When in doubt, why not be Awesome?

I am once again studying pedagogy, which means a whole lot of bull shit. Actually the study of learning at an MA student is far more practically than my undergraduate degree because it involves the study of linguistics; however, I do wade through a fair amount of poopie in my academic week. This means we have to pretend to be students and do 'activities'. Robin usually gets a strange kick out of pretending she is a ten year old English language learner, but I usually zone out. Today we were given a list of words that all seemed to be related to education. Our vague instruction was to make three columns and put each word in one of those columns. We can label the columns as we saw fit. Knowing full well that the instructions were intentionally unclear due to my previous 3 years of teaching and 4 years of educational college, I knew that it did not matter what the categories were, so I decided to be completely American, which is my go-to response for these situations. I thought that column one would be "Awesome", column two was "Not Awesome", and "Could Be Awesome".

I then went with a gut reaction to each word. We then had to convince the person next to us that we were right; since my partner was my buddy Erica, it was not hard to convince her I was right. Then we got into groups of four to do the same. I had to argue diligently with the Chinese girl Lynn. She was convince, as most of the Asian students were, that the classifications had to do with language form. I bullied her into believe that "Awesome" was a legitimate analysis. I mostly asked her to quickly decide if something was awesome or not with out thinking, and she always picked the same as what was on the list. Then the four of us had to convince four others that our argument was correct. Even though the other four consisted of two Germans that appeared to be invulnerable to the overage of the word "awesome", they completely jumped on the 'Awesome Train' as Erica and I were calling it.

Of course we then had to share with our whole class the compromised three columns. Needless to say everyone loved the justification that levels of awesomeness organized these words. Other people had classroom styles, grammatical structure, and other non-awesome ideas. Of course it did not matter what the answers were. What mattered was how we used out English language skills to communicate and negotiate successfully. For the rest of the class, our very British professor was overusing awesome, which is of course AWESOME!

Awesome: Fluency,

Not Awesome: Accuracy,

Could Be Awesome:

GAME Day: 5-1

That's right internet; we lost. Le sigh. It was a close match against Loughbough. Las time we played them it was our first official game, and we pretty much crushed them. They certainly picked up their level of play, and we made way to many stupid mistakes. They derserved to win. I did not have the game of my life or anything, but I am proud with how I played. I live by one philosophy when it comes to lacrosse: each game is my last. Three years ago I thought I would never play at a competitive level, and now here I am on the best team in England. As long as I love what I am doing, I do not care about the score. I do not even care how my teammates play. I do not care about our record. I am loving life as long as I am playing- granted I haven't even touched my stick since that game last Wednesday, but I will be ready once this snow is gone, and I get back on that field.

SNOW!

It has been snowing since Wednesday, and it is not Sunday. Here is the forecast for the rest of the week. It is straight up beautiful!It is also amazing to see how so many different people who never saw snow before react to this weather.

Thanksgiving in Durham

It is so weird being in a place that does not get what Thanksgiving is. I do enjoy partaking in the tale of how some dumb ass white people were entirely dependent on a native tribe, and now we are thankful that the Native Americans assisted these dummies who would eventually kill them off with war, small pox, and good 'ol Western bureaucracy.

Robin and her roommates thought it would be nice to host a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It was the three of them, me and my roommates, and a few more soccer players who are actually Brits. I made candy yams, and all the classic dishes were there.

mmmmmm. We ate and ate and ate. We also laughed and laughed and laughed. Every bit of food was amazing, and every story was worth hearing. We made fun of each other, gave thanks for one another, and told the same jokes about 20 times.

I do miss my family like crazy, but it was a great way to spend an American holiday abroad.

It also snowed the night before, so the scenery was beautiful. The sleepy little city of Durham is gorgeous. The snow hasn't stopped either. Here are some of my roommate Nicole's pictures from Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Toast Anyone?

The other day I was a little early to class, so I went to Peter`s Bakery and ordered a scone. I never went to this super popular chain before, and I assumed it was similar to the little cafe that would sell me one scone at a time and toast it for me. No, Peter`s is the Dunkin Donuts of England. They forced me to buy a whole bag of scones, and they refused to toast or butter any of them.

As I often do when I want something, I called Robin. I asked her to bring some Nutella to liven up my breakfast. Actually what I said was, '' Yo lady, I'll give you a scone if you bring me some Nutella!'' (Side note: I used to not be a fan of the chocolately nutty treat until I moved to England. Everyone, no matter the country of origin, eats Nutella here.) Robin informed me that she was unsure if she had any left, but she promised to make something happen.

And make something happen she did!

