Right, so with all the busyness of the end of the term I got REALLY behind on my blog posts. Then, I was in "recovery" mode for about a week. So, you get the last month in one fell swoop. I'll try to hit the highlights and leave out the boring stuff (just for you, Kaitlin).
Week of November 17-23
My endometriosis was really acting up this week, so my first order of business after class and a nap on Monday was making cream cheese brownies. Despite not having proper measuring cups or spoons, they turned out pretty well if the speed with which they disappeared is any indication.
Right after I took this picture, I realized I'd locked my keycard in my room. I had no shoes and no coat, since I don't typically wear those things to the kitchen. The porter at the Ron Cooke Hub refused to let Debbie get the card for me. And I get it's a security issue and all, but there really needs to be a better system for Hes East lockouts. I had to borrow shoes and a cardi from Debbie so I could walk all the way to the Ron Cooke Hub to get the temporary key card. Other students have gone in towels/bathrobes/boxers. Plus, my back was really painful that day, so in all I was NOT a happy camper. The brownies took extra long to bake as one of my flatmates switched off the oven breaker while they were cooking and I didn't realize it until my timer went off and they still weren't baked. *sigh*
This is why everyone is constantly warning us about the rivers. People drown nearly every year from what I've heard.
On Thursday I went to the Relief Society activity with Christmas crafts. There was another craft where wood blocks were painted to be different parts of the nativity, but I decided to stick with the crafts that could be easily packed in a box or suitcase at the end of my year here.
As I was getting ready for bed, I got this text from Kaitlin:
Some things never change ;)
UK universities actually have bars on campus and York is planning a nightclub.
This week was also International Students Week, so I stopped by the coffee/tea chat and ate some of the free chocolate. I also signed the International Students Association's map
When I went to do my laundry that week I found a gummy bear in the washing machine. This is why I always check the machines thoroughly before starting my loads.
Someone appropriated the grocery delivery boxes for laundry baskets.
On my way back from laundry, I noticed the pizza was still sitting on my D1 neighbors rubbish bin from earlier that morning. This was a new low in their unwillingness to dispose of their trash in the waste bin storage area.
Week of November 24-30
While I was at Marks & Spencers getting some other things, I picked up a couple of "luxury yogurts" to try. These are amazing. I wish I had enough money to buy them all the time.
I thought the ripples were pretty.
On November 25th, Constantine College had a "fake Christmas" party in the forum. Everyone was asked to bring something to eat and a 2 pound gift for Secret Santa. Lacking time, I brought a package of chocolate covered biscuits at Nisa and my gift:
The only kind of tape I had was duct tape.
There weren't a lot of people who attended and most people brought desserts so I ate a couple mince pies, and tried stollen and Christmas pudding for the first time. Stollen (not pictured because I ate it) is a fruit cake I can get behind. So yummy.
There was a "lucky" 20p in my Christmas pudding, which was kind of terrible. The "pudding" was more of a glue to hold a mass of raisins and other dried fruit together. At this point, I was worried about my choice of Christmas pudding as dessert at Constantine's Winter Ball the next day.
My team "Gluten-Free Mince Pies" won the quiz. Our prize was a Cadbury heroes selection.
On Wednesday was the Winter Ball. I had a group supervision meeting to go over our ethics applications forms and provide feedback for each other. It went almost an hour longer than scheduled, so I had to rush back and get ready in a hurry. I didn't get to curl my hair like I wanted. Plus, being the first time I'd used a curling wand it was a bit tricky. Curling with a wand is not something you can do quickly without injuring your fingers. I have some nice burn scars to prove it.
After arriving at the Hilton, they weren't ready for us so we waited in the bar for awhile. Then when they were "ready" for us, we checked our coats and headed into another waiting area while they finished setting up the tables. The promised welcome drink had champagne, so the non-drinkers among us had nothing. When we were finally let into the dining room at 8:00pm (the event "started" at 7:00) we were all starving. Food was not coming out in any rush, so we took pictures and opened our Christmas crackers. Mine held a "fortune telling fish", the customary bad joke and paper crown. When the bread finally arrived, we all devoured it in minutes. The only non-alcoholic drink served was water. Typical.
As usual, my head is too big for most hats to do anything but perch on my head. Thanks for that, Alexander genes! So, I didn't wear if for very long.
The menu. I chose the tropical prawn cocktail, turkey roulade, and Christmas pudding.
I noticed this typo from ~3 feet away. Yes, Nicole and Leslie, I can hear you laughing at me.
