Resolutions are Made to be Broken

I am the type of person who likes to make lists or write down random thoughts purely so that I can find them a few months later when I am stressing out or bored, read them, and laugh at myself. Case in point, my list of New Years Resolutions for this year. I know myself, and I know that I am not good at New Years Resolutions, yet for some strange reason I always seem to make them if only to acknowledge the fact that there are things in my life that I would like to change, but probably wont, due to lack of will power or sheer love of sugar. This year I made a list:

1. Stop eating so much chocolate, just because it is better in this country does not mean it is ok to over indulge (having a bar a day just makes you fat).
2. Stop eating so many bisuctts, just because you buy a sleave does not mean they should all be eaten in one sitting (that again makes you fat).
3. Eat more fruit (good snack to replace the chocolate and biscutts)
4. Blog more.

Well as you have probably already realised that the last one failed miserably. I have been terrible about blogging this term, and for that I appoligise. I had nothing that interesting to write about. So sue me for not wanting to bore you.

The only one I have not failed so far is eating more fruit. My mom will be happy to hear that fruit consumption is at an all time high, especially if you consider orange juice a fruit. It is more than likely that in the past two weeks I have consumed a lifetime supply of vitamin C in my thus far successful attempt to avoid the plague that it seems everyone I know has come down with recently. If I could will myself healthy I would, but since I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work I’ve been eating tons and tons of fruit instead.

The problem with my fruit consumption is that even though it we have seen an increase, it has not effected a decrease in my consumption of chocolate and biscuitts. Instead there are three lovely new additions to my junk food repitoire: Haribo, Mini Eggs, and Cadbury Cream Eggs. Unfortunately, as I knew it would, my sweet tooth yet again beat out my will to be healthy, skinny, and not on a constant sugar high like a five year old. This year I will blame it on the fact that the junk I’m eating in this country will not be accessible after I leave in July. But I’m pretty sure next year I’ll find another excuse next year to justify my consumption of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with every meal in Kimball, excessive muffin consumption from Cool Beans, or the lovely cure to stress that is Twix.

I have now come to terms witht the fact that I have a sweet tooth that will probably make me obese in a few year. Maybe I’ll try giving up sweets for Lent in a month, and this will help me outgrow them. But I only have access to these novelties until July, so then again maybe I wont.

Two countries divided by a common language

Since my last post I’ve been home and back. I finally made it home the Tuesday before Christmas and have enjoyed a nice holiday with the family. Over the past three weeks I have eaten my weight in food due to the excessive eating does not stop after Christmas. Instead we go to Vermont to ski the day after Christmas and stay with my grandparents who feed us a ridiculous amount of delicious food all week (this year my Nana even made full Thanksgiving dinner because she felt bad that I’d missed the real thing). I’ve also seen about 5 different doctors for various things, enjoyed some lovely skiing on real snow, caught up with friends from home and college, did some necessary post Christmas shopping, and seen a number of great movies (Black Swan, True Grit, and King's Speech are all epic and should be seen by everyone).

As I am now across the pond again and busy revising for exams, I figured it would be a good idea to assess what I learned in my first term abroad at York. But let’s be honest, no one actually wants to hear about my academics (don’t worry I have learned things, but a blog about Inorganic Chemistry or the British colonies in India in the 19th century wouldn’t really be all that interesting). Instead I thought it might be a good time to discuss the differences between the UK and US, mainly the language. I have compiled a very incomplete list of some terms and phrases that are used in the UK that are either not used in the US at all or used very differently. I will attempt to define/describe them as best I can, but even after three months some of these still have me a bit confused.

1. Fancy dress: If someone were to invite you to an event that is fancy dress, as an America one might assume that this meant a jacket and tie occasion or something of the sort. That person would be gravely mistaken, fancy dress means costume party! And they are a frequent occurrence. It isn’t like American college life where there is the standard Halloween party and occasional theme party, but here almost every time people go out they seem to have a theme. Fun, but unless you are creative this hobby can get a little expensive.

2. Pulling: This term has nothing to do with the act of applying force to an object causing it to move towards you. Instead it is a synonym for the American term ‘hook up’ and contains the same ambiguity. Easy enough once you are actually informed of this, very confusing otherwise.

3. Press ups: same things as the American ‘push ups’. This one was learned very shortly after joining YUsnow, since whenever you say M.I.N.E. you are forced to do them.

