’s that. OH, but check this out, I think we might go down to London for my 21^st Birthday in March! Haha, so that when I get back I can tell people, “Yeah… I went to London for my 21^st. It was pretty cool.” But that’s like 6 months away so I guess I shouldn’t really be thinking about that, huh? Alright, well let me know how you all are doing! Again, thanks so much for reading my blogs, and I miss you all!

As If I'm Not Weird Enough Already

Hehe, ok so this is rather stupid and doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that I'm in England, but I suppose I should preface the following video with this story. Ok, first off, just about everyone in my flat is completely addicted to Facebook. And for those of you who don't know, there's this great application on Facebook where you can "superpoke" people and do all kinds of weird things to them like poke, slap, pinch, etc... you get the idea. Anyway, we've kinda got this online war going on on Facebook between a few of us in the flat, so last night, instead of doing homework, Emma, Leigh, and I write a song... yes... we wrote a song, dedicated to the love of superpoking people on Facebook. So, don't judge us too harshly, and if you can.... enjoy!

How Far Would You Go for Mac & Cheese?

Hey peeps. Ok, just a few things, this one promises to be short. Haha, I think. Ok, first off, I’m still sick. I have no idea what I have but it ain’t leaving. Oh well, thank God I’m not throwing up and I don’t think I have a fever, just a lovely sore throat and congestion. Its grand. Things continue to go pretty well out here, I just have a lot of reading and stuff to do, memorize and perform a Shakespeare scene in my acting class, and write two essays for my other classes. As soon as all that is done I think I’m going to head over to Germany to go see Jimmy. I found some cheap flights so hopefully it won’t set me back too much money.

Ok, so this is really the only interesting thing that happened, but I found it so amusing that I needed to share. Ok, so my neighbor, Leigh, is from Maryland so we’ve been able to commiserate on some of the little things that we’ve realized we can’t get out here on the British Isles. First off, a “biscuit” out here is more like a cookie. Its something you dunk in your tea. They don’t even have biscuits, in the American sense of the word, not even at the KFC that they have out here! And that’s not even the half of it. They also do not sell, ANYWHERE, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese! So Leigh and I were freaking out about this because we were both craving mac & cheese so we decided to check and see if we could order it online! (Desperate times call for desperate measures…) Anyway, we check amazon.co.uk (which is my new favorite website) with no luck, so in stroke of sheer genius Leigh suggests that I try the British ebay. So here we are, sitting in my dorm room, attempting to order mac & cheese off ebay! In the end we didn’t do it b/c it would have cost us something like £2 per box, which even to us at the time suffering from mac & cheese withdrawals was ridiculous.

So there’s my story. Oh, and I got to talk to my mommy yesterday which was really really cool. Thank God for technology, especially webcams.

Being British

Hey all, I’m back! Yeah, lame introduction, I know, but I’m running out of exciting and original things to say. So, the interesting news of the week is that it has officially been one WHOLE month (and 3 days today) that Heather and I have been out here in the great land of Britain. Although, I’m not sure that it really feels like a whole month. Its nice, because I actually feel relatively at home in my room… Its nice and messy, I’ve got posters on the walls, I washed the sheets for my bed yesterday, and I know where (almost) everything is. Going to class feels pretty normal, and although the workload hasn’t been big at all, I’m in for it in these next two weeks.

Also, on a different note, I had no idea that I would be cooking as often as I do. I guess the idea that there was no cafeteria here on campus, and that I’d be preparing my own meals and shopping and all that fun stuff never really occurred to me in full force. And yet here I am, shopping on the weekends, trying to buy stuff I’ll actually use and then coming home and trying to remember how mom cooked all those things we used to eat! I will say this, I appreciate my mom’s cooking a whole lot more now than I ever did before. Thankfully, I’m not completely worthless when it comes to cooking, and we’ve been getting progressively more adventurous… well, some more than others. I’ve been putting things together that I’m pretty sure are going to taste alright. My flatmate Fred, on the other hand, put together all kinds of stuff and hoped that it tasted good. (If I may put in my two cents, it looked disgusting, but he ate it).

