It's a snowglobe day

...only it's not snow, it's rain. Well traditional English weather is settling in. Gloomy, gray skies that make me feel like I'm in a snowglobe and the occasional spurts of rain, with a tease from the sun once in awhile. But all in all, I'm in a relatively good mood. :) Not sure why, I think visiting family rejuvinated me and I'm starting to feel more like myself. My confidence is slowly returning and I'm feeling more comfortable around my housemates and feeling much more like myself lately. I think it's because things are in a sense going somewhere. I find it easier to talk to my housemates without feeling so stupidly nervous and more is going on in my life... in a sense. I have essays and presentations to work on, which although stresses me out at least gives me something to do. I still go to the African, Caribbean, and Asian Society meetings, I've missed one though. It's not so scary if I have someone to go with. One of my housemate's, Matt, goes occasionally so I think I'll tag along with him. He knows people in the society, so maybe I can meet people through him. I went with him to a kickboxing class today, thinking it's a good idea to get some exercise... oh lord.. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I'm sore and my arms and calves ache and I'm tired. But it was good for me, I was sweating, breathing hard and getting that heart pumping.. haha. It almost felt like I was getting beat up though, we had to partner up and hold punching and kicking pads for our partner.. mine was my housemate and he's a good 6 feet I think and weighs quite a bit because he's got muscle.. and here I am this 5'5" girl w/ hardly any muscles and he's kicking and punching the pads that I have to hold up.. oi!! So not only was I kicking and punching, but taking it too. Haha.. don't know if I'm going to go back, but it was good for laughs and exercise. Still no job.. yuck. Oh well, I'm still looking. Let's see what else.. oh my French/English housemate. Theo, cooked this declicious meal last night! Cream over baked potatoe slices and mustard chicken.. delicious!! It's french food according to him. I loved it, 9 of us, allsitting in our little hallway/landing area (because we have no dining room) and had candle light and ate sitting on the floor together, then we had cheesecake that I made afterwards for dessert.. YUMMY! hehehe. it's things like that, that make me feel more at home and happier. Food and Friends, always a good combination. I hope this good feeling lasts for awhile. I can do without feeling homesick, although I do miss my friends back home. I love you all!

you never realize what you have until it's gone.. or until you're far away.

blood is thicker than water

It's funny how that saying makes sense sometimes. When you really need people, no doubt you've got those few friends who would be there, but you've also got forever Family. It's great! My cousin was in London for a business trip and she couldn't have come at a better time. My homesickness was really getting to me and I got so frustrated with my landline and with trying to call my grand aunt and uncle I had a small breakdown. But it's okay now, they got through to me eventually, after I called my mom and had her call them to call me. I spend most of the weekend with them. I got to play in London with my cousin, which was totally fun, we had an awesome dinner of paella's and tapas at a Spanish place in Covent Garden and then we went to Leicester Square and had ice cream and coffee and stuff. It felt sooo good to see my cousin and we had such a good time. Her co-worker Emily was there and two of their co-workers in the UK office, Jon and Kalpesh, took us out. They were so nice and carried my bags as well... haha such gentleman. :) ahhh but yeah after that I met up w/ my uncle and aunt and my aunt took me shopping and showed me around a bit. I ate sooo much good chinese food, even freshly made dim sum! That's rare even for the US! It was so wonderful of them to take care of me for a bit, and of course I came home with loads of food. It's great. :) I love my family!

my first time...

Yesterday was a pretty cool day! I went shopping w/ some of my friends in brighton and got some incense and an incense holder because it smells like stale smoke in my room. Not that I've started smoking, but my housemates do and when we go out to the bars on campus there's smoke everywhere. I also picked up groceries and some flower for my housemate Noelle's birthday. the house went out last night to celebrate with her, which was cool cuz I got to hang out w/ some of my housemates and get to know them better. Finally my first time in a brighton club. We went to this place called 'enigma' and some event called phonic:hoop was there. It was like break beats, a little bit of funk, hip hop, and almost salsa-ish. I can't explain it, but it was pretty good and the beat was fun to dance too. It was kind of pricy for a brighton club though, £7 which is about $14-15 US dollars. Which to us is around normal for some clubs up in LA. Usually it's around £3-4 which is about $5-7 US. I really like the music scene in Brighton, it's supposed to be the second main place for music and the arts in the UK. De La Soul was here a few nights ago and Rhazel is supposed to come I think end of October. And it's the home of Fat Boy Slim who does a show here every July. I want to check out some more clubs sometime during the year and if anyone comes visit we can go out and have some fun. :D You can find anything from Salsa to Hip Hop to Drum and Bass to House to Jazz.. anything! It's great and there are so many shows, ballets, musicals, plays, puppetry of penis' and as students we usually get discounts. I love it! Can't spend too much money though, have to save for traveling.. I should find a job soon or something as well. Ah well.. I've got some time.

