Day 72

The usual Sunday of sleeping in, reading as much as I could, then I met Ashleigh in the lobby so she could buy my carnage shirt from me. I returned to my room, then helped Jen and Kate make jell-o shots for their night out tonight. I read a bit, finished my cryptography, and facebook chatted briefly before heading to Jen's room where we did 45 minutes of Zumba. I finally showered then continued reading. Shortly after, I was starving, so Jen and I ordered some Pizza Hut, a large bbq chicken and bacon pizza with cheesy bites and with sides of nachos and potato wedges. I ate half of the pizza so fast; it was so wonderfully delicious. Then, I just laid on the ground, so very full, until it was time to go to pub quiz. Today, it was me, Kate, Jen, Jen, Liz, Antoine, and Will. (We got Will to come by knocking on his door as we walked by) We ended up with 23 points at the end of the game, and were 2nd to last. But, since annoying boy wasn't there, I got a lot of answers: Goblet of Fire, David Tenant, Lithium, Utah, Pirates of Penzance, and maybe a few others. I returned to my room to skype with Matt, then went to write on the girls before they went out to Carnage. I spent my evening in bed watching Doctor Who and even attempted to go to bed earlyish, but with no such luck.

Day 71

My Saturday was spent attempting to be productive, but not quite as much as I had hoped. I slept in and made toast. I read for a bit, then did zumba and 8-minute abs with Jen. I showered and made pasta for lunch, then read some more. I was able to skype Matt at are usual time and he made me happy and smiley. I made dinner with the girls and had a girly night full of a chickflick, back massages, hair braiding and tea.  Quite a short entry, but there really wasn't much to my Saturday, unfortunately.

Day 70

I had early breakfast with the girls, then class from 9-11. I topped up my mobile and did some shopping. I returned to my room and watched TBBT with Jen and attempted to do a bit of reading. I made another video for Matt, then hurried off to class at 4. After class, the girls and I went to a disappointing dinner. I skyped Matt at 7, then joined the girls in Jen's room where they cheered me up. We had a lot of fun just talking and laughing, and being overall, ridiculous. Jen played with our hair. Kate brought us pizza leftovers from Katie and Esther, which were a wonderful late-night-snack after gross dinner. It was a great, chill night; so much more fun than any night out.

Day 69

With no Seminar this week and no more Philosophy class, my Thursday was pretty empty. I ate late breakfast with Jen, showered and got dressed. Then I did a bit of editing my paper and printed it out for a friend to edit... 1) I'm insecure about my writing and 2) I don't trust other people, so this was clearly a bad idea. I got angry reading all the comments. But through the comments I came to realize that this junior english major doesn't know when to use "it's" vs. "its" and also suggested that I change "a unique event" to "an unique event"... how sad is it when a sophomore math major is correcting a junior English major's corrections. It actually makes me angry that she is supposed to be better at this than I am, so it was really a wasted effort and I just disregarded half of her suggestions. I went to dinner with the girls and returned to my room for more editing. I finally got to skype with Matt; I wasn't feeling very happy, on the verge of tears. But, talking to Matt just instantly made me feel better, even though we miss each other a lot. This days marked the 2 weeks having been back in England, which is usually when the homesickness is estimated to begin. After skyping I went with Kate, Jen, Jen, and Liz to Comedy night, where one of the comedians told us all American's were fat... so stereotypical. Otherwise, it was really funny. We returned to Jen's room where her and I did 8-minute abs, and I did more handstands.

