The Joy Report

50 Days

2011-11-01T12:51:00.001-05:00

According to theknot.com. That's really, really close!

Adventure

2011-07-18T12:29:00.003-05:00

I was thinking about the word adventure last week. My generation almost invariably uses the word "adventure" to mean "fun time!" As in, "We're going on a road-trip adventure to Colorado!" or "We're having a spring break adventure!" I was wondering why my life had stopped feeling like an adventure (wedding planning, along with my job and some other things, has been in a rough patch the past few weeks), when one of my favorite songs came on the radio: Steven Curtis Chapman's "The Great Adventure."

Here are the lyrics to the bridge:
We'll travel over, over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all we'll find that

This is the greatest journey that the human heart will ever see

The love of God will take us far beyond our wildest dreams

When you think about it, it's the valleys that make something truly an adventure. I mean, think of the classic adventure stories: Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Star Wars! Every hero (I'm sorry, readers, that I didn't choose any stories with heroines...blame the literary canon) goes through rough patches and awful experiences. Robin Hood was an outlaw! He narrowly escaped execution, and had to watch Maid Marian be wooed by Prince John. We may romanticize Robin Hood's story, but really, how fun do you think living in the woods and constantly fearing for your life could be?

Jim Hawkins was betrayed by his best friend (because, in the book, he doesn't have cute Muppet friends to sing with). He saw friends die in front of him. Luke Skywalker also saw friends die, PLUS he had to deal with his dad being the Stalin of the galaxy. And Luke's life wasn't actually that great to begin with.

Despite all these setbacks and hardships, all of our heroes had a happy ending. Robin Hood got the girl, King Richard came back and deposed Prince John, and they all lived happily ever after. Jim Hawkins was too young to get any girl, but he did find the treasure and return safely to his mom. Luke Skywalker didn't get the girl (because, ew), but he triumphed over evil and saved the day!

I guess the point is, my life still is an adventure. This is just the valley of adventure, not the mountaintop. It doesn't necessarily make it easier to be in the valley, knowing that I'll end up on the moutaintop; but you know, I have assurance that my adventure is going to have the best happy ending possible. My adventure--of wedding planning specifically, and of life in general--may be a little valley-ish right now, but I also know that my adventure is happening within God's will.

I know that I am supposed to marry Robert, so whatever happens along the way to actually getting married to him, it'll turn out well because I'm acting within God's will. Like the song says, the love of God will take me far beyond my wildest dreams.

Robert's a loop

2011-06-05T13:45:00.003-05:00

Last night at a wedding, I was talking to a friend about the future, and mentioned that Robert's and my plans might change "if God throws us for the loop." Hence the title of this post. In my first post about the wedding, I mentioned that no one is more surprised about this event than me, and promised to explain it eventually. So here goes!

I went to William Jewell College, a place lovingly known for distributing MR and MRS degrees. Jewell's tiny, so people's love lives are well-known to everyone, and pretty much everyone assumes that, if you date someone while at Jewell (whether or not s/he goes to Jewell, too), you'll marry them pretty quickly after graduation. I have many friends who prove this assumption correct (four of them are in our wedding party...), and also many more friends who prove this assumption wrong. But, more or less, Jewell's the place where you are expected to meet your spouse-to-be.

Despite this tradition/assumption/folklore, I didn't expect to meet The One while at Jewell. I never really saw myself as a get-married-young type, and I didn't have much patience for dating. Plus, the ratio of guys-to-girls at Jewell when I started was 1-3, and pretty much all of the good ones were taken. I dated a bit in college, but nothing lasted very long and that was fine by me!

At least, that's what I told myself. But deep down...I hate to admit it, but it's true...deep down, I wanted a relationship. I didn't want casual dating, I wanted a commitment to someone who would make me a better person. I, quite frankly, obsessed over a few guys while in college, convinced that they were The One God had for me, and wondering why the relationship wasn't happening. I was very happy with my family and my friends--I have the best family ever, and the most fantastic, true friends a girl could need--but I kept searching for and trying to force a committed relationship.

It didn't happen for a very long time. But, praise God, His timing is perfect. And He has a sense of humor.

See, once I became a senior, I panicked a bit. I thought, if I'm going to meet The One in college, I only have a year left!! But God did some amazing things in my heart, and by the time second semester rolled around, He had taught me about how to fully rely on Him. The need I felt for a committed relationship was gone, because the only committed relationship I will ever need, the only one that will truly satisfy me, is my relationship with Christ.

So here comes second semester. I hadn't dated for about two years, and I was at a point where I loved being single. I was getting excited for the next few years of doing God's will as a single person, and I had even begun to accept the idea that I might never get married, if that's what God wanted.

And then you know what God did? He gave me Robert. I tell you, I think there was a week between my heartfelt prayer thanking God for my singleness and accepting it, and me noticing Robert. He's pretty notice-worthy.

One week after our first date, we were a couple. Two weeks after that, Robert told me he loved me, and I knew I was going to marry him.

So, if you had asked me 15 months ago if I would be getting married soon, I would answer with a truthful--and quite happy--NO. But 14 months ago (to the day, actually), God presented me with a much, much better option.

So, my life has been thrown for a loop. Isn't God funny? His timing and His will, though, are perfect. Christ is still all I need, but I praise God for His goodness in allowing me to share my life with Robert.

Elementary School Lessons

2011-05-20T13:10:00.004-05:00

So far, the most stressful part of wedding planning has been the guest list. Everything else has come pretty easily, but the guest list has caused more anxiety and angst than anything else. I blame this entirely on my childhood. More specifically, I blame this entirely on my parents.

See, when I was a kid, I had a birthday party every single year. I didn't invite everyone in class, though (partly because some of them were boys, ew), so my parents had a very strict rule: no discussing your birthday party in front of people who aren't invited!

It was all about being considerate. How rude, my parents would suggest, to talk about how much fun the sleepover will be and how we're all going to see Mary Kate and Ashley Save Their Dad from a Lonely, Single Life Again and how we're going to eat pizza...how rude to talk about this in front of a girl who didn't get to do those things with us! In fact, you shouldn't even mention a birthday party in front of a non-invitee, because what if they ask if they're invited? Saying "No" is humiliating for both parties! (Ha. A pun.) If they ask...they should probably be invited.

Apparently, I internalized this fear of being inconsiderate when it comes to parties, which is why the guest list has been so stressful. It's not like I just can't mention the wedding around people. "What are you doing for your wedding?" "Oh...not much, probably. Just hanging around." And here's the kicker: EVERYONE I KNOW ASKS ABOUT THE WEDDING. If I went by the elementary-school-birthday-party rule of thumb, Robert and I would be inviting roughly 1513 people, not including the total strangers like the cashier at Price Chopper and the vendor on the other end of the phone at work.

I feel guilty when people ask me about my wedding, and in my head, I'm thinking, "You're going to have to imagine the flowers and dress I'm describing now, because, I'm sorry, you're not invited." I realize that some people are just being polite when they chat with me about the wedding. But some people are genuinely interested! They genuinely care! And they genuinely aren't invited!

So let me post this disclaimer to the blogosphere world (i.e. the two people who read this): if you're not invited, it's not because you're not important! It's just that we reached a tipping point on numbers. I mean, really: between my immediate extended family and Robert's immediate extended family, we reach close to 100 people. That's not even getting into great-aunts, -uncles, -grandparents, second cousins, church family, Jewell peers, work buddies, and high school friends.

I guess the point is, I wish we could invite everyone. But we can't. The end.

Luke 2:19

2011-02-25T19:21:00.002-06:00

"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

I tried to write a post about how I treasure the memory of Robert proposing in my heart, but it was really sappy. It's impossible to put into words the joy I felt when he knelt down, how much I loved the look on his face, how surprised I was and happy, etc etc etc.

I've become one of those girls who thinks the world revolves around her fiance, who thinks no one has ever loved as much as I have, who pities any other woman who doesn't get to marry her fiance. Disgusting, right?

There are already things about Robert that I treasure, already memories that I hide away and look at often...and I'm so excited for the rest of my life, when I get to make more treasured memories.

I warned you it was sappy.

Update

2011-01-15T21:11:00.003-06:00

Here's what we have so far:

a wedding dress!
colors: dark blue and silver (and, since it's Christmas, red and green by default)
two out of five bridesmaids' dresses
a florist: Gladstone Flowers
a photographer: Freeland Photography
an invitation design
a date
a plan

Here's what we don't have:

a church
a reception hall
a time
registries

I'm really excited about a lot of the things we have. My wedding dress, obviously, is one of the most exciting things. All four members of my family went with me last Saturday to David's Bridal, and I was lucky enough to find a $99 gown during the $99 sale. The dress is lovely and fun, but you can't see it until December 21!

I'm also excited about our florist and photographer. Gladstone Flowers is a local florist, and I've ordered and received a lot of flowers from them over the years. They're super nice and super professional, and Matt the designer had some really great ideas for our bouquets. For example, he's going to paint holly silver! I'm inordinately excited about this detail. I just think it's cool that the silver holly will incorporate both the Christmas season and the wedding colors, plus it's shiny. Freeland Photography did Madison and Dane Engquists' wedding, and Robert and I were both really impressed by the results. Mike Freeland is very nice and very talented, and I'm looking forward to having him take our photos!

As for what we don't have...there will be more updates on that later! Eventually we'll figure out what church we're using, and that will answer the question of where the reception will be.

Anyway, wedding planning is going well and going quickly. I'm not taking much time price-shopping or considering many different options: I'm just going with my first instinct. So far, that's gone pretty well.

December 21

2010-12-30T18:39:00.003-06:00

Today is not December 21. Today is December 30, which is an unspectacular and unimportant nine days after December 21, 2010, and 357 days before December 21, 2011. And December 21, 2011, is the day I'm getting married.

It's a Wednesday.

The date isn't even firmly set yet (we have booked neither a church for the wedding nor a hall for the celebrating), but already, I've gotten many, many questions about why we picked Wednesday, December 21, 2011. Several people have tried to convince me to choose other days: December 22, for example, or any time in June 2012. But we are sticking the 21st of December, for these two simple reasons:

1. It's 12/21, which is a number palindrome.
2. The full date is 122111, and if you've ever seen the movie Clue with Tim Curry, there's a scene where they discuss how many shots have fired out of a gun, and they go "1 plus 2 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1."

And as if those two reasons weren't enough, there are several more REAL reasons!

We want to get married in December. I don't want a summer wedding, so that left out April-August. Robert will still be in school, which left out September, October, November, January, February, and most of March. And we didn't want to wait until March.

We originally planned for Saturday, December 17, but many of the members of our wedding party (Robert included) have finals until December 16, so that wasn't going to be fun. Robert nixed a Sunday wedding, which I supported, and then the next two weekends are Christmas and New Year's.

So the week of December 19 it was! We chose December 21 because we wanted it to be close enough to Christmas that people who are coming to Kansas City for the holiday anyway might be able to extend their stay a bit, but far enough away from Christmas that people who don't come to KC for the holiday don't miss their Christmases back home.

We realize some people may not be able to come because it's a Wednesday. We'll miss you very much, and hope we can celebrate with you another time!

There you have it. You are informally invited to a Wednesday wedding in December. I hope you can make it, but if not, send your love and we'll send ours right back.

Renaissance of a Blog

2010-12-29T19:10:00.002-06:00

When I left England, I intended to keep writing on this blog periodically, whenever I had something to share or thoughts that I felt needed to be Google-able. Clearly, in the past two years, my share- and Google-worthy thoughts have not been flowing, so this blog has gone largely unused.

But I'm entering a new phase of my life right now, a BRAND NEW ADVENTURE, and so this blog is being re-born! You may or may not notice a new layout; it's accompanied by a new topic.

Instead of embarking on an overseas adventure, I am embarking on a far, far more daunting adventure: planning my wedding to one Robert Dale Jackson.

That's right: I'm getting married.

No one is more surprised than I am, but that'll be a post for another day. Today's post is introductory. World, I would like to introduce you to my Renewed Blog. Renewed Blog, meet The World.

I'll keep you updated on wedding plans and wedding panics, the jitters and joys, the romance, the Say-Yes-to-the-Dress thoughts, the expectations and the excitement and the exhiliration and every other ex- word except ex-fiancee, through this blog.

You can also check out our wedding website: www.theknot.com/ourwedding/JoyMason&RobertJackson.

Redefining the word "success"

2010-01-24T17:49:00.004-06:00

As I've been thinking about and praying about and looking for a job, I recently realized that I'm only considering jobs that will be "successful" and "interesting" and "resume-building" by someone else's standards. I've realized that I've been looking for "fast-paced", "important", probably stressful jobs where I meet CEOs or Senators and have to wear heels every day. I want my gap years between undergrad and grad school to be "meaningful" and contribute "significantly" to my "life experiences". So I'm playing job search buzzword bingo: get five multisyllabic words to describe a job and I win.

Someone once told me that boring people talk about people, and interesting people talk about ideas. I don't think that's actually true, but that's not the point. The point is that I've been focusing on ideas for the past four years (and, yeah, great experiences and great people), and I'm ready to focus on--invest in--people for a while.

I want a job that will allow me to attend all of Abbie's sports games and recognition ceremonies. I want a job that will allow me to have my weekends off and that won't force me to work long hours. I don't want to be stressed out or too busy. I want to have time to be a YouthFriend and contribute to my church. I want to go out with my friends and spend time with my family. I want to enjoy my job and not dread it, and to feel like I'm contributing to something other than my resume.

And you know, that job might not be a "successful" job by someone else's standards. People from my college may look at that job and dismiss it as not "challenging" or not "reaching my potential". But I want a job that makes me happy, not a job that Jewell approves of. I want a job that allows me to invest in people, not impress people.

With that kind of job, I'll still win buzzword bingo.

This is how I feel about Walt Whitman.

2009-11-09T09:36:00.005-06:00

I don't like Twitter, but I agree with Rat on this one:

Want ads

2009-10-18T21:34:00.002-05:00

College-educated midwestern girl seeks interesting, fun, paid job opportunities. Info about jobs in government, publishing, education, or ministry (or anything else) requested. Cerner need not apply.

English-majoring Christianity

2009-09-10T23:26:00.002-05:00

In his essay "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies," Stuart Hall wrote,

"On the one hand, we had to be at the very forefront of intellectual theoretical work because, as Gramsci says, it is the job of the organic intellectual to know more than the traditional intellectuals do: really know, not just pretend to know, not just to have the facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and profoundly."

Can I apply this to Christianity? I think I should. Tonight at Worship Jam (man, God touched my heart SO much!), Eric said that followers of Christ should not pretend to have it all figured out, but we must be real, be genuine.

Now, I've heard that pretty often, but sometimes it takes a quote from homework to really open my eyes. In this quote, Hall is talking about people who study cultural studies, but let's pretend he was talking about Christians. "On the one hand, we have to be at the very forefront of Christianity because it is the job of Christians to know more than the unsaved people do: really know, not just pretend to know, not just to have the facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and profoundly."

In applying this quote to Christians, I totally agree with the second half: we who follow Christ shouldn't pretend to know Him or know the answer to the hard questions of life; we shouldn't assume our ability to know Him absolves us of work; we need to know Him deeply and profoundly. What we also need to know and acknowledge, though, is that the first half of this statement is not true. We do not have to be at the very forefront of Christianity; we don't have to know more than everyone else. We can learn from the widows and orphans, from the least of these. All we need to know deeply and profoundly is Christ.

-----

Can I take a quick tangent and then make a slight complaint now? First, I think being an English major deepens my knowledge of Christ. The skills I've learned in the past three years have deepened my quiet times, challenged my ways of thinking, opened my eyes to new sides of God. That may sound totally intellectual, but God has used intellectual discussions in my spiritual walk. I really like it when my English homework makes me think of Jesus. I really like being challenged spiritually when I do my homework. I really like how God truly permeates everything I do. That's the tangent. Here's the complaint: though Jewell calls itself a Christian college, I wouldn't feel comfortable bringing up this kind of thing in a class. Class is not the place for such discussions, or applying this Stuart Hall quote to the Bible isn't appropriate or useful here. Jewell tries to be open to all religions, faiths, opinions, but that doesn't really extend to the classroom. I don't expect my classes to be Bible studies or Sunday Schools, but I do with the college was open to the different kinds of and uses for academia.

Regardless, God is in my classrooms and I hope I allow Him to be in my discussions. It's like Dr. Pratt said in chapel last week: "Just as we can go nowhere and not find God, we can go to no intellectual place and not find God already there, waiting for us."

Worship Jam and my future

2009-09-10T23:02:00.004-05:00

You make everything glorious

And I am Yours

What does that make me?

-David Crowder, "Everything Glorious"

Jesus, Savior, pilot me

over life's tempestuous sea;

unknown waves before me roll,

hiding rock and treacherous shoal.

Chart and compass come from thee;

Jesus, Savior, pilot me.

Man, God spoke to my heart at Worship Jam tonight. So I graduate in May, right? And people ask me, "Joy, what are you going to do after you graduate?" And I ask myself, "My gosh, what am I going to do after I graduate?" And I ask God, "God, what am I going to do after I graduate?" And so far, God tells me: nothing. And I tell myself: ask again. And I tell other people: "Oh, I have a lot of options, right now I'm considering publishing or local government, but I haven't ruled out grad school and I'm eventually going to get my teaching certificate."

Earlier this week, I had "coffee" (we actually both got free cups of water) with my friend Eric. Eric is a fantastic guy and a fantastic man of God. One of the things Eric and I talked about was "arriving." How as Christians, we often feel like we're waiting for the Lord to fulfill one of our Jesus-goals. Once He makes us (choose at least one)
a) more patient
b) more trusting
c) less gossip-y
d) without addictions or vices
e) a better person
then we will have Arrived. We will be A Christian. Or we wait for the Father to answer one of our prayers. When He gives us a job, a spouse, a child, a better grade, happiness, a better hair day, then we will be Complete and we will have Arrived.

But see, that's just not true. One of the amazing and amazingly hard things about following Christ is that you never Arrive. You may become more patient, but you're still waiting on that job. You got an A but your treasures are material possessions. Even if you check all the boxes of waiting and accomplishing and gaining...well, you can never check all the boxes. We cannot be Jesus. We can strive to be like Jesus, but we cannot Arrive at Being Jesus. And God loves us for it. Eric spoke at Worship Jam tonight, and as he said, God never withholds His love from us to teach us a lesson; He never punishes us for not being Jesus. He rewards us for being His children. He loves us because He loves us.

So, back to Arriving. I realized two things about my future tonight: first, I realized that I had been waiting to Arrive at my future. My attitude toward "what am I going to do after graduation" was as if that was the last question I was ever going to have to ask God. Once God sent down a lightning bolt or a carrier pigeon with a note saying "Apply to this company" or "Go to this grad program," then I would have Arrived at my future.

Well, that's just dumb, isn't it? It's like the saying, "Tomorrow never comes." I'm not going to Arrive at my future. The Lord will answer this particular question, and then He will answer all the questions that come after it. He's always going to be the pilot. And the wonderful thing is, He's so good at it! The answers to my questions are going to be glorious.

