Get a Clue.

Sundays seem to come around a lot faster this quarter. Half of me is pleased as it means that it isn't long before one of my friends comes to visit me, and my trip to Nashville, Tennessee for Spring Break:D The other half is divided into 'Mid-terms are coming', 'I need to start thinking about my dissertation', 'I need to organise my life after this year abroad', all things that I have quite happily pushed to the back of my mind. Time to face the music...nearly. Perhaps next week.

Work wise this week has been a massive fail. I could not motivate myself to go to my Disney lectures, or start work on any essays I have got. The only thing I have managed to do solidly all week is  spanish. I had this sort of epiphany this week. I really really really want to know this language. Like that is my aim for this year. By Christmas 2012 I want to be comfortable speaking it, listening to it, reading it, you name it. Now I know that I will definitely not be fluent by then, at all. But I have noticed that my ability to read and write in spanish has really improved over these last few months, not necessarily my speaking though which is the useful part! Well, we shall see.

Haven't done much throughout the week. We had a college night that was Fairytale themed on Tuesday where they served things like 'Jack and the bean-casserole', gingerbread men, 'Three little pigs in a blanket' (which I hasten to add were not traditional english pigs-in-blankets!) etc etc. These nights are always fun; the acapella group performs, videos are watched, faces painted. We left pretty sharpish when two people came onto the stage dressed as Tinkerbell and Peter Pan and started performing the most cringy-est skit ever. Eugh my skin is still crawling thinking about that!

Last night me and my roommate went to a midnight showing of Clue at the cinema while actors from the Slugs in Fishnets group acted it out in front of the movie but just mouthed the words along to the movie in the background. I'm still not sure what I made to this. The movie itself was very funny, I had never seen it before and it definitely made me laugh from start to finish. The acting was entertaining most of the time, though I failed to see the point of it. I was too engrossed in the actual movie that I didn't watch them all that much. Another thing that I just couldn't get my head round was the audience and cast members standing in the back shouting out comments at the movie! Tim Curry would say "Look what we all have in common" and two dick-heads in the row in front would should out "HERPES!" But no-one else seemed to mind at all. In fact a lot of them joined in. I just couldn't get over it! My British sense of 'what are you doing? you are breaking the code of the cinema!' just took over!  It took so much will-power to not tell them to shut-the-hell-up (actually I would never have done that but if there was a time for me to start doing this...this would have been it). Eventually I think I relaxed and started to appreciate audience participation a bit more, but it was still weird! You know the one thing that cinema's and library's have in common...they demand silence! But all in all it was a good night. I just had to get over the initial shock at it all. Slugs in Fishnets are doing the same thing to the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a couple of weeks. I think I will go now I know what it is all about, and i'll probably enjoy it, if I leave my Britishness back at the apartment.

Raining cats, dogs and elephant seals

First things first: you see that little box labelled Study Abroad Blog Roll on the right? Well, exciting stuff, my blog is now featured on this website! It is a great site where you can get lots of information about a year abroad so if you are thinking of taking one, or have one coming up, then go check it out!

I think I jinxed the weather with my last post. I said that I felt I was suffering from seasonal jet-lag due to the sunny, warm weather in California compared to Seattle. The winter gods apparently read this and decided to show me that it does indeed rain in California from time to time. Or for days on end in fact.
It has not stopped raining. And not the pathetic drizzle kind but actual full on rain! It is sooo loud. It isn't just rain; it is cold. Not freezing but around 12 degrees which I still think is cold! It has been very amusing watching people's reaction to this weather:
You have the people who fully embrace the precipitation with rain coats, waterproof ponchos, wellies, even waterproof trousers. This may be going a bit too far...if you want to stay dry that badly, just stay inside!
Then you have the people who are completely in denial. It is like they cannot feel this liquid sunshine. The number of people I have seen sidestepping around gigantic puddles or trying to avoid the small rivers flowing down the paths wearing shorts and flip-flops is quite astounding!
I have been asked a number of times if this weather makes me feel more at home. What a strange question! That is like me asking them if they feel at home when the sun shines! I nod and smile and mutter something about the English weather system or how my wellies were one item that I did not pack.

This week hasn't been very exciting. Just more work, watching endless episodes of Castle (did you check it out?) and watching Disney movies in my Disney class! Thursday was a proper full on Disney day where we watched Snow White in a lecture, multiple Mickey Mouse cartoons in a seminar, and then me and 2 friends went to the cinema to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D! They did not stop singing all the way through! I  joined in on the classic "Tale as ooolldd as time.." and "be our guest" but they were proper going for it! I am obviously not well versed in the soundtrack and will have to brush up on my disney songs. It has been a week of watching a screen actually. We had to watch this really really sexually explicit movie for Spanish called 'Y tu mama tambien' which was like porn. We have to discuss it in class tomorrow which will be weird. I am not interested in knowing the spanish words for 'communally masturbating into a swimming pool on diving boards'. Yes. That did happen.