4. Banter: This was harder concept to grasp since, from what I can understand, it seems to have multiple meanings. It can either be used to refer to witty exchanges of playful (usually) abuse as seen when referring to ‘friendly banter’. It can also be used as a standalone exclamation of sorts that denotes the previous occurrence of a witty comment or socially awkward and unacceptable occurrence.

5. Chunder: same as ‘being sick’ or ‘throwing up’, seems to be only used in jest or in reference to the youtube video “Gap Yah”, a necessary watch in order to understand many things...it was very educational. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU

6. Take away: same as ‘take out’ food, easy enough.

7. Z: Yes you did read that correctly, I did include the letter ‘Z’ in my list. This is because they pronounce it very differently, which is funny because it’s a letter and the pronunciation is so different that it cannot be blamed on accent alone. We pronounce it /zi/, they pronounce it /zɛd/.

8. Fair dues: some people use this phrase very frequently, means ‘fair enough’.

9. Cheeky: you might think that this is a word used mostly by old people when referring to crazy young folk when they are acting out. Nope, in the UK it a very frequently used word that seems to be used in reference to various different things that normally wouldn’t seem all that cheeky. It here is used with the connotation of being sly and mischievous but can be used to describe what seems like anything. People are cheeky, alcoholic drinks are ‘cheeky beverages’, the phrase cheeky monkey seems to be used to describe people, and a bunch of other thing that are completely random seem to be cheeky but I’m having trouble recalling them at the moment.

10. Lad: another tough one to define. The closest you get in the US is the stereotype of a bro, but they are definitely not the same thing. According to www.truelad.com defined as ‘beer chugging, banter loving, footie watching, womanizing man -a LAD’. In real life these can be the guys that look out for their friends, enjoy their lad’s nights out, act like idiots occasionally, and can sometimes be jerks but it’s all just friendly banter. Lad can also be used as an exclamation (like hahaha…LAD!) directed at someone, and is more of an acknowledgement of good banter.

So there it is, a compilation of what I have learned so far at York in regards to linguistics. Hopefully next blog post will actually be about my new and exciting adventures because as of right now the extent of my excitement has been studying in the library with Steph, and aggravating Laura.

Murphy's Law

So yesterday was by far the worst day I’ve had since coming to this country all thanks to the UK’s complete inability to deal with snow. After waking up at 6 so I could get a taxi at 7 to the train station for my train to York I arrived in London to some slight flurries. It did not seem to be sticking, but there was panic in the air so I called my parents despite the fact that it was about 5.30 in the morning their time to ask them to check if my flight had been canceled. I was told that it was still on time and my Dad reassured me that the snow would not be lasting into the afternoon so because my flight shouldn’t be effected. He was right about the snow stopping by about 1.30, but little did he know that because of 3ish inches of snow London would stop functioning. So I was pacified for the moment, and decided to kill an hour in the British Library because I had arrived much earlier than was necessary.

An hour later when I emerged from the library it was snowing harder in the nice, fluffy, romantic Christmassy snow it does when it the temperature is hovering just below freezing and there isn’t much wind so it is just gently drifting down. So I didn’t worry that much, took some Christmassy pictures, and made my way to the underground so I could travel up to Heathrow. There was announcement made in the underground station that people should call ahead to their airlines to check on the status of their flights because there were some cancelations or delays, but my Dad had checked with them only an hour and a half before then so I wasn’t that worried. The train ride seemed fine until it made an announcement halfway through the journey that we would be going a little slower due to the snow, but I had time so I thought nothing of it.

Then just before the last stop before Heathrow the train in a long tunnel we came to a sudden stop (like emergency break, I fell over, sudden), and an announcement was made that there was something wrong with the signaling and we would be waiting for some staff to walk down the tracks to us to fix it and not to worry. The train was also filling with smoke/dust and smelled of burnt rubber, but we were reassured that this was because of the sudden breaking. At this point I was starting to panic because this meant I would be really rushed once we actually got into Heathrow. We ended up stuck in the tunnel for two hours, and after some tears and a few false starts we were finally going again. We finally got to the last stop before Heathrow and we were told that it would be best if we got off because the train would not be continuing in the foreseeable future.

