Christy

So today was a post worthy event.

We are currently in Krakow, Poland.  We met up with some people that the girl I'm traveling with knows from Leeds Uni at our hostel.  They just happened to staying at the same hostel that we had booked.  We hung out with them all day.  We went to Wawel Castel and wandered the grounds, then went and hiked up the mound, which is this designed hill on top of another hill.  Then we went back to the hostel after going to a grocery store.

We were hanging around the common room of the hostel, and this guy, Jonathan, started talking to us.  He was from Scotland, and living in Manchester.  We were talking for ages, and he was wicked interesting.  He was travelling with a friend, Patrick (from Ireland also living in Manchester), and they were leaving for Vienna tonight.  Patrick returned from walking all over Krakow, and we were planning to going out to eat Peirogi tonight, and invited them along.

So we get the peirogis, and they're kind of crap, but not bad.  They had been boiled rather than fried.  Earlier during the day, the guy dressed in a beer costume had been passing out coupons for free beer.  After eating, we decided to go to place for drinks, but I don't drink, so I was just hanging.  So we go, hang out.  We are ready to go, and ask for the bill, and the waitress says Patrick had already payed it, which was wicked nice.

Meghan had heard that at McDonald's here, you can get a Nutella McFlurrie.  You can, I had it, and it was amazing.  Just like Nutella, and totally worth it.  While the other girls and I were getting ice cream, Patrick and Jonathan decided they wanted to get rid of their remaining Polish zlotys by offering to buy us all drinks.  So we went looking for a pub.  Found one that was underground went there.

So the guys get us all drinks.  Since they were buying, I enjoyed my Coke.  We hung out there for ages.  We thought it was getting close to time to go, but then Jonathan has bought everyone another round.  They were just so cool, and so much fun to talk to.  And they are gay.  And in Manchester!  Which is so close to Leeds.  There are plans in the future for meeting up at some point.  It was just so cool.

The original plan, was take away peirogis, and then back to the hostel.  We were out for like four hours, and it was so much fun.  I think it was one of my favorite nights so far on this trip.

At some point, I will blog the rest of my trip.  So far, it's been London, Canterbury, Paris, Bremen, Vienna, Prague, and Krakow.  Tomorrow Meghan and I fly to Milan.  And I will try Italian wine, and other alcohol.

In just over 7 hours, I will be leaving Leeds.  Until April 12th.

It's Easter break here, which is four weeks long.  I am using it to travel, obviously.  My friend is out for the week, currently passed out, as we get up in less than 6 hours to get to the bus on time.

My break will be spent seeing (in order):
London (England)
Canterbury (England)
Dover (England)
Calais (France)
Paris (France)
Bremen (Germany)
Vienna (Austria)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Krakow (Poland)
Milan (Italy)
Verona (Italy)
Venice (Italy)
Bologna (Italy)
Florence (Italy)
Pisa (Italy)
Rome (Italy)
Naples (Italy)

Then back to Rome for one night to leave for Liverpool and the train back to Leeds.

The only place I've been to before on that list is Rome, and I know nothing about German, Czech, or Polish language.

It is going to be a brilliant trip.  I am very excited.  And will be very broke by the end.

I can't wait until after classes end.  I intend to travel during the break between my exams and I have a week between my last one and my current departure date for the US.

Mostly, this post will act as a placeholder for me to figure out where things left off with my flist.  It's going to be a long month, with spotty internet access.  Luckily, most of the hostels have internet, so I won't totally lose contact.

I just noticed it's been awhile.

Well, since Sherwood Forest/Nottingham, I have been to York, Newcastle, and Scarborough.


It's late.  I'll talk about the other two tomorrow.

I feel like such a loser, but I think I might go.

If it weren't going to be right in Boston, I might not be considering it.  Hmmm...

 OMG!

I saw a Dalek today!


No really!


It was on a sidewalk.  It was one of the darker colored ones.


Dalek!

I have no idea why, but I saw it from the bus in a random suburb.  I may have to ride the bus around that suburb tomorrow to see if it's still there.  With my camera.