Today I went on a trip to Ano Nuevo State Reserve to hang out with the Elephant Seals. The trip was fun, don't get me wrong, but again, it was raining, and windy, and cold! There were hundreds and hundreds of seals though. Some weighing in at 5000lbs!! It is the middle of the birthing season so there were lots of newborns around, trying very hard not to get squished by the fighting males. Before a confrontation, the males lift up their heads and make a deep, loud sound, a bit like a foghorn. Then if the other does no back down then they slam their bodies into each other and try to bite each other's neck! It was quite awing to watch. Huge beasts of nature showing their full force. I definitely felt like a weak, tiny human next to them. We weren't very far away from them, about 25yards. You just had to make sure you didn't get in between two males as it could get messy...
So these photos show some of the Elephant Seals, one has been bitten by a Great White Shark and survived!  There is also a video of one section of a beach just littered with seals.

Going to make a shameless plug for my other blog which you can check out by going to my profile. It is about health and fitness but I am not sure quite what I am going to do with it yet!

'Her'story

First week back of the winter quarter (though I'm not sure why they are calling this winter when it was 22 degrees the other day!). Oh and Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day! (Day off...yes please.)
All new classes to find around campus, all the ridiculously expensive books to buy, all new people to meet. Again, the week has just flown by but also my time in Seattle seems a very long time ago!
I shall give you a brief rundown of my classes....

• Spanish 3- or more appropriately named, the retard class. That is me feeling retarded, not that the other people are! This teacher, who is nice but a bit intimidating, insists that you are not aloud to speak a word of english in her classroom. You have a question, she won't answer you if you can't ask it in spanish! Needless to say, I am not expecting a good grade from this woman. I am dreading presentation week where each of us has to give a presentation to the class, entirely in Spanish and with not notecards. I'm cringing all ready at just how awful it is going to be.
• Race, Gender and Islam in America. I can't decide whether this is a sociology/feminism studies class or a history class. We spent the best part of an hour the other day trying to answer the questions 'What is race?' and 'What is gender?' which lead to a heated debate as to why it is called HIStory and not HERstory and what it means to be a feminist. I sighed and rolled my eyes at the appropriate places. I have little patience for things like that. 
• Now, the best class- WALT DISNEY! All I have to say is that in one or our lectures last week we watched youtube clips of early Disney animation and next week we are watching Snow White! Also, due at the end of the quarter is our 'Imagineering Project' where in groups you have to design and create an attraction for Disneyland. I love college.

Aside from that, not much has happened otherwise. The weather has been so gorgeous this last week that me and some friends decided to go to the beach yesterday but of course, that would be the day where it was windy and freezing! Needless to say we spent all morning getting ready to go, spent an hour in Safeway buying picnic stuff, got to the beach, stayed 30mins, got in the car and came home! Though we did end up having a good day by just sitting on the sofa watching episode after episode of Castle...check it out, it is amazing. Hoepfully a longer and more exciting post next week as I am going on a trip to see some elephant seals at a state park! Random I know, but when in America...

I shall leave you with a weird accordion player that I saw downtown a few days ago. I wasn't sure whether he was a serial killer disguised as a musician or the other way round.....

2012 and we are all still here....awkeward!

and a Happy New Year to all of you! Many thought we were not going to make it past midnight of the 1st as the apocalypse was supposedly upon us...apparently not. So I guess this means we can all go about our normal lives until next December which I believe is now the more up to date predicted date of the annihilation of the world? A few more blog posts to go until then so no need to panic;)

I am now back in Santa Cruz after hitching another ride with a randomer, something I said I wasn't going to do again but when faced with lugging 2 suitcases on a train, a tram and 2 buses, personal safety seems to be pushed into the back of your mind. This time it was a woman who turned out to be lovely and she gave rides to 2 other UCSC students so we all had a nice chat on the way from the airport to Santa Cruz. One of the guys would not shut up about accounting, the financial crisis, his job offer in a big firm, and being a downright arrogant prick the whole way, saying patronising things to our driver like "Wow Tammy, that is just so awesome that you managed to keep a job and family going through 2 hard financial times in the Silicon Valley". I think the car let out a huge sigh of relief when he was dropped off.

I feel almost jet lagged at the moment, even though I have not crossed over into a different timezone. I think it is seasonal jet lag. Taking off from cold, rainy, gloomy Seattle and arriving 2 hours later in sun drenched, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky California where the temperature was 18 degrees (65 for my American readers) really messed with my system! I am not complaining, don't get me wrong, but there is something very confusing about it being January 8th and it is not beyond the realm of reason to be wearing shorts!

Since my last post more family things have been going on; restaurants, walks, endless netflix watching etc etc. We did all travel down to Portland for my brother-in-law's sisters wedding (if you follow that) which was nice. It was held at the Kennedy School (a hotel made from a converted school) which is where we all stayed for my sisters wedding 4 years ago! It is such a great place where the bars are named 'The Detention Room' and 'The Boiler Room' and all the bedrooms have a different theme and a massive blackboard along one wall which you can write on in chalk. My brother and I had the Thumbalina room:) The wedding itself was beautiful and we all ended up getting up to dance at the end. I think my brother and brother-in-law were waiting for this moment.

Apart from that, not much else has really happened. I was ill over New Year so spent the night in front of the TV, that was after attaching wire coat hangers to my sister's head so she can be Pip pi-longstocking. It was a lovely Christmas, nice and relaxing and lots of family time. I definitely did not want to leave! Though after sleeping in the lounge on a rather thin futon mattress thing for 3 weeks, I jumped into my bed at UCSC and slept like a baby for 11hours. I will miss being able to do that when classes start. Oh well, roll on 8.45am tomorrow morning when I have to be at the pool. Joy.