I've actually started one or two blogs since my last update, but have lacked the motivation to finish them. I don't really know why, but that's how it is.
To sum up: C's and my trip to Barcelona was great, we got to do pretty much all the typical touristy-type stuff while still getting to spend time just relaxing. Two weeks later, towards the beginning of April, I was off to Munich to meet a friend from a small just-for-friends forum made by a gal we both know from Pennsylvania. Ironically, she's also from California, her husband just happened to have a business trip, so I went and met them there. We had a blast, saw most of the city including two palaces and a tour of the Dachau concentration camp. It was a blast, and the best part was, we clicked in real life as well as online :). Of course, being so close to the Alps, the weather was fine, as long as the wind wasn't blowing. When it was blowing, it was absolutely freezing. Apparently when her husband was at work, he was 14 floors up, and said that one morning it was actually snowing up there. But it wasn't so much on the ground where we were.
There has also been lots of business with finishing up the term. I am actually writing this about an hour and a half before I have to go catch the bus to take my last exam. That's a group project (with all it's group-associated frustrations), an individual essay, and one exam that have already been done. I'm definitely looking forward to not having anything to do after this!
I'll also be moving out of halls tomorrow, and staying in MK for a month with C and his family before finally flying home. It seems so weird to be this close to the end, and yet at the same time, I'm ready to go home. I miss my family, my friends, and my church. Obviously going to miss C like crazy, but it won't be that long until we're back together again. If all goes according to current plan, between now and Christmas will be the last long-term separation we have. Maybe another few-week separation or two, but that last six months will be it. And after having done four years, mostly long distance? We'll be fine. Won't be easy, but we've done it before, we can do it again.
In the meantime, I should go do a bit of studying and get ready to go take this last exam. Cheers all.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Home and Travel
I seem to be making a habit of not updating for a month at a time. Yet every new post, I start with how I do this and need to post more often, and then don't. Maybe I just need to make a schedule or something.
As I mentioned, C. and I went back to California for a week. The main purpose was wedding venue hunting, and we did find our places! We also just booked them last week (!). Just a point of reference for anyone, anywhere who will ever plan on getting married: give yourself more than a week to find a venue. We just about ran ourselves ragged. But it was incredibly good to be home, even if only for a short and busy while.
And of course, being home has resulted in a low-grade homesickness pretty much since being back. Took me a couple weeks to really notice it, but then it hit hard for a couple weeks. It's still there, but a bit more low-grade than it was thankfully. I still miss home, but am able to relax and still enjoy life here.
I think what's also helped the homesickness is, planning more travel! C. and I are off to Barcelona this weekend, my first trip to continental Europe! Which is a bit sad seeing as I've been here since September. But oh well, it is now time to start fixing this situation :P. Bestie K. is also trying to come out in June, hoping she can, so we can do some Europe touring together. I'm also looking for a travel buddy for the three weeks that we have of in April, as C. can't really take that much time off work, so if anyone (in the UK) is reading this and interested, please let me know! Doesn't have to be the whole three weeks, even just a few days is fine.
All in all, the last month and a half or so hasn't been terribly exciting, nothing really out of the ordinary. It's been just like any other school semester, that just happens to be located in England. Here's hoping travel will mix it up a little! Sorry for the rather dull post, it's been a dullish couple of weeks.
As I mentioned, C. and I went back to California for a week. The main purpose was wedding venue hunting, and we did find our places! We also just booked them last week (!). Just a point of reference for anyone, anywhere who will ever plan on getting married: give yourself more than a week to find a venue. We just about ran ourselves ragged. But it was incredibly good to be home, even if only for a short and busy while.
And of course, being home has resulted in a low-grade homesickness pretty much since being back. Took me a couple weeks to really notice it, but then it hit hard for a couple weeks. It's still there, but a bit more low-grade than it was thankfully. I still miss home, but am able to relax and still enjoy life here.
