I made it!

I'm here, I have internet (which I totally didn't expect to have yet, and I am overjoyed that I do), I met up with my friends, I had dinner and my first (and second) real, legal beers at real English pubs, I found my room (but don't really feel like unpacking yet), I Skyped with my mother (yay! Thank god for the people who invented Skype, really!), and I'm going to try to get to bed soon. I'm most likely going to be jet-lagged, but I'll try my best to fight it. My room is cute--small, approximately the size of my room at school this past semester, but with a nice half-sized bay of windows overlooking a bus station and a park, and a boarded-up fireplace (which, despite being boarded-up, looks pretty cool and has a nice mantel on which I can put pictures and things).

Pictures of the room (and dorm, and town, and everything else!) will soon follow. It's been snowing here for a while (and snowed on us as we were walking to dinner--this LA girl was freaking out! hehe), so everything is covered in white. Beautiful, but I do miss my California sun. I've already had a small bout of homesickness, but I guess that is to be expected. Having internet helps so much, because I immediately feel more connected to everyone.

So, I should be off to bed. Goodnight, all, and I'll write again tomorrow!

Day 0 (?)

Well, today's the day and it's...weird. I've been coming to terms with the idea of "being abroad" for 5 months, but for some reason, thinking of it in the negative, i.e., "not being in the country" for 5 months is something I'm still not entirely ok with. It reminds me that everything here is going to continue on without me. My friends at school, the semester, people graduating.... I'm going to miss it here--I'll miss my family, my friends, familiar places, my dogs, driving on the right side of the road, knowing where I am (most of the time), and not having an accent wherever I go, among other things. I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss Fahrenheit and miles and pounds, too. :) But, nonetheless, the day is here. I'm spending the morning with some last minute packing and rounding out my to-do list. Most of it's the normal stuff, "move your car," "check in online," "don't forget your passport" and the like, but it also, unfortunately, includes the ever-lovely "pay Inyo county $211." Damn speeding ticket. So, I'm off to do all of this and get myself ready to go. Wish me luck!

OH GOOD LORD I LOVE COFFEE

All that must be done

I'm getting ready for my trip now, back in the real world after an amazing vacation to San Francisco for the past week with R. Honestly, it was the best vacation I could have asked for, and the perfect send-off for England. Now that he's heading back home, and I'm here, it's off to work (read: time to prepare and pack) for me.

I've spent the better part of the last three hours combing through my mother's recipe boxes, looking for anything I (a person with very little, if any, cooking experience) could make in a small kitchen in Cambridge. I've come up with some good ones, and dutifully copied down the recipes, asking questions all the way. I've got, among others,: homemade mac and cheese, turkey chili, lentil soup, enchiladas, oven-baked talapia, four-cheese baked casserole, cauliflower rotini, Moroccan vegetable stew, roasted balsamic green beans, gingerbread, and chocolate cake. Note the emphasis on one-pot meals. :-) Right up my alley. Who knows?, maybe along with a turning into a travel blog, this may become a cooking blog as well!

Now to make lists, sooo many lists, of all that is left to be done.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Its been forever, but the blog will soon be back.

I'm going to Enlgand in a couple of weeks for the next semester, so this will soon be transforming into a travel blog of sorts. Expect pictures, short updates, and stories from abroad!

These past two days I have had an appetite for the first time in months. Yay!

Also, today both my internship and my only Tuesday class were cancelled, so I had tons of time to get all my work done. On top of that, I also had time to run some errands, relax and watch some TV, take a long walk to go get hot chocolate while listening to good songs on my ipod, enjoy the first day of quasi-fall weather (I could wear a sweater! My room isn't sweltering hot!), go to the library, and was--get this--able to do some pleasure reading for what may have been the first time during college. Woohoo!! What a day. :-)

I've been listening to this song A LOT lately. It's been on repeat on my iphone as I walk. This, and Rose Parade.

2:45 In The Morning by Elliot Smith

I'm going out sleepwalking

Where mute memories start talking

The boss that couldnt help but hurt you

And the pretty thing he made desert you

I'm going out now like a baby

A nave unsatisfiable baby

Grabbing onto whatevers around

For the soaring high or the crushing down

With hidden cracks that dont show

But that constantly just grow

I'm looking for the man that attacked me

While everybody was laughing at me

You beat it in me that part of you

But I'm gonna split us back in two

Tired of living in a cloud

If youre gonna say shit now you'll do it out loud

It's 2:45 in the morning

And I'm putting myself on warning

For waking up in an unknown place

With a recollection youve half erased

Looking for somebody's arms to

Wave away past harms

I'm walking out on center circle

The both of you can just fade to black

I'm walking out on center circle

Been pushed away and I'll never go back

I'm going to file this one under "WTF, 60's?!?!"

"This fairly dreadful Van Heusen tie ad celebrates a line of ties featuring 'brand new, man-talking power patterns that tell her it's a man's world...and make her so happy that it is!'"

Via Jezebel. Go there to enlarge.

Edit: This was my 200th post! Woohoo!

United States of Sin

The Seven Deadly Sins, broken down on a per-capita basis. Check it out via Buzzfeed.

Things I like about it:

Glutony as measured by the number of fast-food restaurants per capita...with a great big epicenter in the middle of Texas.

Things I don't like about it:

Sloth, as measured by expenditures on art, entertainment, and recreation compared with employment. Viable?...maybe. Insulting to artists?...unfortunately, yes.

The weather report on my computer said that it was going to rain today. As it is 99 degrees outside, I can't help but feel like that is simply a lie.