Raise your hand

Raise your hand if you loose countless of hours of sleep thanks to Stumbleupon?!

Hand raised. 

Raise your hand if you have recently been introduced to Seinfeld and have spent the last 3 days watching countless episodes?!

Hand raised.

Raise your hand if you have lectures in 6 hours?!

Hand raised.

Raise your hand if you have yet to finish tomorrow's lecture reading?!

Hand raised.

I'm out of control today, I apologize. This cold weather is making me go insane. I have yet to manage to stay warm for more than 5 minutes today. And if you must ask, yes, I am wearing double socks and gloves in bed as we speak. Don't judge me.

Title Tuesday: Man's Search for Meaning

I've been thinking about new things for the blog, seeing as my resolution for this year was to keep this more updated; which I am already slacking in, I'm sorry. But, I figured I should start a new segment and put my English literature skills to use. 

Title Tuesday

Each week I'll be spotlighting a favorite book of mine, in hopes that some of you will pick it up and enjoy it as much as I did. 

Starting out with one of my favorites:

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

I first came across Frankl's work my senior year in high school. We did an existentialism unit in my senior composition class. Even though most of my class paid no particular attention to the subject, I was instantly fascinated by the philosophy. 

Man's Search for Meaning was written in 1946 by Viktor Frankl. The book chronicles Frankl's experiences in a concentration camp during the war. The book describes his psychotherapeutic method for finding a reason to live during his horrific experience. It is composed of two parts: Part one deals with his analysis of his experiences that took place in the camp, followed by Part two; which then introduces his ideas of the meaning of life and his theory of logotherapy.

Through his experiences, Frankl comes to the conclusion that the meaning of life is in every moment that is lived. Life never ceases to have meaning, even during times of hardship. He describes the intensity of life and the importance of acknowledging it. Frankl further describes the beauty of life and the ability that humans have of choosing our meaning with each choice that we make. 

Frankl's work was a definite source of inspiration that year for me, and still continues to have an impact in my life. I walked away from that class with a new outlook on life and aware of the intensity of life that Frankl describes in the book. 

Man's Search for Meaning has been ranked among the top 10 most influential books and it is a definite read for everyone. 

So, take a trip to the library, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, you name it, and pick up a copy!

Pancake Day

I partook in Pancake Day on Tuesday, can we please have this in the states? I need more excuses to eat pancakes all day. 

Here's some background info thanks to good old wiki:

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Shrove Tuesday is more commonly known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day.

Pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foodstuffs such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. The liturgical fasting emphasized eating plainer food and refraining from food that would give pleasure: In many cultures, this means no meat, dairy, or eggs.

Thank goodness I have awesome housemates that teach me all this knowledge and make me pancakes. What an awesome way to celebrate.

I'm definitely bringing this back to the states. I might even establish Pancake week at our house. 

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.

awesome

Wouldn't my life be awesome if I stayed here forever and finally got my dream English bulldog? It would be perfect. New life goal. 

Also, I forgot to post this last week. But the roomies and I had a much needed reunion talk.

Awesome unibrow Annie.

And after several technical difficulties with Steph, we finally got her on the same call.

Gotta love technology. Connecting us from Australia, England, to good old Arizona.

Look what I discovered

So yesterday after forcing myself to go for another run, I asked my housemate for any suggestions on which direction to run to. Turns out we live right next to Windsor Great Park. As in the Queen's park, you know, the one where her castle is in.  Don't ask me how I've lived here for 2 months and still didn't know this. Well I took off with a general idea of which direction I was headed, and just hoped to not get lost again. Turn outs it's literally a 10 minute jog away. And it's beautiful. And huge. I spent almost 2 hours just exploring the place and I didn't even get to see half. It's definitely on my list of places to have a picnic in; as soon as the sun decides to come out and be able to warm me up for more than 5 minutes. I took a different route on my way home, again hoping that I wouldn't get lost. It amazes me what I find here! It's beautiful. It's definitely making me want to make this place my permanent home. I only had my ipod again, so the quality of the photos is pretty bad. But, I promise I will take a trip back with my camera for some better pictures. 

Pretty right??

Tomorrow we will be having Mexican night here at the house. I can't even begin to tell you how deprived I am of Mexican food. I miss it SO much. Hopefully all goes well, and we can find all the necessary ingredients. And it will probably also include a phone call to my mom. I suck at remembering recipes. True story. 

Also, we are off to see Stonehenge and Bath on Saturday!

Btw, it's already week 9 here in school. Only 2 more weeks left in Term 2. What?? Time is flying by! 

Happy Lists: UK Edition

I realized I haven't made a happy list in a while. But thinking about it, it's actually a good thing, because I usually make happy lists when I'm not happy. And as of lately, I am one extremely happy girl. But regardless, it's time for a happy list with a UK spin. 

Things that make me happy in England:

1. everyone's British accent

2. drinking excessive amounts of tea

3. quiz nights at the pubs

4. eating authentic fish & chips

5. the BBC

6. FREE museum entrances

7. free endless entertainment on the Tube

8. being able to see GREEN trees

9. massive amounts of bookstores

10. the second floor at Founder's library

11. wide-world selections of food

12. my housemates

13. being able to be a museum junkie along with everyone else here

14. meeting some amazing people

15. living my dream