My prawn cocktail was overcooked, chewy, and rather disappointing. But I ate it because I was so hungry. And tried not to think about the fact it looked a lot like cat food.
This is my "omg I'm bored and starving. Bring out my main course already" face. It took at least 30 minutes between clearing my starter plate and when they began to bring out the main course.
This is the turkey roulade. Better than the prawn cocktail, but the turkey was dry/overcooked and the veggies were bland. The gravy was nice and at least there was bacon. At this point I was regretting choosing to buy a Constantine Winter Ball ticket instead of the International Student Association Winter Ball ticket which was cheaper, catered by ASK Italian, and held in a beautiful historic building. In the interest of gathering information, I timed how long it took between clearing my main course plate and the dessert course.
Blurry, but it still delights me that men have worn kilts to every dressy event I've attended thus far. I mean, I get that it is Britain, but I'm still not entirely used to it.
My ice cream was already mostly melted by the time my dessert arrived, 42 minutes later, so I didn't get a picture of it before I ate it. Thankfully, it defied expectations and was delicious. Didi let me try some of her chocolate tart which was also good. By now it was past 10pm and there was still an "awards" portion of the evening. Tanya, Didi, and I decided to skip out early since we were already tired and had places to be in the morning.
On Friday, I had to be at the health center bright and early to get my Depo Provera shot from the stay-and-wait clinic since there were no contraception clinic appointments for another 2.5 weeks. I wanted to be first in line, so I arrived 30 minutes before they opened. I had a stats workshop later and didn't want to be late because I was a later number in the line. Got in and out in less than 15 minutes and headed over to the Roger Kirk Centre to work on my paper before class.
Even though I had eaten breakfast, I was SO hungry suddenly. So, I got one of the Naked waffles they sell in the cafe. These things are addicting. Yum.
Construction on a path/roadway from the car park down to the substation had started. It's not weird at all to eat breakfast with machinery and a bunch of workers right outside your kitchen window . . .
After my stats workshop and Lara's lecture, she, Keita, and I headed out to get stuff for Thanksgiving. From this trip I learned to never ride the bus to a new store after dark and if you do miss your intended bus stop, don't do so while shopping with a Japanese person and a German person. If you thought I was Type-A-always-punctual-anxious-over-delays, I've got nothing on Keita and Lara together. In the future I don't think I'll go shopping with both of them at the same time. I have learned to accept the bus delays here as inevitable. Them, not so much. We ended up on the bus for over an hour while it circled around to the next Tesco.
We bought an "Extra Large" turkey, ingredients for pumpkin pie (canned pumpkin was in the "American" section), stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc.
The next morning I got up early to prep the turkey and get it in the oven to be cooked by 4pm.
I took my laptop and research for my briefing paper to the kitchen since we're not supposed to leave cooking unattended. Trying to focus on writing a paper while you can smell a turkey cooking is a special kind of torture.
These are my favorite "biscuits" I've discovered so far. I've recently discovered that Starbucks sells packs of mini caramel waffles . . .
Not bad for my first turkey!
Pioneer Woman's stuffing is the best! It's probably better with the cornbread she recommends, but I couldn't find any corn meal at Tesco.
The spread
So much delicious turkey! We had a lot leftover.
The group: my course mate Munzar and Miranda's friend joined us as well
Oops. Forgot to fix the orientation before I uploaded it. Oh well.
My crust slipped down the sides of the dish (no one had a proper pie pan), but in all the pumpkin pie was delicious.
Miranda made an apple pie which was also really good. Nils brought cake and there were brownies.
Nils has said we probably have the cleanest kitchen in Constantine. This is what it looked like shortly after we finished. I'm so lucky to have been assigned such tidy flatmates!
Another student from Constantine organized a "Mo-show" to benefit Movember. They took donations and several musicians performed. Mostly they were good, but whoever was on sound board needed some serious help. Ideally you should be able to hear someone singing and hear their guitar at the same time . . .
It was about this point I told Sam that the SM in me really wanted to go back and help the sound op, but I realized that would be incredibly American of me so I resisted. Mostly. I may have sent some looks back to the group around the sound board.
Our MC for the evening talked about Movember and ways to prevent prostate cancer. His advice was to "use your prostate" either alone or with a friend.
I stuck around for about an hour but then had to go back and work on my paper.
The bridge from Central Hall has blue lights.
On Sunday, I went to church and then went to work finishing my paper which was due at noon the next day. Because my computer is a sadist, I was up until 4:30am typing and retyping and retyping bits I'd lost from the more than one dozen times it had shut down and lost chunks of my paper.
