Journey to Liverpool – Friday, October 26th, 2012

            Finally! I am off to Liverpool. The entire Beatles catalogue as my official soundtrack for the six hour bus ride there my mood is a mixture of excited anticipation and sleepiness. The sleepiness is my own bad judgment of going to bed at two in the morning and then fooling myself into thinking that I could wake up the next morning at seven and skip my morning six shots of espresso. I cannot begin to describe how stupid that was on my part. But if you read my post from Thursday maybe you can get some inclining how important of what a dependent relationship I have with sleep and caffeine. Even though I was running late for some reason I thought it would be a better idea to put some cookies in the oven instead of getting ready for the day. I plead insanity due to sleep depravation. So I made these cookies,  at least it wasn’t the least tasty thing I could’ve done.

            Lexi knocked on my door at 8:30, when we were due to meet up. I still hadn’t put my shorts on so I answered the door in my tights and top. Thank everything that it was her and not one of the many different people who just let themselves into our flat to do I couldn’t even tell you. After reading that you might think there is a flaw in my logic, they let themselves in, they wouldn’t be knocking, but you would be wrong, I am writing under the impression that they gained some manners and implemented a courtesy knock. Anyway, back on point, I let Lexi in and started rambling on an apology as to the fact that I am running late and also saying we have to go to the hall office and print out our ticket for the bus. I quickly finish getting ready, neglecting the application of my makeup, we were out the door by 8:40 and almost ran over the hall office.

            Up on the third floor sitting at the out dated Microsft computers everything went wrong. Now I know that my id was correct and my password matched perfectly and Lexi swears the same thing, but that old, poor excuse for a computer desktops would not let either one of log in. We would just have to pray that they would print it out for us at the coach way, which by the way, neither Lexi nor me had any idea were it was. So, we just hopped on the U1 and asked the driver which stop to get off of and how to get to the coach way from where we were to get off. He was very helpful but we still ended up having to find the place ourselves, luckily Lexi knew what the building looked like otherwise I don’t think we would have been able to find it.

            At the coach way we went to the ticket counter which was this grubbing little room that two people and the counter barely fit in. He did not look to pleased to have to print our tickets, he was rolling his eyes the entire time and my cheery thank you when he handed me the ticket was returned with a stone cold stare. Oh well, not my fault he was a sour person.

            Nothing eventful really happened on the coach. We stopped in Burmingham for forty mintues before we changed coaches to continue on the Liverpool. We got lunch at the sation and then just sat there and talked for about twenty extras minutes due to the fact that our coach was running late. Our late departure combined with the traffic we later encountered on the road due to the immense amount of people on the road for rush our we were over an hour late arriving into Liverpool which meant that we were not going to be able to get The Beatles Story museum done on Friday and that we would have to wake up even earlier to make sure we had time for it on Saturday.

            Not knowing where we were in relations to our hostel we ended up having to get in a cab which I was really put off by seeing as I believe that cabs are just petty thiefs. But we did get to our hostel fairly easily and it only cost us eight pounds total so split between Lexi and I it wasn’t that bad. Still not too pleased because once we got to the hostel it was no where near as out of the way as the lady at the coachway made it out to be, but whatever, it is over and done with now.

            The hostel was very cute and probably the nicest one that I have been in so far. It was Beatles themed with posters on the walls and the hallways named after songs (we stayed in the “Penny Lane” hall). The rooms were really nice too, the bathroom didn’t scare me and was in the room and it looked like it had actually been cleaned sometime during this year, it even looked like it had been cleaned sometime during that day. That hostel has probably now spoiled me.

            It was around six o’clock by now and both Lexi and I were starting to get hungry. So we went down to Albert Dock which was really close to our hostel and also really close to the ocean which meant that even though I was bundled up like an eskimo I was so cold that I couldn’t stop shivering. We ended up going into the first place we saw which ended up being the most American style restaurant we could’ve gone in. I mean it was a straight up sports bar except that the food was edible.

            On the dock there was this Ferris wheel and Lexi was obsessed with going on it and I was just concerned about getting warm so after a while of convincing me that it did in fact have heat I finally agreed to go. In the end it was really worth it. It was beautiful and I love heights so seeing all of Liverpool lit up at night was a really fun experience.