I think what's also helped the homesickness is, planning more travel! C. and I are off to Barcelona this weekend, my first trip to continental Europe! Which is a bit sad seeing as I've been here since September. But oh well, it is now time to start fixing this situation :P. Bestie K. is also trying to come out in June, hoping she can, so we can do some Europe touring together. I'm also looking for a travel buddy for the three weeks that we have of in April, as C. can't really take that much time off work, so if anyone (in the UK) is reading this and interested, please let me know! Doesn't have to be the whole three weeks, even just a few days is fine.
All in all, the last month and a half or so hasn't been terribly exciting, nothing really out of the ordinary. It's been just like any other school semester, that just happens to be located in England. Here's hoping travel will mix it up a little! Sorry for the rather dull post, it's been a dullish couple of weeks.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Politics in the USA: What I Don't Miss
I've been mulling over some of this for a while, so I decided to write some of it out. Partly to help me figure out my thoughts, partly because... well, I feel like I need to say it. This is the post that it has taken me the longest to write, by far. I hope it makes sense, and means what I mean to say.
The news about the shooting in Arizona made headlines over here too. A lot of discussion and analysis about why it happened also began appearing here. A lot of people were blaming the angry rhetoric of people such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin for causing him to go off the edge. Now, I understand that the shooter was not a tea-party-er, but it got me thinking. The one thing that I have not missed, and actually been grateful to get away from, has been American politics. Not necessarily the political structure, but the way political event, commentary, ads, etc are in the media.
Out here, I have yet to see one attack ad. Okay, I'll admit, I'm not here during an election, so there's far less likelihood of them being shown at all. But even opposite sides of the government are expected to show at least a certain degree of solidarity. They may rip each other to shreds during the weekly PMQs (Prime Minister's Questions, for those of you unfamiliar with it), but they still walk out together, meet outside of Parliament, and demonstrate a common... bond, goal, I'm not quite sure what to call it. A united front, maybe. Not quite like in the States, where one person runs an ad saying "look who's paying for his ad and where that means his loyalties really lie! look at (insert flaw here) that we found in his voting record/personal life/whatever! He's trying to lie to you for votes!" with response ads of "He just ran a baseless attack ad on me! Well let me tell you about him!" and everything gets polarized and nothing resolved. I really, truly, do not and don't think I ever will miss that type of mudslinging.
And the commentary. Oh my goodness, there is so much to be said for being away from that. But this leads to the part where I have to be perfectly blunt, even though I know of a few people who read this who will strongly disagree: the Tea Party scares me. As in, scares the s^&# out of me. Now, I'm sure there are plenty of sane, rational, smart people among those who claim to belong to the Tea Party movement. These are not the people who scare me. What scares me are the frontrunners and spokespeople for the Tea Party. Sarah Palin, for a start. She is the first thing that finalised my decision to vote Obama two years ago. Partly because she represented McCain going from maverick to pandering to the Republican party for votes, but also because she, herself scares me. Now, she's a great motivational speaker, I'll give her that; but she has neither the experience nor, in my opinion, knowledge required to lead America into anything.
As for spokespeople who are not leaders; I have to say, the idea that people picked Glenn Beck as a leader of anything is simply unbelievable to me. I mean, this is a man who regularly spouts of comparing "progressives" to Communists, Socialists, Fascists and Nazis, often in the same sentence. He's the spokesperson and a driving force behind much of the Tea Party, yet he doesn't even seem to realise that those four things are not only not the same thing, they are all on different ends of the political spectrum. Not to mention, he even equated Social Justice with communism and nazism on his show. Because freeing slaves and helping the downtrodden is oh-so-Nazi-esque. My original intent for this post was to mull over the claims that it was angry rhetoric that caused the shooter in Arizona to go off the deep end. Now I don't know about that man; but if it wasn't then, it's only a matter of time until the violent rhetoric often used by people like Beck will cause someone to go off the deep end. Now I'm not saying that there's no bias elsewhere in other shows like his; but the only response I can have to that is to tell you to go watch Jon Stewart's "Lupus of News" clip. Even as a person with lupus, it was hilarious and completely accurate.
