Craig, how's your food? *Muah!* Beautiful

Hello ol' chaps! I've put all my pictures from so far onto my facebook, and here is a link to the albums (please let me know if they don't work):

UK up until the weekend

London Photos

Per Mommy's request, here is a photo on my first day of classes

That day I got really homesick and overwhelmed with my classes. But since then I've hung out with my flat mates who turned out to be alot of fun (one looks like Rod and/or Tod from the Simpsons). I went running tonight around the de Hav campus, but it was kind of rainy and cold so I didn't make it too far. Nicole and I are going to have a look at the gym on campus tomorrow to see if we'd like to get memberships. I think I really need that sort of thing in my life right now.

We also applied for this thing called the HOST program, where you go stay with a family for the weekend and they take you to do UK-esk things. We're going together for this first one to get a feel for what it's like.

Classes:

Conditioning: Seems like a very interesting class, we have a group project due in a few weeks in which we have to choose a case study and make a year-long training schedule for an athlete, a 1,000 word essay justifying it, and a video demonstrating the exercises we've chosen. Our professor said that a guy taking this very class last year is now working for Arsenal's academy: Sweeeeet.

Nutrition: I'll be honest with you. The lecture was very very interesting, but I haven't had the basic Nutrition that these guys have. So I believe what I'll be doing is dropping it and taking it back at Kstate so I can get lower level stuff, into what they're learning here. I'm really interested in this field so I feel it's important I actually learn the stuff instead of squeak by on half way knowing the information. (And thus, the basic email I'll be sending my instructors. Scene.) But on the bright side, I met some girls (who turned out to be in Conditioning as well) who walked with me to lab and asked me to be in their group! Awwwww :)

(^^That day was much better^^)

Philosophy: I had this class today. I was super nervous about it because I'm not one for the rhetoric. But lecture this morning was him just talking about how to write a good paper, and he was an interesting guy. He told me the wrong seminar to go to, even when I said I was pretty sure I was supposed to go to the other one (he emailed me saying he told me wrong--they all seem pretty cool though. I don't think it'll be a big deal). The seminar I DID go to was alright, the instructor had us boil down Humpty Dumpty, which was more for learning to write well, and not quite into the philosophy thing yet. For this class I will have to write something like a 1,000 word paper in the Aristotlean style over a paper I read. ughhhghg...

Intro to Poetry: I have this lecture and seminar tomorrow morning. I'm not very anxious about it, plus Will (one of the trivia guys) is in it too! It'll be nice to finally know a person in a class.

I found a website that lets me stream to the UK and has loads of Always Sunny and Office episodes on it. Whew, I was running low.

I bet you look good on the dance floor

Wow, I'm in the UK now studying at the University of Hertfordshire. Life is definitley different here, but I imagine in the way New York is different from Kansas as well--I just flew across the ocean to do it.


I met some people at the airport that were all getting shuttled to the same University as I was, and mainly have hung out with them since, adding a few here and there. This was the OG main crew, Alex , Nicole, and Megan.
The first night we did anything (after our real first night, which I slept about 12 hours...) we went to trivia in the Forum. We met some students there that let us in on their team and we ended up getting third!

Tuesday we celebrated Australia Day with Nicole. Dan and John from K-State joined us, there are about 8 students here from my University. I'm pretty sure we blew all the other exchange school's numbers out of the water with this one.
Last night the club in the Forum had a party we went to. IT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT! I danced for like 4 hours straight, and along with dance music they played some sing along favorites such as Chelsea Dagger, Don't Stop Believin', and Bohemian Rhapsody. My feet hurt very very bad when we came home around 3 am, but it was worth it and then some. (That's Dan from New York on one side of Megan, and Bo from Cali on her otherside, whose face you can't see)
What may have made it not-so-worth-it (if there was any such event, this was it) was what is in this photo. Do you see what's on the wall? It's a loogie. A loogie I put my nose in when leaning my head against the wall because Megan said something to make me laugh that hard. Loogie-hard. Rubbish.
So maybe it is different from New York (do people spit loogies on leaning-walls there?), but I knew that for sure once we went to Cambridge today. We had a great tour guide, Ian, that told us a lot of interesting things about the area and the University. There was one that King Henry XIII built named Trinity College, where Isaac Newton lived once he became a professor. This is King's College, one of 31 in Cambridge. I don't understand how the University/College thing worked here, Ian told us but it seemed pretty complicated. The buildings are all really nice , this was just a cooler looking one.
This guy is really top-notch. It's called the Chronophage and I don't remember which College owned it but I think Ian said it cost 1 Million pounds, probably because it's made of real gold.
Here's a video of it in action:

At the end I accidentally cut Ian off, but to finish his sentence, the rings represent the Big Bang.