Day 68

Wednesday was very unproductive. I ate breakfast with the girls, then headed back to my room. I watched some TBBT and made a bracelet. I showered and attempted to ready my book for my next essay, but was bored by it, so I didn't get very far. Jen came back, so I made lunch and the two of us watched the new Glee. I read some more for a total of 20 pages today... I made a video singing a song for Matt since he had a long day of Chemo. I laid down and tried to nap, but that didn't work, so eventually I had to get dressed to go to Kori's birthday dinner. Kate and I got a taxi because it was pouring. Jen, Jen, Kori, Liz, Antoine, Ashleigh, and Kate were there. Almost all of us got full pizzas and ate them all, since Leazes food is killing us. It was also Mojito Wednesday, so we all got one; I tried the orange mojito. Not a fan of mojitos though. We had fun laughing and talking and caught taxis back to Castle Leazes. While waiting to skype with Matt, I mastered a handstand against the wall, see facebook for a picture. I was even wearing a dress, so I tucked it into my spandex. I got to talk to my lovely boy for quite a bit, but we were both exhausted. I went to Jen's room after to talk and we ended up working out instead; We are perfecting our "Greek Beach Bodies" :)

Day 67

My day started with a 10am breakfast with the girls. I returned to my room (since my noon lecture had been cancelled) to shower and work on my essay. I finished my rough draft with 1951 words, not too shabby. Then, I began working on my cryptography assignment and finished 3 of the 4 problems before heading off to class at 3pm. My first class was a few classmates giving presentations which was supposed to be good revision for me, but it was a waste of my time. I handed in my Diff EQ assignment, then waited for Number Theory and Cryptography, back to back. By 6pm I was so ready to be back in my room. Shortly after my return, we headed to dinner. Esther looked at the options and was fed up and walked out of the dining hall. The rest of us stuck it out, though as usual felt gross after eating. The food just makes you feel soooo full, yet hungry. It's killer. I headed back to my room for a skype date with Matthew, which included some singing :) After skype I chilled in Jen's room listening to music, then we moved to my room and watched some TBBT and Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog (which can be found on youtube and has NPH). We were each making bracelets during this time and eventually she played with my hair a bit. I passed out by midnight. No class on Wednesdays, so no stress to keep me up.

Day 66

I had a fairly good Monday. My usual morning classes and handed in my homework. Unfortunately, my alarm had gone off silently so I had to give up a shower in order to get breakfast before class. I met with Jen and Kate to do some grocery shopping, then we headed back to our rooms. On facebook you can see all the hard effort I am putting into petting one of the cows. I have yet to do so because they back away, but Kate posted a picture of my attempt. In my room I wrote more of my essay getting me up to 1577 words. Just 400 to go, with 2 more paragraphs! I then wrote yesterdays blog and finally remembered to shower around 5pm. When Jen returned at 6pm we had dinner. At the dining hall, there were two servers standing right in front of us talking where there was no pie served. We stood there for a while and nothing, so I reached for the server and the lady was appalled that I would do such a thing and proceeded to snarkily ask "Do you want pie?" Then she called me out for not having my card on my tray, which was in fact my mistake; I had just forgotten to put it on there. As a result, she asked me "Are you from here?" which generally when I get that question the answer is "no" as in I'm not from England. Her response was "so you're going to pay for your food?" So I was like "oh from Leazes, yes, I live here." (all while thinking 'from castle leazes?' yeah born and raised right here in this dorm, dumbass, learn to speak proper English) Then she asked "you sure?" (yeah I'm pretty sure...) I said "yeah" and she said "You don't seem so sure" (I'M AS SURE THAT I LIVE HERE AS I AM THAT YOU HAVE A SAD LIFE) "Well, I am. I live here." Because of all this, she actually paid attention making sure we swiped our cards. Too bad Jen had forgotten hers for the first time... so we tried to sneakily get her mine to swipe so she didn't have to run back but the bitch saw. Long story short, I may get fined for Jen trying to swipe my card, but Jen begged them not to since it wasn't my fault, so we will see what happens. After dinner I got to skype :) Then Jen and Kate ended up in my room for some TBBT.