He makes everything glorious. Whatever the plans He has for me to prosper and not to harm me (Jeremiah 29:11), they are glorious! He will make them glorious! God's direction can never lead me to an inglorious end. Whatever I do in May, it will bring glory to my Father. It won't be a mediocre job that is fine for now: it will be glorious! It won't be a good-enough grad school that's, you know, better than doing nothing: it will be glorious! It won't be waiting to fulfill my potential: it will be glorious!

I mean, gee, it just doesn't get better than that!

The French eat French bread, but they also eat burritos.

2009-08-23T22:38:00.020-05:00

On June 21, I had lunch with the JWS, hugged all my friends, got on a bus, and left Oxford. I passed Magdalen College, and I remembered my first view of it on October 2. Though the bus had been within Oxford city limits for quite a while, my view of Magdalen was my first real clue that I was really, truly going to one of the oldest universities in the world. On that fall day (seriously, how cliché is this memory going to get?), I was so impressed by the grandeur of the city and by my total displacement from home. In June, my last view of Magdalen brought instead a sense that this grand place had become a sort of home. At this thought, I promptly burst into tears which did not subside until we neared London. It was only my “Get Fuzzy” comic book that finally cheered me up. Darby Conley, you are my hero.

Anyway, off the nostalgia and onto the next story: I wasn’t going into London to fly to Kansas City. I was going into London to fly to Antibes, a city in the south of France.

Let me take this opportunity to plug the Hall Family Foundation. The lovely and kind and undoubtedly beautiful members of the giving-money committee (dear giving-money committee: I am sorry that I don’t know your real name) were lovely and kind (and beautiful?) enough to give me a grant that enabled me to attend a French-language school in Antibes. To the Hall Family Foundation: you rock.

I flew to France and was met by my French host father, Pierre Pravettoni. He drove me to his home (we listened to Jason Mraz, Elvis, and some random French person in the car), where I met his wife, Isabelle, and his twin sons, Alexandre and Anthony (affectionately called Alex and Antho). This is the Pravettoni family:

They were pretty much amazing. Isabelle is a fantastic cook, even when she’s cooking boudin noir (blood sausage, which consists of, you guessed it, congealed blood in a sausage skin. I hope you weren’t eating when you read this). Pierre loves music of all kinds. He kept showing me YouTube videos of American artists that I had to had heard of (I hadn’t), or of awesome songs. Check this one out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM. It’s worth five and a half minutes of your life.

Alexandre and Anthony look enough alike that I initially was afraid I was never going to be able to tell them apart. We became good friends though, and I figured out which one was which. In this picture, Anthony is on the left and Alexandre is on the right:

Alex and Antho and I watched a lot of television, especially this terrible French Real-World-Big-Brother-type show called “Secret Story.” I am ashamed to admit I got pretty into it. I also watched Jaws, which is called Les Dents de la Mer (The Teeth of the Sea) in French, which is hilarious, and Castaway, which is Seule dans le Monde (Alone in the World). Also a lot of “CSI: New York” which they call “The Experts: Manhattan.” The twins and I also played a lot of Wii golf. I can now beat any of you, and probably Tiger Woods, hands down.

The last two of my three weeks, a 16-year-old Spanish girl named Edurne came to live with us. She is super sweet and has spent every summer since she was 11 in either England or France:

I didn’t spend my days just watching TV and playing Wii with French people, though. I also went to school in the mornings. There’s not much to say about school: my teachers were nice, my French really improved, and I advanced a class a week. My classmates came from a bunch of different countries: Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, England, Brazil, Italy, Greece, Turkey. It was awesome because we got to tell each other, in French, about our countries and cultures and traditions. I didn’t just learn about France and the French, I learned about all sorts of peoples and nations! It was phenomenal. I loved it.

In the afternoons, I hung out with my friends. We spent a lot of time on the beach:

Enjoying the view:

Antibes is a very, very beautiful city. It was founded by Romans and perfected by the French, and it’s one of the richest and largest ports on the Mediterranean. The water is this gorgeous blue, the old city are these gorgeous sun tones, and the land is this gorgeous green. Want more proof?

This is in the old city.

This is me with the port and the old city behind me, taken from the top of Fort Carras.

This is Antibes and Juan les Pins, from the top of the hill on the peninsula.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

My friends and I also visited neighboring cities. We visited Cannes, where there were no movie stars but there were yachts that probably cost more than my entire college education, including the Oxford part:

We visited Grasse, which was hilly and wonderful and had a great perfume factory:

And we visited Nice, which was just as great as it was in April. Plus, I got a supercute new dress there, bonus.

On Sundays, I went to the Evangelical Church of Antibes, which played Michael W. Smith and Matt and Beth Redman songs in French. One Sunday, after church, I visited Marineland, where I got to see these guys:

I love aquariums, I love animal shows, I loved Marineland.

I was in Antibes from June 21 to July 11. The goodbyes in Antibes were sweet:

On July 11, I flew back to London. I went to The Globe again (it’s such a magical place), and then I visited Oxford to see some JWS friends for the last time and to pick up some luggage that I hadn’t dragged to France.

Finally, on July 14, I got on the United Airlines flight that would return me to my country. When I landed in Washington, DC, I didn’t start crying from happiness because my mouth hurt too much from smiling. I kept jumping every time I heard an American accent, wanting to run up to them and cry, “We speak the same language!!” I ate a Wendy’s hamburger for the first time in nine months, and I called my mommy. Coming back in the country was a very good experience.

And finally, finally, I got back to KCI. This time, I did cry on the plane as we landed. It was so overwhelmingly wonderful to recognize an airport! I haven’t tried to count how many airports, train stations, and bus stations I’d been in since October, but it was a lot. Most importantly, my family was waiting for me in the airport. I’m tearing up right now, over a month later, thinking about how much I wanted to run from the airplane to the gate, how I couldn’t hold in my tears of joy even before I saw them, how good it was to be hugged and held by my parents and brother, how glad I was to not have to miss them again for a long time. You don’t learn how true the clichés are until you leave home for a long time: home is where the heart is, there’s no place like home, I wish I was homeward bound (okay, that’s a song lyric). Oxford had become a kind of home for me, and I’ll miss it. But my real home, the one I’ll always want to come back to, is 5421 N. Tracy.

And now, friends, you have travelled with me from October to July, from England to France, through fun, boredom, travels, hominess, loves, hates, homesickness and joy. I feel like I should say something pithy or clever to end this blog, but I’m not going to because I’m not done with this blog. I’ve found that I like telling stories, I like sharing YouTube links, and I like filling the blogosphere with parentheses. So, please check back here every so often, and you may find something I thought was funny, a story I thought was interesting, links to YouTube videos or news stories, or just pictures of my senior year.

Thanks for keeping up with me this past year!

Trinity term

2009-08-15T11:20:00.020-05:00

I wrote something like 12 posts for my first term. My last term will be summed up in one. It's not because it was the least important: it's because a) it was the busiest and b) it's August now.

My last term started off with a totally exciting visit from my Aunt Debbie and cousin Sarah! They visited my aunt's niece in New York, and afterwards flew to London and spent a few days there. Lucky for me, they decided to spend one of their London days with me in Oxford!

I, sadly, have no pictures from that great day because Sarah manned (womanned?) her camera quite well, but this is what we did: saw Regent's; ate at The Eagle and Child (Sarah tried the green beer, which was deemed not-good); visited my house; visited Blenheim Palace (where we saw them preparing to shoot the 2010 movie Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black! and also a real-live Duke getting angry!!); and shopped at Primark (which was really created with Sarah in mind). It was so great to see them, especially because Aunt Debbie use her travel agent skills to help me plan my year abroad.

The next big event of Trinity Term was May Day. On April 30, most people (not me or my friends) pull all-nighters with lots of drinks, and then they all cram into a half-mile stretch of High Street at 6 am to hear the Magdalen College choir sing from the top of the bell tower. Here's what High Street looked like just before the choir sang:

And here are the Jewell people that woke up early to enjoy the beautiful music and beautiful morning: Brett, Robyn, me, Sabrina, Bill, and Erin:

May Day was the official beginning of spring, and let me tell you, spring in Oxford is gorgeous. One of my favorite parts of spring was the geese. I think I've mentioned the Christ Church geese before. Well, they had babies! We got to watch the baby geese grow up, and I think we all felt sort of parentally protective of the "geese puppies" (as Robyn called them). At least, we felt protective until the mommy geese attacked us after getting too close:

Cute, though, right?

Spring is a time of many Oxonian traditions, including the Tortoise Race. Now, many of you may not know that Regent's Park has its very own tortoise, Emmanuelle. She is about 80, and legendary in the number of wins she has had in the Corpus Christi Tortoise Race. Many Regent's students went to the races to support Emmanuelle, who, despite being the oldest tortoise there, pulled out yet another win:

The weekly formal halls continued during Trinity Term, and we were lucky to host some of our Cambridge friends at one of them! Amy, Nicole, and Carly visited one weekend, and they clearly enjoyed themselves:

So far it looks like I did nothing during the spring except have fun, right? Well, that's sort of true: even in my two tutorials, I enjoyed myself! I had an absolutely phenomenal (pulling out the big words here) tutor for both the tutorials: Lynn Robson. She didn't let me get away with half-baked work, she challenged my ideas and appreciated it when I was original, and she just generally made me work harder than I have ever worked for any other professor.

I studied Shakespeare, which was...amazing. Truly, the Bard was a genius. If you want, I can wax rhapsodic about The Great Man for hours and hours. (What kind of phrase is "wax rhapsodic" anyway? It brings to mind candles melting on a piano or something.) I also took a tutorial in Early Modern Drama, which means all of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Let me tell you, as amazing as Marlowe and Jonson and Middleton are, they can't hold a candle (melting all over a piano) to Shakespeare.

In addition to falling in love with Shakespeare's words (but not with Shakespeare--have you seen the painting of him? He has a fro-mullet), I hung out with my church group, the JWS. One of my favorite outings was when we went punting:

That's me rocking the punting pole and Rob rocking the relaxation. Punting is pretty fun. It's like rowboating, except there's the constant threat of falling in because you're a) standing up and b) sticking a pole that weighs more than I do into deep mud and thus risking forgetting to let go of the pole and letting the boat go on without you. Also, ducks get closer to punts than rowboats because there's less chance that they'll get smacked in the head with a paddle.

I did that once, by the way: smacked a duck in the head with a paddle. Except the paddle was a rowing blade, and we were going 26 mph rather than 2.6, and I didn't know I smacked the duck because it was behind me. I hear the duck lived, though. Good news.

Speaking of rowing, the day that the above punting picture was taken was also the last day of the Trinty Term rowing races: Summer VIIIs. I rowed again during Trinity, which was intense but so much fun:

I am far right, in the shirt that could say "BOY" but actually says "BOW. My housemate Erin is number 5, and my housemate Sabrina isn't in the picture, but she was the cox. Regent's Park Women rowed so well, but we unfortunately didn't result well. Regardless, I had a blast!

Here is the legendary 2009 Summer VIIIs Regent's Park College Women's Boat Club:

Lottie, Clare, Ailsa, Kathryn, Joy, Becky, Charlotte, Erin, and Sabrina is kneeling.

After Summer VIIIs, I met Jacque and Madison in London to celebrate our birthdays. I saw The Lion King (best. musical. ever.), and then the three of us spent Saturday exploring and take great pictures like this one in Trafalgar Square:

Jacque's on the left, Madison is in the middle, and I am on the right.

Our birthday dinner was at Pizza Express, a fantastic restaurant that should start franchises in Kansas City:

I went to London several times during Trinity Term. I just really like London. Already, I miss it. On one of my trips, I made my mecca trip: I went to The Globe Theatre.

For those of you out of touch with English-major-meccas, The Globe is the primary theatre for which Shakespeare wrote. It is round (like...a globe), open-air, and simple. The first time I went, I saw my all-time favorite Shakespearean play, As You Like It. I stood on the ground in front of the stage, got up-close-and-personal with a few actors, and generally experienced one of the top-five highlights of my trip to England:

Not long after my trip to The Globe, it was time to begin the endings. At our last formal hall at Regent's, we all dressed up and put on facepaint (it was a "rave"). We were all sad to leave, as evidenced by these posed sad faces:

As another ending and good-bye, our house got together for a barbeque in our backyard. Here are our wonderful neighbors:

Front row: Sabrina, Jennie Mills, Maggie Mills; Middle row: Bobbie Mills, Robyn, me, Hannah Goodliff; Back row: Martin Mills, Erin, Andy Goodliff.

And from top to bottom: Maggie, Jennie, Robyn, Erin, Andy, Hannah, Bobbie, Sabrina, Martin, and me. We were so blessed to live with such amazing people!

During my last week at Regent's, my friend Brett and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company do The Winter's Tale. It was amazing. Also, we found this place:

Get it?

Three days later was Regent's Park's valediction ceremony. Everyone who was leaving Regent's that year never to return got to sign their name in this huge book. The book has names in it dating from 1816. In British years, that is brand-new, but in Joy/American years, that is really, really old.

After the valediction ceremony there was a reception. Here I am with the legendarily amazing Lynn Robson:

And here is the last group picture Beta Rho took together:

Sadly, my time at Oxford was at an end. I dreaded leaving my JWS and Regent's friends, I had already begun to miss living with Robyn, Sabrina, and Erin, and I cried on the bus to the airport on Sunday. However, my adventures weren't over yet.

Coming up next: France!

Expedition to Europe: Brussels and Amsterdam

2009-07-26T19:20:00.023-05:00

Belgium: home of waffles, chocolate, and Hercule Poirot. Erin and I flew from Palma Mallorca to Brussels on Saturday, April 18. The next day, we went to church:

I almost didn't want to go to church, but Erin thought it'd be a good idea (which is ironic, as I am a Christian and Erin is an atheist). She was right. The church was beautiful, but more importantly, God was more present to me in that Belgian cathedral than He had been in a long time.

The cathedral also had a great view of Brussels:

Brussels is a pretty business-oriented city, so it was pretty unbusy (what is the word for the opposite of busy?) on a Sunday. That was great, though; it was nice to get away from crowds and to not have to wait in line for our waffles-with-chocolate-and-strawberry lunch. (Yum, I know.)

Erin and I stopped in the Grande Place, which is big and grand and impressive:

We also visited that famous statue, the Mannekin. It was not big or grand or impressive, but there you go:

The highlight of our day in Brussels was the Atomium. This is the Atomium:

Seriously cool, right? It was built for the 1958 World Expo, and it has been in Brussels ever since. Here's what was even cooler, though: there were two random days when people could zipline from the top of the Atomium (335 feet tall), and Erin and I just happened to visit on one of those two days! I did not zipline (not because I was afraid, but because I was broke), but she did! Seriously cooler, right?

And here is the Belgian Arc de Triomphe:

It has a really nice park, where Erin and I ended our day in Brussels.

The next day, we went to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Amsterdam is now one of my favorite cities. The 'coffeeshops' (where you get pot, versus cafes where you actually get coffee) are sort of whatever, and the sex trade is pretty gross (the Red Light District is honestly one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen), but minus that five-block area of whateverness and grossness, Amsterdam rocks.

The buildings are awesome, there are canals running through the whole city, and there are bikes everywhere:

And Anne Frank used to live there. Erin and I visited the Anne Frank Museum, which is just amazing. Here's another book shout-out: The Diary of Anne Frank. I feel like everyone has to read this in eighth grade, but if you, like Erin, somehow missed out on that part of education, go read this book. And then maybe visit Amsterdam to drive the whole thing home. Here's where Otto Frank's business and the Frank family's hiding place were:

Okay, like I said earlier, there were bikes everywhere in Amsterdam. There are also lots of pretty colors (of which I am a huge fan) and people who like happy things. This is how bikes like this come into existence:

Please look closely at the kickstand: it has wooden clogs on. Amazing.

Our second day in Amsterdam, Erin and I went on a windmill hunt. We rented bikes, which was so fantastic, and we rode all around and outside the city. We found things other than windmills, too:

The first windmill we found was the most impressive. It was also someone's house:

The second windmill was actually impossible to get to and kind of run-down, but...hey, it was a windmill:

And the last windmill had a restaurant in the bottom of it, which, in this picture, is covered up by Erin and me.

The bike rental place was by Amsterdam's library (the largest library in Europe and one of the newest-built), so Erin and I stopped in to use the Internet after our bike-riding adventure. And, lucky day, we saw royalty! The Swedish king and queen were in The Netherlands to promote peace and goodwill throughout the earth (or something like that), and the Queen was in the library to help open a show of children's books illustrated by Swedish artists. So, of course, Erin and I stayed in the library until the Queen left, because, seriously, royalty from a socialist country (how does that work, exactly?) is still royalty!

The Queen is in pink. I never got a picture of her face, but if you want to see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Silvia_of_Sweden

Like a lot of European cities, Amsterdam is beautiful. I think it seemed more beautiful to me, though, because these buildings aren't as iconic (read: I've seen pictures of them so much that they're almost common) as the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben or something:

I don't even know what this is, but it's just there, functioning in Amsterdam as if it's not totally big and awesome.

Our final day travelling, Erin and I visited the Van Gogh museum. It was fine, if you like Van Gogh. On the way, we completed our Dutch trip by finding a giant wooden clog:

We took a free and fantastic tour later that day, where we found another icon of the Dutch:

The next day, we went back to Oxford.

Dear Readers, we've finished with my spring break travels!! (Hey, it only took three months...) I loved nearly every minute of my trip, and don't regret a bit of it. I saw God in so many places and so many people, and I learned so much about His amazing world and my role in it. I discovered that tours are nearly always good ideas, most museums are not really my thing, ice cream always makes the end of a long day perfect, Italian men are the funniest flirters, it does no good to worry about money unless you're actually going to make a budget, you should always carry chocolate and apples, hikes to views are always rewarding, the beach at night is so lovely, overnight trains make you feel like a little kid because they're so cool, books are necessary to a good travel experience, there is rarely a need to wash clothes (unless it's underwear) between wears, you should always give a city at least a day before judging it, and it's better to travel with people, especially those people you love.

Though my continental adventures have come to a close, my European adventures aren't over yet! Check back soon for an update on my last term in Oxford and my time in Antibes!

Expedition to Europe: Paris and Palma

2009-07-26T15:58:00.021-05:00

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the adventures of our intrepid adventurer: me. Sorry for the delay in between episodes. There was a writer's strike.

Anyway, we last left me in Nice with Madison and Ashton. I enjoyed my time with them immensely (this is an incredibly popular word in Britain, by the way, and incredibly misused), but alas, I had to leave them on the south coast and train all the way to Paris alone. I also spent my first night in Paris alone because my next travel partner, Bill, missed his plane. That is typical of Bill.

Bill arrived in Paris on Sunday, April 12, which was Easter Sunday! Bill and I spent Easter morning here:

That's Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame.

And that's Bill. He's a goofball that has a penchant for Dungeons and Dragons, philosophy, and being late.

