Super Awesome Special Three-Day Update Blog, GO!

Ok so, I meant to update on Saturday, but the Internet went out and didn't come back until Monday afternoon. So then I meant to update Monday evening, but I got distracted... So here's a three-day update! I don't expect anything entertaining to happen tonight, so maybe it can count as a four-day update including Tuesday as well.

SATURDAY

Saturday (I just typed that Satyrday... interesting...) Lisa came to visit! Very exciting : ) I met her at the train station and we bought day bus passes and proceeded to explore Colchester. By the way, the one-day passes are completely worth it if you're going too and from University. The passes cost 2.80, and to get from University to town and back again costs 3.60. Lisa brought me tasty American junk food : )

We took the bus to high street and wandered aroung, thinking about lunch. We went to the tourist information building and asked if they could reccomend any restaurants. They reccomended The Lemon Tree. We thought about it, wandered back up High Street, and completely ignored their reccomendation, choosing to eat at a nice little cafe called Roxi. The food there was excellent and pretty reasonably priced too (in pounds anyway... I'm trying not to think of the dollars : P). The waitresses were all super friendly as well. We got some bread and calimari as appetizers, and then both got cottage pie as a meal.

Cottage pie is a sort of casserole dish... kind of... Well, basically it's beef, peas, carrots, and onions all cooked together, then topped with mashed potatoes and covered in cheese and baked. And the portions were huge.

So after lunch we walked around some more. We went to Red Lion Books... actually, it was Red Lion Ooks... and I finally bought a copy of Peter Pan! The books there were slightly cheaper than in London. Also, Red Lion Ooks is right across the street from the Red Lion Hotel! I took some pictures.



That's the hotel. It's got shops underneath it - a chocolate shop and something else. The dark archway people are standing in has the entrance to these shops, and the entrance to the hotel further back.



This is what you see when you walk in. A staircase right away - hope you're packing light.



This is looking up from on the stairs. The ceiling is a big skylight so the stairwell is pretty bright. didn't go into the reception area and didn't see any rooms. The construction looks pretty rustic, but also in good shape from what I saw. The carpeting on the stairs may be an unfortunate color choice, but at least it's not too ragged : P I didn't see a carpark anywhere nearby, but it is possible I missed it.

Next Lisa and I explored Castle Park. We sat on Roman foundations under a bridge and watched kids try to climb the castle walls. There was some kind of small agricultural fair going on. There was a horse. We xplored pretty much the whole park - it's huge. It has a lovely lake and a river. We got ice cream even though it was a bit chilly, and wandered all over the place.



Pretty flowers



I think this is technically no longer Castle Park, but it was still very pretty.

After that we caught a bus back to the University and I showed her around the campus. Then it started raining so we hid out in my room and ate Doritos and talked. Lisa colored a picture and shared stories. It was good times : )

I took the bus with her back to the North Station and we parted ways. When I got back to the room I sat down to blog, only to find the internet missing. Sigh. So, I finished doing my research for the Metamorphosis paper and then proceeded to attempt to beat my high score in pinball. It didn't work. In fact it was sort of pathetic.

SUNDAY

Happy belated birthday Grandma! It would have been on time had I had Internet : P

Sunday I got up and went to Mass. Had lunch (I'm slowly but surely eliminating the perishables). The Internet still wasn't back, so I wrote the Metamorphosis paper, so that's done! No more papers! Some revising yet, but the hard part is finished. Then I beat my second highest score on pinball... but my high is 7 million... probably won't be beating that any time soon.

Archery Sunday evening was the first annual super awesome Easter extravaganza : P We pinned balloons to the targets - three types, confetti-filled, pearly normal ones, and animal shaped - and shot at them. There was a pinata pinned to one of the targets, but as it turns out, arrows are not the best way to break a pinata. There were also enormous chocolate eggs at the center of each target. I took it upon myself to only shoot at animal shaped targets, and I popped a lot of them. I was having a really good night for shooting : P I also shot one of the center eggs. Thing completely shattered. It was awesome. At the end of the night we simply tore the pinata open and went on to top bar to hand out prizes : P I won the prize for most animals slain, as well as the nickname The Huntress, which is the best nickname I've ever had : ) Prizes were five-inch plastic trophies. I plan to keep toothpicks in mine.