I thought before that those two were my main problems. But then C. and I were back in California for a week at the end of January, and our friend T. showed us a couple of videos of another Tea Party frontrunner (whose name I am currently blanking on, so if someone reading this knows, please comment) in which she said that our Founding Fathers "fought tirelessly to end slavery" until the practice was ended. Um, nice rewriting of history. Fact is, the Founding Fathers were so divided over the issue that in order to get the Constitution ratified, they had to write in that Congress would not address the issue for the next twenty years. Not to mention, every last one of them died before slavery was abolished, so unless they were zombies or ghosts, they couldn't have kept fighting until its end. Basic history, people. Let's make sure our politicians remember it.
I guess I'm just getting frustrated that people who are trying to lead can't get some very basic facts straight. If someone can't even get straight basic historical facts about the founding of America, or understand the differences between Nazism, Communism, Fascism, and Socialism, how can we expect them to really understand the basic facts about what is happening in the world today? I honestly don't think we can. And so I cannot bring myself to trust them, and the fact that people can trust them, believe in them, and just plain believe them, scares me. There's just no other way to say it. They scare me.
Now I'm remembering a story I saw recently on notalwaysright.com, in which a cashier relates the story of one customer seeing something on a news station playing in the store and goes on a rant about Obama's healthcare bill, how it's unconstitutional, Americans aren't socialist, we don't need any socialist programs... and then goes to pay for their purchase with a food stamps debit card. Don't need any socialist programs, really?
In many ways, I'm beginning to think that Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity was right on the money. It's time for the sane, smart people to be heard. In the writing of this post, I have watched the clip of his imitation of Glenn Beck and his gospel choir address to Bernie Goldberg of Fox News more times than I can count, just to remind myself that sanity is out there. They may not be the loudest ones, but they are there.
In the meantime, the only thing that comes to mind is a phrase my pastor used to use a lot: "It hurts me right in the IQ!"
The news about the shooting in Arizona made headlines over here too. A lot of discussion and analysis about why it happened also began appearing here. A lot of people were blaming the angry rhetoric of people such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin for causing him to go off the edge. Now, I understand that the shooter was not a tea-party-er, but it got me thinking. The one thing that I have not missed, and actually been grateful to get away from, has been American politics. Not necessarily the political structure, but the way political event, commentary, ads, etc are in the media.
Out here, I have yet to see one attack ad. Okay, I'll admit, I'm not here during an election, so there's far less likelihood of them being shown at all. But even opposite sides of the government are expected to show at least a certain degree of solidarity. They may rip each other to shreds during the weekly PMQs (Prime Minister's Questions, for those of you unfamiliar with it), but they still walk out together, meet outside of Parliament, and demonstrate a common... bond, goal, I'm not quite sure what to call it. A united front, maybe. Not quite like in the States, where one person runs an ad saying "look who's paying for his ad and where that means his loyalties really lie! look at (insert flaw here) that we found in his voting record/personal life/whatever! He's trying to lie to you for votes!" with response ads of "He just ran a baseless attack ad on me! Well let me tell you about him!" and everything gets polarized and nothing resolved. I really, truly, do not and don't think I ever will miss that type of mudslinging.
And the commentary. Oh my goodness, there is so much to be said for being away from that. But this leads to the part where I have to be perfectly blunt, even though I know of a few people who read this who will strongly disagree: the Tea Party scares me. As in, scares the s^&# out of me. Now, I'm sure there are plenty of sane, rational, smart people among those who claim to belong to the Tea Party movement. These are not the people who scare me. What scares me are the frontrunners and spokespeople for the Tea Party. Sarah Palin, for a start. She is the first thing that finalised my decision to vote Obama two years ago. Partly because she represented McCain going from maverick to pandering to the Republican party for votes, but also because she, herself scares me. Now, she's a great motivational speaker, I'll give her that; but she has neither the experience nor, in my opinion, knowledge required to lead America into anything.