Day 65

This Sunday began with toast, hot cocoa, and TBBT while I took the braids out of my hair. I then brushed my hair out and it turned into a "blondfro" as Jen and I referred to it. After taking a shower, Jen blow dried my hair and braided it so we could create my 'fro' again, meanwhile Kate was chilling with us too. After getting my hair out of my face, it was time to crank out more essay. By the end of my reading, researching, and essay writing for the day I had more than doubled my previous wordcount bringing me to 995, halfway to being done! I got to skype Mama! and later Dad and Deki came home and talked to me! Oh, and of course I got to see my beautiful, sleeping beauty: Sophie, as well as Dakota, while chasing his tail! I ate dinner with Jen and Kate while Jen and Liz hung around with us. The five of us headed to pubquiz, frantically texting Will about his attendance (or lack there of) and letting Antoine know not to bring annoying boy with him. Unfortunately for us, how could annoying boy ever forget about pubquiz; he beat all of us there. So, we sat at a different table than him, when we had clearly seen him, yet he still didn't take a hint and moved to our table. I was in charge of the paper and pen tonight, writing the answers everyone told me, unless I couldn't spell it. Then, I heard a question purely meant for me starting with "In mathematics..." once the announcer finished the question, annoying boy tore the paper away from me and took away my glory of getting to answer 'dodecagon'! Kate, very obviously annoyed, ripped the paper away from Mark and gave it back to me. Our whole table got very excited with the category 'America', little did we know it was referring to both North and South. Regardless, we ended up getting 9 out of the 10 questions correct. One question listed all the states and provinces that bordered a specific state, and I got the answer with 'Montana.' Then, another question discussed a river the flows from Canada to the ocean (there were more details to the question that I can't recall), which I new was 'St. Lawrence River,' but since annoying boy is the expert and from Canada, he stole it away again. I mean it when I say I refuse to sit with him next week. I will sit down at another table, even if it is to play by myself. Or, maybe I will just leave. Because it will be no fun when I'm getting in trouble for punching annoying boy in the neck (how Delisle of me!) I returned to my room and skyped Matt, and somehow found myself doing a tripod in the attempt to do a headstand for him. After skyping, I laid in Jen's room eating my dry frosted flakes and watching TBBT.

Day 64

Though I woke up fairly late from staying out (oh, and the 4AM visitors knocking, yelling, and singing at Plum's door), I found that today has been my most productive day since being at Uni here in England. I ate breakfast and watched TBBT, then I showered and helped Jen and Kate confirm the details of the previous night. I sat in my room and read research for my paper. I ended up getting 439 words done today, which means I'm 25% done! Then I went to make lunch and was joined by Jen. We ate in my room, again watching TBBT the rest of the afternoon while I nearly finished my Diff EQ homework; I'm really almost done. We made dinner and spent the night watching more TBBT and Jen braided my hair. I fit in a skype call with Matt once he got back and got to vent all my frustrations on him and he made me feel so much better. But I miss him terribly. And I'm just feeling rather sad about it tonight. Only 55 days to go...

Day 63

Finally Friday... I had breakfast with the girls and class from 9-11am. After, I headed over to the library for the second time ever to get books for my essay. I returned to my room and had a stress breakdown while working on my Number Theory homework; I finished it to the best of my ability, but I know there are some wrong things I just can't work out. I also wrote a bit of the opening of my essay to make a concrete outline. Then, I had my last class at 4, returned to the dorm, and Jen fitted the pink friendship bracelet she had made for me. I knocked on doors to see who was ready for dinner and we all headed over there. We split up fairly quickly so that we could all get ready, shower, nap, etc. In my room, I skyped with my boy, then went to Jen's hoping to nap on her bed. I didn't get to nap, but I at least got to rest and talk with her and Antoine. Eventually, I hopped in the shower and got dressed so that Jen could blow dry and style my hair and do my make-up; I told her she could do anything she wanted. After, we headed over to Esther's room where we danced and laughed, especially at Will in his monkey suit. I also climbed up the walls in the hallway. We took taxis to the bar, Antoine and I were last, but when I got there Esther had so sweetly bought me a diet coke :) We all discussed which club to go to; the ultimate decision was Riverside, so Esther and Katie went home, letting me know I was definitely invited to join them if I wished. I decided to stick the night out. I had plenty of fun dancing, but I felt like I was babysitting and just got annoyed at people alot. A couple of guys tried to dance with me, but were fairly easy to get rid of. I got elbowed in the eye, but at least I didn't get kicked in the head, like Will. I was happy to come home and separate because I was tired of the stress I felt by keeping track of everyone.