She called me moments after checking for any Nutella, and informed me that the mission was a failure. I told her that she would not get one of my scones because she was a failure. She then asked me to come to her place to toast the scones, but I was already in the classroom and, although she lives close to the class, had no time to leave and come back before the professor started professing. I jokingly, because I am soooo funny, said ''Just bring the toaster here when you come to class.''

I laughed at my own cleverness, but Robin responded ''What if I really did being a toaster to class?''

''Do it. You won't do it. Do it!'' I challeneged Robin to the foolish suggestion.

''Alright maybe I will'' Were we serious, or was it a really funny joke?

Apparently it was serious. Robin walked into the classroom carrying a toaster. The time for jokes was over. We immediately set up our breakfast in the back of the room concealed well enough so no one would tell us not to toast scones durring a lecture. We had a knife, butter, and all sorts of official breakfast goodness. Once class started, all went smoothly. We quietly toasted one scone at a time and ate our victory slowly over the next ten min. Then the professor decided that the he wanted to use the white board in the back of the room instead of the front. He did not notice or little breakfast nook until he had three example sentences on the board and actually kicked the toaster. From our insesent giggles, he knew Robin and I had something to do with this. His last example sentence was, ''She should not have brought a toaster to class.'' We offered him a scone, and all was well. The German girl in our class said she might actually buy a toaster for class. I can't wait for freshly toasted scones and a fine from the fire marshal!

A Rainy Day... Again

I was apart of the art society's day out for photography. My camera is dead because I lost the charger, so I just helped my friend with her super awesome fancy camera. Of course it rained the whole time. It was still pretty cool to walk the trail through Durham during a drizzle. I thought I would share some of the beautiful shots taken on a dreary Sunday afternoon.

Professor Super Gay

Remember the game I told you about, Internet? European or Gay? Well I had proved to be a difficult one to play in England. We have one professor, who has a wife and a child, who could not be gayer. He literally twirls! I am not lying he spins! He also lounges on the teacher's' desk in the front of the room. Seriously it looks like a clothed center fold. He also bounces on the balls of his feet. And no lie, Internet you are not going to believe this one, he actually started dancing in class for no reason connected to the lesson.

Allow me to paint a word picture of this event in my higher education. Half sitting half seductive posing, Professor Super Gay (as I will now refer to him) leaped off of his desk excitedly to make a point. As he did so the burst of energy combined with the effeminate motions mixed with the total awkwardness of the situation created immediate hilarity that could not be ignored. Every student mocked in one form or another. Some had the church giggles and tried not to make a noise. Some bursted out with hearty gut laughter. I hid my shame under my hands. Professor Super Gay decides that he was being hilarious, and so he busted out some tired dances moves with overly used hip action. This created more laughter, which in turn lead to more dancing. I swear he did a Saturday Night Fever point, and it wasn't half bad.

I missed most of the dancing because of the pure horror and all forcing me to hide my face over the lose of his dignity. The point of this tale? In England, this man is straight.

Gay or European?

Mandarin Orange

I am learning how to speak Chinese. I figured if I want to teach English as a foreign language I should know what it takes to learn a whole new language, and even though I know basic Spanish, I think I should learn something totally different than English. So about 95% of my class speaks Mandarin, and according to Firefly, after the world explodes, the only languages that will survive are English and Chinese, and I want to be ready for all of that.

Lesson One: I am American. I now have this sentence down pact after three weeks of saying it again and again and again. One girl, who is fluent, yelled at me one day, "We get it! You are American! No one needs to hear you explain it because it is only the most obvious thing ever." Damnit.

Lesson Two: Dirty words. I learned then and then was told never to say them. Damnit.

Lesson Three: Chinese version of "Over the river and through the woods". I know how to sing a classic traveling song in a crazy language.

Lesson Four: You're doing it wrong. Apparently I say everything weird because there are 4 ways to say every sound, and if you change the tone of your voice you change the meaning of the word. The words "ma", "ma", "ma", and "ma" are four different words. Damnit is language is hard.

Lesson Five: Compliments. Wo how cu e. With my crazy spelling I just wrote "I am cute". I know how to call you cute. I know how to say great and cool also. The girls in my class all say I am so smart because I can construct my own sentences. I think they are just being nice and or they thought that I would never get it and are amazed when I finally did.

Lesson Six: Numbers. I know 2 only because it is a sound one would make after getting hit by a dodge ball "Ughr".

Lesson Never: Characters. I absolutely do not know how to write any of this down or how to read it.