Anyway, the week hasn’t been too interesting. Tuesday Night, Lucy and I went to the CU (Christian Union) meeting, and I actually signed up to go on this retreat thing (they call it a “house party”) next weekend. So here’s hoping that I actually make some friends outside my flat! I couldn’t sleep at all Tuesday night, (Erin can attest to this. I texted her at 5:45am England time because I was wide awake) so I skipped class on Wednesday. I’ve still been trying to get over being sick, so it was probably a good thing that I stayed in bed.

Thursday was boring with pretty much just class and hanging out with people in the kitchen like we always do. Although, Thursday night Anna and I got to be the happy cleaners of the atrocious kitchen. Ok, so this is how it works: we are responsible for keeping our kitchen looking decent, so we wash our own pots and pans and tidy up after we make a mess. We have a cleaner who cleans our kitchen (like mops the floor, scrubs the counters & stove) two times a week, but she only cleans what she can. In other words, we have to make sure the kitchen is clean enough for her to clean it. Anyway, Anna and I got to clean up all the boy’s messes that night because it was a wreck. Granted, the girls had made their messes too, but we at least attempted to clean up after ourselves. Anyway, the boys got an earful in the morning when we showed them the spotless kitchen.

Friday was nice. I slept in and bummed around. We were going to go see a play that the drama dept was putting on in the drama studio but unfortunately by the time we got down there it was sold out. So instead, as a flat, we all played poker! We just played with our pocket change, but it was still a bit upsetting when on the last hand of the game, I lost all my money because I went all in with a pair of pocket jacks! Arg. I’m still mad about it. Oh well, I only lost about ₤3.30.

So Lucy and Anna went home for the weekend, and Heather went to go visit a friend in Sheffield so our flat was a bit quieter than normal this weekend. Emma, Leigh, and I ventured in to Norwich on Saturday to do some shopping. We ended up with so much stuff by the end of the trip (we bought groceries, flatware, and Emma bought some plastic drawers) that we had to call a taxi instead of taking the bus back! Oh well, I now have enough food for the next two weeks, and new dishes! (I should take pictures, they’re better than my picnic plates… they just weren’t cutting it). Anyway, Emma and I went to do some laundry before heading off to watch the RUGBY WORLD CUP!

Ok, so Fred was all excited because England actually made it into the World Cup (which apparently was a surprise this year). So we went down to this pub just outside Norwich and watched the game on this big screen surrounded by lots of English people all yelling at the screen. It was actually a lot of fun. Unfortunately, as expected, we lost, but I had fun being British and doing my fair share of yelling too!

So that was that. Not a whole lot has happened, and the rugby game last night was definitely the highlight. Alright, well I should get out of bed, take a shower, and start my day. Hope life in the States is going well, and I miss you all!

PS- Katie, I hope your wedding is amazing and I wish I could be there. Cheers!

Another Day, Another Blog

Hey all! Sorry its been so long since I’ve blogged it up; I don’t exactly have any good excuses, but I think I might have a good story or two to tell you all. Shoot, its been like a whole week, hasn’t it? Ok, well my dad informed me that no matter how busy I was I still needed to blog once a week, so dad, this one’s for YOU!

Ok, moving on. Where to start… right, THURSDAY. So the good news is that all my clothes successfully dried, despite (or perhaps because of) being strewn all about my room and bed and doors and windows and everywhere, really! They continued to stay spread about until I needed to wear them, and even then I didn’t have much of an incentive to put them away. Why? You may ask… I’m not really sure. Anyway, every morning I move the big pile of tshirts off my desk chair to the bed, and then I reverse the dumb process every night when I try to go to sleep. Its like a dummy proof system. And it worked until last night when I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore and HAD to fold my clothes before we watched a movie. (That’s for you, mom!) But, I get ahead of myself.

