A Letter

Dear GRE,


You kinda suck. I don't remember high school math anymore, why would you include that in a test to get into Grad school? I thought we were over that... You took forever, and even though I had the pleasure of taking the 3 hour practice test in bed, cmon! I would appreciate it if you could somehow just get into my head, I was thinking maybe sleeping with the GRE book by my head every night. Do you mind just creepin on into my head? That would be greatly appreciated. Also, while you're at it, can you tell your brosheph GMAT to be nice to Taylor too, he doesn't remember high school math either. 


Sincerely,
Disgruntled grad school applicant 

Catch Up

It's been a looong time folks, I apologize. We moved into our new house and hadn't set up our internet, therefore we were disconnected from the world. I've never realized how much we actually depend on the internet, scary. The crazy semester has begun, I can't say that I'm too excited, it's already been a long week. I've been in and out meetings all week for work getting everything ready for the semester, although I am excited to see all my new kids! And the only thing that got me through the first day of school was thinking it was my LAST first day of college, it was exciting. It definitely has been weird re-adjusting to American classes tho, they're easy peasy. Although, this weather is killing around campus, it's way too hot. 

It was a little sad to see the summer end, I'm going to miss the lazy summer days. It will also be my last complete summer in AZ for a while, but I am very excited for the upcoming years! 

I hope everyone's summer was fantastic and you all have an awesome new school year! 

Oh Shakespeare

I watched this and laughed, hard. The life of an English major at its best. 

Welcome to my life last semester, my relationship with Shakespeare has its ups and downs, but in the end, I still love him. 

Big Life Decision Day

I made big girl decisions today, it kinda sucked. But on a good note, I figued out what I'm doing with my life, this chica is graduating next May! I managed to finish my degree in 3 years, holla. Let the Grad school applications begin...

On an even better note, I'm getting my hairs did tomorrow, KaLyn is working her little beautician magic on me.

And hello Harry Potter midnight premiere, game over.

And only 33 more days till this man comes home. In the mean time, I'm loving me some skype dates.

Freeee

I turned in my essays today. Best. Feeling. Ever. 

I'm freeee. 

Getting ready for the Royal Wedding wedding on Friday, wish us luck and that we don't get stampeded. 

It's going to be a great week/end! 

Brilliant Idea

[Insert Sarcasm Here]

Hey, I've got an idea. Lets discuss the surplus of voice and the way it creates aesthetic effects in this 

piece. Try and keep your responses at 2,500 words please! 

[Passages, by Theresa Hak Kyun Cha] I apologize for the numerous posts about how much I hate these essays. I promise it will end soonish. All that separates me from freedom is 8,000 words.  On a happier note, Taylor comes back this week. We have plans to finally go to Stonehenge and Bath. And of course go celebrate the Royal Wedding, duh. Now for something completely unrelated. Glen sent me this as he's "writing" his essay. And I laughed. Hard. I think my lack of sleep and delusional mind might have something to do with it, but I hope it makes you laugh as well.

The Day's Progression

Is it time to go to Greece yet? 

Killing Time

You know, because I have nothing else to do while I'm writing a 3,500 word essay.

Wait, this might explain why it's not done yet....

Face Palm

I spent hours at the library today researching phonology and voice and meaning in poetics. After 4 hours of research, I realized I still had no idea what I was reading and that there was no way I would ever be able to write a 3,000 word essay on it. So I changed my essay topic, face palm. 4 hours of research and note taking down the drain. 

Library round 2 tomorrow, yay...

School work, boo

This weekend was another great one. I spent last week doing a whole lot of nothing, mostly because I've been putting off my essays. I spent a great Sunday with Taylor and unfortunately he had some last minute flight changes and flew out to AZ today. After dropping him off at the airport, I took a super long nap. And I finally forced myself to sit down and pick my first topic for one of my essays. For the next week, my ONLY focus is on the surplus of voice in poetics and music and analyzing and discussing the treatment of voice in a piece I studied this semester, awesome huh? My goal is to finish as much as possible in the next 2 weeks, then I'll have plenty of time to go visit new places!

Oh, and I've finally reached the point where the mean April Fool's Day joke that Taylor played on me is funny, took me a couple of days... but he somewhat made up for it last night with a nice home-cooked meal, oh yeah.

Hope your weekends' were marvelous!