DALEK!!!

I walked around in the city center for a bit today.  While wandering, I came across a theater/opra house.  They are currently running Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  For some reason, my flat mates have been singing music from that show for the last week or so.  I decided to find out how much tickets were.  It would be nice to go with someone, but then I decided that if I wait for someone to be going with me, I will just miss out on things.  So I went and saw it, for the third time, this afternoon at a 2pm matinee.

I bought cheap balcony seats, because cheap is good.  When I was walking up to the balcony, an usher was waiting in the corridor to the seats.  He said that because there were only eight of us in the balcony sections, they were offering us a free upgrade to "stall" seats.  Apparently these are the most expensive seats, and have the best "atmosphere."  Yay for free upgrade!

The show was great.  I haven't seen this show in years, and it was delightful, if at times slightly strange.  They did some very funny visual gags, and there was this wicked funny traveling montage when they were bringing Joseph from Canaan to Egypt.

It has been a long time since I saw last saw the show, but maybe it was just this production, but there was a ton of homoerotic innuendo.  Not that I'm complaining of course, but there was so much and it was so deliberate.  And this is a Bible story, which just makes it that much better.  This version seemed particularly irreverent, and I loved it for that.  Maybe the other ones were like that too, but I was too young to really notice it.

Of course, I am a slashy fangirl, so I was slashing the boys.  I immediately decided I liked Narrator/Joseph, but then later Pharoh/Joseph was looking good too.  Then there was a moment when Joseph was in chains still and the Narrator and Pharoh were there too, and I was like, "Yay kinky bondage threesome!"  And I was happy.

Slashable Bible Musicals Make Me Happy.

atomic_number80, you'll never guess what happens to be playing when you guys are thinking of coming to town.

I started watching Doctor Who, since I have so much free time at the moment.  I just finished season 2 a few minutes ago.  All of the last four episodes of the season had me crying like a baby.  Though some of that might be exhaustion.  I am running on about 2.5 (at best) hours of sleep.  So good.  Now on to season 3!  Tomorrow apparently.  As it is midnight.  And I got home at 6am, and was up at 9:30 to get to my 11am class on time.

I had to do a practical report, and it took ages, because I was so tired.  At first, I was just going to start it and finish it later, but I decided just to do it and get it overwith.  It took hours and hours.  Probably 5 and a half or so.  This should not have taken that long.  I need to sleep.

So I've been here nearly 3 weeks.  Quite nice so far.  Have been to Liverpool, Sherwood Forest, and Nottingham.  Liverpool was lovely.  Beautiful buildings, right on the water.  It was named the European capital of culture this year, and there were signs about that everywhere.  Sherwood forest was beautiful.  Surprisingly large numbers of birch trees.  It had snowed that morning, just a dusting, but the sun came out while we were walking around, and it was just beautiful.  Nottingham was alright, but not as good as Liverpool.  I feel like most of cultural Nottingham got wiped out by industrialization, and it can't get back to that.  Still, they do have the oldest pub in England (established 1192) and that was interesting to walk around in, and the castle that wasn't as much a castle as a large house, now a museum, with gorgeous, sprawling laws.  And a gazebo.

I'm determined to try and go somewhere every weekend, otherwise I won't go anywhere.  This weekend, I'm thinking I might go to York.  The weekend following, the international office is doing a trip to Newcastle, so that is where I think I shall go.

Classes are alright, I may spend some time exploring the city center some more tomorrow if the weather's nice.  Which will be nice.

It's amazing the things you miss.  I had such a craving today for macaroni and cheese from a box (like Kraft but I know there's no Kraft here, so I was willing to settle).  I couldn't find one.  Well, maybe at Morrison's, but I was too tired to go all the way out there just for that.  May go looking for that tomorrow.

One thing I didn't know was American:  Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Two things I didn't know had gone International:  Blockbuster and Dominos.

Third Observation:  Jet lag sucks.

 So the last few days have been excellent.