Game DAY 5-0

This weekend we played Edinburgh again. We play each team twice. We were missing about 5 starters because of class conflicts and injuries. We pulled up a few girls from the seconds. Durham lacrosse has three teams (1st, 2nd, 3rd). The best way to explain this is that 1st is like Varsity, 2nd is JV, and 3rd is Freshmen. The girls from seconds really stepped it up, but since we do not practice together too often there was a missing connection. Lacrosse is a team sport, and we cannot do well with out knowing our teammates. It was sloppy and panicky; however, we prevailed. The 1sts encouraged and supported the 2dns, the 2nds played their hearts out, and we all kept our cool. The final score was 11-7. I did not know we were winning until the final min of the game.

The sloppiness, as it always does here in England, turned into violence. I was checked in the head as well as the hands. One girl on the Edinburgh team was sticked in the face. Also- our home field was doubled booked, so about an hour before the game (I.e. as I arrived on the field) we were told that men's rugby would be practicing on the turf and that we had to play on the grass. Of course it was crazy rain the whole time. It is so funny that I play on the top team in the top league in England, and it is such a mess. I do miss American competitiveness, but to be honest at times I have more fun playing here because it is all just fun.

Best Game Ever

Today we were to play Warwick, which is like 5 hours away. I woke up bright and early, packed my bag with a pillow and I-pod, and left for my game. I focused very hard on not getting sick because 5 hours is a long time to be on a bus; to be honest I chundered (vomited) after a half hour ride to our first friendly (scrimmage).

I was starting to feel a little hot under the collar after 45 min, but I drank water and stared straight ahead. Then suddenly, my coach announced that Warwick's fields were flooded and we turned around. We will have to play them again, but we will not have to drive crazy far because they will come to us. This is how google images describes the place I never went.

Raj Douche

Okay the name of the restauraunt is RajPooth. It is seconds away from my home in Durham. I walk past in when ever I leave my house. This is what it looks like.On Thursdays it has a pretty awesome 5 course deal for cheap, and a couple of weeks ago some lacrosse girls and I went. We went straight after practice because it closes at nine, and we don't get home until about 8:30. Needless to say we looked pretty gross. Well it was't too bad, but we were in sweats with fairly messy hair and no makeup. NBD, but we were seated next to some Geordie gentlemen. A Geordie is someone from the North East part of England. Actually you know you are in Geordie country when you see the Angle of the North; look below to see the figurine.

Geordies are generally a rough a tumble group of people who have weird dialects. They like to drink, watch football, drink, and get into fights. They are pretty similar to some gentlemen that you might find the the greater Philadelphia region. As we sat down next to these, already drunk, men they slurred, "You lot must be strippers. I can tell by your dress." We ignored the obvious stab at our more than unfashionable attire because we were hungry and just wanted to eat. These dudes continued to harass out for a good 15 min. The waiter did ask them to please stop, and they stopped shouting; however, the comments were nonstop. I think we took it for so long because we A. were extremely hungry and B. we could only understand a third of their speech.

Eventually we made out several sexist, homophobic, and all in all rude comments, and well I said something. My roommate Nicole saw me and quickly got a manager to counter act my brave and stupid choice. I just could not take them drooling and offending my friends like that.

Me: Excuse me but can you please stop talking to us.

Geordie 1: I'm talkin to my mate.

Me: That is fine, but please stop starring at my friend when you do that.

Geordie 1: Would you leave us alone. I am just talkin to my mate.

Me (false politeness now lost): Fine. Look at him then.

Geordie 2: You are harassing us!

This is when the manager steps in and asks them to lower their voices. Geordie # 2 starts screaming that I was bothering them since I walked in, and they have tried to ignore us. He then tells everyone in the place that he will punch them in their faces. After that he picks up his chair and slams it on the ground with all his drunken might. Geordie #1 goes to the owner and demands that they get a free meal.

I laugh at the ass as he gets kicked out. Geordie #3, who has not said a word, eats his meal as fast as possible before getting kicked out officially.

Then the food came, and it was worth it.

Game DAY: 4-0

Yes, another win for Team Durham! This was our toughest game yet. Birmingham is actually a pretty good team. They quickly socred off the first draw, but we scored right away after that. Most of the game was goal for goal. I had some saves, and we had some missed shots; almost every goal was met with one by the other team. It was rather exciting.

We had many fans cheering on the sidlines excitedly, and that is unusual because no one ever shows up for matches. By the second half, I relized that all their shots were similar, and I knew ihow to make the saves. Honestly internet, I think I had 8 saves in a row. I stuffed those girls like it was nobody's buisness (a stuff is a stick to stick save, and it is a goalie's favorite save to make). With all those saves, my team was able to get the ball and score. We pulled ahead by about five goals.