Well I better get back to school work.. getting into this whole school mode isn't easy. 5 years... is almost a year too long.

It's raining, it's pouring, and I'm planning away..

It started to rain on Sunday.. and rain it did. Loud, pouring rain, that will disappear two minutes later and then you might have sun for a few minutes, then a torrential downpour once again! It's crazy, it's insane! And not to mention the wind! When I was in town it was blowing like crazy sometimes and it would push you a certain direction then disappear completely. Sussex is in a valley with the "downs", don't know what they're called that since they're big hills, surrounding the school. So on my way to the computer lab I was being pushed around as well. But that is okay, because I'm warm and dry in my new jacket that's a big puffy, but it's great. Don't know what I'm going to do when it's WET AND COLD! We'll see.

I got a tourbook today, Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoe String and I've been looking at the map of Europe on my wall! Exciting!! I'm trying to figure out where I want to go during winter break. There's so many places and so many people to visit. Too many some of my friends are leaving after December so I might not get a chance to go visit them. But yeah, so far I'm looking at the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, France.. okay so the list goes on and on. I still have to study too!

So if anyone wants to come play in Europe! I'm here and I'm totally down, not to mention you can get a free nights stay and some free food if you come visit me! haha.

Puppetry of the Penis

No joke, there's two "well-endowed" Australia men who perform puppetry with their penis. They're supposed to be really famous and will be appearing on Jay Leno I think Wednesday night! Three of my friends and I decided 'why the hell not' and went to see their show last night. HAHAHAHAHAHA... I swear I'm not a pervert! Honestly I did not find anything erotic about it. It was rather hilarious though, watching two grown men, naked on stage, warming up their goods, wearing only some coverses and socks, folding their penis' into different shapes. Some of these include the lock ness monster, a sea urchin, a snail, a roller skate, the eiffel tower, a hamburger, and much more. It was an interesting experience and needless to say, I won't be hungry for hamburger any time soon. hehehe.

When I got back is was more fun at the house. Bebe gun, newspaper bat fights, deoderant spraying everywhere, and a fire alarm going off. At least my life's not boring. :)

Anyway, I just put up some new photos I've taken so check them out http://jadeheart.tripod.com/england/!

yay for cheese sponge sugar cake

It's been a good day today. :) I'm glad. I spend the day goofing around my room and taking pictures, which I would have posted right now if I hadn't left the disk in my room. Stupid me. Anyway, I went to Brighton today with some friends and we found the Marina. I thought there was a shopping center there because I remember seeing a drawing of it in a magazine. Again.. stupid me.. the reason it was a drawing was because it wasn't actually finished yet.. not til November. Oh well, we did find ASDA which is like the Walmart here! It's great.. YAY for ASDA! And then after I filled up my backpack full of food and stuff we headed over to another supermarket called Iceland.. devoted to frozen and chilled foods mainly. I got some icecream and then we went to Sainsbury and I picked up more stuff for cheesecake making. Aww yeah cheesecake. It just gave me a good feeling of accomplishment knowing that I can get around this place with relatively little problems. Carrying my trusty map of Brighton and the bus map I can get anywhere.. well almost, at least if I'm sorta lost I can still manage to find my way back to the University. hehe.

Then I go home to make cheesecake. Only I mess it up, sort of. I read 1/3 cup of sugar as 2/3 for some strange dumb reason. Don't know why, I obviously know what 1/3 is. Guess I wasn't paying too much attention. Anyway, so I figure no biggie, probably won't make too much of a difference, it'll just be really sweet.. Then this country does not have sour cream, well not like what we have in the states, and if they do, I don't know where it is and neither do my housemates. So the inside of the cheescake is really liquidy. Not to mention the butter and cream cheese they have hear aren't wrapped the same way it is in the US, with cup measurements on the outside.. so I'm guessing with that too. I figure what the hell, I'm this far into making this cheesecake, might as well continue. So I shove the thing into the oven and wait.. and wait.. I forgot how long it takes to make cheesecake, so I'm just waiting... and waiting.. and waiting for an hour and a half and finally it's done. I take it out and pop it out of this cake thing and before I can even let it cool, my housemates have all come downstairs. Which I don't mind because I made the cake for them anyway for always feeding me. So they all try it and I hold my breath, because it DOES NOT look like my normal cheesecake.. nor does it taste like it normally would. But it's a hit, they love it. :) I like it too. It's pretty yummy, just different. It's more of a sugar spongy cheesecake. Anyways, no worries as of right now. Things are great, I'm getting along with my housemates and getting more comfortable around them. They're wonderful and compared to my friends flatmates, I've got some really really cool ones! I think we're actually going to play a game like assassins too!! hehehe. Yay for cool roommates. Well I guess that's it for me so far. I do miss the people at home, but things are getting better here so it's not as lonely. Send me a word once in awhile, I'd love to hear a voice or read a voice.

