Academic Achievements. . . ish

I guess I should maybe write a little bit about my academic life here.  In British Studies, that life is AWESOME!

I mentioned in my Poland blog that I had a marathon paper writing session the night before I left, because my draft was due that Monday and I was determined to turn in a full draft and not an outline.  Well, the week after I got back I realized that I had no idea what I was supposed to know about Belvoir Castle (where we went on a field trip earlier that month) so I went to see Dr. Green to 'have a chat' about the upcoming test.  So we talk about the test and how I should approach the question blah blah blah, he makes fun of me for being hungover, then he says he has read my paper.  Basically he told me that I don't need to change anything, just a few little things, write my conclusion and turn it in.  BALLER!  I was so excited.  Simon de Montfort will forever be my hero, for being so damn interesting that my 2500 word paper is 'excellent'.

So that was awesome.  Even better was the fact that I got a freaking A on that test (which I took on Nov. 5th I think), like the complete baller that I am.  I thought I did really bad because I didn't write a single date down on it, but oh well.  Either I did well or Dr. Green just loves me, either one is fine with me!  I also got an A on my British Studies presentation, the one that I stayed up until 3am the night I got BACK from Poland completing!  I've also done no worse than a B+ on all of the 5 quizzes we have, so barring a complete failure on this last test I think I'm set for at least a B!

Politics, on the other hand, is a nightmare.  I managed to scrape two B's on my papers so the D and the C paper are dropped, but our final is 40% of our grade and I can't motivate myself to try.  It's just so boring and uninteresting to me that it is literally painful to get out of bed to go to that class.  I don't even want to talk about it.

History is going to kick my ass.  I enjoy the subject and it's interesting, but this class is tough, and when you get a study guide with 136 people, places and events that you need to know, out of which she will pick 7, out of which you need to know 4, AND two essay questions . . . even Dr. Bujak looked at it and said, "Well, this is a bitch."  I got a B- on the midterm, a B+ on my paper and an okay grade on one of my quizzes, but she hasn't yet graded one of my papers and the final is . . . well, a bitch.

So academically speaking that's where I stand.  At least I'm doing well in British Studies, which is my favorite class for a few reasons :) and it's also my easiest one, which some people can't believe.  Someone told me that if I would have taken Genetics as well, I would have had the hardest schedule possible at Harlaxton, and I'm pretty sure I believe them.

Cymru = Wales

Ahhh!  Wales was so long ago I can hardly believe it!  I'll do my best to detail it though, it was a very nice, very relaxing weekend!

However, I slept in super late and woke up at 8am - when we had to leave at 8:30am.  I'm a complete badass, though, so I managed to get up, shower, and finish packing, and make the bus with about 5 minutes to spare.  AMAZING.  And I didn't even forget anything.

The coach ride wasn't too bad because Wales isn't that far away, obviously.  Our first stop was Chester, which is still in England.  It's a Roman town with pretty walls, it's really old and cool looking but I wasn't really into shopping so we just walked around and admired the prettiness.  Then we hopped on the coach and got to the town where we were staying, this BEAUTIFUL resort town on the Atlantic Ocean.  Here's the view from our hotel!

 That night Mallory, Alex and I just had dinner and a few drinks at a pub and called it a night pretty early.

The next day was probably my favorite part of the trip, Caernafron Castle.  I said in a previous post that Blarney was my favorite, but nope, now it's Caernafron.  Edward I built it just after his conquest, and it's so fun to just crawl through everything, take the stairs and find the secret rooms, and just pretend you're a medieval court member.

LOVED IT!  I bought a few souvenirs here, then we set off to Portmeiron Village, which is this lovely little Italian-style seaside village, really idyllic and such.  It was gorgeous, but we didn't do much there, just had a delicious ham-and-cheese panini for lunch and walked around admiring the general splendor.  After that it was off to the Victorian slate mines!  That was really fun, we got to wear helmets and descend into the mines and listen to the life of a Victorian slate miner in Wales.  Daniel got felt up by an old lady in the dark, and I laughed for literally fifteen minutes - so long I got a headache!

