I'm Back, and I'm ALIVE!

Good news people: I have successfully finished, that’s right FINISHED my first semester of British college! And I straight up couldn't be more excited! I got through all my papers and even my monologue... which I forgot only one (ok... maybe two) lines of, and as far as I know I didn't actually fail anything. Pretty cool, huh? So after staying up ‘til 3 am the night before all my papers were due, I plouwed through the day before... stayed up way too late again just because I could and then slept in ‘til noon yesterday and today. So far, so good.

Anyway, I suppose I should again apologize for the fact that I haven't written in almost two weeks. Quite frankly, nothing overly exciting happened so you didn't miss much, but I was also trying to write 3 papers and get that monologue done & memorized. Anyway, I get them all written, and I’m not really sure how good they are but the point is that I made it through the semester and now I am enjoying the sweet month-long absence from school which is so affectionately termed by the educational community “Christmas Break!” Oh, but just one random thing: I went to both of my classes the last day of school, which I probably didn’t need to do but I did anyway, and in my second and last class my teacher had made mulled wine for the 10 of us in the class! It was so strange to be drinking warm wine with fruit in it not only for the first time ever, but IN CLASS! Ah, the differences between UNM and UEA never cease to astound me….

So after I got out of class on Thursday night, I was going to walk back to my dorm but I just didn’t want to for some reason. Maybe it was because the sun hadn’t quite set yet, and all I could see when I walked out of the drama studio was this absolutely gorgeous fog that was down by the lake. Now, being from New Mexico, we don’t get a whole lot of fog! So naturally, I took the freezing cold walk down to the lake just to stand in the fog. It wasn’t quite as thick as I had hoped it would be when I got into it, but it was still really strange being in the middle of this sort of cold haze, and knowing that everything around you was either extremely clouded or extreme fuzzy. My visibility went from being miles and miles to being a mere couple hundred feet. Seeing the fog over and across the incredibly still lake was pretty awesome too.

Anyway like I said, not a ton has happened. We’ve had a couple interesting things happen here and there. For one, my cooking (I know I say this a lot, but its true!) really has been getting not only better but slightly more adventurous. For instance, I have now made Chicken Fried Rice successfully *three* times now… but I can’t seem to judge how much to make, and every time I make enough to feed a small army. But even Emma said it was getting better! I also ventured into the realm of making Green Chile Stew which was more like very flour-y Green Chile hybrid Soup, or something like that. I suppose when you’re not following a recipe and you’re not a real cook anything can happen, right? Oh, and it does… it does. I’ve also enjoyed my macaroni and cheese (aw, its like home!) and my chile on various other things. My flatmates think I’m crazy, but I’ve finally backed off my chile obsession for just a bit since I actually have some now.

We also made it in to town a couple times to a few things. First, we went to go see the Royal Shakespeare Company put on The Comedy of Errors, and it was absolutely fantastic! That play seems to get better every single time I read it or watch it. I even convinced Lucy, Leigh and Heather to go with me, promising them that they really would like it. They all seemed to enjoy it though, and Lucy was laughing so hard during the performance that it was almost funnier to watch her than it was to watch the show! Oh, and one weird thing about British theater: apparently, in all shows, at intermission they have these people that have these little carts in the aisle and they sell ice cream! It’s the strangest thing, and apparently its at nearly *all* shows!

Apart from the show, we also went to this place called The Waffle House. BUT, this is not the same kind of waffle houses that we have in America. Sure, they’ve got the standard waffles, but this place also has savory waffles! They have waffles for dinner, but they’re not sweet! It’s a bit hard to describe. The waffle I got had hummus, avocado, salad, and sweet chile glaze/sauce on it. Then Lucy got one with ham, cheese sauce, and mushrooms! It was so strange but the waffles were absolutely awesome! I will definitely be going back there!