            As soon as we got back to the hostel, despite the fact that the lights were still on and it was only eleven I just fell right to sleep but only after I had put on my yoga pants over my tights, my pj shirt, and my sweater over that and tightly wrapped myself up in the blanket. I don’t really handle being cold to well. 

A Thai Thursday

            Why do I insist on not going to bed a reasonable hours in this country? I feel like the majority of my posts have, at least somewhere within each one, I complain about the weather or mention the fact that I didn’t get any sleep the night before. Where do the hours go in this country? It seems one moment I will look at the clock and it will seven o’clock and then next time I look over it’s way it will be proudly stating that it is three in the morning. Oh. I’ll proclaim. I have to be up in five hours. Maybe I should go on a caffeine cleanse. Yeah, no that’s never going to happen. Not because I am addicted but because I enjoy the taste way too much and I also think my professors would find it disrespectful if I started sleeping in their lectures. I mean I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it would fly over too well with any of them. I could hold a survey to figure which of them minded and which didn’t and then use the ones who don’t mind to catch up on the hours of sleep that I have missed. Fun fact though, people only carry their sleep depravations for something like two weeks before they no longer affect you. The person who explained it to me made it make sense, unlike the way I am writing it. Enough about sleep and the fact that even though it is only three in the afternoon on Friday (the next day) I could go to bed for the night. I am so tempted to just fall asleep but the amount of work that I have to do is just weighing down on me causing me to stay up and plug on even though my eyelids are drooping.

            Enough nonsense about sleep, it really isn’t that important, but it took up the space I would have used to talk about the first half of my day, which was basically nothing. I showered I ate cheese and tomato on bread (what has come to be my staple diet in this country, but don’t feel bad for me, it isn’t as bland as it sounds, I add flavour with balsamic vinegar and enough salt to make the sea envious. My blood pressure must be sky rocketing.), drank coffee, well I say coffee I actually had about six shots of Italian espresso, only the best to keep me energised during the day. After that was all completed I sat down at my desk and stared at my computer screen trying to figure out how to tackle all of the work I had to do. That didn’t really work well, I spent so much timing thinking about all that I had to do and how tired I was that I ended up getting barley anything done for the first two hours of the three that I had planned to work before my dinner plans would start having to be attended to.

By the time hour three had passed I had gotten a little bit done and even though I had gotten a text saying that dinner was going to be pushed back an hour I didn’t continue working. Instead I did something that I never do. I took a nap. For the large amount that I talk about how sleepy I am I never nap. That is probably why I am so tired though, so maybe if I did nap I wouldn’t always be talking about how tired I am. So, I turned off all my lights, opened up my itunes and started playing Andrew Bird’s album at such a low volume that even though I was right next to my laptop I could barely hear it. During my nap at seven o’clock at night had to have been when everyone suddenly decided that I was popular. While I asleep I heard someone screeming my name from the kitchen, one shouting at my from the hallway and two people come into my room who then saw I was asleep and then immediately shut the door and left. Nobody ever seems to want to talk to me that much when I am awake.

            Eight finally rolled around which means I can start going into detail about this dinner I keep mentioning. Earlier in the day my friend text me and said, “Would you like it if I made Thai Green Curry tonight?” to which I responded, “Yes, yes I would.” He had been talking about this Thai Green Curry since the first night I met him, promising to make it sometime soon. So, a good month and a half later we finally had plans for him to make it. Everyone in my flat was ecstatic, and most of us were pitching in something for the meal. Cassie made these grilled tomatoes and I made a cauliflower dish and chocolate chip cookies. All of us together working in our flat kitchen was really nice, hectic, but nice. We were all taking pictures and laughing and goofing off but despite that the meal turned out fantastically. Since we ate all of the chocolate chip cookies while we were cooking we had for desert this toffee pudding which was accidently left in the oven too long so it was burnt pretty badly on the top but the inside was still nice and gooey.