Day 62

A typical thursday morning start, breakfast with Jen and ran into Will at breakfast. He was really running late, but since we were going to the same seminar, I waited for him and we walked over together... only to find a note on the door saying our seminar was cancelled. It was kind of lame that we walked all the way to campus only to return again immediately. I then returned to my bed to take a nap because I hadn't slept well. I woke up in time to eat a nice lunch and go to my remaining classes. First, I had Faith, Reason, and the Cosmos. He talked to us about our essays: format, expectations, references. Since I am a study abroad student, he doesn't expect me to learn a new method for citing my sources, so I can use whichever I like. I also found out that this was my last day of that class; we had covered all the material, so now we just need to write and hand in our final essays. The essay is 100% of my grade, 2000 words long (about 7 pages), and we should only have 1 or 2 sources. And 300% stressful.. oh, did I mention I have less than 3 weeks to do it? Then, I had Diff EQ, pretty standard class, uneventful, the usual. Jen had texted me, so I met up with her Antoine, Jen, and Liz while they were just chilling at Costa Coffee. Eventually, we headed back and Jen and I went to dinner with the girls, where Will met up with us again. After dinner I got to skype my boy, and we did some facebook rearranging, so now I am Matthew Dimasi so it looks like he is dating himself... silly boy. After skype, I went to Jen's room with my Number Theory homework and only started it a bit before watching a bunch of Jenna Marbles vlogs with Jen, Jen, Liz, Kate, and Antoine... I think Antoine has found his soulmate, he loved all of her videos that we watched. Then it was an early night to bed, or so I tried... I ended up rolling around for hours before falling asleep.

Day 61

This was just a normal Wednesday... 9am breakfast with the girls, then Faith, Reason, and the Cosmos lecture, a break, and seminar. All went well, and I think this is the last week I will have this class. I returned to my room and did some laundry waiting for Jen to return from her classes at 2pm. We chilled in my room watching the new Glee. After, we made our way over to her room and booked our trip, which she had fully researched. We turned this into a bit of a race; as it turned out, loser ended up paying 3 pounds more for one of the flights... it's too bad I had forgotten to check the 'terms and conditions' box. In the end, we are spending 6 nights in Athens, Greece and 3 nights in Venice, Italy with a day trip to Verona (thanks to my request). I am so excited... Just 4 weeks of classes, 3 essays and an exam stand between me and the beaches of Greece. Hopefully motivation will find me soon!
After booking the trip and everyone returned, we went to dinner with the girls. I returned to my room for a skype date where Matt spend half the time making a fake 'Matthew Dimasi' on facebook so he could be in a relationship with himself.. what a fool. At least he let me choose his new profile picture! I joined the girls in Jen's room where we rocked out to 90's music, which somehow changed to High School Musical. Since Jen had never seen HSM, I spent an hour trying to find it online. We finished watching it by 11pm. Good, yet pathetic night :)

Day 60

Sorry for not updating... I had forgotten to hit the 'publish' button. Anyway, yesterday, Tuesday.. that's what day we are on now.  I had breakfast with the girls, got ready for class, and finally got to see my friend Will again! I had 4 hours of classes today; All of them went well, a little slow trying to get back into going to class and such. I returned to my room around 6:10ish and we all headed off to dinner. After dinner, I had another skype date with the lovely boy who made my day better. We may not be skyping today, depending on his return time from the hospital. After skyping I headed to Jen's room and had a girly night with Jen, Jen, Liz, and Kate. We sat around talking about relationships and boys for a bit, then started a movie on my computer. We watched a "girly comedy" as they hoped: Bride Wars. We had a good night of laughs and bitching. :)