Here are some pics of the enormous egg I shattered:




Watch shown for size comparison : P It was delicious.

After top bar I found an open computer lab and posted the blog about the Internet being down. Before archery I had stopped by the library to pick up a movie to keep me occupied that night - Troy. I forgive its tragic inaccuracy for its violence and attractive cast : ) I watched it with my tub of ice cream, and it was good.

MONDAY

The Internet was back Monday! I signed on and went to class. After Versions of Modernity lecture, I stopped by the Information Desk to ask where the best place to catch the bus to Stansted is. Then I went by the Lit Office to see if any more of my essays had been graded - and got my Early Modern Culture essay back! I got a 70!! That's a "first"! That's freaking awesome. Of course now he's going to expect my next paper to be just as good... and I'm not sure that it is. I certainly had trouble finding sources for it. Well, we shall see. I'm just glad it's done, honestly...

Got back to the tower and had lunch. By the time I was done with lunch, the Internet was crippled and barely running. Then it went away again, so I took a nap. When I woke up, it was back on and running smoothly! Hurray! Hopefully it is for good this time.

Around 4, Vicki came to get me to make a trip to Tesco. We went with her friends Nora and Lucy, who are fun people. Turns out, Vicki has a car! So we didn't walk : P That was awesome. I bought some milk for hot chocolate and bread. I mean I also bought bread. Not that I bought milk for bread. Because really, bread does not require milk.

Sadly I didn't need anything heavy while I had the advantage of a car. Vicki invited me to a party on flat 4 on Thursday. It's partly a general party, partly a birthday party for Vicki since her birthday is in April and no one will be around. I plan to go - it's at 8, so the archery meeting will be over - but only for a short while since I'll need some sleep, and I anticipate much smoking and drinking anyway.

So I chilled in the room doing random stuff for a while until i got hungry around 8 or 9 for dinner. While I was cooking some pasta, Vicki came in for dinner too, so we ate together and ended up talking until like, 11. Manbeast came in around then completely trashed, followed shortly by Mark or Mike... he lives on my flat and i can't remember his name... The last time I saw someone moving like manbeast was moving, he was promptly sick all over the place, so Vicki and I told manbeast to get to bed. He mumbled something incoherent and Mike, or possibly Mark, led him off in a daze. It was pretty disgusting. I don't get this whole getting drunk thing...

Well anyway, then Vicki and I were like "time to get out of the kitchen". After all, it was St. Patrick's day. So we went back to our rooms. I started talking to Kai and next thing I knew it was 3 AM. But before three AM happened... return of the mysterious thumps! Only this time they were annoying thumps around 2 AM. I'm glad I wasn't sleeping because really they were more like crashes. I think it was the guy below me opening his window, shouting out into the night, then slamming it closed. Repeatedly. Whatever.

So I went to bed around 3, a little after since I stayed up reading Dorian Gray for a bit.

TUESDAY

I woke up around ten this morning of my own accord. It was odd - normally I sleep til about 11:30 on Tuesdays. But it smelled like Summer in my room - like how the house smells when it's finally warm enough to open the windows and you leave the lights off because the sunlight is enough. Like how it smells in the upstairs when it gets warm, before dad puts the window unit in. So I got up. And it was cold. What the heck. I was very disappointed.

I did my morning stuff, read some webcomics... and discovered I had nothing left to do. So I took a walk. It was cold outside, too. When I came back I finally blogged!

Further plans for the evening include: Shower, revising a paper. Possibly a nap.

The end.

Been thinking so much I can't even think of a title

Friday: early class then noon class. I couldn't get to sleep last night for some odd reason. When I finally did fall asleep, I slept really well, and was decidedly unappreciative of my alarm clock this morning.

For the first half hour of my nine oclock class it was just me, one other student, and Antonella. I was hoping she wouldn't even bother having class, but Antonella has way too much energy for that, and we proceeded. She mentioned that next week we would be doing Kafka (she mentioned this largely because I had accidentally brought the Kafka instead of the Beckett to class. Oops) and the following week The Wide Sargasso Sea. I pointed out that there wouldn't be a following week - not a Friday of it anyway, because that's the first day of break. It was the first she'd heard of it! The other girl in the class backed me up though, and we both invoked the name of Hazel, which seemed to convince Antonella. She was distressed that we wouldn't be covering The Wide Sargasso Sea but really, I think we'll survive.

