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!!!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thanksgiving Pictures
Snow dusting...a wonderful thing to wake up to! Alexandra and some YUSnowers in head dresses.
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
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
Friday, November 12, 2010
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.
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: HillendThe 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
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