The men's lacrosse team was there chanting my name. My whole class was there. Girls were there from the football and basketball team. I felt like such a bad ass. The end of the game was 15-8.

After the game the head of Durham sport came up to me and shook my hand. He looked me square in the eye and said, ``I'm impressed``. In England, I am an awsome goalie.

Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gansta

Dear Internet,

I formally applogize for being to busy living my life to blog about it. I heart blogging, but to be honest I enjoy being busy. Life here in Durham, UK has been all in all awesome. My next post will infrom you about yet another lacrosse win, so I suppose this one will have to be about school.

I love love love my class. Well I still dispise the one British man who always has something smarmy to say about everything, but outside of that I am really digging my classmates. As stated before most of them are from China, so when they invited me and Robin to a `Hot Pot` party, we were all in to experience a new cutural experience. A hot pot party should be called a `eat a crap load of good food for hours` party. Robin and I showed up with a bottle of wine and crisps (chips) because we are polite Americans who never come to parties empty handed. The party was at Betty's house, and it was a home stright out of a Dickens novel. The key was a straight up 17th centry key. The portraits were of women in bonnets and fancy long dresses. The whole place was all so like something you picture when you think of a Christmas Carol

Above: People who probably lived in Betty's house before she rented it. Below: Betty's front door key.

After getting over the shock about how British the place was, the smalle of food hit us like a sack of potatoes. The food was in a giant sauce pot, and it contained cabbage, meatballs, noodles, spices, rice rolls, and other unnamable yumminess. Robin and I both used chopped skills to prove how multicutral we were. Everyone was impressed. I was full after man helpings, but once the pot was empty, another just as large one was brought from the kitchen. There were about five huge ass pots full of food! It was all so good too.

Once the food was finally all eaten, Robin had to leave to play in a church funded dodgeball tournament.

I stayed to drink wine, eat cookies made by Susi, and look up youtube music videos. Erica, from Taiwan, tried to teach us how to do a traditional Taiwanese dance, but it just looked like a jazz square, which is cool because 'everyone loves a good jazz square'..After we were tired of dancing, I thought it would be a good idea to teach everyone some American drinking games. We played thumper! Everyone was really good right away; well, Susi sucked at it, but as she said Germans don't dance. I guess they do not have any sense of rhythm. I also was taught some Taiwanese drinking games.

I went home around midnight, it was a good day!

Game DAY 3-0: Man of the Match

Game three was against the Scottish team of Edinburgh (Ed-in-bra). Yes, we dominated yet again. I had my very first shut out. I know that seems unimportant when the final score is 16-0, but I did have some killer saves. One of my my defenders even have a save; she accidentally had an amazing block that might have been a goal with out her. The coolest part was that her last name is the same as mine. We make great saves us.... (insert last name here)...

After the game, the Scottish players told us to vote a man of the match. Since I had a shut out, my teammates voted for me. They also voted for me because they knew I would enjoy what ever it was the man of the match had to do. With many onlookers, including coaches, administrators, and parents, I partook in a chugging contest with one of my Scottish opponents. That is right; we each drank a pint of booze as fast as we could. I so toally won. I loved such a beautiful tradition that I am sure was influenced by their ancestors- pictured below.

Geeze I'm Fine!

In England, you are not addressed with a "Hi, how are you?"; "What's up?"; or even "What's goin' down?". Here you are greeted with a "You alight?" Now, the immediate response of any American is to get defensive and declare in no uncertain terms, "Yeah, I'm fine!" For some reason we assume the English are challenging our state of being. When people say "You alright?" in America, they mean "You look awful"; "You are not doing so well"; "I knew you weren't up for this"; or some other kind of upsetting assumption. All os us US girls in the UK know it is as harmless as "Hi", but we still get a little upset each time we hear it.

heh- culture eh? Who knew it would be so weird?

What I Did for Halloween

In England, Halloween is generally a newly celebrated holiday. They do not associate it with childhood or ancient creepy ways. It is their Cinco De Mayo; why do we celebrate a Mexican holiday in America? Because we can drink beer and pretend there is a reason to party.

England does Halloween a little differently than in the good 'ol USA. In the USA, all female costumes are slutty. In England, all costumes are scary. It was straight out of Mean Girls. My roommates and I followed neither English nor American Halloween laws, we were elephants.

Above is me in sed costume. Okay, we just put on these masks that we got from this really stupid game that we bought at a junk sale the first week of school. In our horrible masks, we went to quiz night. Yes we each paid a pound to answer random Halloween questions, but at half time they gave us pizza! Defeated, we returned home and watched the Halloween classic Boy Meets World. Seriously we watched a 90s sitcom holiday special on YouTube. It was pretty awesome.