Spring

Spring is in the air here, finally. My first term at Royal Holloway is officially over, I cannot believe how fast time flew. We celebrated the day with a nice day out in the courtyard in Founders. We've been having very sunny weather lately and I am in love. It's been amazing being able to sit outside in the sun. 

Afterwards, Mandy and I had a relaxing afternoon out in the sun.

Now, let the month off break begin! 

Proof: we DO study in our household

My parents back home have a hard time believing that I am actually studying here and doing my homework and not just taking trips all the time. So, today as we were studying at my house, I decided to take some shots during our study break to prove to them that I am being studious!

Did you see all those notes and books?? No, we didn't stage these shots, we DO study! 

And no, we weren't simultaneously watching the original Batman series, or Scrubs, or Friends on tv...

bit of everything

unfortunately, our trip to Bath and Stonehenge was postponed due to my lack of planning skills. I kind of messed up the ticket prices and didn't buy them on time, oops. But, it has been postponed, not completely cancelled. I will not leave the UK without seeing Stonehenge, end of story. But, since last weekend I kind of ruined the weekend plans, we had to make up for it somehow. I still ended up having a fantastic weekend and made some new friends. We went out to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant in Hampstead.  

As far as life is going, I'm a huge confused mess right now. ASU registration really has a way of creeping up on me every semester, I hate it. Plans for next semester are completely up in the air right now. Do I stay? Do I go back home? Do I start my student teaching? Do I finish my first degree first? When do I leave for the Peace Corps? Where am I going to live? see what I mean?? It's a mess. Not to mention that ASU is offering horrible literature classes next semester, which makes me completely unmotivated to go back. And yeah I miss the sun and warmth, but do I miss the 100 degree weather?...not so much.

But regardless, I am still one HAPPY huge confused mess, and life will just have to figure itself out on its own.

typical uni day

Founder's library and I have become bffs. But the kind of bff that I like. The library is beautiful inside and at times I get distracted with the awesome scenery inside. Not to mention the unbelievable amounts of amazing books there. Sorry, the pictures suck, but I was getting weird looks from all the studious people in there while my ipod was making ridiculously loud shutter noises.

lack of posts

I realize I've been seriously lacking with updates, I apologize.


Also, I've been horrible at taking pictures, but I promise you, it's been going great. I've been spending most of my free time in the city and touring all the museums. I was lucky enough to meet a great friend and run into someone from my youth (seriously,what are the odds of that?!), and I've been spending most of my time with them. Within the past week, I've gone to the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Bridge, the V&A Museum, the Science Museum and the National History Museum. It's been a blast and my museum junky self has been filled with knowledge. I've also managed to become pro with the Tube and getting around London, which has been very helpful. Also, the past couple of days have been freezing here! My Arizona-body can't handle this!


As far as lectures go, they've been kicking my butt and have been up to my neck with reading. But, I'm hoping all this hard work will help me with my Shakespeare understanding.


I pinky promise I will force myself to take more pictures this week!

i'm not dead

I'm not dead, I swear. Just far too busy hitting the books right now. I promise updates and pictures soon! 

first day of school recap

today was not so good of a day.

it was stressful.

i got lost.

i was late.

and i was cold.
but luckily, journal entering has turned out to be a great stress reliever.

so, instead of boring you with my whiny stories about my super bad first day of class, I leave you with this.

i love it here! even when i have days like this, i wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

my love/hate relationship with Shakespeare

When I first decided to come to the UK to study, my focus was shakespeare. I mean, there is not a more perfect place to study his work, duh! So my crazy little self enrolled herself in two shakespeare classes in very high levels here at Royal. I figured it wouldn't be all that hard......boy was I wrong. The classes here make my literature classes back in the States seem like a complete joke. My reading lists for the week are comparable to the reading lists for the entire semester back in Arizona. Basically, what I am trying to say is that I already have no life and my life will now be consumed by Shakespeare and his material poetic buddies. Don't take me wrong, I love me some Shakespeare, his work does not compare. But, as I am sitting in the library staring at the massive amounts of reading I have, I really despise him.

i shall become THE shakespeare master, fingers crossed.

time readjustment

I woke up at 4 PM today, which meant the sun had already gone down, which meant that I never saw the sun today. That's a problem. I really need to get adjusted to the time difference, it's killing me. 

On a better note, I walked to and back from campus yesterday without looking at my map once! Success! 

Now, I must get back to my HUGE load of assigned reading. The British take their English literature very seriously... 

Cheers!