We spent the Easter service inside Notre Dame, which looks like this:

The service was in French, so I understood a bit of it (words like "Jesus," "Christ," "God," and "Amen"), and it was mostly beautiful, beautiful music. There were also a bunch of guys in white doing mysterious sacred-mediating-between-the-people-and-God-type things:

So here's a little-known fact about Notre Dame: the back of the church is way cooler and prettier than the front:

I know, right? Why do they keep showing pictures of those two really-kind-of-boring towers (seriously, most of their interest value comes from imagining Quasimodo saving Esmerelda from the flames of death and shouting "SANCTUARY" as he hoisted her above his head whilst standing between the towers. Anyway.) when the back of the church looks like this?

After church, we went to the Eiffel Tower:

There is not much to say about the Eiffel Tower that you don't already know or can't look up on wikipedia. I mean, it's huge, and there are some really impressive views:

Like this view of the French Parliament. Sorry the photo is crooked, I took it myself.

That night, we went back to the Eiffel Tower:

Those white lights flickered on and off, which may sound seizure-inducing but was, in actuality, magical. Like Harry Potter was having Christmas in Paris or something.

Bill and I spent the next day at The Louvre:

The Louvre is a gigantic, gigantic museum that is vaguely overwhelming. And by vaguely I mean completely. There are four wings with about eight billion rooms each (for those of you who like math, that's 32 billion rooms). I visited some rooms that were new to me, and some old favorites, like my second-favorite statue ever:

The Winged Victory. So cool.

Bill and I also stopped by the Sacre Coeur, the Church of the Sacred Heart. After visiting this church, I have absolutely no insight into what it is or why it was built. I'm not sure if it's Christian, or inter-religious, or what, but one thing it was: busy.

After this, Bill and I left Paris and headed to a small island off the coast of Spain to join up with our friends. Our journey there was...awful. The night of Monday, July 13, and the whole day of Tuesday, July 14, were the worst 36 hours of my whole trip. It's way too complicated and awful to talk about the gritty, tear-inducing details, but let's just say that what we thought was going to be a train ride from Paris to Barcelona and then a plane from Barcelona to Mallorca (all in one day) turned into an overnight train from Paris to Irun, a train to San Sebastian, a bus to Madrid, a frantic call to my dad who bought us new plane tickets, a surprise overnight stay in Madrid, and finally, a day late, a plane from Madrid to Mallorca. However, I have to remember to praise God for all the incredibly nice and helpful people we met on our no-good, truly awful day.

But once we finally got to Mallorca, it was great! We met up with Jacque (you may remember her from Italy and Greece), Erin (from Prague), Sabrina (an Oxford housemate), and Nicole. The first order of business was to bury Erin and me in the sand and then draw a yin-yang around us:

There are pretty much only two things to say about Mallorca: it was beautiful, and we did nothing but relax.

This was a sunrise:

This was our daily view from the beach:

And this was the last sunrise:

And thus concludes April 12-April 18. Coming up next: the final stages of my trip. Join us next post as we gape at more big buildings, admire more statues, and visit more museums.

Expedition to Europe: Berlin and Nice

2009-06-06T03:56:00.024-05:00

I rode the train all by myself from Prague to Berlin (which, for the record, is one of the most beautiful train rides you will ever hope to have), and met my friends Ashton and Madison.

Oops, just kidding, those aren't my friends Ashton and Madison. Those are goats. This picture was taken on our first night in Berlin.

I have very few photos from our first day in Berlin, because I spent most of it in bed with a very sore neck watching MTV and the World Curling Federation. Long story. The first night, though, we went to a market where I haggled to buy some earrings (which are super-cute, by the way) and found a small zoo with the cutest baby goats (see above).

We also found Kinder eggs, which excited me to no end. Shout out to Mimi and Poppa, who brought Reid and Abbie and me Kinder eggs when we were little. Kinder eggs are hollow eggs made out of milk and white chocolate, and they have toys inside of them:

It was like a little bit of my childhood--and a little bit of Mimi--found in Germany! PS, Ashton's in the middle and Madison is on the right.

For dinner, we went to the oldest beer garden in Berlin, the Pater Garten:

As I am not a drinker, I decided to try some non-alcoholic beer. Although I have never tried beer, I would bet that non-alcoholic beer is to alcoholic beer what fat-free Oreos are to real Oreos: you've taken out the one thing that made it worthwhile! The non-beer was...disgusting. Just totally gross.

The next day, we went to the Brandenberg Gate. Funny story: Napoleon once stole the chariot statue from the top of the Brandenberg Gate because he was...well, Napoleon. When he was defeated, Germany took back the statue and, to add insult to injury, turned the head of the charioteer to stare at the French embassy (which is to the right of the Gate). Way to go, Berliners!

We also went to thhe Reichstag, and then...we went to the Holocaust Memorial. Which is, to put it simply, stunning:

There are 2711 slabs (the number is insignificant) of differing heights. You can walk through the slabs:

On an uneven path. It's meant to be unsettling, and it is. When you walk through, there is a lot of darkness and a sense of being lost that makes the memorial totally effective. At least, that was my impression; you're supposed to make your own meaning of the memorial.

After lunch was Checkpoint Charlie! I was pretty excited about it, because I think Berlin's history is pretty darn fascinating. Berlin was a pawn in so many conflicts, but it was also an instigator of a lot of conflicts. Berliners (or whatever they are called) exude this mixture of apologies--we are so sorry for trying to take over the world and for killing lots of people--and strength--our history may affect us, but it will not make us. It's great.

Back to Checkpoint Charlie:

And then on to the Jewish Museum. At the Jewish Museum, we got to hang wishes on a Wish Tree:

And we saw some funny yarmulkes:

The Holocaust Tower in the Jewish Museum is also pretty impressive. The only light comes from a tiny window in the corner, and it's cold and huge:

Next stop, the Berlin Wall! If you ever get a chance, look up the history of the Berlin Wall. It's too long to put here, but it's absolutely fascinating:

Finally, we went to Museum Island. It has lots of museums and a very large church:

The next day and night, we took a train from Berlin to Paris and then an overnight train from Paris to Nice. I quite like overnight trains. Once we got to Nice, we met Jacque and immediately headed off to Monaco!

We went to Monaco for one reason: to add another country to our list. It was pretty cool, though. It was Madison's 21st birthday, so we had a picnic on the beach and did some wading:

Clearly Jacque was the only one of us prepared for that photo.

We also visited the Japanese Garden in Monaco:

We headed back to Nice for dinner and the best sorbet I have ever tasted (seriously. It was like they picked raspberries in heaven and then made them into delicious). We ate our sorbet on the beach at twilight:

Walking back into town, we saw these:

I have no idea. Let's call it art. They are naked men who light up as colors, and the colors change...

The next day, we hung out around Nice. We visited the beach again, this time in the daylight:

And we climbed the big hill in Nice, which led to this view:

Afterwards, we relaxed in a park and ate dinner at Subway, and that was pretty much Nice.

Coming up next: Paris and Palma Mallorca!

Expedition to Europe: Athens and Prague

2009-05-31T13:17:00.036-05:00

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to my much-neglected account of my spring break.

Basically what happened is that I'm on the rowing team (which you knew) and our big race was this past week (which you didn't know). Now that rowing is over for the term, I should be back on top of life in general and my blog especially.

We last left our intrepid adventurers, Jacque and Joy, in Venice being very, very wet. Our next stop, on Monday, March 30, is the lovely, the thankfully sunny, Greece!

At first, I was pretty uncomfortable with Greece. Jacque and I arrived in the evening, and when we went to get dinner, we saw no women on the streets and large groups of men who made suggestive comments to us (at least, I assume they were: it was all Greek to me. Ha.). I went to bed pretty unhappy on our first night, but the next morning dawned bright and warm and with exciting things in store.

We started our day at the Acropolis. The Acropolis is quite large and includes many, many more things than just the Parthenon. First, we saw the Theater of Dionysus:

Which is pretty amazing. Just think: the god Dionysus acted here! Okay, that's a lie, Dionysus doesn't actually exist. But equally as cool: ancient Greeks acted here! Here is the Theater from above:

And if you think the Theater of Dionysus is impressive, wait until you see the Odeon of Herodes Atticus:

That little red dot in the bottom right-hand corner? That's a person. This theater was HUGE. (On a side note, I had no idea what this theater was called until I looked it up on Wikipedia. On another side note, there's a chain of movie theaters here in England called the Odeon Theaters, which makes so much more sense now.)

And of course, the crowning glory of the Acropolis:

Me! Just kidding. The crowning glory is actually the Parthenon, which is behind me.

Here is a view of the southern part of the Acropolis, including the Theater of Dionysus and...some other stuff. It's not that I'm too lazy to write about it, it's just that I don't really know what it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis,_Athens

The Parthenon is a temple to Athena, who was the patron goddess of Athens (hence the city's name, which is Athina in Greek. Actually, it's αθήνα, but whatever). Next to the Parthenon is the Old Tempe of Athena, which has some very famous columns:

These are the caryatids, and they are columns shaped like women. There are six of them here, and none of them are original. Five of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum, and the sixth original is in the British Museum. I saw the sixth original two weekends ago, actually.

The Acropolis was pretty amazing: it's very, very big, and there were many, many tourists. There were also, surprisingly, many, many dogs. Actually, there were dogs everywhere in Athens:

Jacque and I began to suspect that dogs actually run Athens because they are everywhere and no one seems to care. They sleep, they eat, they go in and out of churches, they herd people, and one even led us from the place in the photo below (more on that soon) to the Ancient Agora. Where would Athens be without dogs? It would, if you'll pardon the pun, go to the dogs...(please don't pardon that pun. It was awful).

Okay, so this photo is of Jacque sitting on the Areopagus. According to legend, the apostle Paul preached from this hill and converted a bunch of Athenians. It's kind of neat to think about Paul spreading the truth of Christ in the shadow of a huge complex built to honor non-existent gods. Light shining in the darkness, and all that.

Jacque and I ate lunch at a McDonald's. This photo is a pretty good representation of Athens: old, lovely religion and society surrounded by slightly ugly modernity, with a little bit of American capitalism thrown in.

And now we come to one of my favorite parts of Athens: the Changing of the Guard. Whoever designed this ceremony based it primarily on horses. The guards kick their legs like horses, paw the ground with their foot like a horse with its hoof, and prance:

They even have nails in their shoes, so they clip-clop like horses. They also wear the greatest costumes ever:

Please note: the pleated skirt (400 pleats, one for every year Greece was occupied by the Ottomans); the long tassel (which the head of the guard uses to brush the face of the new guards); and the gigantic pom-poms on their shoes. Jacque and I watched the changing of the guard twice because we liked it so much.

Also in Athens is a large park, sort of like Hyde Park in London or Central Park in NYC. Among other exciting things, this park had a small...well, let's call it a zoo. I think they called it a "Bird and Animal Sanctuary" or something, but it was too bizarre to be a sanctuary. In one cage, they had pigeons. Pigeons! As if there are not enough pigeons in every city in Europe, the Athenians felt a need to display the flying rats.

The "sanctuary" also had cages with the oddest assortment of animals. In the cage pictured below, there were: rabbits, chickens, roosters, cats (cats?), peacocks, and peahens. The rabbits were caged in the little house, and the cat was just sitting there not realizing that it had a wonderful feast of small animals in front of it.

Other than the pigeons and the oddly assorted cage, there was a cage with geese and ducks (again, as if you can't see enough of those in the wild...) and a cage with goats with the creepiest eyes I have ever seen. Imagine Lord Voldemort's eyes staring at you from under a pair of large horns. Quite scary.

Across from the park was the 1896 Summer Olympics. I am a huge fan of the Olympics, so this was pretty exciting for me. The very first modern Olympics were held in this stadium! This was the Opening Stadium, and the event stadium, and the spectator's stadium...everything, all in one! I was pretty psyched.

The next day (by now, we are at Wednesday, April 1), Jacque and I "hiked" (when I say "hiked," I mean we walked the paved pathway) up Lycabettus Hill, one of the large hills in Athens. I won't lie to you, it wasn't the most exciting thing I've ever done, but we did see a nice view! Here, in the distance, is the Acropolis:

After we "hiked" down, we went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Now, when you hear that name, you think, "Man, the Greeks were so hyperbolish" (and then you think, "Hey, is hyperbolish a word? Probably not"). I mean, "The Temple of Olympian Zeus" is an impressive name, and probably must be said impressively in your best James-Earl-Jones-as-Mufasa imitation, like this: THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS. And then you get to THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS and you realize: it deserves James Earl Jones' voice.

There are only 13 pillars left of a THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS, and they are 55.5 feet tall. There were meant to be 104 of these columns! Wow. Just wow.

My second WOW of the day came when we went to the 2004 Olympic Stadium. Did I mention that I am a huge fan of the Olympics?

Here is the pool--THE VERY POOL--where Michael Phelps became truly famous!

Let me reiterate: Michael Phelps, the frog-man himself, swam in this pool!

And here--right behind me!--is the Opening Stadium!! !! !! Also, I'm dressed like a stoplight in this photo.

So that was Athens, Greece. I enjoyed Athens a lot (Olympics! Ancient buildings! Gyros! Which, apparently, are pronounced not "jyros" nor "heros," but something like "jyieros." Yeah, good luck), and I especially enjoyed my time with Jacque. Also, a quick shout-out for children's literature, I enjoyed Athens so much more having read the Percy Jackson series. Check them out, they're amazing!

Sadly, my time with Jacque was at an end. I spent April 2 travelling alone (nothing interesting happened: I sat on a bus, then sat in an airport, then sat in a plane...you get it), and then I met Erin on April 3 in Prague!

Erin's description of Prague I feel is apt: she calls it "Soviet chic." Prague is on the border between Eastern Europe and Western Europe, and it is so cool because it doesn't really fit into either category. It's got the Soviet influence, definitely, but the chic influence (I hope that doesn't offend any former Soviets...) of Western Europe:

Prague was just lovely:

It was getting near Easter, and Prague was appropriately decorated:

Seriously, aren't these buildings cool?

One of Prague's main attractions is the Astronomical Clock, aka the Orloj. According to Wikipedia, "the Orloj is composed of three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; 'The Walk of the Apostles,' a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles, and other moving sculptures; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months." It is super-cool looking:

In this photo, the Astronomical Clock is on the left, and the church where Erin and I spent Palm Sunday is on the right:

Prague has a river. Across the river from the Astronomical Clock, there is the Royal Palace (where, incidentally, Obama was the day after I took this photo):

Prague has lots of great architecture. Prague also has lots of odd architecture (read: Gehry's Dancing House):

While exploring Prague, Erin and I chanced upon (are you ready for this) a Swedish high school marching band! Not even kidding. To make it even better...they were playing ABBA! And the world seemed right again:

That night, Erin and I went an orchestra concert, and we learned two things: first, that the inside of buildings are as gorgeous as the outside (see below); and second, that orchestra rocks. The concert was phenomenal. There were ten musicians, all playing string instruments, and they were playing "The Best of the Classics," which meant we recognized most of the music.

The next day was Palm Sunday, and Erin and I went to that church from the picture above. At first, we were two of ten people in the church, and Erin commented on how it was sad that churches just didn't fill up any more. Five minutes later, there was a PARADE down the church aisle of about 200 people carrying branches and singing and chanting. It was, if you'll pardon the pun, enchanting. Also ensinging...oh wait, that pun doesn't work. Anyway, the parade was joyful and solemn at once, which is pretty appropriate to Palm Sunday, and it just went on for about ten minutes. I loved it.

Before we left Prague, we stopped by the Easter Market in the square outside the church. There were all sorts of crafts and jewelry, the best pastry-thing I have ever eaten (a cross between a pretzel and a cinnamon roll...mmmmm), and this guy:

Yeah, he's a real-live blacksmith blacksmithing right in front of everyone. That is real fire. So cool.

Prague, for me, is really more about pictures than stories. Erin and I spent our day-and-a-half there just wandering around and looking, because there is so much to look at. Prague is gorgeous all over, and the people are so nice, and the food is great, and the exchange rate means that you feel like you're spending fake money ("Go straight to the yummy pastry things that cost 250 cronar-thingys, do not pass Go").

Well, kids, we have now gotten through half of my spring break! I promise to be more on top of updating this with photos and stories, and then we'll move right on to...France!

I've recently been accepted to a study-abroad program in France, which starts the day after my Oxford term ends. That means I'll be in Antibes (in the south of France), soaking up sun and hopefully the French language, until July 11, and I'll get back the States July 14!

But before France part 2 comes Berlin and France part 1. Coming soon!

Expedition to Europe: Italy

2009-05-13T07:50:00.028-05:00

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

Couldn't resist, sorry. Anyway, when we last left my adventures, I was on my way to meet Jacque in Rome.

I did, in fact, meet up with Jacque (who you will meet in the photo nine photos down). Monday was our first day in Rome. We decided to take the subway to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's; the tube was absolutely insane. When the train finally pulled up, 15 people squeezed into a space large enough for three people. I kid you not. There was no way I could have been pick-pocketed, because no one could move enough.

We finally got off the subway (launched out of the car by people desperate to get some breathing room), and made our way to the Vatican Museum. On the way, we saw six gelato places and decided that gelato was going to be a necessary part of lunch.

I'd never been inside the Vatican Museum before, and I really enjoyed it. Here is one of my favorite things:

That is not a carving: that is a painting painted to look like a carving. How cool is that?

The Vatican has roughly 45 rooms (when I say "roughly," I mean I'm totally making that number up. But there were a lot of rooms), including the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited in the Sistine Chapel, but if you Google Image "Sistine Chapel" you can pretty much see what I saw.

The amount of art in the Vatican Museum borders on overwhelming:

That's just one room, with ceilings, walls, and floors covered in art. There was so much to look at. Most of it, unsurprisingly, was of a religious nature. I enjoyed seeing the different representations of Christ and the Bible and other religious subjects:

After the Vatican Museum, we sunbathed in the Piazza San Pietro for a while, and then we went into St. Peter's Basilica:

St. Peter's pretty much lives up to its hype. It's huge and beautiful and awe-inspiring and solemn and worshipful, all at once. It's historical and religious and political and current, and I just really like it.

Across the road from St. Peter's is the Castle St. Angelo. Romans sort of apologize when they talk about the Castle St. Angelo: "We're sorry, but it's the only castle we have," they seem to be saying, as if they don't have enough other ancient stuff to keep you occupied. My family visited the Castle when we were in Rome in 2004, and I got my picture taken with a performance artist all dressed in white. I decided to do that again:

We then made our way to the Spanish Steps:

The Spanish Steps are a seething mass of humanity. We even saw a wedding party taking pictures.

To round off our Monday, we visited the Piazza del Popolo, the Villa de Medici, the Fountian of Triton, and the Piazza de Republico. I'm not going to lie to you, while those places were neat, I did not take any photos that you can't see via Google Image.

The next day was Tuesday. Tuesday was Colosseum Day:

The Colosseum is such a cool place. We went on a tour with this Italian tour guide who spoke like an ideal Italian tour guide: "This-a statue was-a ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY METERS TALL."

