Year/Month End Recap

"Oh look she's doing that amazing thing where she tells us about her life... I had completely forgotten that existed."

Me too, Internet, me too...

So what have I been up to the last month? Um... I've done...

Okay so not that much, but I'll try to make the stuff I did sound pretty awesome.

I GOT A JOB - it's a really low key, 4 hour a week, low wage, retail job. It'll help with Tube fare and it makes me leave my cave every once and a while. Plus it massively helps with my "I'm not going to find a decent paying job at the end of this and I'm going to have so much debt" anxiety. Which is important

IN FUN NEWS
A week after the end of term, my friend E from undergrad came to visit for a couple days on her way back from India (!), we made good use of our time with food (can you say Wagamama?), movies on Netflix, lots of chats, and, best of all, a trip to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour (AKA see all the amazing sets and costumes from the Harry Potter movies). Here, have my favorite picture from the visit:

It was really really really cool and honestly, I have difficulty articulating my feelings about it. Well worth the approximately $50 (it's 30 pounds) ticket price. Also, it made me even more appreciate the Harry Potter World detail. Because it looks so so on point with regard to the movies.

So I went to the Studio Tour and guesses on what I bought? Anyone? ...if you guessed another copy of a Harry Potter book, you're right. I picked up a new adult edition of Philosopher's Stone.

I've been doing a good job of getting out more which has included a trip to the West End to see Matilda. Which was an excellent show. And you can't beat the 5 pound pricetag for rush tickets. Sure we were up in the nosebleeds, but the choreography and costumes and everything... just fantastic. If you have a chance to see the West End production, definitely do it!

I've started two knitting projects - my first sweater/jumper which is about half-ish done, and some 18" doll Gryffindor scarves for my mom's Etsy shop. I'll try to remember to post some pictures as I go... next time ;)

I got wonderful surprise packages from both my mom and my brother and his wife - Polish cookies, yarn, knitting needles, and some anise oil to bake cookies of my own from my mom and a wreath and really cool woven wrist wallet and bracelet. Those massively brightened my holiday :)

Oh and on the fitness front I have managed to make it to the pool twice with the help of my London friend S. On our second week I swam a kilometer!! So proud of myself. And I'm on day 19 of the 30 day ab challenge (ooph I still have to do that tonight)

Anyway, enjoy the last few days of 2013. Hopefully I'll be back soon with some New Year's Resolutions (posts once a week? crazy talk!)

Love from London!

4 Essays Down (And None to Go!)

Hello readers of my bloggy bloggy blog (apologies if this come across a bit hyper, I may have just crossed into the land of overtired.)

It has officially been over 2 months of me being here in London! I still can't really believe it, I've been sort of running on all cylinders for the past two months, and I'm really excited to get to slow down. And walk around more of London. And swim. It's on my list and I'm going to do it! This week, maybe! (Yesbe?)

Job prospects are mixed. I have a couple of leads on tutoring agencies that I need to follow up with (I rather like explaining things, and tutoring math in particular would be excellent, I think.) I also applied to a job at Next which is a sort of H&M ish place. Hard to articulate really. Anyway I got called and passed what I assumed was interview one to be followed with in person interview two. Showed up and basically ended up abandoned on the store floor for an hour and an half and told to help customers. Can't say I was overly fond of the experience, but I was willing to tough in out since the online literature said they'd tell me immediately after if I was hired. No such luck. Ended up being a rather awful day for me after that so I'm honestly not sure if I'll take the job after all that. Better than sticking around my apartment for a month though! I'll drive myself and everyone online crazy!

In the land of trying to get out and do things more so I spend less time muddling about inside my head, my choir's concert was on Sunday and went really well I think. There's always a sense in that choir of being vaguely lost, but I really enjoy the work that goes into it, so I'll continue along.

I went to the Royal Society's Best Popular Science Book of the Year awards ceremony (or something along those lines on the name) last Monday. Admittedly, I almost fell asleep, but that was wholly because I think I was running on less than 4 hours. It was actually pretty cool, because the winner was a graduate from the same program I did for my undergrad. And also I learned about a guy who jerked off a bird. You learn something new about scientists every day...

I actually spent some productive time in the Imperial Library, and boy does that place need an overhaul. I'm strongly reminded of Falvey pre reno's. Same temperature issues too, ick!

My evil coughy cold thing seems to have FINALLY gone. Hurrah! (fingers crossed, knock on wood)

I acquired yarn and other equipment to make the sweater that I decided I wanted to make back in September and I'm already a skein in! The yarn isn't exactly what I expected but I'm excited to see how this adventure turns out (how important is a gauge square anyway?)