THURSDAY. Right, so Thursday night we went on an excursion into Norwich again, this time to find a pub. We’ve been here for an entire month and we still haven’t found a cozy little pub that we could go to just to hang out, shoot some pool, and have a drink. So we went out looking for one, and we stopped at this pub called The Compleat Angler, (and no, I did not spell “compleat” wrong).

Anyway, they charged us an arm and a leg and our first born for those drinks but I found a new favorite beer: Kronenberg Blanc. Its straight up amazing. So we hung out there, and then me and Lucy and Leigh caught the bus back while Emma and Heather stayed in town for a little while longer. The walk back home was slightly entertaining. Unfortunately we’re going to have to keep looking for a pub because all of us straight up refuse to pay that much for drinks again. Anyway, moving on.

FRIDAY: Fridays are good days. I sleep in. I make coffee. I watch the Office. And that’s just about it. Its fantastic not having school on Fridays. So I did all those things, minus the Office because the episode was taking forever to load on my computer, so instead Leigh and I had to watch it later that night. Friday we had fun hanging out, we went into town and bummed around. They have this great catalogue store in town called Argos where its just a room w/ about 15 Argos Catalogues set up on desks that you can just flip through. Then they have this little machine where you can check whether or not they have the thing you want in stock, and then if they do, you order it right then and there, you pay for it at the counter, and then they go get it from the big warehouse. Its awesome! So Heather and I decided we needed a coffee maker (I tried to use tea as a substitute, I really did, but its just not the same!). So, needless to say we got a coffee maker from Argos. It was great. And we only paid 6 pounds for it. I wonder how long it's going to last...

We then made our way to Morrison’s to do some grocery shopping, but we dropped Heather and Lucy off at the Train Station to buy our tickets for the next day (more on that to follow). We also got to meet the infamous Harry: Anna’s boyfriend who she has talked about nonstop since we all got here. He was in town for the weekend, so we were finally able to put a face to the guy we’d heard so… no, dare I say, WAY too much about. (We love you, Anna!)

Right, so Friday night, after we finally made it out of Morrison’s and Lucy and Heather had finally made it through the que at the train station to get the tickets, we made it back to the flat and Anna made dinner for all of us. We had fun shoving about 13 of us around the kitchen table that only comfortably seats 8, and eating a good, hot meal. We then proceeded to hang out for the rest of the night and eventually we all made it to bed.

SATURDAY. (This is the fun part) So a couple days before, all of us girls decided that we wanted to go somewhere over the weekend, somewhere not too far and not too expensive, but still fun. So we decided on going to the coast of England, to a town called Great Yarmouth. Imagine Atlantic City or Vegas except infinitely cheaper and more white trash-ish. So Heather, Lucy, Leigh, Emma, and I all took the train to Great Yarmouth at 1130 in the morning. It was quite an exciting experience for me and Heather as we had never ridden on a train before. So we get to Great Yarmouth and start walking around and we went straight to the beach, but it was only about 65 degrees outside but that didn’t stop is from putting our feet in the water, besides, it was an absolutely *gorgeous* day. We then proceeded to take about a bazillion and a half pictures of us doing all sorts of random and stupid things! The timer on my camera came in quite handy. Here's a few of the pictures, but you can check the rest of them out HERE.

Besides taking way too many pictures though, we also ate way too much junkfood. Apparently, a good, true English day-at-the-beach isn’t complete without “candy floss” (cotton candy), fish & chips, and “rock” (think thick, straight candy cane). So we got ALL OF IT. And yes, you all should be thoroughly proud of me, Joanna the passionate fish hater, ate an entire plate of fish and chips!!! I even have pictures to prove it!

So yeah, after all that we all felt slightly sick from all the fried food (we got doughnuts too!) so we started walking back to the train. We got on the train, took the bus back to the university, and walked back to our flat, making it back to our sweet little Elm House at about 7:15ish. Just in time to make some dinner. Mmmm…. dinner.