This lady tour guide would deepen her voice and attempt an American accent to emphasize words, which was pretty funny.

Fun fact: the word "Colosseum" does not actually refer to the amphitheater. Instead, it refers to the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY METER TALL bronze-a statue of Nero that used to stand in front of the amphitheater. People called the statue the Colossus, and...well, the rest is history.

That is the inside of the Colosseum. Did I mention it was huge? Well, it is huge, seating about 50,000 people. Before you say, "Well, Joy, Arrowhead Stadium seats 77,038 people [I did not make that number up], and Arrowhead isn't even that big," let me remind you that the Colosseum sat 50,000 people in an age before cranes, hydraulic lifts, steel, or plastic. Also let me remind you that the Colosseum housed a game even more dangerous than football: the Chiefs have neither swords nor lions, which makes the Colosseum slightly more hardcore.

And that's Jacque and I. We do not play football or have swords, but we are still pretty hardcore.

On Colosseum Day, we also visited the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, housed in a building with the Romans call the Wedding Cake. See why?

This is a view of Rome from the Wedding Cake:

This is what Rome is about: tiny streets, hills, and basilicas.

We also visited the Forum, where we got a tour from a Scottish guy. As part of that tour, I learned the story of the founding of Rome. If you want to know the full version, ask me, but the summary goes like this: Wolf-raised child chooses hill on April 21, 753 B.C. and puts a city on it because of vultures, then conquers most of the known world (which mainly consisted of...six other hills). Anyway, the Forum:

We finished our day off with some more churches (Rome is just crawling with churches) and a delicious Italian dinner. Have I mentioned the food yet? It was great. Great. I could eat in Italy every day.

On Wednesday, Jacque and I visited the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is my favorite place in Rome. There's a legend about the Trevi Fountain that says if you throw a coin in, you are destined to return to Rome, so...

We also visited the Pantheon, which I personally think is over-hyped, and we did laundry (not at the Pantheon). Then we had a picnic and ate gelato. It was a good day. That night, we re-visited the Colosseum:

Lovely.

So that was Rome. We trained to Florence, and got in around sundown:

The next day (we are on Friday, March 27 now), we crossed Florence's river and climbed this large, steep, intimidating hill. This view was worth the climb, though:

On the left, you can see the Duomo (which translates as "dome," which tells you what to look at), and on the right you can see the mountain range that surrounds Florence.

Florence had a lot of street artists, and this one was my favorite:

They drew that with chalk. I was so impressed, I gave them money, which is probably what they were going for.

We saw Michaelangelo's David (no pictures allowed again...), and one of my favorite statues:

It's called the Rape of the Sabines. While it's a violent and tragic story, the statue is just amazing. It was innovative in its design, which is on a helix: when you look at it, you just keep walking in a circle around it.

On Saturday, we trained to Venice:

Venice has a lot of water. On the Sunday we were in Venice, there was even more water, because it poured all day. It was a little miserable:

Those are people standing on tables in San Marco Square. Apparently Venice floods on a regular basis, so they just keep tables ready for people to walk on. We didn't do much in Venice because of the rain, which was a shame, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We met some Americans from Vanderbilt in our hostel, ate dinner and gelato with them, so that was fun.

Thus ended our week in Italy. I learned that Italians really do the pursed-hand stereotype (picture a chef saying "Is-a good!" and that's the hand gesture I'm talking about); also, Italians sometimes make a large hand gesture and then forget about their hand, leaving it hanging in front of all the Smart Cars zooming down the street.

I also learned that Italians vendors are very friendly, and that they like to flirt with blondes, like Jacque. One vendor told Jacque, "Senorina! I look at you so long, I hurt myself! See, look at my knee..." Another told Jacque she dropped something, and when she looked back to see what it was, he placed his hand on his chest and sighed, "My heart."

Italy was a pretty amazing place to visit. Coming up next: Athens and Prague!

Expedition to Europe: England and Ireland

2009-04-28T15:41:00.024-05:00

My parents and my sister, Abbie, came for the first week of my break. Let me just tell you how excited I was to see them: whilst waiting for them in the airport, I was bouncing up and down, talking to myself, and gulping back tears of excitement, and I scared quite a few people away.

They got here on Saturday, and I was happy. We ate lunch:

(Mom was still jet-lagged), and then we took a grand tour of Oxford, which included a tour of Regent's Park:

It was wonderful to take them to church on Sunday, and they also got to see me row, which was a surprise! This is from my church:

On Monday, we went to Salisbury Cathedral:

I know, isn't it gorgeous? The cathedral is in a great setting: there's grass everywhere, and therefore picnics and dogs and flowers and frisbees and happiness. We were lucky to be there on a sunny day, so we ate lunch sitting on the wall surrounding the cathedral:

We drove on to Stonehenge. We'd rented a car, which was quite the experience. Dad, Mom, and I all got to drive on the wrong side of the road, which is bizarre. On the way to Stonehenge, we saw a Texaco, which was...apparently wonderful, because there is now a picture of it on my computer. Don't worry, I'm not posting it; I figure you know what those look like.

Driving to Stonehenge is neat because you crest a hill and see it spread out before you:

It's smaller than you think at first glance, but when you get close, you realize that people who did not have hydraulic lifts or tractor-trailers created it, and then you are amazed. Inspired, even. In fact, Mom and Abbie and I were so inspired that we tried to recreate Stonehenge using our bodies:

A resounding success, I think. Actually, we initially tried to make the part of Stonehenge that looks like a door frame, but Mom and Abbie dropped me.

The Monday that we were at Stonehenge was my parents' 24th anniversary (my parents rock (hey, a pun!)):

On Monday, we continued on to Bath, where we visited the Roman Baths. If you ever go to the Roman Baths, do the audio tour as it is fantastic. I do give this warning, though: Bill Bryson contributes to the audio tour, and as much as I love Bryson's books, his audio tours are sentimental and pretty pointless. I don't know how many times I heard him say, "It's so moving to think..." and then explain how he is moved by an interesting but not tear-jerking part of daily life, like throwing coins in the water or walking down steps. Anyway, the baths were very cool:

We all tried the water at Bath, which is supposed to be healing but was mostly gross.

Yep, Abbie and I felt the same way about it. We ended the day in Bristol, at this B&B. It is called the Coachhouse because, well, it used to be a coachhouse:

The next day was St. Patrick's Day, so we headed to Ireland! But first, we stopped at Cardiff Castle in Wales, which was really neat. It still had the ancient keep:

Plus a bunch of newer buildings that made it this a hodge-podge of different castle styles:

That's Mom and Abbie and me. After the castle, we took a ferry, because there is a large body of water between England and Ireland:

Once in Ireland, we stayed in Waterford, which can proudly claim to have the creepiest and most out-of-place billboard I have ever seen:

Seriously, why? There are no words, no explanations, just a 100-foot-tall elf-child looking depressed. In addition to this billboard, Waterford also has a fast-food restaurant called Supermac's, outside of which they had a stabbing! What a day.

The day after St. Patrick's Day, we kissed the Blarney Stone. You were wondering why this post is so eloquent, weren't you? It's because I kissed the Blarney Stone. Kissing the Blarney Stone was, by the way, terrifying: no one ever tells you that you have to lean out upside-down over a hole in a wall five stories high! Mom will demonstrate:

After Blarney, we went to Dublin, where there is an amazing pizza place and weird television shows about men who wear pink, sing, and drive Barbie cars on their way to build sets for a ballet. Very odd. We spent a while in a bank that used to be the House of Lords, saw Trinity College, and bought souvenirs.

The next day (which was Thursday, March 19, in case you've lost track), we took another ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, and then went to Chester. That pretty much took the whole day. On Friday, we visited Chester's cathedral and wall:

Chester's wall was pretty neat, mostly because it was big and old (not that England has a shortage of big, old things).

We went to London via Stratford-upon-Avon and Oxford. In Stratford-upon-Avon, we were forced into a tour (okay, okay: I forced everyone else into a tour) of Shakespeare's birth home given by a man with a head the size of a watermelon and no sense of humour, unless it came to the "to be or not to be" joke ("So the question for dinner always was: 'to eat, or not to eat?'"), which he told three times. We also found this cool statue:

Our Saturday in London consisted of the London Eye:

We saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which was great, although Joseph was roughly the color of the orange spray-on tan. We also rode double-decker buses:

Pretty much, my trip with my family was amazing, mostly because it was a trip with my family! We missed Reid a lot, but he was acing tests and winning basketball games (or something like that) instead of traipsing around England with us. We all got to see things we'd never seen, we stayed in great B&Bs (never underestimate the power of a good full-English breakfast), and we got to see each other!

Coming up next: Italy!

Expedition to Europe: exposition

2009-04-28T15:14:00.003-05:00

When considering where on earth to begin in this most epic series of posts (which I have alliteratively and attractively entitled "Expedition to Europe"), I wondered to myself, "Where do I begin?" The answer to my question is found, of course, in that movie which has a wealth of ethical, moral, and philosophical answers: The Sound of Music. As Julie Andrews so aptly sings, "Let's start at the very beginning: a very good place to start."

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then, I got to see the earth that God created.

Let's start with the cities I visited: Salisbury, Stonehenge (okay, not really a city, but I'm counting it anyway), Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Waterford, Blarney, Dublin, Chester, Stratford-upon-Avon, London, Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens, Prague, Berlin, Monte Carlo (not just a casino!), Nice, Paris, Palma Mallorca, Brussels, and Amsterdam. If you're counting, that's 23 cities in 11 countries: England, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Germany, Monaco, France, Spain, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

It was amazing.

I want to tell you everything about it, but the logistics are difficult. Thirty-nine days, 23 cities, 11 countries, ten travel companions, 1032 photos, five buses, eleven trains, seven planes... My goal is one post per week of travel, but we'll see what happens.

Spring break!

2009-03-11T13:35:00.005-05:00

Prepare to be jealous:

My spring break is six weeks long.

And what will I do with those six weeks, I hear you ask?

Travel. Lots and lots of travel.

Saturday, March 14 is a red-letter day: my Mom and Dad and Abbie fly into London! I am beyond excited to see them. I'm sad Reid won't be with them, but I know he's excited about being at MU while they're here and going to Colorado the week after.

While my parents and Abigail are here, we are taking a tour of England and Ireland! We're hanging out in Oxford until March 16 (shout-out to my parents' anniversary on that day: 24 years! Way to go, Mom and Dad!), and then we leave to visit Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, and Bristol. March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) is Cardiff and Waterford, Ireland. March 18 is Blarney, Ireland, and Dublin, Ireland. March 19 is Dublin and Chester, England. March 20 is Stratford-upon-Avon and London. My family flies out of London on March 22, and I cry.

It sounds whirlwind-ish, and is, but it's going to be a ton of fun. Even though I've lived in England for five months now, I haven't made any trips to any of these great places, so I'm excited about that. Most importantly, I get to see my family! Happiness is sure to abound.

The rest of break is spend travelling with friends. Jacque and I fly from London to Rome on March 22, and we're in Rome rocking the ruins until March 26. Then we go to Florence until March 28 and Venice until March 30. Thus ends the Italian portion of our trip.

Jacque and I will be in Athens (rocking some more ruins) from March 30 to April 2, and then we go our separate ways. I am meeting Erin...somewhere. April 2-5 is a little up in the air right now. The original plan was Prague, but it takes a long time to get there. We may go to Germany, maybe Switzerland, maybe somewhere else!

On April 5, I meet Ashton and Madison in Berlin. We're there until April 8, when we leave for Nice. I leave Nice on April 10, and meet Bill in Paris. We'll be in Paris over the Easter weekend, which means I get to go to Easter services in Notre Dame!

Bill and I meet Sabrina, Nicole, Erin, and Jacque in Majorca (one of the Spanish Canary Islands) on April 14, and all six of us hang out on the beach until April 18. April 18, Erin and I go to Brussels, and then we get into Amsterdam on April 20. We return to Oxford on April 23.

That's 39 days of travel in a row, and I'm pretty excited. I'm also slightly intimidated. Please pray for safety and health every one who's travelling. Also, please pray for no stress and lots of fun enjoying this great world that God has given us! I'd really appreciate it.

Row hard, row strong

2009-03-02T03:54:00.019-06:00

I have been promising a post about rowing for a very long time now, and here it is!

Last term, I joined the rowing team. We didn't do much last term (which I why I rarely wrote about it) because of the weather. When it rains, the river rises, and it becomes too dangerous to row. Since it rained most of the autumn, the river was generally too high for us to row.

This term, though, we did a lot more! The weather was better, except for the whole snow thing, so we actually got to practice.

Rowing is pretty physically demanding. After our first practice this term, I woke up so sore that I didn't get out of bed, I fell out.

To draw the blade (that's what the oar is called) through the water, you have to push with your legs, then lean with your back, then pull with your arms. Then, to get the blade ready to draw again, you have to straighten your arms, lean forward, and bend your legs. To make that clearer, here's a video (shot by my lovely friend Madison, who was awesome enough to come cheer us on at our timed trial to get into Torpids--more on that later) (as a reminder, to play the video, hit the sideways triangle in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture below):

I'm the one with the bright red sleeves, second from the right.

As you can see, the eight rowers are facing backwards. The ninth person in the boat is the cox (short for coxswain, pronounced 'coxen'). The cox has several important jobs. First, he or she is facing forward and can actually see where the boat is going, and steers accordingly. Second, he or she directs/encourages/yells at the crew. For example, our cox in that video, Ray, would yell things like, "LENgthen those strides, LOOKing ahead, BACKS are straight, PUSH with the legs, enGAGE with the water, HEADS in the boat." Whenever he would emphasize something (as indicated by the caps), that would be when we were drawing through the water. During races, coxes yell when you're getting close to another boat and tell you when to push harder.

Getting the boat in and out of the water is pretty fun. We lift it onto our shoulders and walk it out of the boathouse, and then carry it onto the raft:

Then we lift it above our heads. I don't have a picture of my team doing this, but here's a picture of the boys' team:

Then we sort of roll the boat from above our heads into the water:

Here's what the inside of the boat looks like:

We sit on those seats, which roll back and forth, and put our feet into the velcro-strapped shoes.

What are these pictures of, you may ask? (Or, if you are being grammatically correct, "Of what are all these pictures?") They are from Torpids!

Torpids is the Hilary Term race. Now, at Oxford, races are not like normal races where everyone lines up at the start and then tries to get to the finish first. Instead, this is what happens (to watch this video, hit Play):

What you just saw is the beginning of the Women's Division I race (Regent's Park was in Division V, which is why you can hear Erin and me in the background--we weren't racing). There are 13 boats in each division, and they line up along the bank of the river to begin. A gun goes off (which you may have heard at the beginning), and off they go!

The goal in these races is not to reach the finish line first, but to bump another team. Bumping can be accomplished one of three ways: you can actually physically bump the other team's boat with yours; you can get close enough to the other team's boat that the other team's cox can see you and then the other team's cox concedes; or you can totally pass the other boat. The whistles that you may have heard in the video are coaches warning their teams that they are either about to get bumped or are about to bump. This may make no sense, so let's use a picture (from Men's Division I):

In this photo, the white boat is trying to bump the yellow boat, and they are getting very close. You chase the boat directly in front of you. If you bump another boat (for instance, if the white boat runs into/overtakes/forces to concede the yellow boat), you are finished with the race and you get out of the way. If you are bumped (if the yellow boat is run into/overtaken/forced to concede), then you have to finish the race or bump another boat.

Please don't worry if all of that makes no sense. I didn't understand it until I actually raced.

Torpids was four days long, and started last Wednesday. Regent's Park women did alright overall, but not great. We didn't bump or get bumped Wednesday and we got bumped twice Thursday (which was absolutely depressing). On Friday, though, we finally bumped! This was a literal bump: we didn't run into the other boat, but we did accidentally hit their cox and three rowers with two of our blades. The cox had to go to first aid. Oops. Then, on Friday, we were bumped again.

Though we didn't do just amazingly, I absolutely loved it. I can't wait for next term's race, Summer VIIIs.

Here is the amazing Regent's Park Women's Boat Team:

Ailsa (co-captain), Holly, Erin, Joy, Becky, Ula, Lottie, and Kathryn (co-captain)

And here is the equally amazing Regent's Park Boat Club:

Housemates

2009-02-18T16:31:00.012-06:00

This blog is about my life in England. Since I spend roughly 97.36% of my time with my three housemates, I thought a blog post about them would be nice:

The housemate that lives closest to me is Robyn. When I say she lives close to me, I mean that my room has a removable wall, and her room is on the other side of it. We often open up the divider and chat as we "do homework." Here is Robyn:

Robyn is originally from California, but she's lived in Peculiar, MO, since before high school. (I was going to continue this paragraph with something along the lines of "She likes history and Reese's Pieces, loves to laugh, and knows more about composers than most music majors," but I decided that sounded like a bad personal ad. Then I got this song stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdhZwK7cS8. (Disclaimer: in posting this song, I am not supporting infidelity. I am supporting Shrek.))

Robyn takes a very long time to get ready in the morning. No one really knows why. She "gets ready" for two hours, actually puts on her shoes, clothes, and make-up in the ten minutes before we leave, and still looks like a movie star. It's one of those mysteries of life. (Side story: when I was younger, my brother Reid would always take forever to get ready to go, and we didn't know why. My mom finally checked on him one day, and discovered that it took Reid 36 minutes to tie his shoes, because his shoe-tying process went something like: tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie.)

My second roomate is Sabrina. Here she is:

Sabrina lives in Branson, and before that, she lived in Nashville. Her parents have no connection to the country music business, though. Sabrina and I share an affinity for show and Disney tunes. She knows the words to nearly every musical ever made, including the new Legally Blonde musical (seriously. They made it a musical). Sabrina is the over-achiever of the house. If A++s existed in Britain, she would get them. I suspect her tendency to listen to show and Disney tunes while working contributes to her success.

My third roommate is Erin:

Erin, to use a favorite British phrase, is epic. She's a very modern-day renaissance woman. She's from a small town in Colorado, which means she could probably climb Mount Everest while carrying her sherpa. Also, she's a philosophy major, so she talks about things that are so over my head it's like her brain climbed Mount Everest. She also takes award-winning photographs (the awards are yet to come, but I know they will), and someday I'm going to write for National Geographic and she's going to be my photographer (maybe we'll go to Mount Everest, where she will carry the sherpa and me and a huge camera up the mountain). Most importantly to my life, Erin and I have a regular backrub-exchange.

So those are my three housemates. I really enjoy living with them. Quite often, I'll walk into one of their rooms to tell them a quick something, and I'll end up standing there, leaning against their door, talking for an hour about grad school or religion or politics or philosophy (those are short conversations) or food (this conversation happens a lot) or just about homework and how our day is going. We like to dress up, we mostly eat pasta or curry, and we tend to sing songs about America whenever we feel especially patriotic. We sometimes find ourselves all sitting or lying in the hallway, we're pretty good at procrastination, and we have all developed an attachment to "House."