Thursday I went on a campus tour, and feel slightly less lost when trying to find things on campus.  Then I wandered around for awhile, came back to the dorm, did some shopping, then went back to campus.  Back at campus we had a social meet people thing.  Usual icebreaker type thing.  

Then we were brought to the Student Union.  The Union here is huge and confusing and has a large number of stores and bars and even a couple of nightclubs.  At the Union, we went to the Terrace which is a bar, and hung around.  I met a few people there that I have run into a number of times since.  A lot of the international students I've met so far have been from the US, Canada, or Australia.  I've met some from other locations as well, of course.

Friday it was really hard to get out of bed.  I am just so tired!  I'm guessing it is one of the effects of the jet lag.  Eventually, I got out of bed, and went to campus.  I bought a ticket for the trip to Liverpool at the end of the month.  Then, the plan had been to go use a computer to figure out where my classes are, and then wander around and find them, but I ran into the library tour that I had forgotten about, and decided to just join them.  So we toured both libraries, then attended the compulsory international students meeting.

After, one of my friends wanted to go downtown in search of a cell phone, so I decided to come along.  We wandered around for awhile, but couldn't find the stores, so we went to the grocery store that was nearby.  Eventually I got back to the flat.  I had another international mixer that I was supposed to go to, so I did.  It was in a bar, and it was very hot.  I met some people there, but when those conversations ended, decided to go back to the dorm. 

I figured I would just hang out in the room, and go to bed, but when I got back there were a lot of people in the flat, as they were celebrating one of the girl's birthday.  They were going to go clubbing downtown, and asked me along, so I went clubbing in Britain for the first time.  It was a lot of fun, despite knowing all of one song the entire night, and getting briefly separated.  Eventually we left the club, and got some fried food, before catching the bus back to the flat, where we then had the birthday cake and tea.  Met new people, had a good time.  Very good night all around.

So here I am, in England.

Getting here was not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be.  Both the flight to Chicago and the flight to Manchester were very empty.  As in for the second leg, one of the flight attendants said there were 90 open seats.  It was as good as a 7 hour flight with the in-flight entertainment malfunctioning could be.  

Well, I wish I had been able to sleep more, but am unsurprised I did not.  I left Chicago 6:30 Boston time, and arrived in Manchester at 2am Boston time.  I think I was up until 2am the night before.  That was my normal sleep time.

The only bad thing that happened was my luggage had a nervous breakdown and a wheel had broken off.  Then the second broke two minutes after leaving baggage.  Duct tape was a successful fix temporarily, but could not withstand the rough terrain.  Luckily it was a short miserable time of trying to carry that thing.

Then I was off on the train from Manchester to Leeds.  The scenery was beautiful.  We were going through the countryside and by and through smaller towns.  They were so squished together.  In the busier locations we went through, many were double family homes.  Sometimes they would look funny, as one would be redecorated with a new colored roof, or white walls with the other half remaining the same.

I arrived in my room at approximately 10am, 5am Boston time.  Dead tired, but knew that if I didn't keep myself awake to adjust, it would just get harder.  So I stayed awake.  

I decided to explore, to make sure I could find my university and then checked in with the International Students Office, and wandered around the campus for awhile.  I decided to venture to the Union they raved over so highly, and became seriously lost.  Not pleasant.  I had a map and everything.  It just didn't work out.  Eventually I made my way there and wandered around.  Decided maybe I wanted a nap in a library before deciding what to do and talked to a Campus Security Officer who was giving me directions.  

After speaking with him, I decided against the nap, and that I would rather just go home and go shopping for food before it got dark.

Then I got horribly lost.  This time worse.  I thought I was taking a short cut.  But it didn't work, and I discovered by asking people that I was going completely the wrong direction.  Needed to backtrack a good 10 minutes at least.  By that time, the sun was going down, and I thought I was going to have trouble getting back to the dorm before sun down.  It didn't take as long as I thought, and I was able to get back.