In that package I also acquired a cupcake tin and some cookie cutters. I'm VERY excited to make some cupcakes and pierniekes in the near future!!

Oh, and I've just finished my last essay of the term. So glad to be done with it!

 Hope Turkey Day treated everyone well!

Love from London!

End of Term?

So I've gotten nearly as bad at updating this as I am at my vlog...

My term has consisted of a new essay every other week and on the off weeks (those not directly leading up to a due date) desperately denying the fact that I have a new essay due in two weeks. So really my weeks consist of class, choir rehearsal, and watching Netflix.

And they say it's so different in the UK...

I guess I can talk about things I have discovered this month:

• Ben and Jerry's core ice cream is delicious. The caramel core one is superior to the fudge core, but both are good. Jam is yet to be tested.
• Actual weetabix is far inferior to Crispy Minis. But Crispy Minis in Chocolate Chip are delicious.
• I can make halfway decent stovetop rice now! I'm pretty proud of that.
• Rice is like the best decision when you have no money.
• Also it needs lots of flavoring.
• I am terrible at waking up/falling asleep. It only gets worse as the week goes on. Which means waking up Monday mornings is the worst!
• Wagamama firecracker chicken is amazinggggg and also costs 10 GBP a go. Which leads me to...
• I definitely need a job.

There are only 3 sessions left of term and what where did the time go? And I get to see an Undergrad friend after term end!! We're totally going to the Harry Potter Studio Tour and I'm verra verra excited.

In the meantime, me and my freezing self are going to go curl up under the super fuzzy blanket I got from Primark and stop being cold. Stay warm this winter!

Halloween and Bonfire Night

So after lecture today it is officially halfway through my first term! That's crazy. It's also a bit mad that having been to five lectures counts as being halfway through.

I feel like I'm finally settling in a bit to where I'm living and what's expected of me, although I can't say it's been the easiest thing in the world. I did take a trek with a coursemate to Peter Jones to look at craft supplies, and grabbed a shot of a completely lovely street along the way.

 

Honestly, the photo really doesn't do it justice. I didn't really manage to properly stop to take it!

In any case, I didn't actually do much for Halloween or Bonfire Night - although I have heard fireworks going off for the past few nights. It's like living near Magic Kingdom again. I think several people did go to "fancy dress" - costume - parties, but I spent my Halloween attempting to work on my second essay of the term and at choir practice.

 I did manage to go to a small ceilidh ("kay-lee") put on by the Scottish society at my uni with a bunch of coursemates after lecture today and it was completely wonderful! It's a bit like line dancing only with way more spinning and way better music. Plus the addition of men in kilts just adds a bit of fun to anything.

Last post I said I was going to try to go swimming, and I didn't manage to make it last week or this week for rather the silliest of reasons - I've realized I don't have a second towel and I don't much enjoy the idea of chlorinating my showering towel. So something added to my list of expenditures for this month. I haven't much figured out a way to add to my income column yet, so if you've got ideas, I'm your girl!

I hope my friends Stateside enjoyed the trick or treaters and costumes! I'm actually bizarrely glad I worked a few Halloween parties before I left Disney - I don't feel like I've completely missed out.

Til next time!

See? Told You.

Apologies abound.

I had my first proper assignment due last Tuesday in addition to being down with some chesty cough "moved-to-a-new-place-and-now-my-immune-system-hates-me" thing. So blogging wasn't really on my radar.

Let's get the sad stuff out of the way so I can talk about the cool things. Basically can't get a part-time regular job because I don't have time between essays every two weeks and the amount of reading assigned (let alone the amount I'm actually expected to do.) So I applied for an RA-type position at my residence (nope) and a really amazing science events planning job (nope again.) The ways of the universe better have some good stuff on the agenda for me or I'm gonna hunt them down!

I still haven't done much exploring of London besides my immediately pertinent mall and campus area. I did get a chance to go to the Natural History Museum as part of a class video assignment which was completely amazing. The architecture is amazing and the parts of the collection I saw were pretty awesome. It's also positively massive.

I FINALLY got my checking account up and running and, therefore, my phone up and running. I ended up having to go a different way than I'd initially planned, but it wasn't that much different in price and I have a phone again. So that's the important bit.

