Update

WED 1/21
Sorry I haven't been updating...just been so caught up with everything there. So yes, my room mate left last Wed because she wasn't happy here. I hope she feels better at home. It's harder now that I have to go out by myself and walk to the bus stop at night but the city is pretty safe and I can always take a taxi home if I'm out too late. That's exactly what happened last Wed night when I went out with some friends to a club called Oceana. We did a little pre-funking (everyone made fun of me because I called it "pre-funk" until my friend my Oregon said its short for "prefunction". Ohhhh, they all thought, including me) at a friend's apartment and then headed to the club on the bus. Oceana was pretty big, and the dance floor was amazing...there were chandelier like crystals hanging from the ceiling and god knows how many bars. The music was actually pretty good too, they played a huge mix of songs including r&b, hip hop, pop, techno and rock and some song I didn't know, but it was all good dancing the night away. There was a huge white screen right above the dance floor too so we could watch music videos while dancing. Since its pretty full on Wed nights, I just might have my 22nd bday there!

THURS 1/22
Pretty chill, I don't have classes on Thursdays so I think I ended up running errands...I forget exactly what I did.

FRI 1/23
Class and then watched Slumdog Millionaire in the evening with some friends. The movie theatre was right by Oceana and was huge! We went inside the theatre and I thought we were going to see a play the way the stage was set up with the curtains and the capacity of the theatre, dang! There was about 30min of just commercials before the previews started so it took a while for the movie to begin, but I loved every minute of it! It reminded me of the kids in the Philippines when I went to visit in 2004, so of course I was emotionally moved by the film, not to mention that its absoutely brilliant! Did you know that the 2 out of the 3 kids playing the younger versions of the main characters were actually from the slums!? They pulled these kids out from the streets and put them in front of cameras just like that...and they were amazing! I guess they are getting sent to school and get a trust fund when they go to college, which is a better idea than just giving them straight up money.

SAT 1/24
I took a train into London with my friend Nicole where we bought Wicked the musical tickets in the morning on a spur of the moment decision. We got good tickets too! 25 GBP for student tickets that were originally 60 GBP, that's like $34 musical seats! The show itself was absoutely amazing, I think I like the wicked witch's perspective on the Oz story more than the original one, again I was emotionally captivated in the show *sigh*. The actors were wonderful too! The main characters- Elphaba (the wicked witch) and Glinda were only the standby actresses but I think they should preform everyday. Before the show Nicole and I went inside Westminster Abbey which was absolutely fascinating! I still can't believe I got to see the graves of Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, King Henry VII (I forget where the VIII is burried), King Edward, Sir Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, just to name a few. Did you know there's 3,300 people burried there!? That's crazy, well it IS a huge church. I thought it was going to be one massive hall, but there are so many rooms and chambers in it its crazy, my friend and I followed an audio tour and map and its took us forever to get through the whole thing...maybe because I couldn't stop marvelling at history, about how significant these people were! Wow, their tombs were so elaborate. The only bad thing was that we couldn't take any pictures inside, but I understand how they want to perserve everything, plus that is kind of disrespectful....I could only imagine trying to honor the royals that came before us with huge flashes from cameras everywhere.

SUN 1/25
A group of girls went into this old part of town called Rottingdean and had some real British tea. For almost 7 pounds we got our own pot of tea, finger sandwiches, scones and a slice of cake.....there are no words to describe how delicious everything was! OMG it was just that good...its hard to imagine we could get full of little bits of food but we did. I got some gingseng vanilla tea and it was amazing! Not to mention the coffee walnut cake....mmm.

MON 1/26
My only class was cancelled so I did some chores: cleaned my room, laundry and went grocery shopping. After all the food I've been eating here I also went for a run around the neighborhood, except since the roads aren't flat but rather uneven, my feet were throbbing when I was done. I would go to the gym, but its so freaking expensive here...I wish it was included in tuition like the IMA. The only park that's nearby is a bus ride away, but I've passed it a couple times on the way to school so it seems like a perfect jogging path.

TUES 1/27
Hmmm, today I had a long day at school, Tuesdays are always my long days with 3 classes all in one day and my lab meetings for Psych. After our weekly meeting, I played a mystery board game with some of the graduate students to try to figure out the idea of "concept-mapping". One of the grad students is putting a game like this on a digital table top...the kind of stuff you see on crime tv shows or mission impossible movies with moving images with your fingers on a table. Yeah, they are super high tech here, my lab deals with children interacting with new technology like this....crazy huh!? Thursday I'm volunteering to go observe kids play with some digital game at a primary (aka elementary) school.

Plans for the week!? Tomorrow I have to finally catch up on some hw. My friend Nancy and I are having a GRE studyfest. I'm trying to stay on budget so a couple of my friends and I are having a potluck on Thursday night, just time to chill and bring food. Friday maybe Circus de Soleil or a new club? We'll see...still the budget thing. I might have to get a part time job while I'm here.