Yeah, I'm pretty dumb...it's 1:30 in the morning here and I'm not really tired right now. Why? Because I came home from shopping at 6:30 and decided that I would read for a bit...but then that turned into a 3 hour nap....and now I'm awake. At least it's the weekend so I can sleep in a bit tomorrow if I can't get to sleep.

So what's new...uh....well I can start with last weekend I guess since it's been that long since I last posted...and I'll admit, I've just been to lazy to post before now. I can be the Queen of Procrastination when I feel like it...

Last Friday we had a block party (everyone in our block of the residence hung out in the hallways as we have no common area...) which started after Mom and Dad came back from their trip and took me out to dinner. We were leaving to visit family the next day at 8:30am (the trip was supposed to take over 3 hours) so the original plan was that I wouldn't be up super-late...but that planned kind of got tossed. The party ended around quarter to 12 or so and then everyone was going to a club so I also went to the club...we got back around 2 or so...a tad later than planned. But I'm afraid my problem on Saturday morning wasn't the lack of sleep (although it may have contributed), rather the excess of wine that one may have consumed the night before...have I mentioned before how much people like their wine here? I can't remember if I posted it in a blog before or if I've just told people about it...but again, I must say that here, people my age sit around and drink wine...I mean, no one does that at home, unless we're feeling especially posh or something. But if students are sitting around drinking it's usually beer...or in the case of my friends at school some choose tequila, but hey, whatever turns your crank eh Emma?
Anyway, point is: Drinking wine = social pastime....and I'm afraid I underestimated the wine's effect on me given my reputation for alcohol tolerance.
I ate a lot of biscuits that night as well.

NOTE: Where we have the collective term "cookies" the English prefer to categorize their sweets into "cookies" and "biscuits". To them, cookies are only the type that could be home-baked...ie) chocolate chip cookies...biscuits refer to basically anything else: typically the more "boring" selections. I have endured long instruction in the differentiation of cookies and biscuits. However, some discrepancy still remains when two biscuits are sandwiched together with cream in the middle...some argue that the new addition of cream has lauched the biscuit into cookie status, appalling supporters of traditional cookies. A petition has been started to strip these "imposing" biscuits of their cookie rights as some argue that they are still merely biscuits...I shall report back later on the matter...

Ah-ha...now you see what 2 o'clock in the morning can do to people...making up ficticious (is that spelt right?...I'm pretty sure it's "ci" and not "ti") cookie petitions and such...

But anyway, in the words of my high school Physics teacher, "Back to the point at hand".

So yes, we ate lots of biscuits because I found a huge package of cheap ones at Somerfield (the grocery store) and they made a good party snack.
I have a couple pictures from the party, which means, that you are entitled to a first time exclusive look at....duh duh duh....My FLATMATES!! Matt's not in any of the pictures though, but this one is of Richard and Sophie (that night we decided to call Richard Alex because it's been agreed that he looks more like an Alex) and this one is of Katherine and I, and here's a picture of the party in general.

So yeah, it was a good night. 8 o'clock rolled around Saturday morning...I shut off my alarm and set it for 8:15...8:15 rolled around, got up, got ready to go and such...felt fine, except tired, but fine. Got in the car for our 3 hour trip....car starts moving....not so fine. But despite my stomach pyrotechnics we got to Tring, which is a bit northish of London, where my Dad's cousin lives. It was really good to see her...we were trying to figure out the last time we saw her and it was over 10 years ago anyway...they live in a really cute town and they took us for a nice long walk around the countryside...and it was so weird cuz there were public footpaths through people's fields...fields that had animals in them! I mean, over in Canada you could get charged for trespassing...but not here! We stayed there overnight and headed back to Leeds around lunchtime on Sunday. When we got to Leeds there was the inevitable teary-eyed goodbye when Mom and Dad left. They were flying out of Manchester on Monday, so they drove back to Manchester Sunday night.

Monday I started classes. I didn't have to start until 1pm so that was nice...first I had my "Guitar's Influence on Popular Music" course, which sounds like it's gonna be pretty interesting...it's basically post-WWII history of the guitar, how it's changed physically, guitarists who have shaped what music is today, etc. There're maybe 10 girls in my class? Lots of guys...a true sign of an easy class (j/k)...
Then I had my first "Anglo-Saxon Cultures" class. Now, this one is gonna be a lot of work...more work than I had planned for an elective anyway. It probably doesn't help that I've never taken a history course outside of high school, so I'm not used to all the reading...and I haven't written an essay since high school, so given that 2 essays are all I'm being assessed on then it could be a bit interesting...
My prof read us this Olde English riddle in normal English...and then she read it in the Olde English and it was complete gibberish! I was afraid we'd have to learn to understand it...but luckily we don't! And then we had a tour of the library that we're supposed to be using...but it's so confusing...half of the history section is in one place and the other half is somewhere else...and they don't use Duey Decimal like at home either. Meh, whatever... I had my first tutorial for the class yesterday and my TA is from Toronto. Go figure eh?