So I got off the train with a girl from Madrid who I had made friends with on the train, and we went upstairs to try and get a bus or cab. We were told at this point that everything in Heathrow was delayed or canceled until at least 4 so we need not worry about missing our flights, but we were now concerned that we would never actually make it to Heathrow. We waited in the snow for a while for a bus, but were eventually told the buses going to Heathrow terminals were closed due to the snow. There were no cabs around, so we tried calling some companies all who told us that they were either booked or closed. The girl from Spain even tried stopping cars in the street. Eventually we were told that the trains were running again, so we got on the train grateful to be eventually making it to Heathrow.

Heathrow was a complete mad house, with major traffic jams and giant masses of very upset people rushing in all directions. By now I discovered that there was nothing going out for the rest of the day, and after calling my Dad I was told I was booked onto a flight for Tuesday and had a hotel reservation back near Kings Cross station (all calls I’d been making to my parents all day had been in a massive panic that my phone would die at any minute because the roaming in the underground for 2 hours killed my battery and I forgot my charger).

I now needed to make my way back into London, and because of my bad experience with the underground and an announcement that the Heathrow express train into the city was shut down I tried to find a cash point so I could grab a taxi back. After wandering through the crowds with all of my luggage I gave up on this pursuit and resigned myself to a long underground journey back. I made my way back to the underground and took a very crowded train back to Kings Cross and finally made my way to the hotel. Finally at a little before 8.00 pm I was checked into a warm hotel room, with internet access, and a phone charger they let me borrow.

So the long day is finally over, and I’m now ready to spend some time exploring a Christmassy London because really with all of this snow, it really is just like Christmas.

Snow and Scottish Adventures

First off, if you didn’t know we have gotten a lot of snow here (at least for England’s standards and really for New England’s as well if you consider how early it is). Starting on Thanksgiving it literally snowed every day for a week, and I’m not sure the exact amount of snow we have received but I’m thinking near a foot. It has been really lovely and has led to much sledging (yes they pronounce that ‘g’ so it sounds like ‘hedge’), snowball fighting, and excitement amongst everyone here because apparently we got more snow in one week than is usually received in an entire winter.

The one down side has been that they really don’t know what to do with the snow once they get it. The roads become terrible and the paths around campus although sometimes sanded are generally pretty slippy (apparently it isn’t ‘slippery’ here) or full of slush. This led to the most ironic thing I’ve experienced here so far, a cancelation of a ski training because...wait for it...there was too much snow. I kid you not; we could not train because apparently if you get more than an inch of snow the roads are not easily traversed so the drive to Manchester was out of the question.

Luckily this snow did not prevent me and X from taking a lovely trip with the ERASMUS society up to Edinburgh for the weekend. There were no fanny packs involved unfortunately, but we had a really nice time. The two of us decided that because we were traveling in a group of 50 people it would probably be easier if during our free time we went off on our own to do some exploring and because of this decision it was a weekend filled with some great adventures and ridiculousness that could only happen to the two of us. We arrived on Friday and decided to wander off down the Royal Mile into Grassmarket. Along the way we had our first amusing encounter of the evening with these two very drunk men came up to X while we were both taking pictures of St. Guiles and tried very enthusiastically to explain to us the history and importance of the Heart of Midlothian which we were apparently missing out on and wouldn’t understand because it was covered by the snow. They also tried to explain the source of human life and a few other entertaining things before moving on. We then enjoyed a lovely American style pizza (not actually terrible which was good) and decided to go on a little adventurous pub crawl.

The first pub we entered after first hearing loud music coming from inside and seeing a sign advertising a live band. We disregarded the fact that said pub was Irish and not Scottish and went inside. This first pub was nice and the band was good, playing a weird mixture of old school country music, traditional Irish songs, and a few Christmas songs thrown in for good measure. After a while we figured it would be a good idea to just go back to the hostel and we assumed that the others would probably have already turned in because we had a big day of touring ahead of us. We were wrong.