SUNDAY: So, on top of all this fun stuff, I started to get sick. (bleh!) I went to bed Friday night not feeling so hot, and woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat and a headache. Sunday, I still felt like poop, but I got over it, woke up, and Lucy and I went to church. We found a teeny tiny Calvary Chapel that’s only a 10 minute walk from our flat, so we went there, and it was actually a really good service. And the congregation was so small that as new people, we stuck out like a sore thumb. But everyone was pretty cool and a lot of people came and introduced themselves to us and talked to us. I think we’re going to try one or two more churches, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back to Calvary Chapel Norwich.

Sunday afternoon was pretty chill, and then Sunday night all of us girls crowded into one dorm room to watch Pretty Woman. Unfortunately we got sidetracked at the beginning and started ripping out random things out of this catalogue we had to pin on the boys’ bulletin boards. We got kinda carried away… haha, but it was fun.

MONDAY: Anyway, Monday was good. I woke up again feeling quite miserable, but I decided I really shouldn’t skip class so instead I was 5 minutes late. It was a good thing I went too, because he handed out the essay question topics, so I better get a move on that. After class I went into town to go to Morrison’s because I had decided that I was going to make beef & bean burritos and calabacitas for everyone that night for dinner. It was highly entertaining. I found tortillas and pinto beans (in a can) and instead of chile we were forced to use Cholula sauce (haha, I’m going through one bottle every 10 days!). It all turned out really good, and all the girls helped me make everything (cooking for 9 people is difficult!) and then we made the boys do the dishes. It was a bonding experience.

TUESDAY: So today, I slept in and was woken up by the, yup, you guessed it, fire alarm. That darn thing. I think they check it every Tuesday just to make sure it works. Its upsetting. I then made breakfast (my fried potatoes taste better every time!) and made some coffee w/ my new coffeemaker. Its great. I also made some coffee for the cleaning lady and we got to chat for a few minutes. I think we’re buddies now.

Ok, sorry this one was so long. But I think that’s everything. I’ll try to write blogs every few days instead of once a week because there really is just way too much to say. The weather continues quite poorly, its all nasty and rainy and cloudy today, but I think I’m going to stay in and do homework anyway. OH, and I got mail! If any of you feel the great urge to write to me this is my address:

Joanna Michnovicz
University Village – Elm House
University of East Anglia
Norwich
Norfolk
NR4 7TJ
England

So I hope to hear from each and every one of you, ok? Ok.

Or, you can skype me. Skype has been the best. Its basically being able to call people for free! Brie and I, and my parents, and Jimmy have all been using it and its freaking great. Check it out at www.skype.com.

Right, so hopefully you’ll hear from me again in a few days. Miss you all!

Things To Do In England When You’re A College Student Without A Car:

Good news, everyone, the last few days have been considerably more exciting than the onesfrom the previous blog so I’m going to see if I can do them justice. Sorry its taken me so long to do another post (a whole 3 days! Freak out, right?), but here I am, blogging to you again. That can’t possibly be grammatically correct… oh well. Oh, and a thanks to all of you who are reading my blog, I’m glad you’re enjoying it, it inspires me :).

Anyway, first things first. Saturday proved uneventful until we all decided that that was just thoroughly unacceptable and we were going to go out on Saturday night. Fred got the great idea that we need to “go out for a good curry” and then go bowling somewhere in Norwich. Apparently the English have an obsession with Indian food quite similar to the obsession that New Mexicans (nay, dare I say Americans in general?) have with Mexican food. Unfortunately, Indian food doesn’t hold a candle to Mexican food. BUT, I digress. So we get on the bus at like 7:15pm and we’re all starving because no one ate anything in anticipation of this amazing curry we were going to get.