Much love for family and friends. *muah*

i need a hug

Aww, I'm sort of homesick. I haven't had a hug in awhile, except from a drunk fellow UC student at a club one night. :) Haha. I miss hugs and I miss physical affection, I know that sound stupid. But I do. My flatmates get really friendly when they're drunk, they're a lot more fun to be around. Hehe. I'm going to try to party with them more because apparently when they go out to drink and party is how they get to know each other a lot better. They're also different on E than the people in the states I noticed. At parties in the US you'll see people lying on the group or massaging each other, but my flatmates took some and were just sitting there bobbing their head to music. Then again we were just sitting around in the house so maybe that's why. Anyways, so yeah.. that's about it. I'm working on getting to know them better, but something makes me nervous and scared. I feel like I'm always going to say and do something stupid. I think I need to get over that fear and just take it as it comes. I feel like they're all way smarter than me and they've seen a lot more of life and the world than Americans in general have. It's amazing! I guess I'm just intimidated. Anyways, I suppose it's still early. I better get to bed soon, although I still haven't had class yet..

only four hours of class a week.. on thursday.. all i do is eat and sleep so far.. i'm turning into a panda bear. hehehe.

i smell like garlic..

I swear I can't believe I'm here! It's absolutely incredible.. I'm LIVING in another country for a whole freaking year!! Scary to think about, but there is it. I'm here.. for the year. The weather has been nutty lately. I flew into London and was there for a three days and it was kind of cold. Needed a jacket. I had some great Indian food while I was there, compliments of the EAP office (which us students probably paid for anyway through out tuition and fees). Saw a play call the "daughter in law", it was weird and hard to understand considering they were speaking old english in english accents. I almost fell asleep. I also visited the Tate Modern, a museum of modern art, that was a lot of fun, really interesting. Let's see, I also wandered around London a lot, going to visit the stores and numerous "squares" of shops and stuff. I also went to Greenwich, where time begins and ends. You know that longitude line that starts off how time changes as you move around the globe! I was a big dork and took a picture of me standing over the line so one side of me is in one time zone and the other side is in another. haha. I'll upload it sometime maybe. I wonder if people there celebrate two new years.. when it starts and then when it ends.

After London I dragged my giant suitcase, duffel bag, travel backpack and laptop onto a taxi, off the taxi, into the train station, onto the train, off the train, onto a bus, off the bus, onto another bus and off the bus and then up some stairs and into my room. It was "great" fun. Brighton, the town I'm close too is 20 min away by bus, which isn't bad at all. I got lost the first time with my friend, so now I remember to bring the bus map. But over the last few days I've figured out how to get about. Their "beach" is not like California beaches for sure. Imagine our beaches.. covered in smooth rocks. Then you have Brighton Beach. It's like our sand blew up to the size of a large skipping stone. But it's still beautiful and sitting on the pier reminds me of home. The weather was beautiful when I go here, sunny and warm! And then two days later it rained and this morning everything was gray and wet and since I've been sitting at this computer the sun has come out again, so it's bright, but windy and cool outside. Yeah... no wonder weather's a topic of conversation here. The only topic I can really talk about sometimes with these people.

It's amazing to me how much knowledge the English and Europeans have!! They know so much and many of them have seen so much of the world by the time they're 18. Compared to us Americans they are so much more wordly. I know so many people who have never left the states and some of my flatmates have worked in other countries to make money as they traveled or taught English in third world countries. Absolutely incredible! And the information they know about other people's history and just general information is amazing. I need to start reading the newspaper more and more books so I can catch up with them.

I got my schedule finalized and I'm taking two classes, four hours a week total. I'm supposed to be receiving reading lists and then I have to pick books to go read on my own and do a lot of self-study. haha.. we'll see how that goes. I do need to pass though and graduate. These freshers.. all they have to do is pass the class.. so they're all about partying. I'm moderating myself, not to mention I'm tired and have gone through these "welcome week" acitivies three times before already. You know the whole been there done that type of thing. Maybe I'm getting old and lazy.. or just lazy. :) partying takes a lot out of you! Anyways, my flat mates are really cool and sweet. There are six girls and six guys, one of them is from France and another girl is part German, the rest are from around the UK. They're hilarious and very thoughtful people and we joke around a lot like I do with my friends back home. We all cooked dinner together last night and ate it together. We don't have a common room which sucks ass and our kitchens are tiny little things, but we managed. We fit 8 people into a kitchen where between the two counters on either side is only room enough for two of me to stand side by side. We cooked spaghetti bolonagease.. which is why I smell like garlic right now. It's still in my system. :) Well I guess that's all for now, I'm hungry and it's almost 1:30 here so I'm gonna head back to my tiny kitchen and make some food.

Bye for now!