As four girls who live in a (slightly drama-filled) house together, we decided that we were like a very small version of a sorority. So we formed our own: Beta Rho (as in Banbury Road, get it?).

The four of us knew each other at Jewell, but I didn't know any of them very well before I moved in with them. I feel very blessed about how well our living arrangement has worked out. We spend most of our time together, and we get along really well and complement (and compliment, for that matter) each other. We're all kind of mothering each other (since our moms are, sadly, not in the same country as we are). It's been great.

So there's a really important part of my life: the wonderful girls with whom I live.

Also, on a totally unrelated note: I saw an billboard in the London Tube that made me very happy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

Coming up next: a post about rowing (I know I've promised this post at least twice. I promise it's going to happen next).

Weather forecast for tonight: dark.

2009-02-12T16:33:00.011-06:00

Thanks to the late (great?) George Carlin for that one.

So, let's talk about the weather here where I live.

According to Wikipedia, "England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, although the seasons are quite variable in temperature. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, although it is not that common away from high ground."

Just so you know, Oxford is away from high ground. So is London. Nevertheless, last week, Oxford, London, and the rest of Britain experienced THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IN 18 YEARS. I'm sure you've heard about it.

This was quite a big deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1132144/Its-going-week-Worst-snow-18-years-brings-Britain-slithering-halt--costs-economy-3bn.html (please note that they say Britain comes to a "slithering" halt. What great word choice. Just think of the images that evokes: cars sliding off the road, people slipping on icy sidewalks, snakes on a plane.)

According to The Daily Mail at , this snowstorm cost Britain 3 billion pounds. 6.4 million workers stayed home on February 2, and "London's buses were halted for the first time in living memory - they even continued to run during the Blitz - and the rail network ground to a predictable halt." Heathrow closed both of its runways (snakes on planes, you know), and a shortage of snowplows (which they spell snowploughs) meant that roads were dangerous and sidewalks were sheets of ice.

Now, I saw this snowstorm in Oxford. On February 2, when London was shutting down its buses and the Tube and millions of Britons were enjoying their days at home in front of radiators with cups of Earl Grey and biscuits with blackcurrant jam filling, I was crunching through the inch of snow wondering what the big deal was.

Here's what that "big" storm looked like in Oxford:

And here, to my everlasting joy, is what my neighbor girls did with the snow:

That's right. They made a pirate snowman. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

The big snowstorm didn't hit Oxford until February 5, a Thursday. You could tell it was coming on Wednesday. My rowing team went out to practice on the water, and our boat and paddles iced over as we rowed. It was quite cold. Thursday brought several inches of snow, which made everything look like this:

(PS, this is not my house. I forgot to take a picture of my house.)

And this:

My backyard.

And this:

Making us want to stay in all day like this:

That's Sabrina and Erin.

To the girls in my flat (three of us from Missouri and one of us from Colorado), the four inches of snow in Oxford wasn't a big deal in terms of stopping the world. In Kansas City, every street except N. Tracy would have been cleared and the sidewalks would have been iced or shovelled by 9 am (I say that with much optimism. This is always not true in Kansas City. But hey, when you're away from something, you only remember the good things, right?).

In Oxford, they had no snowploughs. My friend who lives south of Oxford saw some city workers clearing her street by hand: each of them shovelled his own little three-foot-wide strip of road. Where I live, they let the buses pack down tracks for tires. The sidewalks were deathwalks, except where they threw sand (as in, from a beach); then, they were muddy deathwalks.

I complain, but, truly, the snow was beautiful. The Thursday morning after the big snowstorm, my housemate Erin and I woke up at 6:15 and went down to the river (not voluntarily, it's a long story), and we saw the sun rise over brand-new, pristine snow. The sky was still filled with clouds, and so the sunrise reflected these gorgeous pinks and oranges onto the sky over the river. Honestly, beautiful.

Some snow is still here, over a week later. It's been going through a cycle that goes like this: melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt...

And that's the weather report from Oxford. Just so you know, this was sort of a quintessentially British post. One of the first things I was told when I arrived here was to converse about weather in order to make friends here. You've heard that the British like to talk about the weather? It's so true.

Coming up next: a post about my housemates.

Procrastinators: leaders of tomorrow

2009-02-04T11:50:00.013-06:00

Right now, I'm supposed to be writing a paper. But, see, I just don't care about Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft and how they undermined each other during the pamphlet wars of the 1790s. Seriously, who does care about that? I mean, Paine wrote Common Sense and sort of started the Revolutionary War, and Wollstonecraft had some pretty radical (read: absolutely insane) ideas in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, but I don't get to write about either of those. And who, outside of Britain, has ever heard of Edmund Burke?

Actually, maybe if I rant a while longer, I'll just end up writing my paper right here on this blog. However, I will not subject you to a long-winded and short-interest essay. Instead, I figured I'd update you on what's been going on since I got back from break.

The weekend after I got back, my friend Jacque came to visit for three days. We visited several places, including Christ Church. Here I am, with my Harry Potter scarf on, in the Great Hall. Sadly, it does not have an enchanted ceiling like in the movie:

And here is Jacque on steps which you may recognize from The Sorcerer's Stone (Draco Malfoy: "Think my name's funny, do you?") or The Chamber of Secrets (Dumbledore: "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Tom?"):

While Jacque was here, my flat decided to do pedicures. I only mention this so I can post this picture:

Which makes me happy. Those are, from left to right: Robyn's legs, Sabrina's legs, Jacque's legs, my legs, and Erin's legs.

As I reminded everyone, my birthday was a week after I got back, January 16. I decided to give myself a birthday present, which was a trip to London on January 15 with my housemates Sabrina and Erin to see the musical Billy Elliot:

That's me with Erin. Billy Elliot was phenomenal: the kid who played Billy was a pretty good singer and oh man, could he dance. Sabrina and Erin and I were left speechless by the show: the songs were great (although the language was...appropriate to the 1980s British mining town in which it was set), the set was so cool and puzzle-like, and, again, the dancing rocked. Literally, rocked.

Anyway, we saw the matinee of Billy Elliot, and when we walked out, we saw the sign for Wicked across the street. We decided, on a whim, to see if there were tickets left for that night...and there were! Wicked is also amazing. So, happy birthday to me, I got to see two great shows in one day!

The next day, my birthday, I got woken up by my family via Skype, and then I opened the gifts they had sent me. I was pretty psyched to get a bunch of CDs, all of them movie soundtracks, and three out of five of them Disney soundtracks! I also got flowers sent to me again! I really love flowers. (Also, thanks to all of you who sent me birthday cards via e-mail or snail mail! I really appreciate it!)

That night I went to an Indian restaurant with my friends Erin, Brett (beard), Bill, Lena (next to me), Madison (white hat), Robyn, Lydia (green scarf), Ashton (big earrings), and Sabrina:

Then, a week after my birthday, Jacque visited again, this time accompanied (side note: I cannot pronounce that word, and I am always impressed by people who can) by our friend Nicole:

Nicole has this problem with opening her eyes in pictures. This is a chair made out of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed. The wood of this chair is something like 500 years old.

That photo was taken in Oxford's Divinity School, where I learned something very important that I would like to pass on to you: British tour guides are so much better than American tour guides.

An American tour guide will take an awesome building, and proceed to tell you about the kind of rock it's made out of, where the rock was quarried, how many men carried the rock from the quarry, how much money it took to build the building, who gave the money, why they gave the money, the number of children they had, where they lived, how far that is in miles and kilometers from the building in which you're standing...basically, American tour guides, with few exceptions, talk until you feel as bored as the square stones you've been staring at for the past ten minutes. American tour guides have a script that they had to memorize, darn it, and they're sticking to it until they or (more likely) everyone on the tour dies. Don't deny it, you know it's true.

Conversely, a British tour guide tells you that the building is "typical British architecture, that is," that it's better than French architecture because French architecture is "more flamboyant," that one of the symbols in the stone is a pagan symbol, points out the Virgin Mary on the ceiling, then leaves you to contemplate the splendor of the building and ask whatever questions you have.

The next day, January 25, was the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns's (Burns'?) birth. Robert Burns was a pretty cool guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns. To celebrate, we had dinner with our neighbors, the Mills family. We had traditional Scottish food--including haggis--read a Burns poem, and listened to Martin Mills address the haggis (as in, "hello, haggis," except poetically).

And then it felt like term officially began, because my tutors gave me homework. I have two tutorials this term: English Literature 1740-1832, which I have once a week; and Andrew Marvell (a seventeenth-century poet), which I have once every other week. I'm enjoying both so far, although I've discovered that seventeenth-century poetry is a bit over my head (which isn't hard to do, right, Reid?).

Coming up next: the rowing team, and an in-depth comparison of dinner in Jewell's cafeteria versus in Regent's Park's dining hall.

Bookends Theme

2009-01-26T10:59:00.014-06:00

Reid and I went from Barcelona to London on January 6. We visited the London Gatwick Airport for the first time, which was pretty exciting, and then we found our hostel.

Finding the hostel was kind of interesting. You know how I got really grumpy in Grenada because I was hungry? Well, it was Reid's turn to get grumpy in London because...we got lost. Not totally lost, mind you. We just walked up and down a few wrong streets before we found the right street sort of on accident. But hey, we made it to our hostel!

We were ready for lunch, and so we decided to go to this pub I remembered, The Dickens Pub. It's the Longest Pub in London, and it had good food. The problem was, I forgot where it was. I was convinced it was just outside of the Victoria tube station, and so Reid and walked all the way around the Victoria tube station before deciding to go to another pub called The Victoria. It turns out that Dickens is outside of the Piccadilly tube station. But hey, we made it to a pub!

We had a delicious lunch in The Victoria, where we met a nice couple who brought their rat-like dog into the pub. Apparently the rat-dog's name was Joy, too, which is some kind of funny. Another kind of funny: the lady let the dog drink her beer. Now, I don't know much about alcohol and its effects on the canine body, but this dog was maybe four pounds, and I think a few sips might have seriously impaired this dog's judgment.

After lunch, we went to the London Eye:

We ended up going at night because it was 4:30 pm and England gets dark roughly three minutes after the sun rises, but that made London look even cooler from the Eye.

We took a lot of pictures in the Eye. In this one, I think we look related:

Which we are.

I am not the biggest fan of heights (I once sat cross-legged on the top of a mountain for ten minutes, terrified that I might fall over the three-foot-high safety fence and roll picturesquely to my death), and the Eye is 450 feet in diameter. This means that it is 450 high at the top, which is very high. And scary, if you are me:

And here, ladies and gentlemen and children, is London at night:

Pretty impressive, yeah? Here's another picture of London at night:

You might notice Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey right there in the middle. That's what they look like at night from 450 feet in the air.

Then we got off the Eye, and our mom called me with some good news. Reid got the IB Diploma! Yay, Reid!

We left the Eye and went to King's Cross Station. Hm, you say, King's Cross Station sounds familiar. Why is that? Well, I will answer your question with two pictures (both of which have the sign for Platform 9 and 3/4 in them):

I think now is an appropriate time to inform you that I am not actually at Oxford University. I am at Hogwarts.

After being magically whisked back and forth through a brick wall, Reid and I went to go see a show in London's West End. We chose Zorro! Zorro! was a perfect choice because it had little bits and pieces of Spain and Spanish culture in it. There was even some flamenco dancing. While Zorro! was not the most impressive show we'd ever seen, we enjoyed it a lot. The actor who played Zorro was hilarious, and the actress who played Luisa sang beautifully. Plus they lit a 'Z' on fire at the beginning, and hey, who doesn't love (safely and professionally controlled) fire? Reid and I both felt like seeing Zorro! was a great way to end our Spain trip outside of Spain.

On January 7, Reid left, and I was very sad. It was quite a task getting Reid home, as his plane in Heathrow was delayed for two and a half hours. We were all kind of worried for a little bit because all Reid had with him, besides clothes, was his MU ID, 5 English pounds, and 12 American dollars. (On an unrelated note, Reid, you owe me 5 English pounds and 12 American dollars.) He eventually got home to Kansas City, and I went on my way back to Edinburgh to meet Robyn, Brett, and Madison again.

On sort of a side note, between December 29 and January 9, Reid took seven airplanes, five buses, and six trains, and I took five planes, five buses, and seven trains. That is a lot of sitting in small seats.

Robyn, Brett, Madison and I were in Edinburgh January 7 and 8. We visited the Royal Mile, the outside of Holyrood Castle, and Brett and I bought plaid things. I also discovered the two coolest streets in Edinburgh. Here is one:

And here is the other:

Forsyth's Close, incidentally, might have been named after my ancestors on my mom's side. The plaid I bought was the Forsyth tartan, the official plaid of the Forsyth clan. Yeah, we have a clan. And it's Scottish, and maybe has a street named after it.

The night before we left Scotland, we watched the movie Highlander. Robyn had been telling us about this movie for days, because it was set in Scotland and apparently a movie you just have to see. Well, I am here to tell you: you have to see this movie. It takes "bad movie" to a whole new level.

It was made in 1986 by the same director who later brought us such classics as Tale of the Mummy, Duran Duran music videos, and, yes, Highlander II. Sean Connery is an immortal Spaniard from Egypt with a Scottish accent (and we all say together, What?), the villain sounds like his throat is full of gravel, and the only other English-speaking role the main actor had before this movie was Greystroke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, where he only had a few lines. Oh, and Queen did all-new original music for the score. Please, just humor me and watch the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq4SqgxIKM0

Seriously, it's the worst movie you will ever see in your life.

On January 9, Robyn and Brett and Madison and I had the longest. bus ride. ever. from Edinburgh to London. It was nine hours, and there wasn't enough leg room for the rat-dog named Joy, let alone any of us.

We then had to take another bus from London to Oxford. Our bus driver was Lucifer. As in, the Devil. If ever anyone was a walking anti-smoking ad, this guy was. His voice was so ruined that when he spoke over the intercom to announce the next stop, it sounded as if we were slowly descending through the circles of Hell.

We got back to Oxford quite late on January 9, slept very well, and then woke up the next morning ready to begin the term!

My break was great. I loved spending time with my little brother (even if he does put his thumb over the street names on maps), and it was great to visit two new countries! Thanks for persevering with me through this five-part trilogy (Don't Panic.) about my break of travels. From now until March 14, it's back to normal: I won't want to do homework, so I'll update this blog instead.

España no es buena en transporte público

2009-01-20T16:24:00.009-06:00

Loosely translated, this means "the dereliction of the conveyance of aggregated peoples in Spain."

Okay, that's true. But what that means exactly and literally translated is "Spain is not good at public transportation."

Our first experience of Spain's inadequate public transport came when we took the train from Grenada to Sevilla. Remember when I told you about the Spanish conductor coming in to the car and assuming we knew what he was saying? Well, what he was saying was, "The train tracks ahead are flooded. You need to take a bus to avoid the flooded train tracks, because trains do not float very well." Now, I understand flooding. But I sort of feel like rain is a common occurrence (after all, the rain in Spain does fall mainly on the plain, Eliza Doolittle), and maybe the Spanish should find a better way to deal with it (rain) than bussing 500 passengers between 2 and 8000 miles out of their ways.

Our second experience of Spain's rather questionable understanding of mass transit was when we flew from Sevilla to Barcelona. After Reid and I got to the airport, we sat for a while in the waiting seats, and then we heard the announcement that our flight was boarding. It was even on time. Hooray! So all 250 passengers got in the line that led to the boarding gate, and then we...stood there. For half an hour. I generally understand the "ing" part of "boarding" to mean "in the process of getting on board" as in "moving," but this is apparently not the case.

We eventually got on our plane after a nice long walk on the tarmac (not to the tarmac, on the tarmac. I felt like a Michelle Obama, climbing up the stairs to my very own private-plus-249-other-people plane), and sat down. Unfortunately, I was seated next to a Spanish lady who looked liked Jabba the Hut and didn't seem to understand that "no hablo espanol" means that I don't speak Spanish.

The fact that I was sitting next to George Lucas's inspiration for a worm-fiend did not detract from the fact that the landscape over which we flew was gorgeous. Barcelona is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and picturesque mountains I have ever seen. They certainly don't have the grandeur of the Rockies or the wooded splendor of the Appalachians or the snow of the Alps (okay, I've never seen the Alps), but their combination of jutting rocks and rolling hills spread in greens and golds and browns was amazing. Plus they had those cool white windmills that actually turn air into energy.

The oddest part of the trip was the end, actually. After we touched down at the Barcelona airport, the entire plane burst into applause. It was as if the Spanish were saying, "Hooray! We made it without dying! Thank you, Mr. (or Ms.) Pilot for only jarring our bones just a little on this touchdown and for making it the whole way through this hour-long flight without running into the side of a mountain!"

Now, I have since learned that applauding at the end of flights used to be common. And, as we all learned after the US Airways incident on the Hudson, pilots certainly should be commended for doing a good job. But I'm more inclined to think that the Spanish were applauding because they are so used to bad mass transit that they are overjoyed when they make it somewhere without trouble.

So anyway, we walked for about half an hour from the plane (on the tarmac again, I did my Jackie O wave walking down the steps) to the building. This I learned: never ever fly into Barcelona Reus airport. It looks like they began to build it in 1983 and then just forgot to finish. Then we got on a bus and rode two hours, and then we were finally in Barcelona. Yay (or yea!)!

In Barcelona, we mostly walked around. I'm pretty sure we explored most of the city because we got lost several times, but we also were not on a schedule and that was great. We bought some delicious apples at a two-story grocery store:

Seriously, how cool is that? That is, by the way, Reid, not some random stranger. And then we went to the Sagrada Familia temple, designed by Gaudi.

This temple/cathedral/whatever (I'm honestly not sure what exactly it is) is amazing. Antoni Gaudi began to design and build it in 1882, and it's still a work in progress. According to Barcelona's tourist guide, it's not expected to be finished until sometime between 2033 and 2083. Yeah, wow.

Gaudi was clearly ahead of his time in his designs:

And the inside is just beautiful:

Just look at those colors!

Humans (Reid and I are in the middle, wearing black and brown and looking related) were again dwarfed by the size of the building:

Reid and I paid the 12 euro to get into the cathedral, which was probably worth it. It's worth going just to see the outside, though.

Then we wandered around the city some more, found a Burger King for dinner, and returned to our hostel by 7 p.m. We were very tired, so we hung out in our room until we finally went to sleep.

The next morning, we went to the good Barcelona airport (called the Barcelona airport instead of the Barcelona Reus airport. That should've been a hint to me), and again discovered that Spain does not know how to move people. We had to take a bus from the boarding gate to the plane. Does that make sense?

Anyway, we ended up in London, which is a day for another post. Or a post for another day. I feel like both phrases actually apply there.

I'd very quickly like to give some impressions of Spain that I have thus far saved:

--In Barcelona, people lisp--that is, their accent means their "s" is pronounced "th." Thus, Barcelona sounds like "Barthelona." Also thus, it is common for people to spray it and say it (or thpray it and thay it?).