After class I asked Antonella about the prompts which are still not posted. She assured me that they would be posted today. "Really?" I said.

"Well, by Monday at the latest." she replied. Argh. This paper will never get written.

Next I went to get Frye's Theory of Symbols from the office. It was thicker than I had been anticipating (The text, not the office. The office was precisely the expected thickness). I tossed it (again, the text. Come on, try to keep up) on my nightstand thing when I got back to the room and took a nap. It wasn't a very thorough nap though, as for some reason I have difficulty sleeping between classes here, and I went to Myth seminar feeling unrefreshed.

At the end of Myth seminar, just because I had a sneaking suspicion, I said "So, next week is the last time we're meeting, right?" The prof said no, we have another class after that. I said, but it is March 21, no classes that day.

She said "It is Good Friday?" pause... "No..." pause... "Already?" So it looks like we won't be discussing Frye's Theory of Symbols in my myth class, which, I later found, is unfortunate.

After myth I ate lunch before doing laundry because I was oddly hungry. I had no issues with driers this time - I've got the good ones staked out, all two of em. When laundry was finally over, I tried the napping thing again. It went really really well. The dings from two IMs did not wake me up. I slept over an hour, hard, and woke up with a headache but I'm really awake now so I'm glad I did it. I sat down to read Theory of Symbols so I could write my essay tomorrow.

Theory of Symbols is hard. I don't understand most of what this Frye guy (hee) is saying, but I think I know just enough to be able to write an essay. You can bet there will be frequent emails to the prof and a meeting when the essay is finished just to make sure, though. I bet this is gonna be tricky to write. We shall see.

Then I had a fun little discussion with Emily. As it turns out, the CLA honors program has different requirements from the UHP for getting an honors degree, and Emily and I have to fulfill them both. Both require 24 honors credit hours, but the CLA wants you to have 12 of them in honors classes outside your major, 3 of them in a 300 level honors class, and 6 of them in 400 level honors courses or just plain old 500 level courses. By sheer luck, I am still on track because I am taking two 500 level courses next semester, and that will fulfill my CLA requirements. However, I still need 4 more credits for the UHP because I don't think they accept plain old 500 level courses. I'm not gonna complain about the 2 extra honors classes I have to do because Emily is in a way worse boat than I am. The thing is though, why didn't either of us know about these requirements? I'm pretty sure they aren't posted online anywhere. If Emily hadn't told me, I would never have known. (edit: I just found it. It's something called the Gold Sheet. It took quite a bit of searching on the CLA website, and certainly looks like the sort of document our freshman councilors should have handed to us with the core sheet and the major/minor sheets. sigh.)

Anyway. Then I went back to reading and did that for a really really long time. I was interrupted a few times though, by a mysterious Thing thumping in the night... It was very odd. I was reading along and thump -it sounded like a sock full of sand had struck (stricken?) my window. I was considerably startled, but went back to my reading. Then another thump thumped and I got up because my desk is very close to the window. I waited a while. No more thumps. I looked out the window. No one was standing on the ground below... and if they were I'd have commended their arm, because I'm on the eighth floor... Phil was not leaning mischievously out her window - indeed her window was not even open, and I heard her come in later, so she wasn't even in her room. I sat back down to continue reading. Then two more thumps thumped! I did not want to look out the window because that last thump sounded worse than the others. I walked out to the kitchen to see if anyone was around, but they were not. I knocked on Phil's door, but as I later learned, she was out. So I went back in to sit down and read and no more thumps thumped. Eventually I checked my window to make sure it was secure - it was, and undamaged. I can't figure out what the thumps were. I think maybe the person above me left his window open and the wind was wreaking havok with it? or maybe he was repeatedly dropping a bowling ball on the ceiling right above my window so it sounded like something was hitting my window... stranger things have happened! Anyway hopefully that's the last I'll hear of the mysterious thump...

And now, I do mindless things! yay!