Also, did you know the double-helix structure of DNA was discovered at Cambridge? The fellows that discovered that gem couldn't wait to publish and they announced their big news in a pub called "The Eagle", where we sat and had coffee this afternoon.

So that's been my One-week old trip in a very tiny nutshell. London tomorrow, more on that to come. I got my schedule figured out and will start attending classes next week. This is what it's going to look like:

Mon, 12-4:Conditioning in Exercise and Sport
Tues, 9-1: Sport and Exercise Nutrition
Wed, 9-10: Reason and Persuasion
Thurs, 10-11: Intro to Poetry

Not bad, just may be a bit difficult because those first two Kinesiology classes are some of the highest level one's here at the U (like 600 classes at K-State). But hopefully I can finally meet some locals my age with the same interests...ehem, association football.

(Shannon told me that soccer is Association Football and that's where the word Soccer came from. American Football is Gridiron.)

やった！

I am done with Japanese forever! So I made a shirt to commemorate such an epic final. Nakamura Sensei seemed to enjoy it :)

("Done")

"(It's been fun")

Yeah, we're on the road

Some of the hockey guys and I watched Slapshot over at C-Walk's last night. I don't really have much to say about it...I guess it was pretty funny? Coleman was right though, who DID say movies have to have a point?

Tonight has been the completion of my first two days of work at Marriage For Keeps up here in the Little Apple. (If it sounds familiar, thats the program that Mommy heads up in the Garden branch.) Yup, pretty simple. And I imagine it will be nice to have a bit of an income again.

Mommy is coming up tomorrow because I dance in my friend Dean's senior percussion recital. I'm SOOO glad those rehearsals are over, this semester is stupid jam-packed.

Next week I have an A&P lecture exam on monday, A&P lab exam AND Japanese oral exam on wednesday, and the Japanese mid term on thursday. But friday will be kicking off spring break, a very nice time for it to come around.

Oh hey, I may be doing pre-chiropractic, of course then with the intentions of going to chiropractic school. But I think I need to gather some more information on it before it turns into a Major in Political Science kind of deal. Because that was a GREAT idea...

The song I've been putting on first in my sleep playlist lately is "Keep You" by Sugarland. (Song isn't on their site)

I'm not pregnant

BAHAHA Clavin and I went to Hey Baby! today so I could find a gift for Julie's baby shower, and he knew the girl working in there. So when she was talking to us about what we were looking for, naturally I told her I wasn't pregnant. She and I had a good laugh, I think he was kind of embarrassed though. Which is part of the funny :)

Classes started today, except Japanese, because it was canceled. I'm not excited by any means for the semester, but I don't think it will be too bad.

Noodle...still gets me

Today was my last free day because I start spring semester tomorrow. I don't think it will be very springy for a long time though, because it's supposed to freeze again on thursday, some sort of snow storm I think. My morning will be little hectic:

7:30 am practice till 9 am
9 am Survey of Civilization till 10 am
a whole bunch of nothing until
1 pm Political Science till 2
And then I'm done!

I'm just worried about the transition from practice to class with no shower in between. Fortunately I have Lauren in that class, so we can sit off by ourselves somewhere being smelly together. I'm just excited to see who I have in class, and then I'm pretty much over it...but I like history so I'm thinking it won't be too bad of a class.

I talked to my friend Ben on the phone tonight and he said he just got back in town this evening and didn't know classes started tomorrow so....wow, lucky for him he decided to come home this day instead of a day before next Monday, when he thought they started. Oh Ben...he's an RLBP, if you know what I mean.