--Also, in the north of Spain, there are two different types of Spanish: Castilian and Catalan. Therefore, in Barcelona, all the signs were in three different languages (those two and English). I found this fascinating. Apparently Castilian is the traditional Spanish, while Catalan is a mixture of Spanish and French (thank you, Yahoo! Answers).

--Everyone smokes in Spain, including young children and pets (okay, that part's not true). I think this is gross.
--The Spanish like piercings, especially lip piercings. You know the ones that kind of look like moles or zits right above or below peoples' lips? A ton of people had them, and very few people pulled off the look. There were also multiple ear piercings, eyebrow piercings, and nose piercings.
--Another aspect of Spanish fashion is this: they are trying to re-vamp the mullet. It is not working. We saw all sorts of mullet-ish hairdoos. The best one was the dreadlock mullet. Please imagine: business up front, hippy party in the back. It was awful.
--While the Spanish have not mastered mass transit, they are good at individual transit. There are many people who walk, lots of small cars, and a ton of motorcycles. Reid considered stealing a few of the motorcycles, but we decided that they would be hard to get through customs (almost as difficult as the fighting bull we were going to bring Dad--we settled on a t-shirt instead).

Spain, overall, was a wonderful place to visit. Reid and I began in a very traditional Spanish town (Granada), and ended in a very modern city (Barcelona), with Sevilla falling somewhere in between traditional and modern. While our trip was non-stop travelling, I think we took enough time in each place to enjoy what it had to offer. I enjoyed it very much, and I think Reid did, too.

Kansas City's sister city

2009-01-17T14:20:00.023-06:00

We arrived in Sevilla on January 3, ate a very late dinner in a restaurant where the lights kept turning off, and went to sleep. We spent all day January 4 in Sevilla, which was our longest stay and our busiest. That means this post will be the longest and have the most pictures. Plus, stay tuned, it has another video!

The first thing we did in Sevilla was walk to the cathedral in the center of the city. The area looked a lot like the Plaza in Kansas City (it's the whole sister-city thing; if you're related you look alike):

We sort of accidentally went to a High Mass in the Spanish cathedral, which was cool for the first fifteen minutes and then cold for the next half hour until we could leave (ha, a pun, get it? There's no heating in old cathedrals...). Then we went into the Alcazar Castle, which was built by Peter II in some century, was added onto by some other kings in other centuries, and is generally very big, expensive, impressive, and architecturally Islamic-influenced. The big plaza in the middle was one of my favorite parts:

And here is a bit of trivia I bet you didn't know. According to my friend Chris, "This image is from a video game called Hitman 2, a lot of people died here in that game." Reid's response? "If you look closely, you can see only two other people are in the picture. That's because the rest are dead. I'm actually holding a gun in my left hand, you just can't see it." As a non-video-gamer, I can't decide whether this is disturbing or amusing. But anyway.

Peter II and the other Spanish kings really liked gardens, and Alcazar Castle had the most impressive garden I'd ever seen. It even had a maze! I am short enough that I got suitably lost in the maze, but Reid was able to find his way out using his periscope-like height:

Here is a picture of the gardens from the second story of the castle:

And that's just a small portion. There were also eight million orange trees, a small herd of ducks (gaggle of ducks? Pride of ducks? Oh, wait, flock of ducks), the biggest non-predatory fish I have ever seen in my life, several gazebo shrine things, and enough bushes to encircle the Kansas City metro area.

We ate lunch at a tapas restaurant, where we had some "hamburgers" (that is, pieces of beef and slices of onion on top of fried bread) and something called "croquetas de pucheros," which kind of tasted as if they had breaded a pureed mix of mushrooms, cream cheese, cow spit, and leftover grease.

Next was the Plaza de Espana. It is gigantic. Here is a picture of a third of it:

See the ants in the picture? Those are actually people. This place was huge. Another illustration of its grandosity (warning: that is not a real word):

Then, Reid and I went to a bullfighting arena! I am quite glad that the bullfighting season doesn't start until March, because I don't like blood. Or angry animals. Here is the arena:

It's special because it is not perfectly round like most bullfighting arenas. Instead, it is an oval.

The last thing we did that day was visit the cathedral again, this time for less religious reasons. I think the cathedral kind of looks like a cruise ship:

But maybe that's just me.

This cathedral has a huge tower (originally a minaret, which is the tower from which Muslims are called to prayer; the cathedral used to be a mosque, until Christians took over everything). We climbed the 24 flights to the top (there were literally 24 landings, I am not exaggerating), and looked out over the city:

Our hostel is somewhere in there. The inside of the cathedral was gorgeous, definitely worth seeing if you ever make it to Sevilla:

We ate dinner at a restaurant two blocks away from a Spanish version of Chuck E. Cheese. There were eight children in our immediate vicinity, all of them with balloons, two of which popped during our meal. The restaurant was full inside and outside (we were outside) with at least 75 patrons, and there was one waiter and one chain-smoking drink-server. However, it was one of the best meals we had.

That night, we went to flamenco dancing. I had never seen true flamenco dancing before, and it was ridiculously amazing. I've heard the phrase "sang from his heart" before, but had never seen it truly in action until we watched the flamenco singer. The guitarist (who, incidentally, kind of looks like Adam from the library) played so fast that it sounded like three people were playing. The flamenco dancer made funny faces and could have lifted a large elephant with just her calves. Flamenco dancing is kind of like tap dancing, if tap dancing could have a two-hour-long sugar high caused by a million Pixi Stix and twelve gallons of high-fructose lemonade. Here is a picture:

And here is a video (click the play button):

They only let us video the last five minutes or so of the performance, and this video doesn't nearly do the whole thing justice. Anyway, here is the amazing flamenco dancer:

It was seriously, genuinely, literally one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. Those three people worked so hard that Reid and I were tired just watching by the time we left. So we went to bed.

The next morning, we woke up very early and caught two buses to the airport. Before we left, though, we took one last picture:

We love Kansas City. And we loved Sevilla. It was like home, in Spain, with more orange trees and no English. Also a terrible mass transit system, but you'll hear more about that in my next post. Coming next: "Barcelona: is it a lisp or an accent?"

"You English. Me no English. Me Spanish. You no Spanish. You see?"

2009-01-14T09:17:00.014-06:00

This was one of first encounters in Spain. On January 2, we flew from Edinburgh to Madrid and then took the train from Madrid to Granada. Since Edinburgh is in the United Kingdom, and since Madrid is the capital of Spain, most people in both places spoke English. However, this was not the case in Granada.

When Reid and I got off the train in Granada, we decided to go ahead and buy our Granada-Sevilla tickets for the next day. We asked the ticket agent for help, and he sent us to the information desk (apparently. What actually happened is he spoke in Spanish and pointed away from him, so we went to the information desk). So we went to the information desk, and, lo and behold (really, what does that phrase mean?), the information desk guy didn't speak English either! He got a panicky look on his face when I spoke to him in English, and said the above quote. Reid saved the day by speaking Spanish--yay Reid!--and we found out that we had to buy our tickets the next day.

After a long walk to our hostel during which we asked a guy on the street where we should go and he told us he was from Barcelona (which is not helpful if you're in Granada), we settled into our room for the night. The night in Granada was the only night we shared a room. It looked like this:

A guy snored so loudly Reid threatened to kick him.

Our plan for Granada was to go to the Alhambra Fortress. To get to the Alhambra Fortress, we had to hike up a mountain. Seriously. A mountain. Or at least a large hill. I nearly died. Here is a picture from the fortress from the bottom of the mountain:

And here is a picture of the steep deathwalk up the mountain (we were, by the way, lugging our backpacks again. That's one reason I nearly died):

And here is a picture from the top, sort of:

Granted, the view was nearly worth the hike. Unfortunately, the fortress had run out of admission tickets by the time we crawled to the ticket booth (okay, I crawled. Reid looked like he'd just woken up from a nice, refreshing nap. It was like a movie), so we didn't get to go into the fortress. Instead, we walked back down the mountain through some very pretty, misty woods. In the woods, we found...something. A door? A gate? You tell us:

Once we got back to town, we decided to go into Granada's cathedral. This decision was partly made because we'd heard it was cool, and partly made because we thought we could sit down in the cathedral. Both of these were true:

Then we ate lunch. Our lunch in Granada was apparently a defining moment for Reid's trip. You see, my mood is tied to my stomach. When my stomach is full, I am happy. When my stomach is empty, I am grumpy. I become irrational. I bite people's heads off (figuratively, although if it were literally then my stomach would be full again!). In Granada, we ate breakfast at 8:30ish, conquered a mountain, walked the length of Granada twice, AND it rained and got all of our stuff wet, all before we had lunch at 3ish! Pizza Hut has never tasted so good. At the Pizza Hut, they had some sort of Spanish MTV on, and we saw an amazing video. I tried to find it on YouTube, but couldn't. It's called "La Autorradio Canta" by Miguel Bose, if you want to try and find it yourself.

Then we took the train to Sevilla. Here is the landscape we saw:

Most of the landscape of southern Spain was covered in those lines of trees. I'm pretty sure they're olive trees.

During the train ride, we had our first encounter with people thinking Reid and I were Spanish. The Spanish conductor-guy came into our train, and spoke for a little while in...Spanish. He looked at the Spanish family in the car, who nodded like they understood (which they probably did), then he looked at Reid and me and nodded like he thought we understood (which...we didn't). Then he looked at another group of Americans, leaned down and spoke to them in Spanishy-English, and left. One of the other Americans leaned over to Reid and me and said, "Do you speak English?" We said yes. He said, "Oh good. What did the conductor say?" We told him we don't speak Spanish, and he was surprised.

That story is one of those that was funny at the time, but not so funny in the telling. But that's okay, the point of it was to say that a lot of people thought Reid and I were Spanish. We're not.

Reid and I both enjoyed Granada, even if I was grumpy for a little bit of it. It was the most Spanishy-Spanish city we visited; all the streets were tiny and twisty, and every other door was a shop trying to sell you souvenirs. It was a calm city, and their mid-day siesta lasts for hours.

Coming next: a trip in Kansas City's sister city, Sevilla! (Say that sentence three times fast.)

"Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

2009-01-13T12:17:00.018-06:00

This quote is a perfect introduction to my first blog about my break for several reasons.

First, I took ten days in two countries, seven cities, four hostels, and two apartments with four other people resulting in five hundred and fifty-three photos, five videos, and several games of Texas Hold 'Em. While I would love to explain all of that to you, there is too much, so I shall sum up.

Second, this quote is from the 1987 movie The Princess Bride, and is said by Inigo Montoya, a Spaniard. Since we went to Spain, this is perfect.

Finally, you can never go wrong with The Princess Bride.

I've decided to blog about my adventures in three posts, a sort of adventure trilogy. This trilogy might become like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, which is a trilogy in five parts. We'll just have to see what happens. Anyway, this post will sum up Oxford and New Year's, as well as contain some useful how-to-read a blog tips.

So. Let me sum up.

We--my brother Reid, my friends Brett, Madison, and Robyn, and I--left Kansas City on December 29, laden with luggage:

We arrived in Oxford on December 30, although it still felt like December 29 since we had never gone to sleep. The jet lag didn't affect me or Robyn very much this time (we probably had never truly gotten on Kansas City time), but it knocked out Reid and Brett and Madison. Madison made it to a bed before she fell asleep (she's in the top right corner of the photo below), but Reid collapsed on the floor:

We wore all of our clothes to bed because my flat's heat had gone off over Christmas and would not turn back on. However, after a very deep night's sleep, we headed to Edinburgh on December 31. The train ride was about eight hours long, and we all passed the time variously. We slept, we read, we took pictures, and Reid and I played poker. The stakes were high: we played with raisins (which, when you think about it, is funny. It means you say "I see your raisin and raise you one raisin." There's some sort of pun there). Reid won:

Once we got to Edinburgh, we traipsed to our apartment. I think traipsed is the right word to use here, especially if it evokes for you images of slightly giddy people lugging huge backpacks up and down hills and around dales like it does for me (by the way, Skaggs family: thank you so much for those backpacks! They were great). Anyway, December 31 is New Year's Eve, so we went to Edinburgh's party.

Edinburgh's New Year's party is called Hogmanay. There were 100,000 people crammed onto something like ten blocks' worth of street (that's 10,000 people a block!). People weren't very drunk, which was a pleasant surprise (although we did see one guy trying to figure out how to unbuckle his jeans because he'd belted them over his thighs and couldn't walk. If you've ever been in a middle school, you know what this looks like), and there was some good food. The five of us enjoyed ourselves:

Then, it was the countdown! After the countdown were the most amazing fireworks Reid and I had ever seen. They shot them off over Edinburgh Castle for fifteen or twenty minutes, and it was great. I videoed the countdown and the beginning of the fireworks for you. To watch the video, click the play button under the video.

Here is a picture of the fireworks:

And here is the very first picture of Reid taken in 2009:

Then the crowd sang "I Would Walk (500 Miles)." I cannot explain this. It must be a Scottish thing.

The next morning, the five of us went to Edinburgh Castle. It was very cool. Here is the castle from the cemetery we walked through:

Here is a view of Edinburgh from the castle:

And here is me viewing the inside of Mons Meg, a giant cannon in the castle:

Here I am (is this more correct than "here is me?" I feel like it is) with cannonballs that Mons Meg could have shot. They are quite large, and I think they might kill you if you got hit with one:

And this picture is a classic Joy-and-Reid picture, I think:

See, we wanted a photo of the two of us, but we were standing on an incline. I knew that if I were below Reid on the incline, then I would look like Thumbelina next to the Jolly Green Giant, but I was having a hard time making him understand that. We had about three minutes of wrestling before this picture, during which Brett thought we had already taken the picture, which is why he is also in the picture.

This next photo is one of my all-time favorites:

What a good-looking bunch of kids.

Then we left Edinburgh Castle at night:

and went pubbing. The second pub we went to had a very familiar name...

Like Harry Potter! I totally had my Gryffindor scarf on in this pub.

And then the next day, Reid and I left for Spain!

This is already a long post, but I would like to leave some handy how-to tips before I end this.

First, if you want to go to an earlier post, that is on the top right-hand side of the page. Click on the arrow next to the month you want, and click on the title of the post you want to read.

Second, on the right-hand side of the page, there is a list of Labels. If you want to read all the posts where I have labeled that I mention Harry Potter, for instance, click on "Harry Potter," and all the posts will show up.

Third, to comment on these blogs: At the bottom of this post, there is a link that says "0 comments" or "1 comment" or something like that. Click on the link. Under the box that says "Leave Your Comment," type whatever you want. Below that, choose either "Name/URL," or "Anonymous." If you choose "Name/URL," then type your name in the box that comes up when you click it. Then click "Publish Your Comment."

Finally, if you want to contact me any way other than commenting, click on the Label "Contact information," and you'll find posts with my addresses and e-mails.

More to come soon!

Today's post brought to you by the letter S

2008-12-28T21:29:00.004-06:00

Season's Greetings to everyone who's reading this! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and that your New Year's is wonderful as well.

Since December 7, I have been at home, enjoying the company of my family, my dog, and my cat, making numerous trips up to Jewell, doing a little bit of homework, taking naps, and reading and watching a lot of Harry Potter.

Satisfactory as my homebound break has been (I've loved it!), it's time for me to take off and...

See the world! For the rest of my Christmas break, I'll be traveling in Scotland and Spain. (I thought I might travel Europe based on letters. I was hoping to get through all 26 letters of the alphabet, but I don't think "Xciting Italy" will count for the letter X. Which is a shame, really, as the letter X is quite a neglected and lonely letter.) I thought you might be interested in hearing my travel itinerary.

Stop #1 is Scotland. I'm going to Edinburgh with my brother, Reid, and my friends Bill, Brett, Madison, and Robyn. Robyn, you may recall, lives with me; Brett and Madison go to Jewell, and are spending second semester in Oxford. We'll spend New Year's Eve and New Year's there, and on January 2, Reid and I will sally forth to spectacular Spain!

Stop #2 is Granada, Spain, where Reid and I will spend January 2-3. We'll then take a train to Seville, Spain, and stay January 3-5. On January 5, we'll fly to Barcelona, and on January 6, we'll return to London.

Sadly, Reid leaves for the US on January 7. Happily, I return to Edinburgh to rejoin Brett, Madison, and Robyn. On January 9, we'll come back to Oxford.

Soon after my return, I will post many pictures and stories of our travels!

So many of you have expressed good wishes and prayers for Reid and I as we start our travels. I'd like to thank you for those, and to ask for continued prayer as we journey, quite literally, into a great unknown. This is the first real trip that either Reid or I have taken without our parents, and that's a big responsibility. If you could pray for safety and health for Reid, Bill, Brett, Madison, Robyn, and I; for comfort for my parents and Abbie at home; for fun; and most of all, for God's guidance and revelation on this trip, that would be wonderful.

See you soon!

Michaelmas and holidays

2008-12-04T03:57:00.015-06:00

As I typed that title, I realized that I may not have mentioned Michaelmas before. Oxford has three terms instead of two semesters, and the terms have names. First term is Michaelmas, second term is Hilary, and third term is Trinity. Michaelmas and Hilary are named because of saint feast days, and Trinity is named because...well, just because. If you go to the Other Place (that's what we call Cambridge), they call them Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter, named after holy holidays (is that redundant?).

Michaelmas is very nearly over! As far as I'm concerned, Michaelmas is over. My last paper was due Tuesday night, and my last tutorial was yesterday. I have totally checked out of academic life.

Actually, I sort of checked out of academic life over a week ago, which made writing those last two papers a little difficult. (Let's take a moment to talk about those last two papers. At Oxford, they technically give grades on a scale to 100. However, if you get an 85, that's publishable. Students realistically get grades on a scale to 70. 70 is a I, 65-69 is an Upper 2.1, 60-64 is a Lower 2.1, etc, etc, etc. My first two papers for my two tutorials were a 64 and a 63, which was acceptable. My last two papers were a 69 and a 70, which was exciting. Clearly, I should check out of academic life more often.) Why did I check out so early? The holidays came!

Last Wednesday was the JWS's (a church group I've joined) Advent Dinner. It was very good food (although I did not like Christmas pudding; Kermit clearly has no idea what he's talking about in Muppet Christmas Carol when he says Christmas pudding is magnificent), and there was a pantomime!

Pantomimes are a very big deal here. They are not silent with gestures, like you might think. Instead, they're long skits (or short plays?), usually about a well-known story. There's always a man dressed as a woman, usually a woman dressed as a man, and frequently bad jokes. The JWS did "Alice in Wonderland":

What you're seeing here is the Rev. Martin as the Rabbit, Jonathan as the Mad Hatter (which was so typecasting), Mark as Tweedledum (or maybe Tweedledee), James as Alice, and Gemma as Tweedledee (or maybe Tweedledum). Also a bunch of bottles of fizzy water, which is gross.