This spider crawling across my curtain did not help my focus . . .
By the time I was finished and printing the paper in the Forum in the wee hours of the morning I'd gone from wanting a distinction (70%+) to being completely fine with a pass. I got a couple hours of sleep before I had to get up for stats.
Week of December 1-7
On Monday I survived stats, turned in my paper, and attempted to relax as much as possible during lunch. And because I needed chocolate, I ordered the "Mistletoe Kiss" waffle from the cafe. It involved chocolate syrup, chocolate ice cream, and chunks of orange chocolate candy bar with whipped cream on top. It was AMAZING. Then, to top off my sugar/chocolate buzz our afternoon lecture was canceled. I came home and slept for 5 hours, ate, watched Netflix, and then went back to bed.
On Tuesday we finished up Legal and Contextual Issues after which I had a long chat with Paul about the differences between the UK and American jury system. In the UK, there is no jury selection process like the US. People with advanced knowledge of the legal system (lawyers, police, etc) and people with mental illnesses that impair functioning are excused, but lawyers don't get to challenge jurors. After our whole conversation he asked me why I wasn't doing something on jury selection for my dissertation . . . well, I hadn't thought about it until then. So, that can be my back up plan if my proposal is rejected by the ethics committee.
On Wednesday after attending the Board of Studies meeting as AFP course rep, I did laundry. The washers and dryers hear are expensive to start with, and I usually have to dry my dark/colored load twice, but I was extremely irritated when it was still damp after the second dry. This is what my room looked like:
Thankfully, one of my Christmas presents was a clothes airer, so I'll be able to spend less on laundry in the future.
That week I also found my missing drama mask earring. Originally I though it had been missing for 7 months, but I realized I lost it before the opening night of 39 Steps, so it's been more than a year.
I also finished the last of my American peanut butter Debbie had given me for my birthday.
These were questions on the last stats practical....
I took a picture of this sign for Leslie. I thought she might find it amusing ;)
On Thursday I met with my supervisor to finalize and sign my ethics committee application. After my editing a few things, and her computer crashing, and me waiting for the techs to show up and fix it, we finally got everything printed and signed. Turns out I was the first of her supervisees to submit mine which meant I was considerably more relaxed that weekend than some of the other people on my course.
On Friday, I went to the York Stake Winter Ball and managed to curl my hair with the curling wand. It took more than an hour, but I was pleased with the results.
Serena and Megan did a great job with the decorations and food.
The balloons with lights in eventually gave up and started falling.
There was a photo booth
The "silly faces" pose
And yes, there was a guy in a kilt. He got really into the macarena and Cotton Eye Joe.
We went to McDonald's after the dance. It's times like this I miss my car. I was SO tired, but my ride wasn't ready to leave yet. The other three girls in the car were looking quite wilted as well, so around 2am it was decided that as the American I would be the one who wasn't too polite to remind our ride that "10 more minutes" had passed awhile ago.
When I finally arrived home around 3am, my St. Nicholas day present was waiting outside my door. I love having such a mix of international flatmates! We get to celebrate all kinds of holidays :)
I spent most of Saturday asleep and decided not to go to Mockingjay with the rest of the flat because my head was pounding. I am far too old to stay out that late. But to be fair, I was middle-aged as a teenager.
After church on Sunday I went to the Martins for the YSA first Sunday dinner get-together. Bishop Martin was wondering how to keep us entertained, thinking of the games we played last time, but it was more laid back and everyone seemed to enjoy just chatting.
Week of December 8-14
On Monday I went grocery shopping at ASDA to replenish several things I ran out of. Of note, ASDA hummus is not yummy like M&S hummus. I didn't end up finishing it. I was also amused by this wifi network name for somewhere in Monks Cross shopping center.
I meant to include a picture of the warnings list on top of our microwaves awhile ago . . .
After a long email discussion with the college administrator about my displeasure over the cleaners leaving my room window open after cleaning my bathroom and my room subsequently smelling like cigarette smoke, I reminded her that Michael's old room was empty* and I was on the waiting list for another ground floor room. So, she arranged for me to move on Thursday.
*Tangent: Yeah, Michael left. He just kind of disappeared over one weekend and then blocked us all on Facebook and wouldn't talk to Miranda when she saw him on campus.
I picked up the new keycard from the Ron Cooke Hub on Thursday morning, and moved all my stuff over in stages, then returned my old key card and commenced unpacking.
My view, which may not be pretty, but is at least much quieter and less smelly than the previous one.