So we get off the bus and Fred swears that there are a string of Indian restaurants in the northwestern part of the city, so we start walking up there, and we keep walking, and we get to St. Benedict’s Street and no Indian Places. So we all (five girls) look at Fred with looks of deepest loathing when we realize that we are on the *complete* opposite end of town of where we should be. So we start booking it back the other way, down the, right, you guessed it, southeastern part of Norwich! Finally, we get off the bus near all the nightclubs and food joints and we stop in at the first Indian place we find. It’s completely deserted and they put us at this really nice table in the back. We order our curry and I feel completely lost because I’ve never had Indian food. So by this time its like already 9pm when we get our food and finish and the bill ends up being absolutely ginormous. So we all pitch in our money and split, and start looking for the bowling alley.

Why we trusted Fred to lead us safely to the bowling alley after all that is still a mystery to me. Haha, so there’s two bowling alleys, according to Fred. One, Hollywood Bowl, was shut down, which we knew, but there was another one, called The Number Ten, that was, as Fred put it, “only a centimeter away from Hollywood Bowl on the map”. We go down to where Hollywood Bowl was, and we can’t seem to find the other alley! So we ask a security guard who looks at us rather funny and it turns out that we are again on the complete and total *wrong* side of Norwich! So, we ask how long it would take us to walk there and he says about half an hour. At 9:30 after we’d already walked the whole of Norwich we decided we’d better get a cab instead. So we climb into a cab, all six of us, and he starts driving. And he keeps driving. And then he keeps driving. And finally we end up at this bowling alley that’s somewhere outside of main city centre of Norwich. We have no idea where we actually are, but we figure, we came to bowl, so lets bowl!

After two slightly entertaining games of bowling we finally decided to call it a night at about midnight, but the only problem was we again had no idea where we were or how we were supposed to get back to the university. So long story short, we had to call a cab again to take us back to our flat. All in all we ended up spending a whole lot more time and money than we EVER should have, but it was a fun night. I think we learned our lesson: don’t trust Fred when it comes to reading maps. In his defense, however, the map he found for the bowling alley was wrong, and he even proved it to us… so that, at least, wasn’t his fault. :)

SO, that was Saturday night. We get back from bowling and we all end up staying up even later just talking in the kitchen. Finally we make it to bed, and Lucy and I get up the next morning at like 8:30am to try to go to church. Somehow we ended up going to another slightly weird church, and again, didn’t really know where we were so we got to take a 45 minute walk home! We passed a Calvary Chapel on the walk back to the flat, though, so I think we’re going to try that next week.

So Sunday night I had my first experience at the launderette (not Laundromat, the “launderette”). I had run out of clean undergarments (haha, that’s a funny word) so I had reached the end; I could avoid it no longer, I had to do laundry. So I hunker down the steps of the flat and walk across the parking lot w/ Heather so that she could show me how to work it. It was quite exciting and I was proud of myself for accomplishing such a feat. I now have clean whites. BUT, all my darks were dirty still, so I’ve been wearing white for the past three days! I did my colored clothes today, but that’s a different story.

Tuesday I was supposed to sleep in but I had to get up and learn my lines for the scene I had to do in my acting class, and I was woken up quite rudely by the fire alarm which they have to test ever week or something. Fortunately I didn’t have to get out of bed, they were just making sure it worked. I also cooked goooooood food on Tuesday night. It was pretty much amazing and it tasted better than almost anything I had cooked since school started. Chicken, onions, red & green peppers, and carrots sautéed and poured over rice w/ a little gravy concoction I made. Mm…. I had leftovers today.

So that brings us to today: WEDNESDAY. Ah, what a day it has been. So we were supposed to perform our scene in class at 9am this morning, so to warm up and get one last run-through in I was supposed to be there at 8am. Well I wasn’t tired the night before so I didn’t go to bed til late. Anyway, I completely forgot to wake up and I got a call at 8:20am from my cast mate wondering where I was. I had to roll out of bed, without my shower (!) and rush, half an hour late, to class. Anyway, we got through the scene fine, and it went well and all that stuff. So I can be thankful for that. And I got coffee. So that was good.