Post Party

As I told you before Internet, I went to a wedding last week in America. The bride, Cathy, is a girl I've known for about six years. We met at Rowan University. Well to be more specific, we met at Rowan University Anime Club. Below is our official logo as created and voted in 2005 (I think). We even had shirts made. No, I didn't bring it to England.

Yes, it is the mascot for a club where a bunch of nerdy 18-22 year olds watched Japanese cartoons one night every week. I'll admit it. I was a nerd. Ah hell, I AM a nerd; I freaken blog! Any whoser, Cathy was in the club with me, and one day I announce that I was a fan of Sailor Moon: an anime that was so girly and cheesy that the Rowan Anime Club refused to show it, and please understand that most Japanese cartoons are cheesy by definition. Three other girls in the club agreed with me that Sailor Moon, a show about the heroic adventures of a very dumb and spastic 14 year old girl who talks to cats and has a 25 year old boy friend, is only the best show ever. We had out own private party in my apartment, and Cathy was one of those girls. A year later and a half, she moved in with me. (Yes, I brought Sailor Moon with me to England).

Cathy lived with me until I moved in with my girlfriend a few years ago. Cathy is also the only friend of mine that really connects with Dani, my girlfriend, because they are both huge nerds! Below is a picture of Cahty and her now husband Tom; they almost look normal, but I assure you Internet, they are not. This awesome couple LARP: Live Action Role Play. Yes, they act out a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons in the middle of the woods dressed up as fairies and warriors with other super nerds.

For their wedding, they put aside most of their nerdiness for the sake of elegance. Cathy was stunningly beautiful, Tom was handsome, there was great food an drinks, the decorations were tasteful and appropriate, and it was just a classic wedding; however, they did add some originality to the day that signified their nerdy union.

How the wedding was nerdy:

Tom had a dance off with his mom for the mother son dance

The "Gummy Bear" song played

The best man was a lady, and her gift was a sword (the other groomsmen got daggers)

Their first dance was a fake out to this song

The after party was at..... Medieval Times!!

MY NEW HELMET!

I do not know if you have realized this from previous posts, but my team color is purple. Granted my last school colors were brown and yellow, but it was chill. The colors were retro and easy to wear once you got used to them. Purple, however, is just straight up ridiculous, yet is it my color now. I have to get used to it, and it was difficult at first because my helmet was yellow. Yes, my helmet did not in any way shape or form match my team. I felt like a jerk with no connection to the team.

In short- I am now super happy to announce that I got a purple helmet. It makes me acutally dig this out of control color.

=

Fresher Welcome Drinks

When I was in college, my junior year, my team got in big trouble. We were caught hazing the freshmen. It was tradition at my school, but it was honestly not a big deal. We drank, which was optional, we played games, and we bonded. The freshmen had to do a scavenger hunt, drink 7-11 slurpies faster than the other teammates, wear shirts with dirty words on 'em, and other silly events. There were no punishments, and there was a little embarrassment; however, it was really fun. I did it when I was a freshmen, and it was one of my favorite memories of college. The problem with my junior year was that one of my teammates posted the pictures online with the name of our school, team, and the words "Freshmen Initiation" under it. We were caught by the university and had to do the following: 25 hours of community service, each sit one of our first three games ofour next season, forfeit fall ball, stay in Glassboro during spring break (it snowed the whole damn time), and formally apologize to the school. It was lame.

What happened here last Wednesday was in no way related to my pervious paragraph. My team had a "Fresher Welcome Drinks" party. Freshers are freshmen. I, and the other Americans, are not freshmen. I am actually about 7 years older than a fresher, but since it is our first year here, we had to be ... welcomed. We played many games similar to the ones I played in college, but even the upper classmen partook. The only difference between the two groups was that the newbees had to wear frog costumes, and the returning players were princesses.

All in all it was a great night. After our party, we went to the clubs. I had a rather lot to drink, but I was in no way wasted. I did stay out til 4am, and then did not get to sleep til almost 6. Not going to lie internet, I was hung over for two days. I am not 19 anymore. It was fun to bust out my awesome dance moves in green makeup on my face and froggy eyes made out of tennis balls on my head.

Pictured above are my two American roommates/teammates. They are teaching the Brits how to play flip cup in their froggy costumes.

GAME DAY 2-0

The most recent game was against our 'rivals' Newcastle. We have already had friendlies with them twice, and we know them well. The final score was 22 to 2. I am actually ashamed of the second goal. I was so bored that I forgot how to make a save, but I had two more awesome saves before the end of the game. Again my team was sloppy, but we prevailed. Next Wednesday we play in Scotland.... I think. Wish us luck!