As for spokespeople who are not leaders; I have to say, the idea that people picked Glenn Beck as a leader of anything is simply unbelievable to me. I mean, this is a man who regularly spouts of comparing "progressives" to Communists, Socialists, Fascists and Nazis, often in the same sentence. He's the spokesperson and a driving force behind much of the Tea Party, yet he doesn't even seem to realise that those four things are not only not the same thing, they are all on different ends of the political spectrum. Not to mention, he even equated Social Justice with communism and nazism on his show. Because freeing slaves and helping the downtrodden is oh-so-Nazi-esque. My original intent for this post was to mull over the claims that it was angry rhetoric that caused the shooter in Arizona to go off the deep end. Now I don't know about that man; but if it wasn't then, it's only a matter of time until the violent rhetoric often used by people like Beck will cause someone to go off the deep end. Now I'm not saying that there's no bias elsewhere in other shows like his; but the only response I can have to that is to tell you to go watch Jon Stewart's "Lupus of News" clip. Even as a person with lupus, it was hilarious and completely accurate.
I thought before that those two were my main problems. But then C. and I were back in California for a week at the end of January, and our friend T. showed us a couple of videos of another Tea Party frontrunner (whose name I am currently blanking on, so if someone reading this knows, please comment) in which she said that our Founding Fathers "fought tirelessly to end slavery" until the practice was ended. Um, nice rewriting of history. Fact is, the Founding Fathers were so divided over the issue that in order to get the Constitution ratified, they had to write in that Congress would not address the issue for the next twenty years. Not to mention, every last one of them died before slavery was abolished, so unless they were zombies or ghosts, they couldn't have kept fighting until its end. Basic history, people. Let's make sure our politicians remember it.
I guess I'm just getting frustrated that people who are trying to lead can't get some very basic facts straight. If someone can't even get straight basic historical facts about the founding of America, or understand the differences between Nazism, Communism, Fascism, and Socialism, how can we expect them to really understand the basic facts about what is happening in the world today? I honestly don't think we can. And so I cannot bring myself to trust them, and the fact that people can trust them, believe in them, and just plain believe them, scares me. There's just no other way to say it. They scare me.
Now I'm remembering a story I saw recently on notalwaysright.com, in which a cashier relates the story of one customer seeing something on a news station playing in the store and goes on a rant about Obama's healthcare bill, how it's unconstitutional, Americans aren't socialist, we don't need any socialist programs... and then goes to pay for their purchase with a food stamps debit card. Don't need any socialist programs, really?
In many ways, I'm beginning to think that Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity was right on the money. It's time for the sane, smart people to be heard. In the writing of this post, I have watched the clip of his imitation of Glenn Beck and his gospel choir address to Bernie Goldberg of Fox News more times than I can count, just to remind myself that sanity is out there. They may not be the loudest ones, but they are there.
In the meantime, the only thing that comes to mind is a phrase my pastor used to use a lot: "It hurts me right in the IQ!"
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Holidays, Homework, and Going Home
It has, once again, been far too long since my last update.
The holidays were fantastic. Each weekend that C was down, we spent the Saturday in London doing various touristy/holiday type things. The day we went to Trafalgar Square, there was a giant mass of people all dressed as Santa; when we asked one what was going on, he said it was just a random thing of people dressing as Santa and getting drunk. Interesting idea for an event, it was quite random.
The last Saturday before Christmas, we went to the Christmas market on the South Bank. Of course, by the time we got on the train and got there, it was snowing pretty heavily. It hadn't been in the morning; we had gone to meet a friend of mine for breakfast who was on a semester program about to go home. On our way to a pub that was open at 9:30am, we stopped into a game shop so C could pick up a gift; when we came out, it was snowing. Then we finally stopped in at the pub, and when we finally came out... the entire street was white. We were about a block from the train station, and could barely see it. It was quite intense. But it was fun on the train up, as we'd brought my iPod to put Christmas music on shuffle. It felt like we had a soundtrack to our own Christmas movie in a way. And yet, we still ended up at an outdoor Christmas market. Mostly because there was a particular booth that I wanted to re-visit, as I hadn't been able to get much the last week due to a lack of cash. Then we gave up on doing touristy things; we were going to do the Natural History Museum, but the only tube line that goes to the station by it was closed due to strikes. So instead, we went to go visit a friend of his who recently moved down to London, and just hung out at his for the evening.