Upon arriving back at our room in the hostel we realized we were the first back. We decided that it was necessary to ‘not be lame’ and go back out and do some more exploring. This led to us first following a group of what looked like Uni students into a club that turned out to be a little too punk for our taste. So after looking around briefly we were about to head back to the hostel when we were approached by a group of students visiting from Ireland looking for a club ‘Dropkick Murphy’s’. Obviously we had no idea where this was, but we decided to follow this large group of students to this club they seemed really desperate to go to, because obviously that means it must be good. Wrong. Despite the fact that it claimed that it was a club, it was in fact a very large rugby bar (yes I would accidently wander into one, that’s just how my life works) that was in a cave under a bridge with a ceiling that leaked, but apparently this was the place where all the ‘cool kids’ went because it was soon filled with a large number of University of Edinburgh students. We ended up enjoying ourselves dancing to the live band that was playing a strange mix of some old school music and country. But all in all despite the randomness and occasional creeps it was a very good first night.

Saturday was extremely busy. We had a lovely full Scottish breakfast complete with haggis (nice) and black pudding (not so nice), and then went on a really great walking tour throughout the city and ended up our tourist experience with an audio tour of the Palace of Hollyroodhouse. We then found ourselves in the midst of another adventure.

With about two hours to kill before dinner time, I decided that we should wander into the park area right near the palace that our tour guide earlier said was lovely. I spotted some people climbing a path along this hill/rock formation and it looked like we would get a very nice view from up there. I was apparently not thinking about the fact that paths like these were more than likely completely covered in snow, but just saw other people up there and assumed I could get there as well. Wrong. X and I got about 200ft up this path which was snow covered but still manageable when we encountered a problem, neither of us were able to move in any direction because we had suddenly lost all traction and two guys were sledging down the path directly at us. Thankfully they swerved and missed us, but that did not prevent me from accidently sledging myself. We then decided to take the path less traveled (it seemed to have more snow and less ice) and made it far enough that we could get a few nice photos in of the sunset before slowly making our way down. After dinner the entire ERASMUS group went on an attempted pub crawl that was a bit strange, and did again involved me wandering the streets of Edinburgh looking for somewhere that looked exciting, but ended up being a really good time.

Sunday after another full Scottish breakfast (this time with no black pudding), X and I spent the day touring the Edinburgh Castle which was really amazing. I think by the end of it we were a little bit exhausted (I may be one of those annoying people that listen to every single thing an audio tour has to offer…not a big deal). We therefore spent the late afternoon doing some shopping (of the window variety mostly) and enjoying the German Christmas market where we did buy some chocolates and a pretzel. All in all it turned out to be a lovely weekend, and Edinburgh is a really amazing city which I could definitely tell last time I went, but can appreciate much more now.

Sorry for the excessively long blog post. I’ll post some of the pictures later, but for now I’ve got to get my academic hat back on, stop procrastinating and buckle down for the last two weeks of term.

KMT

Thanksgiving Pictures

Snow dusting...a wonderful thing to wake up to!

Thanksgiving chocolates from Massachusetts (aka Thanksgiving Land)

My Turkey

The dinner turned out well....

Alexandra and some YUSnowers in head dresses.

Overall a lovely Thanksgiving!!!

Post Thanksgiving Blues

I usually spend Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, waking up absurdly early to go to the Manchester, VT outlets stores with my mom, sister, and grandma. It is a fairly typical Black Friday extreme shopping experience, which starts out fun for the first store (usually Betsey Johnson) but then becomes more and more tedious, especially when we are dragged to at least 10 different stores before 10am. I did not think that I would miss this tradition as shopping is definitely not on my 'Top 10 Favourite Things To Do List'. When thinking about Thanksgiving earlier this week, I definitely thought that I would suffer from some severe pangs of homesickness as I missed out on the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Dog Show (I don’t understand why we keep watching that every year, but alas it happens and therefore I thought I would miss it), being around my family, and the Thanksgiving dinner/extreme pie fest of a dessert. I did not think that I would feel anything at all on Black Friday, honestly Black Friday didn’t even cross my mind until I saw people’s facebook statuses discussing waking up early to go shopping (some of these were posted before I woke up in England, and I didn’t even wake up late this morning….not ok).

As it turns out I was horribly wrong. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in England. It started with me waking up at 9 to look outside at a wonderful snow covered campus (only a dusting, but hey I’m in England and the people that informed me that that wouldn’t happen were sadly mistaken). I starting to cook by 10, and I spent the rest of the day preparing a Thanksgiving meal that ended up feeding 15 people (that is more than normally get fed when I’m at home…I felt so domestic). I put my Christmas music on in the kitchen as I spent the day making turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, roast potatoes, and green beans. Alexandra, who is also from Holy Cross, came over around 1.00 and we got to hang out and cook until a number of people from the YUSnow racing team came over at around 4.30. With all the craziness of making that much food, and then getting to eat a meal that did not turn out to be a disaster like I was afraid of and enjoying the company of some lovely friends I did not feel nearly as sad or homesick as I expected to feel (we even got to eat some cheesecake which I’d been craving for nearly 3 weeks).