So I get home from class and take my much needed shower, and walk to the launderette to go do the rest of my clothes and after one failed attempt (the que was way too big, and I didn’t want to wait in it) I finally went back at about 5:30 and did my freaking laundry. I got it all washed and then I went to dry it and they charge you 50p for every 15 minutes in the dryer. (I want to know who my money is going to because they are making a fortune off those over priced dryers). Anyway, after 30 minutes I assume my clothes are dry, right? OH NO, they’re damp. So I decided I didn’t care and I’d dry the darn things myself, so currently, I have ALL my shirts and jeans spread about my room attempting to finish drying. This is what it looks like:

Anyway. That’s the main gist of the last few days. Sorry this one was so long. Hopefully it was slightly entertaining. Well this is Joanna, signing off… its time to go to sleep….

Tired on a Saturday Afternoon

I’m not gonna lie, not a whole lot has happened. Like I said in my last blog things are starting to feel normal, and that’s a plus but I keep getting a little more homesick every day. Its been 2 and half weeks since I last tasted green chile… Anyway, on Thursday night, me, Heather, Dan, Sadiq, and Lucy went to go see Motion City Soundtrack at this little place in Norwich. And it was freaking amazing! That night I had just found out that I hadn’t gotten cast in either of the two plays I had auditioned for, I had had a long day of school on very little sleep, and we had major issues getting to the venue (which we didn’t realize we had no idea where it was…) BUT seeing them in concert made my night so incredibly much better! I put pictures of it up on my flickr account so you can check ‘em out HERE.

Anyway, Friday was nice and boring, I slept in since I don’t have school and watched the new episode of the Office on the internet. I was going to do laundry because I’m starting to run out of clothes, but apparently everyone here is running out of clean clothes so the launderette (as they call it) has this nice little line to use the 3 washing machines that actually work! Needless to say, I still haven’t done my laundry. :)

Other than that, not a whole lot has happened. I think me and my flat mates are going into Norwich tonight to go get some dinner and go bowling or something. It should be slightly entertaining but I think I might need to take a nap or something before I head out. I had to be at the drama studio at 11 this morning and I finished reading the play I was supposed to be familiar with at about 3:30 am. I have to do this scene for my acting class on Wednesday and I finally got the script last night.

Oh, and this whole pay-as-you-go cell phone thing is a royal pain. I ran out of credit minutes or money or whatever you call it, and I can’t use my debit card to buy more minutes until I talk to a customer service rep and register my card, but their “system has been down” for the past day and half so I can’t send any text messages or make any phone calls or even check my voice mail until the freaking customer service reps get their system up and running again! And I must say, my hatred for customer service people is growing. They follow a script so they can’t just talk to you like a normal person, so when you say things like, “Yeah, I need to register my debit card so that I can top up the minutes on my phone”, they don’t just say “ok, let me help you!” … no, no, they say, “Ok, so what I’m getting from you is that you need to register your debit card so that you can top up the minutes on your cell phone, is that right?” and I just want to yell YES! But that would be rude… so when they said they’re system wasn’t working, I didn’t wait for the overly long apology followed by “can I help you with anything else today?”, I just hung up. Twice.

The Hills Are Alive...!

....With the sound of MUSIC! Well… not really, but I’ve been listening to the Sound of Music Soundtrack and I just felt that everyone should know! Haha, anyway, I guess I should start at the beginning, its been a while since I’ve written so brace yourself. Right, so MONDAY. Bah, Monday, who likes Mondays? Monday single-handedly takes the cake for the worst day in the week, and as such you really would rather the Monday didn’t start off on a bad note, right? Well, this Monday everyone in the Elm Building (and I think the whole of University Village) was woken up just a few minutes past 8am with the fire alarm!! Don’t freak out, the building wasn’t on fire, they were just doing a fire drill, so I rolled out of bed listening to this “piercing two tone warble” (as it is so graciously described on the fire safety sheets), pulled on my jacket and shoes and stumbled out of Elm building with a handful of other grumpy college kids. Yay for Monday.