Five hours from when I started, everything was moved and unpacked
I've been trying to balance working on my LCI essay, studying for stats, and fun stuff. I had time to paint my nails. It was nice.
On Saturday, I headed in to town because Victoria was coming down with a group from Durham University.
I spent some time in the Disney store while waiting. I found the section where Kaylee would die of happiness.
Frozen merchandise purchases are regulated.
The carousel was popular.
Due to poor wifi and my phone being stupid, Victoria and I were having trouble communicating. So, I stopped in Starbucks for wifi and a snack.
Yoda of York right in front of a sign that says "Private Property. No busking."
I walked over to the Minster after Starbucks and took a picture of the Horse Drawn Carriage lane nearby.
There was a choir rehearsing, which was gorgeous
The ceiling is pretty
We eventually were able to meet up around 3pm and took a selfie to commemorate finally seeing each other in person after about 10 years.
Tanya had arranged a kind of farewell party in our flat that evening with a bunch of other people from Constantine but I was really tired and sore from all the walking I did, so I mostly sat at the table, chatted with Matt and Nasos, and played on my phone. I discovered this, um, bargain on the uni swap page . . .
Kinda hoping this was joke...
About I week later I saw this post:
mmmmkay.
On Sunday, I received a calling at church. I am now the ward music chairperson. The bishopric really wants more music incorporated into sacrament and other meetings. There isn't a regular choir, so one of my assignments is to get more special musical numbers.
Week of December 15-21
I made Pioneer Woman's pancake recipe. It is SO GOOD. Family, stop making pancakes from a mix and do this instead. You will not regret it.
I also discovered Matchmakers. It says "cool mint" but it's really peppermint. YUM.
There's construction happening between Constantine and Langwith as well. At least we'll have a closer bus stop when it's all done.
I'm still getting unsolicited emails about grad schools.
I read a blog called "Behind Closed Ovens" that is about terrible restaurant customers/employees/managers/owners. It's generally pretty hilarious. I always read the comments because they are likewise entertaining. An additional blog post this week was about a woman who took a $300 bite out of a truffle sitting in a glass case next to a buffet (meant to be shaved onto customer's meals when requested) because she thought it was a free sample. As usual, the comments did not disappoint:
Only $20? You could have made so much more money on that bet . . . ;)
They actually started paving this week, so the construction is almost finished. The fence is still up though, so there must be more to do.
On Wednesday evening, Lara and I made dough for sugar cookies and crinkles to refrigerate for the next day. Then I went to the Sankta Lucia service at the Minster. It was really good. The Ebor Singers and York Anglo-Scandinavian Society choirs performed several songs each. I had to wear my coat and gloves through the whole thing. It was cold!
One of the official photos from York Minster's website
On Thursday I made the crinkles which were very popular with everyone.
Then on Friday Tanya helped me roll out and bake the sugar cookies. Since I don't have any fun colorings, sprinkles, or piping tips here they just have a simple vanilla buttercream spread on top.
Today at church a group of us performed Sally DeFord's arrangement of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day during Sacrament meeting. It went really well considering how little time we had to practice. The bishop has asked us to do it again for the Christmas Eve carol service. Tanya came with me to church to hear us sing.
Here it's tradition for the primary children to do a Nativity during the last hour of church which was adorable/hilarious. Tanya and I agree that Joseph stole the show when he got upset about something and just turned his back to Mary and the audience.
Random Stuff:
-I've tried crumpets. I guess I was expecting more based on the Anglophenia video's description, but they're basically like chewy English muffins.
-A typical greeting here is a version of "You all right?" which totally threw me off at first because in America people typically asked if you're all right because you look ill.
-Among winter fashion trends I don't understand are knee-high boots with peep toes or geometric cut outs, and girls who wear short shorts with tights and ankle boots. Aren't you cold?!
-Children in primary school can earn a "pen license" which apparently allows them to use pen on their assignments.
-I've learned that the company which makes Jaffa cakes actually went to court to be classified as chocolate covered cake instead of chocolate covered biscuits because chocolate covered biscuits are a luxury item and have a higher tax. Legally, a cake gets stale and biscuits get soggy. So there you go.
-The mail room will be closed from noon on Christmas Even until January 5th. So, if you've sent me something that is not delivered by Tuesday, it will be held hostage until the 5th. Hopefully it isn't time sensitive. I am less than pleased by this.
-For those who are so inclined, if you're planning to come over for my graduation the tentative dates are January 22-23, 2016.
Phew! That took a long time. I will endeavor to keep to my weekly schedule from here on.
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