Then I start talking with the only one of my flatmates that was around.  We talk for awhile, then the others come back and we keep talking.  Through various people cooking at different times and a number of meals.  It was a very good time, and I feel like I have gotten to know them pretty well.  I had been afraid that being friends with them would be a bust, as when I first got there, it was with all of them on the verge of running out the door somewhere.  I am happy to say I have been proved wrong.

Now, with about 12 hours before I need to get up again, I am going to sleep.

So the semester from Hell is pretty much over. All that's left is my lab paper and finding out just how badly I did this semester.

This was one bad semester.  For one reason or another, I hated every single one of my classes.  When I am not interested or feel resentment towards a subject, I have a lot of trouble finding the motivation to do anything for it.  If I had had even one class that I actually enjoyed, I probably would have had the motivation to carry myself through the semester.  But no.  I know that it's my own fault, but it is so frustrating.  I know two of my grades for the semester so far.  One is expected, and since I stopped going to class, a B was pretty good.  Going to class wouldn't have helped I can pretty much guarantee.  An A- in A-Chem is slightly disappointing, but since I didn't do well on the first exam, and couldn't remember terms on the final, I am reasonably pleased.  The rest remain a mystery.  

I am afraid for Infectious Disease.  That class was so disappointing.  It could have been amazing, but the professor was terrible, and it was very apparent that he doesn't know much about bacteria.  

Biochem sucked, because the second professor sucked.  

Japanese was disappointing this semester, as nearly all conversation done in class was scripted, so I don't feel like I learned anything towards fluency.

I really need to finish my paper for the lab stuff.  That, I think, is pretty much a guaranteed A.  It may be my only one for this semester, which makes me sad.  

I'm applying to summer programs with my transcript before the grades for this semester come out.  I am afraid of what it will do to my GPA.

It is so weird.  I am going to be in England in less than three weeks.  I'll be there for about 5 months doing study abroad.  I was originally going to try and find a place in a lab to do research for the semester while I was there, but I may just take a break.  I find lab work tends to consume my life, leaving me with no time left.

I don't know what to do with lab.  I don't mind it, and the project is somewhat interesting.  But it's too macro-scale for me.  I want to be doing things like genetic engineering and making constructs and mutants and doing stuff with them.  I don't know.  I might just stay there.  I know what's going on, and I'm getting to know the people, and since I'm going abroad, I don't think I'll have time to go and find a new lab to play in and do enough research for my thesis as well.

Status: Human

The game has been active for almost 24 hours now. There are 1118 participants at the moment, and they have another twenty minutes to sign up. We represent about one fifth of the campus. We are up to only 78 zombies so far. These numbers have been updated as I write this entry, as they are continually growing. This morning, when we began, we numbered around 600, with only five zombies lurking about. At the moment, I remain a human. Survival is key.

The numbers of my comrades is obviously high. They are easy to spot, and as the paranoia builds, it is nice to know when there are others in the resistance in the area. But the zombies are out there, waiting and trying to increase their own numbers. I can only hope that we can survive this attack.

I am surprised I have survived this long. The first close encounter with a zombie, the zombie showed signs of self-preservation, and fled without making an attempt. A second encounter was right after a meeting in the campus center. This zombie, content with the kills it had made earlier that day, made a half-hearted attempt, then allowed me to escape unharmed. I have been lucky so far.

In returning from Sylvan, I was alert and wary, walking alone in the semidarkness of the night and the lights lining the street. I walked nervously, as zombies are harder to spot in the dark at a distance, as their mark is harder to see. I was encouraged by the sight of two, large zombie hunting parties. As I approached them, I felt the safety numbers provides, and walked easily the rest of the way to my dorm and safety.

As I hardly ever post, I don't think I've mentioned this yet. For some unknown reason, I can hardly smell anything anymore. I first noticed it back in March or April. People would order food while I was at work, and I wouldn't be able to smell it, but others would comment on how good it smells. I was walking back to Southwest once, and the whole area was doing a huge bbq. I couldn't smell anything they were cooking, but at one point I got a faint whiff of ketchup. It's been pretty strange. I can smell some things, but not others. I can't really tell if it's affecting my sense of taste, but I think it might be. I can't really think of any strong flavours that come to mind. It's more obnoxious and unsettling than anything.