I have been doing an excellent job of trying as many chocolates as possible while I'm here and the far and away winner in my book is still Crunchie by Cadbury - sponge candy readily accessible? Yes please. And I've gotten Wagamama three times now, with my favorite being the firecracker chicken I had yesterday as a consolation meal. Totally delicious, A++, would buy again.

I'm just getting used to the idea of how the grading system works here. Like, people shoot for passing. It's such a foreign concept to me and I'm understandably, I think, more than a little stressed to hear how I did on my first piece. Not my best work, I think.

I did manage to do a night out in East London with some of my coursemates after choir rehearsal last week and a pub called "The Book Store" or something like that. There was actually a book launch going on downstairs, and I was so tempted to crash!

So I'm starting to fall into a groove of things here, and I have PLANS - this week I'm going to try to go swimming! Inside, of course, but I am trying to add some physical exercise into my schedule before it gets cold and I get even lazier.

Oh and for all of my skips out there - it looks like someone shot this hippo.

The First Apology of Many

As the title implies, apologies for not posting in nearly a week. And I'm sure it won't be the first time, so again, as the name suggests, it is probably the first of many.

I think I'll go through the whole of last week by day and attempt to pull out key highlights.

Wednesday
Oh goodness, I can't really remember much of what happened. We had some visitors come in and talk about what I'll refer to as "micro-documentary" making - that is, making short, documentary style videos with a very small team. But very high quality. Actually, the video was quite good and I have an inkling that it might be of interest to some of you - it's about the Diamond collider project in England. Think LHC on a small scale where the collider is more of an accelerator/super bright light source/microscope type thing. Anyway, click here if that piques your interest.

We also wandered over to The Science Museum to visit the "Who Am I?" gallery and then discussed it with one of the curator-type people. Which was really quite cool to hear how they tried to pull in all sorts of ways of learning.

Thursday
The last day of induction week, we got a chance to talk to various people across the college who might need our help (time to freshen up my CV - or in my case, format my resume in CV style) and go over what the year is really going to be like. It's daunting, really, and I don't know if I said it already, but the idea of a part time job seems rather not feasible based on the feedback from the teaching staff. Which is frustrating. Maybe I'll sell my body for medical testing? No needles please! ;) We rounded out the induction week with a "party" which was more of a "stand awkwardly whilst eating 'crisps' and indulging in liquid refreshment" type thing, and which I left slightly early because it was the first choir practice!

One of the things I've really missed since being at Nova is being in a proper singing group, working on a piece (or pieces) of music, and the process of something rather train-wreck-like becoming melodious and wonderful. So I knew setting out for my time here, especially in the attempting to salvage my mental/emotional health endeavor, being part of a singing group would be really important. The feeling in the group was very familiar, although I'm waiting to hear back from something else before I decide for sure if I'll join. It's expensive! Something like 40 quid membership fee plus another 36 for music. I think that second one is a deposit but still! Good thing they have "tea" - more akin to the use of "refreshments" in American English - I'll take any free food I can get!

Friday-Saturday
I slept in. Beyond that I don't remember doing much. Might have wandered down to see if I got any mail. My debit card did arrive, but I still can't activate it, because I'm waiting for more mail with codes and such. Hahahaha all I really want at this point is to be able to activate my SIM card! It's so frustrating not being able to be in easy contact with people!

Sunday
I gave this its own heading, although it was very similar to the scrounge for food-enjoy doing nothing sentiment of the two days prior, because I had my audition for the more selective choral ensemble. If ever there was a train wreck, that was one. I got flustered and short of breath, which anyone who sings will tell you is just awful for singing. I think parts of it went okay, but I don't know whether they'll actually want me. It's frustrating though, because I know I could be a real asset in the actual context of small group singing. But I couldn't relax and sound the way I wanted to.

Today!
Woke up to go to my first two proper classes. One is a philosophy of science class, which reminds me very much of ACS or any of my core liberal arts classes except bigger. Weirdly, with around 48 students, these are some of the biggest classes I've ever been in. Which is odd because they both feel large and small. The other class is sort of a get used to tv/radio/camera production class in which we aren't graded but I'm still insanely nervous about! Excited, too, though. Exposure to all that stuff is what made me pick this particular degree!

If you want to help me out, I know some people already posted on facebook, but what was the coolest/best experiment that you ever did having to do with fluids/liquids?

Settling In

Day 4 in London and I'm finally settling into knowing my way to and from uni. I'm going to do my best to recap the last 3 days since I've been too exhausted to post!