Beyond going to the theater and eating though, we’ve had fun going into town and going Christmas shopping. Now, when I say Christmas shopping, I mean buying stuff, not necessarily for other people. Emma and I went into town a couple weeks ago to buy presents for other people, and somehow I ended up with some clothes, a pair of shoes, and some random other stuff! I don’t know how that happened?! But, it was a successful trip because Emma and I had to get some presents for our flatmates. We decided that instead of all of us buying presents for every person, or just the few that we wanted too, that we’d do a Secret Santa thing and pick names out of a hat, so that everybody only had to buy one present instead of 8. Fortunately it turned out really really good. We had a lot of fun wrapping the presents and having a mini Christmas with our flat. We’ve had Emma’s miniscule little Christmas tree set up on our kitchen table for a couple weeks now, so it felt every so slightly festive. Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts, and it was just all around fun. We even took it a step further and bought our cleaner a little gift! We bought her a bottle of mulled wine and some shortbread. She had gotten us a card, so we thought we’d return the favor, and give her a little something because she’s the reason all of our stuff stays clean!

The weird part is that now that we’re on Christmas break, the flat is completely empty. School ended and it seems that almost the whole of UEA went home… wherever that is. So here I am, in the flat all by myself tonight. Fortunately, I only have to be here alone for one night. Linette is due to get here sometime tomorrow night, so that’ll be nice. And she’s staying for a week. Hopefully we’ll get to bum around Norwich and maybe even go to London and do all the wonderful touristy stuff. Then after Linette leaves, the same day (next Sunday) I’m going over to Lucy’s house to spend Christmas with her family. So that will be fun. I would hate to spend Christmas in the flat alone. Even Heather is gone. She’s flying all over Europe with some of her friends from back home. She just texted me to tell me that Madrid, Spain is gorgeous. I’m a little jealous!

On a different note, my friend Leigh (who lived in the room next to mine, from Maryland) moved out of her room yesterday. Emma and I went with her to the train station last night. It was sad… She was only here for one semester and all of us were sad to see her go. Leigh and I got along really really well and she was a whole lot of fun. Leigh, if you’re reading this, I miss you already! But watching her pack all her stuff, and get her room completely emptied out was a bit on the sobering side. I know that I’m going to be doing that in about 7 months and I can’t even imagine it. Fitting all this stuff that I brought, and all the extra stuff that I’ve acquired (and am going to acquire…) in suitcases to take them on a plane, once again uproot my life and move back “home” is just a really weird thought. Its strange because it actually feels like Norwich is home to me now. Not completely, obviously, but I referred to it as “home” the other day, almost subconsciously.

All I can say is that I’m glad I didn’t come for just one semester. Yes, I miss home, but 4 months would be far too short. I still have so much I want to do! I think Emma and I might go up to Liverpool and see the Beatles’ Museum sometime next semester. And I want to maybe visit Amsterdam, Spain, and France over the Easter Holidays. All the Brits think its crazy that we Americans just hop over to Europe like its nothing. I explained it to Sadiq like this, “You guys actually live in Europe so you have all the time in the world to do this stuff. We, on the other hand, are only here for a year. We’re going to make the most of it!” That seemed to make sense to him!

Ah, now for some good ol’ dumb news. I have written another stupid song. Yes, The Superpoke Song wasn’t enough (even though we’ve passed 18,000 views on YouTube now… haha!), so I wrote a song all about being a junior college student living in a foreign freshman dorm. Sounds dumb, I know, but its actually kinda funny. I’ll try to get it up on youtube soon, but I haven’t figure out how to yet. The file’s a bit big….

Now the bad news: its getting really really cold. I thought it was cold when I got here, but I was sadly mistaken. I was walking to class the other day though, and there was a ton of frost all over the ground and the trees and stuff. The air was super duper cold and it was all foggy as I was walking to class. I can’t wait til it actually snows! Today, I think it was only about 2 degrees C while I was walking around Holt. Oh, yeah, today (since my entire flat is gone) I went to this little town about an hour away called Holt with my friend Jess (from one of my classes) and her friend. It was a little on the boring side, but it was fun to drive in an actual car (yay, not a bus!) and to get hang out with other people instead of sitting in my flat all alone. Actually, for being alone, its been a relatively productive day. This morning I helped Emma load her car up so that she could drive home. Lucy left yesterday, and Anna the day before, but that’s beside the point! But after I went to Holt, I came home and cleaned our kitchen, and did some laundry and got my room all cleaned so that when Linette gets here my room won’t look like a tornado hit it!

Anyway, I should probably get going. Again, I apologize for there being such a long wait in between blogs. Hopefully you’ll hear from me sooner next time. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy December!