Day 59

After rolling around, unable to sleep all day, I dreaded the hours to come after the sound of my alarm. I found on facebook that I am Co-Vice President of UVM Quidditch! I went to breakfast with the girls, then headed over to my 9am, 2 hour lecture that I was dreading. As it turned out, we had a debate with roleplaying in my Environment and Sustainability class. I volunteered to be a commissioner, the Climate Change one, to be exact. This meant I did not have to speak, but I got to be a part of the final decision. Unfortunately, it happened to be about putting up a farm of wind turbines, which I had so much I wanted to say. I had a great time in that class though. Then I handed in my Cryptography assignment and waited for my next class in an hour. In the mean time, I ran into the Jennifer from UVM and talked with her a bit.  During my Number Theory Lecture, I got really tired and restless and just could not wait for that class to be over. I met up with my Canadian Jen to walk back to the dorms with. We made lunch together and then she joined me in my room, braiding my hair while we watched the film 'Friends with Benefits.' Eventually, it was time for tea, so us girls made our way to the Dining Hall; I had vegetarian lasanga and carrots. I made sure to leave dinner at 6:50 so I could be back in time for my 7:00 skype date on our 4 month-i-versary. We had a very interesting conversation for an hour.. including why Matt would make his own ideal boyfriend :D Such a funny boy. I joined Jen in her room and we started looking up hostels and flights for our vacation to Greece and Italy!!!! So excited! We are thinking Athens, Venice, and Verona. We ended up in Kate's room where Jen, Jen, and Liz had joined us for pre-partying, though Jen and I were not going out with them. We danced... and I ended up dressing like a superhero with Kate's Spongebob blanket as my cape. The girls left for the club and Jen and I are just chilling, maybe watching a movie, painting nails, colouring, macrame-ing... whatever we feel.

Day 58

I slept in quite a bit this morning and got a late start. After preparing my toast and hot cocoa I leaned on Jen's door and started falling in so I walked in to hang out with her while I ate my breakfast. Eventually, Kate came in also and we just chatted for a half hour or so. Then, I needed to shower, Kate needed lunch, and Jen wanted to make cocoa, so they headed to the kitchen while I wandered to the bathroom for my shower. After my shower I heard giggling so I went straight to the kitchen. Kate was about to head into town and Jen asked if she could come to my room because she works better in there. Of course she was invited. We watched Miss Congeniality while I finished my Cryptography homework easily and she worked on her powerpoint. Then, she braided my hair a bunch. She left to skype, so I chilled a bit in my room and eventually we regrouped. The three of us started watching Holy Musical B@man.. it's so funny so far, simply amazing. We paused to make dinner and saw one of the Louises'. Back in my room, watching the Starkid, Kate made me pause it because she heard jingling... that could only mean one thing: the other Louise was here! We all made our way to Esther's room and discussed the generic layout of horror films and our fears of things under our beds. Kate, Jen, and I ended up in my room again where I began a macrame bracelet; they both request I make one for each of them, both red. The one I was making ended up tiny, so it had to be for my tiny wrist. While listening to music and starting another bracelet, I received a skype call. The girls stayed seated because they felt they needed to meet Matt. After saying hello, they decided to leave us to talking. Kate realised she was wearing very very very short short-shorts, so I had to block the camera to prevent her from 'scarring Matt', as Kate put it. Matt told me how he got his friend Zak back for all the abuse I received from him. :) and his friends had to check for a UVM shirt under his jacket. After skyping, I ended up in Jen's room with Kate and Jen... testing out my 50 ft ethernet cable, which does, in fact, easily reach Jen's room, where I am now writing my blog.