Sunday was the international graduate students welcome talk at my uni which I figured was a good chance to figure out how long walking would take and orient myself on the campus so I wouldn't be late for my first day with the rest of my course mates on Monday. The talk itself was pretty typical - we're here if you need help, don't isolate, remember to relax as well as study - although a lot of it wasn't relevant to my life (problems with grammar, etc.) It was followed by a tea and international student related vendor's fair. Honestly, that was far more helpful than the talk as it gave me the opportunity to pay off the £4 that I owed because of some bank transfer fee on their end. Whatever, as long as I'm not a delinquent student. It also meant I could pick up a bank letter from the central office so that I'd be able to open a bank account which is Step One of becoming a functioning Londonite (is that a word?) for the year.

Monday meant my first interaction with the others on my course (sidenote: I find it weird but course is the same as major and module is what we'd call a class.) By and large they seem to be a friendly group of what I'd estimate is 80% females and 75% SciComm. It's weird being in the majority! There are only 3 Americans, though there are other international students - Spain and France are among the countries I know. One of the girls on the program actually was quite good friends with Amy S. when she studied abroad for all the PM people who read this! The introduction was actually quite daunting. Although nothing I read online seemed too crazy and contact hours are only M/T, apparently starting around Christmas everything just starts going insane. So I'm not sure how realistic a part time job is. I'm going to see if maybe there's a tutoring center on campus where I can help with "maths." Or editing. Or something... I'll figure it out. If it ever starts getting in the way of how I feel I'm doing though, it's going to have to be axed. We had some lively discussions on narrative and I very much felt like I was back at an Honors course at Nova. Here's hoping they prepared me well for this...

Today (!) was day two with my coursemates. We broke into groups to identify the "virtues of a science communicator" and then shared them with the larger group. I've gotten the chance to talk with several others and I get the impression that I'm on the younger side of things, but there's a good enough mix from I'd say about 21-40. We got to hear from several of the students from last year and I'm already contemplating taking on an editing job for the department's blog - could be fun, and I like reading other people's work :) They reiterated the difficulty of working while doing the program and it seemed that anyone who had managed to make it work had a really flexible job with only a few hours here and there.

Today was also Fresher's Fair - what I would have called Activities Fair. I think I managed to get myself on too many email lists but also to whittle down what I'm interested in doing while I'm hear to help my sanity - notably a sci-fi club, knitting club, some sort of singing group, and maybe some sort of dance class/group. We'll see! If I can't handle a job though, I'll have to be careful about my time commitments with those things too. I also managed to snag some good freebies, notably a quarter chicken at Nando's with a £4 purchase.

On my way home I stopped at a Wagamama's. The food was quite good, but it seemed pricier than I expected. Maybe I went to a high priced one? I'll have to stop by other locations to see! And fresh squeezed/juicered juice that I know my sister-in-law would love :)

I also managed to get my first vlog up today, which I'm hoping to do the whole of October, so if you want to watch my face, click here! (eventually I'll figure out how to properly embed things)

I've Arrived

So I'm here.

This reminds me of a strange version of going off to Uni and going to Australia. I've gotten to my apartment (which is extremely secure feeling, so that's good) and managed to find a place to buy a pillow and a towel (no blanket yet.) I'm hoping to make it to TKMaxx (the UK's TJMaxx) and find something there "on offer"

The plane journey itself was exhausting. I woke up about 6:30 EST. Flight out at 11ish. Got to JFK... cue minor moment of panic.

My bags were supposed to transfer but I wanted to absolutely make sure that was the case. I figured I'd connect through the terminal and that would be that. But nope! I was unaware that JFK made it so difficult to transfer terminals. I didn't even know where to go or how to get there. Eventually though I made it! Unfortunately, when I tried to go ask about whether or not my bags were transferring no one from my airline had yet arrived. So that was stressful. Eventually though (after much of me sitting on the floor stressing) they did show up and everything was fine and then I went through security for the second time that day. Hurrah!

I dragged my tired butt around the terminal searching for food. Most of the stores were being renovated, so that was on the frustrating side, and my backpack probably weighed a good thirty pounds. Did I mention that at this point all I'd eaten were a couple of dried apple rings and a tiny bag of Doritos? Because that was a thing. Finally settled on the crowing glory of airport terminal food - a burger and large fry from McDonald's - and made my way to the gate.