Hmm... it's rather strange being back in Massachusetts. Though not as strange as I had thought it would be. I have gone from working full time at the lab to staying up until all hours of the night and getting up anywhere from 10am (on the rare occasion) to 3 in the afternoon. I rather miss the lab. I was working all the time, but I enjoyed it, so being there really wasn't a chore. It was more fun than work. My lab was great. I miss them.

I've taken to cooking since I've come back. I went from preparing all of my own meals to coming back and having to do very little. As a result, I've taken to experimenting. I've done apple bread, banana bread, smoothies, today I tried cheesecake. So far, the cheesecake has been the only one I wasn't completely pleased with. It's still alright though. I've been scouring the internet for interesting recipes. Might do chocolate chunk scones tomorrow.

It's been kind of frustrating. The family doesn't cook very often, so I've had to go and buy all the ingredients. Though it's nice not having to scour the kitchen in search of somethings, as if we have it, I probably bought it since I returned. It has been nice continuing to experiment.

Cooking is fun when I don't have much to do, or I am not doing much beyond coming home from work and feeding myself. I like cooking for myself. Cooking for more than a couple of people begins to feel like work and get annoying. I can't imagine living off campus at school and having to do it all the time there though. I am just too busy that it would just be annoying. I'll enjoy doing it while I'm here though.

I can't wait until I have my own place (when I go to grad school at the latest). Then I can have my own space that is my responsibility and can cook for just myself without guilt.

I know that I don't update all that much, but I'm here all the time. I use this LJ mostly so I can get access to fannish places that require membership to see their content. I love fandom. I just don't actively participate much. Because of this, LJ's actions of late are totally pissing me off. I tend to be a lurker more than anything, but I've had to join more communities I follow, as the lock down to hopefully save their members from LJ abuse. LJ abuse has decided they are masters of literary and art criticism and can judge the artistic merit of "obscene" pieces.

Deletions have started up again, and it's unreasonable. A permanent account was deleted for a piece of art where Harry doesn't even look underage. The fandom is looking to potentially move to greener pastures and I am totally willing to follow it. As such I am linking to fandom_flies which may eventually lead to a massive fandom exodus to some other location.

As of earlier this evening, I've made a Greatest Journal, as that seems to be the place most people are gathering. Same username there: acrystalbane. I'll continue to read here as well.

So I have bought and finished the Seventh Harry Potter Book.

I went and bought it at midnight. Originally, I had preordered a copy with a friend at a Barnes and Noble. My friend went and got a wristband that gave us a place in line. We were 215. On our way to the B&N pretty close to midnight, like 11:30ish, her mother called and mentioned that they were waiting at a Hy-Vee, local supermarket chain, to get theirs. We decided, since we were so far into the line, we may as well check and see if the Hy-Vee close to the B&N was doing a midnight release as well, and what their line was like. We went, they were, and we were the first to actively form a line. I received the very first copy they sold at exactly 12:01am and started reading immediately.

I read until about 6:15am, when I decided I needed to sleep. I set my alarm for 10, got up, and kept going until the end just after 3pm. I believe it took a little over 11 hours to read, start to finish.
( DH Spoilers )
It's so weird about it all being over. Well, it feels more like the end on a drawn out fanfic that just took 10 years to write. It's strange. I remember Harry being older than I was when I first started reading the books. I must have been 10. Now I'm 20. Well, back to the fanfic. At some point, I'll have to just start at Book 1, and just read all the way through.

It has been a great story.

If you had this horrible feeling that somehting was wrong, and you were terrified about what you thought it could be, would you want to get it checked out immediately? or wait until it was more convenient and less disruptive of current life?

So at the moment, I'm in Iowa.