This morning however was a different story. I woke up and there was again a nice dusting of snow on the ground and trees. It seemed like the beginning of a wonderful day, and after going on facebook to see I had crazy friends in America that were already up and shopping I felt good about my life. But there was a small and growing part of me that realized I really wished I was in New England rather than the old one. It started to manifest itself when I walked to the library and almost had a complete wipe out (salting capabilities are nowhere near as good as they are in Vermont or HC). Then a few hours into my library studying time an irrational desire to go shopping started to take over, and I was no longer able to concentrate history text I was supposed to be reading. I figured this irrational thought (I hate shopping as a general rule) could be kicked by planning a shopping outing for Sunday afternoon (I need to get legwarmers and some other things for an 80’s themed social on Monday). However, I found that this did not work and my need to go shopping turned into a general desire to be in Vermont. I knew I wouldn’t have dared to look at my school work and reading until at least Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend had I been at home. I had a plan however…a chocolate break, chocolate should make me appreciate the fact that I’m in England as it is much better than at home. Alas, this plan failed as well, so I’ve been stuck in the library contemplating shopping and now skiing on real snow. I’m realizing now that there is no exciting holiday between now and when I go home for Christmas to keep me distracted, instead there is an increasing work load and just enough snow to make me long for Bromley. And that is why your delinquent blogger decided that she would post today.

Later, when I’ve decided to give up on the library and I’m back in my room maybe you’ll even get some lovely pictures from Thanksgiving. Some of us were even wearing feather headdresses (I know this is only done by children under the age of 8, but with the fancy dress culture here I figured it deserved revival).

Hopefully a healthy dose of Christmas music, and possibly a Christmas movie will help sort me out later.

xx
KMT

Libraries, Cheesecake, and Back Buckle Boots

I apologise for my terrible lack of blogging for the past month. Ive been quite busy getting settled here and once I actually started to get assigned work it seems I have forgotten about blogging. I’ve gotten very well acquainted with the library here in the past few weeks, I almost feel like I’m back at Holy Cross with the amount of time I’ve been spending there (or "here" as that is where I am posting this from...just a little break from some lovely essay writing).

So since my last blog I’ve actually started to get involved in things on campus. At the Fresher’s Fair I did the usual sign up for a million things that you will never go to because they all fall on the same day. But I have now whittled my way down to a few main societies that I will actually participate in: Gilbert and Sullivan Society (we’re performing The Gondoliers in February), ERASMUS Society (basically the European equivalent of study abroad), and most notably so far YUSnow and their racing team.

Ski racing in England is definitely a different experience, biggest difference....the fact that there isn’t snow. It’s been really fun so far though, once I got over the first initial shocks that:
a) I’m basically skiing on turf which isn’t exactly the fastest of surfaces and is really hard to get an edge in.
b) Three words: back buckle boots....I feel like a 3 year old again.

Manchester: Ski Rossendale

Edinburgh: Hillend

The people on the team are so much fun, and really nice to me (despite the fact that I'm American...). Once a week we go skiing on Wednesday afternoons at a dry slope in Manchester. We’ve already had two races so far, one Kings race in Manchester that was dual slalomn and another one called BUDS in Edinburgh last weekend. The trip to Edinburgh was too much fun. We took a mini bus up on Thursday night and spent three nights in a hostel, raced on Friday and Saturday, and came back home on Sunday. There was a ton of silliness, rain (Edinburgh is cold), a stolen banner, a ball that got disbanded before dessert (think masses of college students chanting “Where’s my cheesecake?” as they are kicked out of the building), and general fun. Probably my favourite weekend so far, and I’m really excited to go back to Edinburgh in December to tour it properly (camera/comfortable shoes/optional fanny pack) after getting a glimps of it throughout the weekend.

I’ll try to keep the posts more regular. Hopefully the fact that this is a lovely means of procrastination when I have two procedural essays to write will help.

Kat