While sitting there and browsing my facebook the way any normal person with a smart phone does in an airport, I got a message from my aunt and uncle that they'd be flying out of JFK internationally that day too, and would our paths maybe cross? Happily I got to spend an hour or so catching up with them before they left to wait at their gate for their flight to Turkey (!) and I returned to my own gate. It was amazingly lovely to see them, especially considering my own emotional turmoil at the time. Hugs from people I care about were exactly what I needed.

Eventually we boarded the plane for the most exhausting 6.5 hour flight I've ever been on. Normally I have no problem sleeping on planes but for some reason the window was farther away than normal so my lean-head-against-side-of-plane-and-sleep method was less than successful. Plus I wanted to eat the food (chicken tikka!) In total I got somewhere around 2 hours of intermittent sleep and saw Monsters U (eh,) part of Identity Thief (decent,) Silver Lining's Playbook (erm, slept through large chunks of that,) and... I can't remember, but I think there was another one.

Landed at Heathrow went through Immigration, got a card that I have to mail in because I didn't know the one thing, grabbed my bag, went through customs and then set off to figure out which mode of transport I wanted to used to get to my place - I could either take the express train to the Tube or two different Tube lines.

As the price differential was about 15 quid, which is around $22, I went for the cheaper version. It was fairly easy and reminded me of riding in Philly - some stations were underground, but most were actually outdoors which I quite appreciated. I arrived at my housing a bit early but they were happy to check me in.

The room is bigger than mine in St. Mary's sophomore year and has pretty much everything I could need. Whoever lived here before me wasn't the cleanest, so I have some kitchen cleaning I want to do, but otherwise I'm very happy with the condition. And I've had no trouble at all with the internet so far, which has been great.

I wandered to the nearby shopping center to pick up a few necessities (notably a pillow and towel) and to see if I could find anywhere that was hiring (Disney Store is certainly a possibility) but halfway through my legs and arms started screaming in protest and I had increasing difficulty keeping my eyes open, so more trips there will definitely be on my to-do list. For one thing, I need to try Nando's and Wagamama's!!!

I came back to my room and my resolution to stay up as long as possibly failed. A six hour nap caught me by surprise!

I should be posting a vlog soon, so look forward to that :) Tomorrow my first adventure on campus awaits!

This Came Before

So a full year abroad to get my master's degree seemed to warrant its own blog. That could just be my way of thinking about things but I hope to have a lot of things to make this year count.

Coming up with a name was hard and at first I wanted to focus on the whole "I'm in London, I want to make it count" thing, but in no way does that make a good url so I simplified. Imperial to describe place and year to describe time.

I've called this post "This Came Before" with the idea that when I return home from London I'll do a "This Came After" post to summarize what my year was like, how it changed me, where my experiences have gotten me, and to see what I thought the experience would do for me starting out.

I do also want to mention that I have every intention of doing a concurrent vlog on my youtube.com/kittenpaws33 channel. Vlogs having to do with London or this year or travel in general will get the "imperialyear" hashtag, while any random music/makeup/fashion videos won't. I haven't decided where I'll put in the inevitable sciencey things. I'll figure it out eventually.


This Came Before

Setting out for London for me is an incredibly scary/exciting/nerve-wracking/sad prospect. I'm leaving behind someone I really care about, more than I ever have someone before, so that in itself is a scary and sad prospect. I've grown up a lot in the last 5 years and this relationship means far more to me than its predecessors but I do have a tendency to lose and/or decrease contact with friends and the like when I move away from them.

Also going in the scary/nerve-wracking column is that I have never been to the UK, let alone London, before nor have I lived in a city proper. I am in general an anxious person, particularly in large crowds, so a large city is rather intimidating. I'll need to learn the tube, get my student Oyster Card, set up a bank account, get a phone plan... My 9 weeks in Australia have helped prepare me for this, but I'm still freaking out a bit. Not gonna lie.

In the exciting column is the program I'm going to be studying. It will set me up with the skills and connections (I hope) that will help me be a "female Bill Nye for the Internet" or at least someone who does some of those things. I want to help the science world befriend the world of the everyday and I want to do it in a way that is creatively fulfilling for me.

Hopes for this year: meet lots of people, make lots of friends, develop lasting connections, have a job waiting at the end of this (with benefits and the ability to pay off my debt/pay my bills would be nice,) and most importantly make this year count. If I'm going to be away from someone so important for a year than you'd better bet I'm going to make it worth that time away. I want to come back from this experience more solidly empowered by who I am and closer to being who I want to be.

Oh and if I can get a part-time job over there so that I don't go completely broke and can actually pay off my debt when I get back, that'd be great.