After all that was said and done, everyone’s plates pretty much licked clean, the sink overflowing with pots and pans and dished and cups, our stomachs full and our eyes sleepy, we all just sat in the comfy chairs in the kitchen pretty much quiet for a while before we all went back to our rooms and turned in for the night.

At about one in the morning I realised that I hadn’t packed yet for Liverpool the following morning. So I closed my computer and started sloppily throwing some clothes and things into my brown travel bag before crawling back into bed and then immediately falling straight to sleep. The next day was going to be a long one.

Terrible Tuesday

I hate group projects. I think they are designed by the government to break students spirits at a young age so that we never get the idea in our head to band together and revolt against the system. Why would this work you might ask? Because that would be classified as a “group project” and we were all taught at a young age that those are actually hell on Earth.

Monday everyone in my group meet up and we all went over what we were going to do and then each of us would make changes and pass the powerpoint around, meet up the next day before lecture and decided who would say what. Nobody did anything. So it was two hours before the lecture was going to start and we had a fifty percent chance of getting our names called to present. Oh yeah, and one of our group members wasn’t there while the other one was just on his phone to entire time making no contributions whatsoever. I growing more and more anxious and my stress level was rising to new and fantastic heights to the point were it was visible on my face the mental breakdown that I was currently having. Half an hour before we had to leave for the lecture we finally called our missing partner. He was sick and not coming to the lecture. Now I really began to panic, he was the one on point for one of the key slide which meant we all new the overview for why it was in there but he was the one who could talk about it and make it sound highly intelligent. Ecstatic, one of our group members proclaimed, “This is fantastic! It means we don’t have to go today!” No. We all have been in college for too long to know that just because one person was missing it wouldn’t be good enough, because if a group was called we would have to go whether we were ready or not.

            So we arrive at the lecture, our presentation sloppily thrown together and wait outside in a hope to corner the professor before she comes in and plead our cause. We end up catching here, making our point as professional as possible but there was no use hiding the panic in our eyes. She saw our concern, and I think no professor wants anyone to do poorly when the chance of them succeeding is optional, so she agreed, we would not be called that day, we would go next lecture session.   

            The lecture was miserable, the people who went, the calibre of their presentations was outstanding, if we had gone, well I don’t even want to think about that. The quality of what we had, compared to theirs? Ours was atrocious.

            That lecture had to have been the longest two hours of my life. All I wanted to do the entire time was just go back to my room, curl up in my bed and just go to sleep, I didn’t want to think anymore about how if we had gone that day my grade would have taken such a wound that it probably would not have been able to be recovered. I just wanted to leave. But I couldn’t. It was now my job to get on everyone and make sure they did their work. So I did what I should have done in the first place, our at least someone in the group should have done, I delegated, I facebook messaged everyone in the group and assigned them a task and told them to complete it because this was not going to happen again. Next class we were going to be prepared and we were going to get a good grade and each person in that group was going to pull their own weight and if they didn’t I would make sure that the professor knew who was slacking and who wasn’t. I hate it when I have to do things like that.

            The rest of the day was just exhausting. Once I got back to my flat from my second lecture I was pleased to see that Cassie, Olly and Adam had made pasta salad and had waited for me to get back before they ate it. So I sat down with them, ranted a little bit about what had happened to me today, stuffed my mouth and then just relaxed. I was just so done with that day. All I wanted to do was just continue to sit and the kitchen table, eat and talk with good friends. So, that’s exactly what I did.

            Despite the stress of the day, it ended on a pretty good note. 

A Dinner at my Aunts.

            About once a week my Aunt Catherine calls me up to check in on me and ask how lectures are going and how I am doing on a whole. You see my Aunt and Uncle live here in Oxford, which is why calling me is something that they can financially due unlike anyone who calls me from the states.