Day 57

Another morning of sleeping in.. I had some toast and tea while watching Doctor Who. I showered and returned to my room thinking I would be doing my Cryptography homework... then Jen comes in "hey Naked Girl." She left to get lunch, I heard a blood-curddling scream, so I went towards the kitchen where Kate was laughing so hard because she scared Jen. Jen ended up coming back to my room with lunch, so I set her up watching the latest Big Bang Theory episodes on my computer while I started my Cryptography assignment. Kate joined us shortly after. I managed to get through half of my assignment, then just watched with them. All of the sudden the skype song started playing. Matt had time this morning so he decided to skype me, which was an incredible surprise because he is spending the weekend watching his brother's lacrosse game and seeing all his friends. I eventually joined Kate and Jen in Kate's room and Antoine came shortly after. We played a game while watching Big Bang Theory. Once we got hungry, we migrated to the kitchen to make dinner, then ended up in Jen's room, where more people came: Jen, Jen, Liz, Kory, and Mark. We just chilled, listening to music and joking around.

Day 56

I slept in until 11am, when Jen came banging on my door. I happily, yet sleepily, got up and we made breakfast together in the kitchen. After taking a shower, the two of us made a trip to Tescos for much needed grocery shopping; I hopefully got enough to last me 3 or 4 weeks. On our walk back we discovered the nearby park had a maze, so we took a detour to go through the 2 foot maze. As we made our way back through what has been nicknamed 'the cowpatch' we discovered why.... there were about 20-30 hours just chillin in the park where many people walk through daily. Back in my room, I made a pbj sandwich with REAL, DELICIOUS, AMERICAN PEANUT BUTTER. Of course, Jen had to have a spoonful. We made Kate taste it, and she still thinks it's gross... These Brits don't know what they've missed out on. After lunch, I went to my room for a nap and some Doctor Who, and a surprise skype from Matt. Then, on my way back to Jen's room, I saw Esther had returned and received a lovely welcome back hug. Jen asked me to join her, Antoine, and Jennifer for dinner. We walked down to a pub called The Crow's Nest and ordered dinner and a beer. Then we went over to Tesco Express and bought an expiring chocolate cake that needed to be eaten by the next day... it lasted 3 minutes.. it never stood a chance against the Jens and I. Antoine was amazed at how much and fast we ate the cake. We enjoyed our cake while getting freaked out about travelling alone by watching the movie Taken, which was such a good movie, but like Contagion.. I just keep watching these things at a bad time. After the movie, Jen and I ran into Kate, and returned to Jen's room to talk and hang out for an hour before bed.


Here are the millions of pictures Matt requested so he knows what it looks like where I am!

 Why is it called  the cowpatch?

 The Castle Leazes Park

 Downtown near Tescos

 The maze... if you look closely you'll find a Canadian

 The park again

 The cowpatch

 with cows

 How cute!

 tired cows.

 the green within Castle Leazes

 with a Canadian

 My window is the second one down and the second one from the left... yes my curtains are closed.

Blossoming tree in the green

Day 55

All my flights went well; they all arrived early too. I hardly managed to get back into the U.K. I kept offering to show him my student ID and paperwork, but he decided to just be difficult and annoyed. But I made it through and gathered my luggage, then went out front to get a taxi. It was expensive, but worth it to finally get back to a location where it's acceptable for me to be horizontal. Neither Jen or Kate were in their rooms when I got back, so I just got on skype to let mama know I was here and started unpacking. I found Jen in the hallway out of breath from hurrying back as soon as she could to see me. Just minutes later Kate barged through my door and jumped on me. Eventually we went to the CLEAN kitchen for dinner; I had to make my pasta. (The cleaning lady put all the dirty dishes under the sink, so it's absolutely disgusting to open that door.) We returned to my room to have a film night. We decided on "The Proposal" and Jen sat me down next to her to play with my hair. Needless to say, I passed out for most of the movie. When it was over, they left me so I could sleep. Little did they know I got a facebook message from Gayle about skyping Matt when she got home. So, I made hot cocoa and stayed up to skype my boy, who kept me laughing as usual. Then I slept for 12 hours... :)