The next day was Thanksgiving! My first Thanksgiving dinner was at Spencer House, where a bunch of our American friends live. Brandon was our amazing cook:

This was the "family" of Thanksgiving dinner #1:

Mrs. Ross, Ryan, Erin, Brandon, Stacy, Kristin, Phil, Sabrina, Dr. Ross, me, Erin, Dr. Robson.

When we get bored, we take pictures of ourselves (I think this is some kind of commentary on my generation and its narcissism/obsession with photos, but whatever). I'm posting these because I think Reid would be proud of me and my sneakiness:

After Thanksgiving dinner #1, we went to the Regent's Park pantomime! It was "Cinderella":

Salmonella the Ugly Stepsister, the Ugly Stepmother, and Rubella the Ugly Stepsister.

Saturday we had another Thanksgiving dinner at Stanley Road, where more Americans live! It was also delicious, but I did not take a picture of the food. But here I am with Erin!

And finally, last night was the Christmas Carol Sing-Along at the Sheldonian Theatre. The Sheldonian Theatre is huge, and it was packed with students, and we all sang along to a brass band. It was amazing! I am so ready for Christmas carols now that it's past Thanksgiving.

So, Michaelmas term is essentially over. I have:

--read a lot

--written a lot

--not 'rithmaticked a lot

--walked a lot

--watched House a lot

--blogged a lot

--eaten cookies a lot

--been wet a lot

--been confused a lot (seriously, sometimes it's like another country over here or something)

--taken pictures a lot

--taken naps a lot

--learned a lot

I don't think I'm going to post over Christmas break. Reid and I are flying back with several of my Jewell friends on Dec. 29, so stayed tuned then for our adventures!

Merry Christmas!

My Favorite Things; or, Another Themed Post

2008-11-25T13:19:00.019-06:00

Before you read this post, it may be necessary for you to watch this (from the best movie of all time):

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vwLrUgJlung

In this post, I will talk about My Favorite Things, basing my comments off the lyrics of "My Favorite Things." Be excited.

Raindrops on roses: It rains a lot here, as you might imagine. Sometimes the rain is very annoying. My jeans get wet, my hair tangles, and my glasses need windshield wipers. However, I do love using my umbrella, and sometimes the rain means it's nice to stay inside by my warm radiator. Here is what it looks like right before it's going to rain:

This is at St. John's College in Cambridge.

And whiskers on kittens: When I am bored, I go to http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/. It's a website of pictures of cats with funny captions.

Bright copper kettles: Tea, of course! Everyone drinks tea like water here. I have learned that English teas are good, and Chinese teas are not. I have also grown to very much appreciate "Brew time" at Regent's. This is because "Brew time" has "biscuits," which means cookies. And man, do I love cookies:

And warm woolen mittens: Because seriously, who doesn't love 1) being warm, 2) wool, and 3) mittens? In addition to warm woolen mittens, I also love warm woolen hats, and warm woolen scarves, such as the one I'm wearing in this picture:

Please note that my warm woolen scarf is a Harry Potter Gryffindor scarf, which some of you may recognize... The people I'm with are Erin, Sabrina, and Marisol (who is on the far right. She goes to Cambridge, and came to visit this weekend!).

Brown paper packages tied up with strings: I got a package from my parents today! It had a Calvin and Hobbes book, and a Get Fuzzy book, and the comics! The British don't have funny pages (maybe because the British aren't funny...?), and even their political cartoons aren't that hilarious. So I was psyched to get funny things.

Cream colored ponies: Okay, this one is a stretch: people ride cream-colored ponies, right? Well, I don't ride any ponies, but I do ride a bike! It has been amazing. Instead of walking 25 minutes to college, I get there in 7 (I timed it). I now have more time for reading, writing, and (most importantly) napping. Here is my bike:

It is named "The Pink Ugly."

And crisp apple strudel: This leads me back to dessert. Oh, man, do I love dessert. I've mentioned Digestives before, and several of you wondered if I was eating laxative cookies. I am not. Digestives are regular cookies. There are four kinds: regular (which are delicious with peanut butter); milk chocolate (my favorite); dark chocolate; and Cadbury chocolate. They are delicious. I don't know why they have such an unappealing name as "Digestives." They should be called "Deliciouses" or something.

Door bells and sleigh bells: This one is super weak, I'm sorry. Bells make music. So do organs (told you it was weak). On Sunday, I travelled to London with my church group, and we went into a big Methodist hall. Here is the organ:

The people are in the picture to show you how big it is. The largest pipes are 32 feet tall, and there are 4,371 pipes. It was very impressive (side note: I saw this organ on November 23, and I wished Mimi could have been there to play it).

And schnitzel with noodles: Food! I also love food. My eating schedule goes something like this: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, snack. And I get two Thanksgiving dinners, which I'll tell you about in the next post. I've been to several good restaurants here. In Cambridge, Jacque and I went to a really good pub called The Flying Pig:

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings: The geese here are different! This may sound obvious, but they don't have Canadian geese. They have Mother Goose geese! See:

I was so excited when I saw these. It was like all my childhood stories had been personified into a bird.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes: We get to dress up for Formal Hall every week, which is a lot of fun:

Sabrina, Joy, Robyn, Marisol, Erin.

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes: I find it hilarious that here, when it frosts, they get excited about the snow. They hardly even know what snow is! Silly Brits.

Silver white winters that melt into springs: Yeah, I've got nothing. I haven't been here for a winter or spring yet. I'll let you know what I think, though, no worries!

These are a few of my favorite things: Here are some more things that I like:

The Bodleian Library.

Insides of chapels, churches, and cathedrals. This is St. John's chapel (Daddy, I knew you'd like seeing the inside of a church!).

Hanging out in our flat in my pajamas. Erin likes doing that, too.

I also like comments on my blog posts. I hear from my parents that a how-to on posting comments may be useful. At the bottom of this post, there is a link that says "0 comments" or "1 comment" or something like that. Click on the link. Under the box that says "Leave Your Comment," type whatever you want. Below that, choose either "Name/URL," or "Anonymous." If you choose "Name/URL," then type your name in the box that comes up when you click it. Then click "Publish Your Comment," and the world will know that you are here (who can name the movie that quote comes from?).

So, when the dog bites (I miss my dog and cat), when the bee stings (...I miss bee-ing home?), when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorites things (including you!), and then I don't feel so bad.

More about England

2008-11-20T10:47:00.010-06:00

Just so you know, I tried to think of a catchy title and witty beginning for this post. I read quotes on imdb.com (mostly from Muppet Treasure Island, my movie-of-the-week), I scoured my iTunes for good song titles (I seriously considered "Mmmbop" and "You Can't Stop the Beat", mostly to get you playing the Song Game again), and I even Googled "quotes about England" (I discovered that no one ever said anything interesting about England). So, there is my title, and here is my beginning:

Let's talk about differences again. I have now been to three cities in England, so I feel like an expert...sort of.

By the way, the British are very particular about what kind of municipality can be called a city. Unlike the US, where any group of people can call themselves a city if they want (this is why New York is a city and so is Branson), the British only call a place a city if it has a cathedral. London is a city not because it has something like seven million people; it is a city because it has a cathedral. A place with seven people could be a city if it had a cathedral. (This may not be entirely true, but it's what British people tell me.)

And speaking of cities, here is another difference: English cities have buildings that look like this:

(The Bridge of Sighs in Oxford); and this:

(St. John's College chapel in Cambridge, which I visited this week! Jacque was there. I was happy).

Now, I love America, but we just don't have a lot of stuff like this that compares. The reason? America is new. In England, people talk about buildings and laws and roads and traditions that are "just" 200 years old. In America, 200 years is most of the country's existence. Because England is so old, the British think they invented everything. This is not true. The world must thank America for: the cotton gin; toilet paper (bet you didn't know that one); vacuum cleaners (which the British call Hoovers, presumably because Herbert Hoover cleaned up a lot (this is a joke)); the airplane; crayons; the chocolate chip cookie (they do acknowledge this one, as they call chocolate chip cookies "American cookies"); e-mail; the space shuttle; and peanut butter. What have the British contributed? Apple pie (I know! "American as apple pie" is not a legitimate saying! My world was rocked too!); table-tennis; and Stephen Hawking.

The age of the country means that everything here is taller, because, you know, older things just keep growing up. Like trees and people and buildings, apparently. Doorknobs, key entries, locks: all are at the level of my shoulders. I'm short, but I'm not that short (jokes from little brothers need not be told here).

So, age is one difference between England and America. Another, of which I have written before but to which I'm going to return, is language (that's really how some of them talk). They don't call the back of a car a "trunk"; it's a "boot". They go to the "cinema" instead of the "movie theater." They don't say "sketch" when something is weird. They say "trousers" for anything with legs, and "pants" for underwear. This particular difference is a very important one to note. Often, I have stopped myself from commenting on how the rain has made my pants wet, because that makes me sound like I walk around outside unclothed. Which I don't do.

One of my favorite differences in language is how the Brits greet you. In America, we say "How are you?" and respond with something like "Fine, thanks!" Here, they say "You alright?" and respond with "Yeah." This presents several cultural divide differences. For the first three weeks I was here, I thought I looked upset all the time because people kept asking me if I was alright. Also, sometimes when you ask a British person, "How are you?", they say, "Yeah." This does not make sense unless you know that they think you asked them a yes-no question.

Also, here in England, and especially in Oxford, the British have one hobby: being safe. Their favorite things to do are to pet (declawed) kittens, look both ways before crossing the street, and eat all their vegetables. They love to be safe! (This paragraph brought to you for the benefit of any parents who may be sending their children to England in the near future.)

Another difference between England and America is that America is home and England is not. I'll be honest, I've been homesick. But, I've gotten postcards from friends and a pretty awesome collage from the Ohio Masons, AND my parents sent me flowers!

Aren't they beautiful?

So I do miss home, and I miss you, but I love being here. I'm doing so much more than finding out differences: I'm learning to navigate a city on a bike; I'm figuring out how to do a lot of homework in not very much time; I'm making new friends; I'm learning how to boil water to make pasta; I'm memorizing songs by Chicago and Frank Sinatra; I'm even doing my own laundry! And those are all good reasons to be here, I think.

Very important!

2008-11-14T08:15:00.003-06:00

My address is actually:

Joy Mason
Flat 1
110c Banbury Road
Oxford, UK OX2 6JU

I forgot the 110c part of my address in my past post, which is potentially problematic. If you sent something to me and the address didn't have the 110c part on it (because you didn't know about it), I hope it gets sent back to you! If so, let my parents know, and they will be happy to pay for the postage for you to send it back to me. Sorry about that!

Barack Obama and Buddy Holly

2008-11-11T04:26:00.011-06:00

Trivia question: What do Barack Obama and Buddy Holly have in common?

Trivia answer: I'm going to talk about both of them in this post.

Last Tuesday was Election Day, which was exciting for everyone in America, Kenya, and England (and probably some other places, too). Since England is five hours ahead of the East Coast and eight hours ahead of the West Coast, results didn't start rolling in to this country until about 1 in the morning on Wednesday. Because this was a historic election, and because I am in another country, and because I did not want to do work, I stayed up all night watching the BBC's (not-so-stellar) coverage of the results.

Our flat was very excited about the election. Our patriotism was so much that we sang American songs on the half-hour walk from our flat to Regent's (where we watched (and ridiculed) the BBC). We sang "America the Beautiful," "Yankee Doodle," and many other songs; we did not sing "The Star-Spangled Banner," because that's hard enough when you're not walking, and we can't sing that high.

When we got to Regent's, we found a party! Regent's has about 200 students; 40-50 of them crowded into our tiny TV room for the beginning of the coverage. That's a large percentage of people who care:

There were about 10 American students there, and the rest were British. Many of you have asked me about how the British view the election, what it was like to be here, etc. 95% of British people fall into one of two categories: either we-love-Obama; or we-hate-anyone-who-doesn't-love-Obama. It's sort of along the same lines as British politics. You know how America has the left and the right? Well, Britain has the left and the farther left.

It's amazing how much the British people care about who became our President. At the party, every time Obama won a state, they would cheer. Every time McCain won a state, their faces would become longer than John Kerry's. Though they had no say in the election, and though the results didn't technically directly affect them, they were so invested in the outcome. Their viewpoint is that America is the most powerful country on earth (true), that whatever America does, England will follow (also probably true), and that a Republican president would cause the downfall of Western civilization (debatable). When you look at it like that, it's no wonder they cared so much.

In light of all that, you would think the BBC would have put a lot of effort into making the election coverage good. While it's possible that they BBC did put a lot of effort into their coverage, their efforts did not work. We spent the night watching David Dimbleby say, "And now we take you to Florida...I think...where Ann Smith is waiting. Ann? Ann? ...Ann? ....can you hear us? ....Ann?" And Ann Smith (who is probably not in Florida, but instead in Colorado or Kenya) is fifteen feet away from the camera, nearly out of the frame, chewing her gum. The alternatives were a crazy American who was formerly the ambassador to the UK who didn't understand that "live television" means you shouldn't make a fool of yourself, or interviews with slightly or not-so-slightly drunken and jubilant Obama supporters.

And then Obama won, I watched the very excellent speeches (seriously, both candidate's speechwriters deserve a raise or at least some complimentary chocolates), and went to bed at 6 a.m., celebrating the fact that we can no longer speculate who will win and that British people will have to figure out other conversations to have with Americans.

Later that week, I went to London! I was quite thrilled to get out of Oxford and see some more of England. My housemate Erin came with me:

We would have been literally and figuratively lost without the maps I got from a pretty cool travel agent in Kansas City (thanks, Aunt Debbie!). And we met some of my friends who are attending Cambridge, including my very good friend Jacque who I missed a lot:

We ate lunch at a tavern that gave us American-size portions (read: a piece of chicken bigger than my head and enough fries to put Steak-and-Shake out of business). It was delicious.

Then, Erin and I went to see a show. Now, we did not think things through very carefully, and we tried to buy tickets for a 3 p.m. show at 2 p.m. The tickets agents thought we were insane, which is possible. Our only options were "Buddy" for 23 pounds or "Hairspray" for 62 pounds. Since we are poorish, we decided to take a gamble on "Buddy." We had no idea what to expect: either it would be awesome, and we would feel good about spending our money; or it would be awful, and we would have a good story to tell.

It was awesome. While the plot line of Buddy's Holly's career was thinner than Cindy McCain's eyebrows, the music was amazing and the musicians were incredible. The double-bass player played his bass while holding it above his head; while lying on top of it; one-handed; upside-down; and backwards. The actor playing Buddy Holly played an amazing guitar solo while holding the guitar behind his head, and he sang a 30-second long part of "Johnny B. Goode" in one breath (that may not sound like much, but you try singing "His mother told him 'Someday you will be a man, and you will be the leader of a big old band. Many people coming from miles around to hear you play your music when the sun go down. Maybe someday your name will be in lights saying Johnny B. Goode tonight'" in one breath). It was totally worth the 23 pounds we paid, especially because we were the youngest people there by a good 15 years, and a bunch of middle-aged British women and one very uncomfortable British man got up and danced in the aisles at the end.

So what do Buddy Holly and Barak Obama have in common? Buddy Holly rocked the music world, and Obama ba-rocked the vote.

A British boy asked me to marry him, but I told him no.

2008-11-02T10:13:00.013-06:00

Okay, that's not true. But I got your attention! I figured that heading would be a lot more eye-catching than "My daily schedule" or something. Because now, I'm pulling a bait-and-switch: instead of talking about a fictional proposal, I'm going to talk about my daily life.

Here's how my life goes:
--wake up either to the sun (silent and nice) or to my alarm clock (annoying and tiny). Nearly crush clock in attempt to turn it off without falling out of bed
--turn computer on, check Facebook
--eat breakfast/check e-mail/check news/check Facebook/listen to Celtic Thunder (Dyanne: Celtic Thunder came out with a second CD!)
--take shower, wish that British shower-tubs made sense
--get dressed, wish I brought more clothes, and miss wearing flip-flops
--check Facebook
--most mornings, leave house to go to a lecture in one of the ugliest buildings in Oxford (the good citizens of Oxford went through this phase in the 60s and 70s when they thought, "Hey! This beautiful old architecture is cool and all, but why don't we build all our new buildings out of concrete Kleenex boxes, broken glass, and discarded airport control towers! That'll be so aesthetically pleasing and matching and stuff!").
--after lecture, walk to Regent's (rocking out to Celtic Thunder on the iPod I borrowed from Abbie). And, behold! Regent's!

Okay, this actually isn't Regent's yet. The building on the left is St. Cross College. The building on the right is the Oxfam bookstore (where they sell Geobars, the best granola bar anywhere, ever), a newsstand, and The Eagle and Child. Regent's is behind Oxfam...

...right here! The wall on the right is the outside wall of Regent's. And here...

...is the inside courtyard of Regent's! I wish I had taken this picture before the leaves fell off the tree. Oh, well. Anyway, Regent's is a very tiny college. The courtyard is maybe as big as a football field, if not smaller. There are many more impressive colleges in Oxford (as you will see later), but I think Regent's is very pretty. And now, to return you to our regularly-scheduled walk through my day:

--lunch at 1:00. Eat too much (again) and wish the Brits knew how to properly spice food. Wonder at how the food can be so good and so bland at the same time.
--on Tuesdays at 3: go to Victorian Literature tutorial at Regent's. Listen to professor act out all the parts from the novels I just read, get hungry, wonder where the padding in my armchair disappeared to.
--on Fridays at 4: go to Oscar Wilde tutorial at Magdalen (reminder: pronounced Maudlin) College. Marvel at Magdalen College, because it looks like this:

And this:

Also, Magdalen College has a deer park. ALSO, C.S. Lewis taught there, and Oscar Wilde and a king of England (Edward VIII) went there.

--eat dinner at Regent's at 7:00. Revel in dessert.

--go home, eat Digestives, wish that six-hour time difference between here and Kansas City did not exist, listen to Celtic Thunder.

--go to sleep at midnightish.

In between all this, I've joined several activities and groups here in Oxford, which I will be sure to tell you about soon. And in between all the activities and groups and tutorials and lectures and eating, I do homework.

In my Victorian Literature tutorial, I am studying five authors and three poets in eight weeks. I am assigned novels or poems on Tuesdays, which I read from Tuesday to Saturday. This means that from Tuesday to Saturday, I read, on average, 250 pages a day. This is a lot of work for me (although, as I type this, I'm thinking of Laura in medical school laughing at me, saying, "You think that's work? I'll show you work!"). Sundays and Mondays, I write my paper over the novels/poems. I've gotten my essay-writing down to an art. It's just the kind of art where you throw some paint on the canvas, lay in the paint, wriggle around a bit, and call it good.

My Oscar Wilde tutorial only happens every other week. I read about 40 pages a day for that one, because I have two weeks in which to do my work.

Finally, in between my homework and meals and later-to-be-explained activities, I do have fun. For instance, last week there was a costume party for Halloween. Erin wasn't able to make it, but Sabrina, Robyn and I dressed as three Greek goddesses:

I was Hera, Sabrina was Aphrodite, and Robyn was Athena. We even had a "Golden Apple" (i.e. an orange with a stem drawn on it).