It's very nice, though not quite what I had expected. There are more hills and fewer cornfields where we are, though that's different once you get out of the city and away from the river. Their "city" feels quite small to me. It feels only slightly more built up than some of the towns in my area back home. The other people in my program are amazing, and we all get along so well. There are eleven of us total, 10 girls, one guy. He handles the situation very well. Most of us call the east coast home, with a few midwesterners and one from Washington.

This is the third week I've been here. It's a college town, and the sheer quantity of bars is astounding. The first weekend, I didn't go out, because I was exhausted and my eye was twitching like crazy. I went out last friday though, and it was great. Honestly, I've never really been to a bar before, so this was a nice experience. I choose not to drink, but I'm the only one in the program. I watched as the rest of them all got very drunk, and we went out. It was fun. We didn't get back until 2am. I totally do not feel like an idiot dancing around drunk people, despite my lack of talent.

My lab group is great. There are two grad students, a full time research assistant, a part time research assistant, and two other undergrads. My grad student is from SD, and has been in the midwest her whole life. She's very sweet and great to work with. She's invited me as well as everyone else in our lab to her wedding. The other grad student is from CA. He likes having me around, as he feels that no one understands him here, and at least he has someone from a coast with me. The full time RA is great too. She's also from IA. Our lab is so relaxed. Every friday, we have a "lab meeting." When our PI goes to play golf in the morning, we go over to the cafe in the next building and go eat. It's great. This week we have taken similar ice cream and chocolate breaks. The other labs are not nearly so cool. They are actually serious and stressful. The research is interesting too. I'm glad that I actually understand what's going on and why I'm doing what I'm doing.

We had our first tornado last week too. Thursday one went through east Iowa City. The building I work in, is built like a bomb shelter and you have to walk into the adjoining lab to get to the window, but still, we couldn't even hear the alarms.

I think this is/has been/will be a wonderful experience. I'm already loving being out here, though I wouldn't want to stay full time.

Sooooo.... it's been about two months, and I've been working myself to the bone at school. Would have been just fine if I hadn't been hit hard with bronchitis, a fever, and an ear infection (Wouldn't have bothered to get checked out, but less than a week from getting sick, I was coughing so hard I was straining my eye muscles and beginning to get pain in the back of my head when I would cough). Right now I'm on Spring Break, but that's not the point. I'm taking 18 credits, working Residence Hall Security (which is an awesome job. I sit at the desk and do homework and get paid $8/hr to do so), and am now working in a lab. In lab, we're looking at how the genes of these bacteria over a coal mine that's been on fire for like, 30 years or so, have adjusted to be able to survive in the heat. Currently, I spend a lot of time isolating plasmids from genomic DNA, digesting said plasmids, then running a gel electrophoresis. Pretty cool, though I feel like an idiot in lab. It is pretty nice though. The professor I work with is new this year, and doesn't have any grad students yet, he will come fall, so it's just the four of us undergrads in the lab.

The best thing is I have been accepted into a program for the summer. I'm going to spend 10 weeks at the University of Iowa doing my own research project with a professor. The best thing: HE WORKS WITH BIOFILMS!! Which is totally exciting, if you happen to remember my babbling about biofilms in a previous entry. So I'll have about a week between the end of my (single) final and heading out to Iowa. It's exciting. I'll actually make money during the break and feel able to afford books and the like come fall semester. And I have the entire month of August to do whatever I feel like. Quite nice.

Oh, and I am utterly addicted to Voltaire. He is amazing, and I am in love with him and his music, and it's all I've been listening to, pretty much, for the last month or so.

So I've been re-watching the first season of Supernatural. I downloaded it ages ago, sometime during the semester, but never got around to watching them. I need to re-watch before downloading the second season episodes to catch up. Hehehe... they are so cute. I tend to be kinda slow when picking up the slash unless it is totally obvious, but dude, I can totally see Wincest, as it is called. Dean talks about how they can never be normal and all that, and I totally go there. And how they can read each others minds so well even after two years apart. They talk about being raised as warriors, and I think "Warriors? Spartan warriors maybe? Mmmmm...." Hehehe... these two truly amuse me. Plus they're bloody hot.