Now, Tuesday and Wednesday were crap because the schedule for our courses was different that what was actually supposed to happen. For example, the schedule said our classes for "Human Population Genetics and Evolution" were supposed to start on Tuesday at 10 and then there was another lecture at 12. Well, no prof came to either class...so we waited about 15-20 minutes each time before leaving. But those were the only classes I had so I didn't even need to go to the school! The same thing happened on Wednesday morning with my Human Genetics class..except this class started at 9 so I could've slept in...and this course doesn't even start til the end of October which is sweet now that I know cuz that means I have Wednesdays and Fridays off til then!

So what did I do today on my Friday off? Well, I went downtown to the "city centre". First I went to the Town Hall cuz I want to volunteer for the Leeds Film Festival so I needed to pick up an application form. Then, I went to the art gallery. I'm becoming cultured guys! Yeah, we had our Lupton residence social last night (free drinks!) and a girl I was talking to said it was free entry and since it was right beside the town hall I figured I might as well have a peek. I'm no art fanatic or anything...but it was nice....haha...nothing moved me or whatever. There was some weird stuff though...

First I have to go back to the Lupton social now that I've thought about it. It was held at one of the postgraduate bar/meeting rooms on campus and everyone got free drink tickets...except that as usual, not everyone shows up, so they kept giving us more tickets! Basically it was just a bunch of mingling but I met this one girl in another block and we talked a bit and actually I had lunch with her and some other ppl today at a pub (which was very old-fashioned pubbish...and I even had fish and chips). Before the food was served one of our wardens gave a bit of a speech. Here, professors are assigned to each hall (I prefer to think of it being like Harry Potter cuz it makes me feel cool) as wardens. They don't really do a lot with us but I guess if we get in trouble we answer to them. Anyway, so Dr. Hughes, one of the wardens, was talking to us about being socially responsible and stuff...and he was going on saying "I know you're going to come home trashed...you're going to be absolutely smashed...you're going to have vomit all over yourself and stumbling this way and that...but I ask that if you are vomiting please do not do it on the old lady passing you by...do it as neatly as possible in a toilet or a bag...WE DO NOT WANT YOU SICKING ALL OVER THE LOCAL RESIDENTS!" I was killing myself. This guy is like, 60-something and when he told us not to sick all over the locals it was priceless.

So back to today...after lunch at the pub I went shopping...got a belated bday present for Bourke which, I hope you understand Bourke, I'm not going to bother sending over...you'll get it when I come home. Unless I find some way of shipping it for free. I actually didn't buy a whole lot at all. I walked through the arcades, which are beautiful...I'll have to take pictures sometime...it was crappy outside today though, which was why I didn't take them today. But all the shops in the arcades are expensive and too posh for me. So I went into H&M and other such stores. I went into this one store called PriMark which has really cheap stuff...it was like 4 pounds for a knit sweater...(almost 10 bucks)...but I didn't buy anything in that store except for underwear cuz as cheap as everything was, I didn't need another sweater so I didn't want to spend the money just cuz it was cheap.

OOH I bought an England football (soccer) jersey the other day. I walked into this place that's like SportChek and everything was on sale so the jersey was like, 50% off or something. I got it with Michael Owen's name and number...cuz everyone has Beckham and Owen's cuter anyway...see?

But I saw in the news that England lost to...one of the Irelands...I'm thinking Northern...in a World Cup qualifier, so that's not too good. But I figured by buying an England jersey (as opposed to a jersey for say, Man. Utd. or Chelsea or something) people can't harrass me about supporting a certain team cuz I'm sure they all support their own country.

But yeah, that was my week...in a nutshell...we went out to the pub a couple times in the evening...oh, Katherine and I went to this place called the Fab Cafe, which is like...I don't even really know how to describe it...the whole place is done up with action figures of sci-fi and horror movies, or signed posters, tons and tons of movie memorabilia...and they tend to play cult movies on the tv...like, when we were there Mars Attacks was on...and the kind of music that everyone knows but denys that they like...like most 80s music...it was a really cool atmosphere.

Anyway, that's it. It's now 3am...still not tired but I have to make myself go to sleep sometime.