Here are some of our friends. Most of these people are American, except the cowboy (ironically), the ghost, and the two cat-girls on the left.

So, in my life, I eat a lot of Digestives (you're right, Aunt Debbie, they are some of the best cookies ever made), I read a lot of books, and I make a lot of friends. None of them have proposed to me, though.

Photos of my life

2008-10-27T10:52:00.004-05:00

I decided to post some more photos, since I know people enjoy them.

This is an example of our at-home dinners. We have taken all of the rooms for bedrooms, and so we have no common area other than the kitchen and bathroom. Since it's generally considered bad practice to dine near a toilet, and since our kitchen is full of a mammoth clothes-drying rack, we usually eat in Robyn's room! This meal was cooked by Sabrina, and it was quite yummy. Sabrina's the one with the fork in her mouth, Robyn's holding a duck, Erin has a purple shirt, and Bill is the boy. Bill does not live with us.

This picture is an example of how we like to play games. This game is called "The Face Game." Here's how you play: one person has a camera. They say something, like, "Your television has exploded" or "You just found out you're an alien," and you have to react. The camera person takes a picture of your reactions, and afterward, you look at the pictures and laugh. This picture was a reaction to the statement, "Oxford's on fire!" I would particularly like to point out Robyn's reaction, which seems to be something along the lines of, "Eh, it's good, I can handle it." This also reminds me of "The Song Game." This game can (and should) be played anywhere. If, in normal conversation, a word or phrase makes you think of a song, then you sing that song. I bet sometime in the post, you will play this game.

This is Robyn and me in The Eagle and Child. The Eagle and Child is the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien met quite often and eventually came up with the ideas for The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Robyn and I did not come up with any ideas for novels, but since it's a small world after all, maybe we will sometime (yes, I realize that made no sense. But hey, now you're playing The Song Game!).

These are all the Oxbridgers who live in Oxford: Robyn, Erin, me, Lydia, Sabrina, and Bill. This is outside The Eagle and Child.

And this is just a funny story. These are my inadvertantly-created wine-glass sculptures. I broke all three of them within 48 hours. I knocked one over with my robe, I dropped one from above my head, and I broke another drying it. The ironic thing is, I don't drink. The funny thing is that I'm no longer allowed to touch the wineglasses.

Coming soon: pictures of where I take tutorials and the song that never ends and pictures from other places around Oxford.

Oh, see, now you're playing The Song Game again...

Contact information again

2008-10-26T13:20:00.003-05:00

Reid said I should post my address so that people could send me stuff. Since, hey, I am definitely up for people sending me stuff:

Joy Mason
Flat 1
110c Banbury Road
Oxford, UK OX2 6JU

OR

Joy Mason
Regent's Park College
Pusey Street
Oxford, UK OX1 2LB

You can also e-mail me at masonj@william.jewell.edu, Skype me at joymarie6, or Facebook me at "Joy Mason."

If you do want to send me something, I would really appreciate pictures! (Well, there are actually a lot of things I would appreciate, but I doubt anyone's going to send me a clothes dryer, a bike, or Madison McGraw.) I don't have a photo printer here, and my walls are bare, so I would love to be able to put up pictures of YOU! You can turn a picture into a postcard really easily if you put a stamp on the back, by the way.

Break time

2008-10-20T08:45:00.003-05:00

I’d like to take this opportunity to answer some of the questions that have been posed to me and to reply to some of the comments and to tell the stories I’ve promised.

Okay, let’s be honest. I’d really like to take this opportunity to not do homework.

Important things first: I mailed in my absentee ballot today, and Trent Skaggs, I voted for you.

Several people have asked me about the weather here, and have expressed wishes that I won’t get too depressed by all the rain. Well, lucky me, there hasn’t been much rain! So far, the weather here has been beautiful. It’s in the 50s or 60s or sometimes even 70s during the day. The nights are pretty dang chilly, but I just turn up my radiator and pile on socks. It is raining today, though. So far, the rain here hasn’t been like the big, cleansing thunderstorming Missouri rains. Here, it rains just heavily enough to wrap you in condensation until beads of water drip off your nose and chin and umbrella.

I’ve also been warned about the food, and, again, I can report glad tidings of peace and good food for all Oxfordians. The ketchup does taste a little weird, but not really like vinegar. However, there are very few times we have ketchup. Regent’s apparently just hired a new caterer named Mark, and he is quite excellent. We have potatoes a lot, which make me happy and carbohydrated, and Mark firmly believes in delicious desserts, often accompanied by custard. If I didn’t walk a billion miles a day, I would be ballooning like Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka (although I would not be turning blue).

Let’s return to different words that British people say. Specifically, let’s talk about about “bloody.” Oddly enough, I haven’t heard one person say “bloody.” I am surprised, because they say “bloody” all the time in Harry Potter movies! Clearly, the Harry Potter movies are not to be trusted as indicative of modern British life (this is also because the Harry Potter movies are about magic. I have yet to see an elf or a flying broom, and no matter how many times I say “Reducto!” while pointing my pencil-wand at my stack of books, the amount of work I have to do stays the same). Anyway, rather than saying “bloody,” the British use all sorts of other four-letter words that may sound familiar to you. Not that I’m going to repeat them here.

My former roommate and future Oxford-mate Madison asked me if she should pack hangers. This made me laugh, because it took me five days—five days!—to find hangers in Oxford. Since we didn’t know what any of the stores were (is WDSmith a clothing shop? A hardware store?), we continually passed the one shop in the city that carries hangers. It got to the point where we thought the Oxfordians were fashioning their own primitive hangers out of tree branches and twist-ties. Dear Madison: don’t pack hangers, but do pack Newsies please. I miss Christian Bale. Which is ironic, since he’s British.

I have now been to three churches: a non-denominational one; a Methodist one; and an Anglican one. Someone spoke in tongues at the non-denominational one, the body of Christ tasted like Styrofoam at the Anglican one, and I liked the Methodist one best because they gave me a free lunch.

It’s been great to hear stories from people who have been to Oxford or England or Europe. I like knowing that others I know have been here before me—it makes a sort of connection from home to here. E-mails and comments and even postcards are also great connections from home to here…

Where I live, part 2

2008-10-15T05:22:00.008-05:00

Part of the cool thing about Where I Live is the people. They are, generally, British (surprise!). I have learned that "British" could mean English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh. In addition to the British, there are actually a lot of Americans here. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between the British and the Americans, though. Here's why.

Speaking. Obviously, we have different accents, which I have noted at least twice. But we also use different words. They say "pudding," we say "dessert." This discovery was a relief to me, because I was envisioning nine months of eating different flavors of Snack Packs. They say "one week Saturday" instead of "one week from Saturday." Clearly, this is more efficient. Also, they call restrooms "toilets." I asked a porter at Magdalen College (which, by the way, is pronounced "Maudlin" for reasons unknown by anyone in the world) where to find the restrooms, and he said, "We say toilets here, love, you don't do any resting in them." They also call this # a hash mark rather than a pound mark. However, another American, a British girl, and I took a vote to decide what to call #, and pound won. Go democracy!

Appearance. While not all the British look the same (and vice versa with the Americans), there might be a few clues. For instance, the British girls seem to favor a hair dye that leaves their hair purply-red. This is something I do not understand. Also, if a person is wearing sunglasses, then they are generally American. I think the British don't wear sunglasses because they think, "Why bother? It's going to rain in ten minutes anyway."

Awareness. Whenever the British talk about the state of their country, they nearly always say, "here and in the U.S." They are ardently following our Presidential election (most support Obama), and they know who Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Tina Fey are. In contrast, most Americans can't remember the new Prime Minister (Gordon Brown), we don't know how the Queen fits into politics (she doesn't), and we can't name one British comedian other than Eddie Izzard (and most of us can't even name Eddie Izzard). Americans are very American-centric, while most Brits are world-aware. Or at least America-aware.

Names. Most of the guys my age are named Matthew, Mark, John (nearly all the gospels!), James (never Jim), or Ed. There are no Steves, Tylers, or Brians. The girls have more variety of names, but none of them are named Erin, Robyn, Sabrina, or Joy. Whenever they hear Sabrina's name, they think "Oh! Sabrina the Teenage Witch!" (this is no joke. Three British people have told me this). Whenever they hear my name, they think they heard wrong. After I repeat my name, then they think it's pretty cool. Although the chaplain thinks my name is Jo. Since she's kind of nutty, I let her think that.

Americans and Brits are also the same sometimes. We all like cookies and good food, and we like doing things that aren't homework. We think Monty Python is funny, and we're not sure if Heath Ledger should get an Oscar. We argue over whether or not Andrew Lloyd Webber is overrated. We wonder what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. And we all speak English. Kind of.

Where I live

2008-10-13T17:36:00.011-05:00

I thought I would only post pictures of the place where I live (hence the title), but I've decided to post several other pictures as well (and keep the title).

This is the pile of clothes I brought. It doesn't look like much until you try to fit it into two suitcases. Then it's a lot. And then when you unpack, it doesn't look like much again. Go figure.

This is what my living room looked like while I was packing.

This is part of my room. It's the second incarnation of my room, as I rearranged today in order to get my computer closer to the six-inch-thick wireless stream that runs down the middle of the house.

This is another part of my room.

And this is how I dry my clothes. The English do not believe in convenience (among other things, like the French President, France, and normal-sized drinking glasses)(although they do believe in potatoes at every meal, which I support). We have no dryers, I have seen exactly...zero! water fountains in all of Oxford, and there are brand new water faucets in our house that separate the hot and cold water. I think this is why the English do not smile. (Actually, side story: a Brit told me that when you smile at people on the street, it is a sign of aggression. As in gorilla and chimpanzee culture. As in, "Grr, I'm going to attack you." No wonder they looked scared when I walked down the street.) (Side story number 2: Even though I make fun of them, I really do like the English and Scottish and Irish and Welsh and the random Canadians and Americans here. With this disclaimer, I release myself from all the negative effects of political incorrectness.)

This is our house. We live on the ground floor, which is nice, because we have zero flights of stairs to climb after walking all the way from college. It is true, we are lazy.

I live with these lovely people. The tall one is Erin, the blond one is Sabrina, and the one who is left who is not me is Robyn, and I am the one looks like me. This was taken after Formal Hall (formal dinner), which happens every Friday night.

I hope this short look into Where I Live has been instructive and interesting. More to come, including the stories I promised a few posts ago (shopping, church, pubs, the Song Game, and more!).

The Wizard of Oz

2008-10-07T14:54:00.005-05:00

This post's theme is "The Wizard of Oz," and everything I write about will somehow connect to that wonderful book/movie. (Imagine it as a sort of compare-contrast essay and it will all make sense.)

The Wizard of Oz was first, as you all know, a book by L. Frank Baum. This particular book is often found in libraries, including libraries here in the United Kingdom. (This topic sentence is my weakest connection to my thesis, which is why it comes first. My high-school English teachers should be proud.) I thought that many of you, especially my friends at the NKCPL, would be interested in hearing about the libraries in Oxford.

There is a public library here, which I have already enjoyed, although you must rent rather than borrow DVDs, a practice that should never, ever be adopted in the U.S. There are also libraries connected with Oxford University. Prepare to be awed. The Oxford University Library System employs over 660 staff members in over 100 locations which contain over 160 miles of shelving that house over 9 million items. The Bodleian, the crown jewel of Oxford's libraries, has been collecting materials since the 16th century. Since 1911, it has been entitled to one of every book that is published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. That's roughly 5000 books a week. My reaction to this news was, to quote the Cowardly Lion, "Shucks, folks, I'm speechless!"

I saw someone this afternoon who reminded me of Mrs. Gulch. She had a basket on her bike, and she rode while sitting straight up, rather than bending over her handlebars. Many people in Oxford ride bikes or walk, which is one of my favorite things about Oxford so far. Unlike in Kansas City, in Oxford nearly everything you need is within walking or biking distance. As a result, the air here is much cleaner, the streets are much prettier, and the people are much thinner. Walking has also been a great way for me to learn my way around the city.

The Wizard of Oz is significant for me as a Mid-Westerner in England. Why, you ask? Well, when people ask where I'm from, I say "Missouri," and I get polite but uninterested nods. But if I say "Kansas City," they go, "Oh! Kansas! The Wizard of Oz!!" Then they proceed to tell me how it makes no sense that Kansas City is in Missouri instead of Kansas, an argument with which I fully agree.

You know how in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz, there are parallels between the people in the Kansas scenes and the people in the Oz scenes? For instance, the actors who play Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke also play the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. Basically, Dorothy is seeing familiar faces in her adventures. Well, that seems to be happening to me, as well. I keep “recognizing” people. As the best example, have you ever seen the Pixar short with the old man who plays chess against himself? If not, then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUH8ITk0yaw. Anyway, the senior tutor at Regent's Park looks exactly like Geri.

If your last name is Mason (or Barczewski), then you may remember a particular infamous game of charades. For those of you who are not Masons, we were given the clues “wrist,” “hard,” “of,” and “ah.” As in “Wrist-hard of ah,” which was supposed to be “Wizard of Oz.” This is sort of what listening to British accents is like. You hear some sounds and have to put them together into real English words. It leads to some embarrassing moments, some awkward moments, and some funny moments. We were talking about TV the other night, and a Brit named Ed (which, by the way, is pronounced “Idt”) was talking about the American show Tune Have ‘Em. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I figured I just hadn’t heard of it, until he mentioned Charlie Sheen. Tune Have ‘Em=Two and a Half Men. To quote Henry Hudgins in My Fair Lady, “Why can’t the English learn to speak?”

I am now at the end of my England-Wizard of Oz post, and, Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas any more! (Unfortunately, while I am able to connect everything to The Wizard of Oz, I clearly could not sufficiently transition between thoughts. If this were an essay, I would get full marks for "topics of paragraphs connect to thesis" but fail on "transitional sentences." From the bottom of my English-major heart, I apologize.)

In England

2008-10-04T11:53:00.006-05:00

I made it! Unfortunately, my access to Internet is currently very limited, so I'll be unable to post often until Regent's Park College (that's where I'm going to school, by the way) figures something out for us. On the bright side, longer posts I get to write! On the downside...longer posts for you to read!

We left Kansas City on Wednesday, stopped in Chicago, and then flew a very long way into Heathrow, London. I couldn't sleep on the plane, so I watched a few movies and allowed my thoughts to drift to such important considerations as, "Greenland is really big, and it has a lot of ice," "I like alliteration!" and "On Ugly Betty, how do they do America Ferrera's braces?" It was a very long flight. Of course, I had the lovely Robyn (from Jewell) to keep me company (although she slept, jammy her (jammy is a Britishism I learned. It means "lucky," but only in the sense that "I wanted that but she got it.")).

Upon our arrival in Heathrow, we collected our 111ish pounds worth of luggage, and tried to walk with it. Then, an airport worker came up and was like, “You should put those on a trolley.” Except his accent was so thick, Robyn and I heard “You mpadgshpasdngipontolley.” Or something like that. He had to say it three times before we understood him. Once we figured it out, we got trolleys for our luggage. Have you ever pushed an airport trolley? It's kind of like trying to drive a Greyhound bus using only your nose. Or like playing MarioKart. Robyn and I nearly ran down at least eight people, and I definitely ran over my foot. Then this Scottish man showed us that the trolleys had brakes!

And then, yada yada yada, we ended up at Regent's in Oxford (by yada yada yada, I mean long queues, bus drive, taxi ride, crazy attack pigeons...). There, we joined Erin (also from Jewell), and we met David Harper, the bursar at Regent's. He is very nice and smiles a lot, especially for a British person.

More yada yada yada of food and driving and talking, and there we were at our house! We are on the first floor. Our second floor housemates are Hannah and Andy (married, Andy's a M.Th/pastoral student at Regent's), and we got to have tea with them on Thursday night. Turns out I like tea, who knew? Our third floor housemates are Martin and Bobbie (married with two girls, Martin's in the same program as Andy), and they have invited us for lunch tomorrow. They all seem quite nice.

In two days, I have learned that the British say literally a lot. Except it's "litrelly" and they never mean it. As in, "Joy and Robyn and Erin litrelly got here just this minute," when, in fact, we arrived six hours ago. Americans do this, too (Biden, anyone?), just not as often as the British. The British also don't smile much, with the exception of David Harper and some other Regent's people. Since I am a nice Mid-Westerner, I smile at everyone I meet on the street. The few Bristish people that accidentally smile back at me immediately get this look on their face that says, "Disregard that!! I didn't mean to be friendly!!" Which makes me want to smile at them even more.

So far culture shock hasn't set in, except for the fact that there are no clothing hangers to be found in the UK. Also, I've walked more in two days than I have in the past two years. I thought Jewell was good exercise, but that's nothing compared to here.

I get to talk to my family in ten minutes (yay!), so I'll end this post here. Tune in next time to hear stories of shopping, church, pubs, the Song Game, libraries, and more!

I am in a backwards country...

2008-10-02T10:07:00.001-05:00

...that apparently does not believe in the Internet.

Packing

2008-09-27T17:26:00.003-05:00

Packing is such a big deal. I had a great plan originally: I was going to pack two weeks ahead of time, let it sit for a week, and then get everything out again and get rid of some stuff, then pack again. I figured that way, I could pack everything I think I need initially, and then take out a lot of non-essentials the second time. Yes, packing twice sounded like a good plan.

Two Wednesdays ago, I contemplated packing. And I realized: I need nearly everything I'm going to pack! So, to claim that I had started packing, I dumped some stuff that had been sitting in my basement all summer (read: stuff that is non-essential) in a suitcase and called it good.

This Wednesday, I decided to pack all my clothes. I left the clothes I want to take in a suitcase so that I wouldn't get confused and wear them. I discovered that I have quite a surplus of shirts, but I have been wearing the same shorts for three days now.

And I haven't even started on shoes. You think you can make do with just a few pairs of shoes, but really, you can't. I need at least two pairs of tennis shoes, five pairs of dress shoes, and seven pairs of casual shoes. At least! And don't even get me started on purses and bags.

Oh, and what about books? I generally bring a small library of books to school with me, but I'm not sure how that's going to be possible this time. I'll have to leave my cookie cookbook (the British are going to miss out), my Jane Austen collection (which makes no sense to leave behind, I'm going to England!), my Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes...

I can take two 50-pound, 62-inch suitcases, one carry-on suitcase, and one backpack. Please, someone, tell me how I'm supposed to fit my life in those.

Contact information

2008-09-22T20:45:00.003-05:00

While I'm in England, I would love to hear from you! I won't have a cell phone, but I will have e-mail (masonj@william.jewell.edu or godsjoy116@yahoo.com), Facebook, and Skype. Also, my address will be:
Joy Mason
Regent's Park College
Pusey Street
Oxford, England OX1 2LB.

Let me know how everything's going for you!

Congratulations!

2008-09-14T14:08:00.003-05:00

Today is your day! You're off to Great Places! You're off and away!

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own and you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things happen, don't worry. Don't stew. Just go right along. You'll start happening too.

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!

You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!