Fortunately, Monday was not a complete waste. I did however, after going back to bed after the fire alarm, sleep a bit too late and as such was forced to not take a shower before my class. Ah, my Introduction to World Dramatic Literatures class. I think its great how they don’t bother to tell you that you’re supposed to have a play read by the first week of class. So by that point I was behind in two different classes. Oh well, thank God they’re all plays and if they can be performed in 2-3 hours, in theory, I should be able to read them in the same amount of time (if not less). Too bad its all Greek and Roman tragedy at this point. So that was Monday, I finished the day off quite nicely by burning three of my fingers on the stove… Apparently I didn’t know it was still on.

So Tuesday rolls around and I sleep in because I don’t have class on Tuesdays. I did some homework, but the more important thing is that Heather and I went into Norwich to go to Morrison’s and do some grocery shopping! Not that exciting, right? But I feel so grown up when I go grocery shopping. Oh, and they charge you like 20p to use a shopping cart! How ghetto is that?? So we did our grocery shopping and had to take the bus back to our dorms and then after that we get to walk the 15 minutes from the bus stop to our dorms carrying our groceries, so the whole ordeal took us a good 2 hours. Never should shopping for food take that long. It was then that I truly missed my car. BUT, the good news is that I got potatoes and found Chalula Sauce, so I got a taste of home. :) Tuesday night was spent memorizing a sonnet I’m supposed to have ready for Thursday, and then sleep.

That brings us to today. Today I had class at 9am, which is really not the most pleasant hour of the day. I woke up and it was foggy as I was walking to class which really is quite cool. It reminds me even more how far away from home I am and how exciting that is. I had a bit of a breakdown the other night though because I really do miss home. Its weird, I was sitting in acting class today thinking about how I don’t really know any of these people, and it was disheartening. I had to remind myself that it was only the 2^nd week that I’d been here, and its going to take time to make friends and build relationships. In my acting class I have to do a scene with some other people next week so once we start rehearsals I might be able to meet some more crazy artsy people like myself. That brings me to my other thing, I’ve got an audition tonight and another one tomorrow so here’s hoping I get a part in one of those.

Ah, I almost forgot! Not that this is important, of course, but the girls and I watched the movie The Queen the other night and it was actually really interesting. Its all about the royal family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana. I had seen it before but it was far more interesting (and made a whole lot more sense) as I was watching it this time with a bunch of Brits who were able to explain some of the finer points of the monarchy to me. I would recommend it to anyone if for no other reason than to see an outstanding performance by Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it. Nothing too exciting, but its good to know that things are starting to settle down. I’m trying to get used to having homework again and remembering how to memorize lines… its been too long since I’ve done either. Things are starting to feel a bit more like “home” though. Seeing cars driving on the left side of the road isn’t quite so weird anymore, and riding the bus is starting to feel normal. It’s a weird thought that this may actually feel like home.

Well, I best be off, I gotta eat something before I start my homework. I hope life in New Mexico is just as fantastic as ever. Enjoy the sun for me, I know I miss it almost as much as I miss all of you! (wow…. These closing lines of mine are getting progressively cheesier… sorry!)

Skype.

So, i'll be blogging later about the stupid fire alarm, but I just wanted to say, really quickly, that everyone should get skype. Its a messaging program so that I (and jimmy too) can talk to you all while we're away. You can use it just as an instant messanger, or if you have a microphone and/or web cam we can actually talk or video chat! So anyway, its completely free for the program, instant messaging, and skype to skype calls, all you have to do is download it here.

So, if you DO download it, search for me by my first and last name and we can be skype buddies and we can chat!