            Which takes me off topic for a moment. Firday some friends and I were at a pub for dinner. We were all laughing and talking and having a lot of fun when my phone starts to ring. Slightly confused because I’m with pretty much all the people who ever text or call me and my Aunt usually calls during the day, so I pulled out my phone. It was my mother’s American phone that was calling me. I immediately began to panic, which caused me not to answer in time for me to pick up the call. I got up from the table and went outside and tried to call her back, no answer. More and more worried because we had decided early on that I wasn’t going to call the states and if I did it would only be in a dire emergency. So, I was freaking out. After not being able to reach my mom I went back inside and told everyone I would have to go back to the flat and Skype her. I was in a panic, it was pretty clear on my face. Cleverly on my friends part he just looked at me and said in probably the most calming voice I have ever heard, “Here, take my coat and just go stand right there. I will watch you from here.” I nodded, took his coat and went outside. Standing out in the rain, thankfully shielded by a hood, which I was not so lucky to have on the walk over here, I reached my mother. Although I was calmer there was still a bit of panic in my voice when I said hello when she answered the phone. “Hi mom?” “Yeah Honey, what’s up?” “Well you called me…” “Oh I did? Well I’m sorry; I must have just but dialled you. I hope you’re having fun talk to you later!”. No big deal. She just but dialled me. Thank you mother for send me into a panic. I walked back in and give my friend back his coat and shook my head and said it was just an accident. Just an accident, still sent me into a panic though, I had come up with some of the worst possible scenarios for why my mother was calling me, but no, it was just an accident.

            So, back to my Aunt. Earlier in the week she had called me up to check in on me and invite me to dinner. Now, once I get something in my head it becomes very hard to eradicate, so for some reason I had convinced myself that Lexi and I were going to Liverpool this weekend. When my Aunt called me on Monday and asked me how I was and if I wanted to come over for dinner. So I told her, “Well I am going to Liverpool on Friday and getting back late on Saturday night, but I could do Sunday.” Sunday night at seven was planned. I was in for a shock however when I walked into Dr. Forsyth’s class, saw Lexi and proclaimed, “Are you excited for Liverpool this weekend?” Her face went white as a sheet and she said, “No that would be next weekend, I’m going to Italy this weekend, did you book the right tickets?” I paused for a moment. Oh. She was right it was next weekend. Egg on face, I had been telling everyone I was going to Liverpool this weekend.

            Most of Sunday during the day was filled with homework. I have a group presentation due on Tuesday for my film lecture and the people in my group have been far less than easy to get together. And when we did finally get together we got no work done and ended up pushing really getting into the work until Monday at one, yeah, the day before we present. I think group presentations are more to see how patient people really are and how much they can take before they snap.

            Around six my Aunt called me and told me my Uncle (My mom’s brother) would be around to pick me up within the next half hour. Since I was ready I just sat in the kitchen with its new wood floors and Skyped, my best friend from home, Camryn. Now, when we Skype we can get kind of crazy. Basically we passed the time by playing Beyoncé’s “Countdown” and dancing to it in front of the webcam. Yeah, we had a straight three-minute dance session despite the fact that we are on opposite sides of the world. Only after we were done I realized the curtains were open and someone probably walked by and saw what probably appeared to them as some girl having a seizure in front of a computer screen.

            Once the song was over and me and Camryn were just sitting there laughing I grabbed my coat, told Camryn goodbye and walked out the back door of my flat onto the slightly damp grass and made my way up the road where I promptly met my uncle in his tiny, black, VW. My Uncle is such a funny man, very tall, very monotone, and very intelligent. Sometimes you can’t help it when your eyes glaze over while he is talking, but don’t get me wrong he is a very sweet man.

            Dinner was kind of quite, my aunt asked me how everything was going while I did my best not scarf down the first really good meal I have had in ages. It was a baked potato, beef strips, and this been and vegetable medley, with an apple crumble and custard for desert.  I should have one a medal for eating that mouth watering meal politely while making conversation. They asked me all the questions that parents normal ask and I watched their mouths drop as I recounted the mould story to them. Once I had finished and told them that the new room were much nicer and slightly bigger my Aunt just said, “Well that’s good, those other rooms were much to small for a person anyway.”

            The night and the week ended with a good meal and nice visit with nice people, what a better way to start off the new week?

A Trip to London on a Thursday

For my art course we have to write a paper analysing a work of art so to help us with that the entire course was paid for and taken to London instead of the Thursday lecture.