The Monday before Christmas was fantastic; we went to go see Les Miserables on the West End. All I can say is, if you ever get the chance, go see it. It is phenomenal.
The holidays themselves were a blast; we went up to C's folks for the two weeks we had off. It was a nice time, mostly spent just chilling and meeting up with various friends and family. And, for me, working on my final essays. I even got permission to redo my room, got a single bed so that I could also fit a desk in there so I could have a space to just shut off and do my work. Two full essays and a half-length literature review were due yesterday, so I spent all my time on those. Now I just have one last full-length paper that's a mix of literature review and research paper to do, to be finished before I go home again, as it's due while I'm in the States.
Yes, I am going back to the States! C and I will be flying back for a week, visiting family, and most of the rest of the time visiting potential wedding venues. Given our list of potential venues, this may take the entire week - and that's with the shortened list nixing all the places that we discovered were double or triple what we could afford! So that's also been keeping me busy, with trying to set up appointment times with each place. Going to be a busy week, that's for sure.
In the meantime, I have approximately one week in which to finish my last final essay. Granted, it's not due for two weeks, but I'm heading up to MK again a few days before we fly out, so that puts it at just over one week for me to get it done and turned in. Off to work! :)
The holidays were fantastic. Each weekend that C was down, we spent the Saturday in London doing various touristy/holiday type things. The day we went to Trafalgar Square, there was a giant mass of people all dressed as Santa; when we asked one what was going on, he said it was just a random thing of people dressing as Santa and getting drunk. Interesting idea for an event, it was quite random.
The last Saturday before Christmas, we went to the Christmas market on the South Bank. Of course, by the time we got on the train and got there, it was snowing pretty heavily. It hadn't been in the morning; we had gone to meet a friend of mine for breakfast who was on a semester program about to go home. On our way to a pub that was open at 9:30am, we stopped into a game shop so C could pick up a gift; when we came out, it was snowing. Then we finally stopped in at the pub, and when we finally came out... the entire street was white. We were about a block from the train station, and could barely see it. It was quite intense. But it was fun on the train up, as we'd brought my iPod to put Christmas music on shuffle. It felt like we had a soundtrack to our own Christmas movie in a way. And yet, we still ended up at an outdoor Christmas market. Mostly because there was a particular booth that I wanted to re-visit, as I hadn't been able to get much the last week due to a lack of cash. Then we gave up on doing touristy things; we were going to do the Natural History Museum, but the only tube line that goes to the station by it was closed due to strikes. So instead, we went to go visit a friend of his who recently moved down to London, and just hung out at his for the evening.
The Monday before Christmas was fantastic; we went to go see Les Miserables on the West End. All I can say is, if you ever get the chance, go see it. It is phenomenal.
The holidays themselves were a blast; we went up to C's folks for the two weeks we had off. It was a nice time, mostly spent just chilling and meeting up with various friends and family. And, for me, working on my final essays. I even got permission to redo my room, got a single bed so that I could also fit a desk in there so I could have a space to just shut off and do my work. Two full essays and a half-length literature review were due yesterday, so I spent all my time on those. Now I just have one last full-length paper that's a mix of literature review and research paper to do, to be finished before I go home again, as it's due while I'm in the States.
Yes, I am going back to the States! C and I will be flying back for a week, visiting family, and most of the rest of the time visiting potential wedding venues. Given our list of potential venues, this may take the entire week - and that's with the shortened list nixing all the places that we discovered were double or triple what we could afford! So that's also been keeping me busy, with trying to set up appointment times with each place. Going to be a busy week, that's for sure.
In the meantime, I have approximately one week in which to finish my last final essay. Granted, it's not due for two weeks, but I'm heading up to MK again a few days before we fly out, so that puts it at just over one week for me to get it done and turned in. Off to work! :)
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