Waking up at seven in the morning to make sure that I would make it over to the coach in time I wasn’t so pleased. I had been up late the night before finishing off homework for my film module. (It was actually pretty interesting; it involved reading these articles that the professor posted on Moodle about various going ons in the film industry world and then commenting on them to create lively discussions and debates.) So when I was still reading and discussing and then glanced over at the time to see that it was about three in the morning all that popped in my head was, “Well tomorrow is not going to be very fun.” I finished up my point, closed my laptop, made a face at the clock and then just feel right to sleep.

Knowing how terrible my morning would be I forced myself to get out of bed when my alarm went off at seven. Pretty much rolling out of bed and with my eyes half open, I dragged myself to the shower. I don’t think I fully opened my eyes till the water hit my skin, I had braced myself the night before for the horror that today would bring but standing in the shower I found myself weighing the options. Should I go? I don’t think they are going to take attendance. It’s a big lecture, the professor doesn’t know my name. I could just go back to sleep and Google the paintings. No, I won’t, it is a free trip to London, I will just drink coffee, it will not be so bad once I get moving. Back in my room I realized the sun was just starting to rise, it’s never a good thing to wake up before the sun, if you can beat the earliest riser, you aren’t sleeping enough.

Pulling on my clothes I slowly but surely began to make myself presentable for the day. Drinking about six shots of espresso I found myself still exhausted, but the exhaustion you get when you are so wired on caffeine that you couldn’t sleep even if you tried.

Trudging along to meet the coach I find myself thinking that if I just walked a little bit slower they would leave without me, it wouldn’t really be my fault and there would be nothing I could do about it except go back to my room. However, I refrained. I continued to walk up the hill and reached the group well before we were due to depart.

With the knowledge that I knew absolutely no ones names in the course I sent myself out on a mission to make a friend before we boarded the bus. I ended up trying to strike up this one conversation with a girl with bright red hair but she just didn’t seem to interested. Instead I ended up making friends with this girl names Ann. Ann was incredibly sweet, a native Norwegian sometimes I found myself not understanding what she was saying so I would just nod and smile. She was a good buddy throughout the day, it was very easy to talk to her and despite the fact that we spent most of the day in silence it was never uncomfortable.

We ended up not leaving campus till 9:30 despite the fact that we were due to leave at 9. The bus ride in wasn’t bad at all; I ended up sleeping for the majority of it, and was woken up by a lovely pain shooting down my neck from sleeping on it wrong. And then we arrived in London.  London is fantastic. I found myself walking down the street just loving everything about it. I love the dirty sidewalks, the people, the air smelling like gasoline and cigarettes, the rude bus drivers, and the homeless men harassing me for spare change. Well maybe love is a strong word, I don’t mind it, I am truly not bothered by it. There is never a dull moment and if there is all you have to do is walk down a block to find the next bit of entertainment. This place smiles and has this air about it that if the walls could talk, oh the stories it would tell.

Walking down the street we came to the first museum but because the coach had ran late we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in it. I was lucky enough to see some Manet pieces (My favourite painter) before me and Ann went down to the coffee shop where I drank other espresso while she had a mouth watering looking piece of lemon and poppy seed cake. If I had know her better I would have asked for a bit but I was smart enough to catch the words before they left my lips.

Eager to move onto the next museum we made our way to the meeting point to wait for the rest of the students in the course to arrive. When we began out walk I was blown away by the design of the building and of the city itself. The contrast between this almost space age, modern looking buildings and the ones that have been around as long as the country are almost comical to look at.

            The third museum we went to was the Tate Modern. Now, I do like some modern art but when a man gashes a hole in the canvas and tries to come up with some deeper meaning to it all I have to say is he probably really got angry at a perfectly good canvas because he realized he had no artist talent and then proceeded to ruin it making sure that no one would be able to create anything beautiful with it. I like art with talent.

            By then end of the trip I was exhausted and the three hours it took to get out of London did nothing for my mood. Meaning the second I finally made it back to the flat, a good two hours after we were supposed to, I just went in my room, watched a movie, ate some food and just went to sleep with out a word to anyone else.