We then headed back to our hotel, where we were going to go out but since I didn't feel like clubbing we ended up just parking in the hotel bar and drinking a few, then Daniel, Kelley, Mallory and I just hung out on the beach at night in North Wales!  It was so 'chill' and awesome.

The next day we were headed back, but we got to sleep in till about 10!  That is unheard of here, so it was extra nice!  After breakfast we left and stopped at Swallow Falls, a crazy waterfall that was especially nuts because it had been raining for a few days before we got there!  Then it was back to good ol' Harlaxton and the disgusting Sunday 'roast' dinner we all know and love.

Oh, and I bought some souvenirs in Wales because -- guess what? -- I'm WELSH!  I love my Welsh dragon necklace!

Halloween at Harlaxton

Once again, bear with me -- I've been such a crappy blogger that I have to go back into the depths of my memory to grab the things that happened A MONTH AGO!  This time, it's Halloween at Harlaxton, yet another crazy night here in England.

So Chris and I were sitting around my room with Mary trying to figure out what to be for this party that wouldn't require a ton of money.  We tossed around really stupid ideas for a few minutes before he just said, randomly, "Let's be Jim and Pam."  So the next day we went to town and bought a few things, and this is the end result.

Pretty decent, huh?  So we got together with a bunch of people and did NOT at all drink beforehand, then walked up to The Greg where Harlaxton had rented out the entire thing for the night.  It was really fun, there were some great costumes -- Sam Baker was Michael Jackson, Mary Johnson was John Lennon, etc. -- and there was a dance floor, which was cool!  And it was extra nice because we didn't have to pay for a cab to get us there or back.  

On the way back -- oh dear.  Chris had a little too much to drink so Pam had to drag Jim's ass all the way back to the carriage house, where she ended up having to tuck him in and witnessed him be a complete ass to Manny, which was probably the funniest moment of her life!  Then Alex and I and a few others smoked some hookah, ate some delicious pizza and called it a night.  Altogether it was an excellent Halloween, definitely one I won't be forgetting any time soon!

POLSKA

WOW I SUCK! I've been completely and utterly slacking on these blogs, which is unforgivable. I just hope I can remember enough detail from a month ago -- A MONTH! That's how long ago I was in Poland. Crazy!

So I stayed up really late the night before we left for Poland to finish my British Studies paper. It was an intense marathon writing session but it paid off, as I will detail later. So I slept through politics since I was really tired and I hadn't packed yet. Ed was mad, but oh well. He saw me at lunch and glared at me. One of a few drawbacks of living in the same place as your teachers.

So right after lunch Jessica and I grabbed a cab to the train station, hopped on our train to Stansted, and got there in PLENTY of time. Jessica was nervous since she hadn't done any of this before, and I hadn't either, but I ended up taking charge and just pretending like I knew what I was doing. We ate in the airport and found Ryan and Sam, boarded our flight and all was peachy!

We landed in Poland and took a cab to our hostel Can I just say that this hostel was AMAZING!?

 It was nicer than our room at Harlaxton for sure. And the people were amazing. We met this drunk guy from Liverpool who sang me High School Musical songs, it was so great. But we were exhausted so after a dinner of Polish chips and a Carlsberg we went to bed.

Next morning was the beginning of a very long, but very awesome day! We woke up early and went to the Wieliczka Salt Mines which was amazing. I saw an entire cathedral carved out of the salt. After that we had lunch then we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was incredibly depressing but I'm so glad I went. Not many people can say they have been to Auschwitz, but now I can, and it made me really proud that my papa and great-uncles fought to liberate the people from the camps.

We didn't get back to the hostel until about 9pm, but Jessica and I had to change hostels so we got our stuff and walked around Krakow looking for it. We found it and once again it was super nice and the people again were AMAZING, we got free hot dogs for dinner and free shots (Polish Mad Dogs, SO GOOD! And I'm not a shot person.) Then we met up with Sam and Ryan back at the old hostel and went to dinner. HOLY LORD IN HEAVEN, THE PIEROGIS! So so so so good.

Can I also mention that the currency, the Polish zloty, has an exchange rate of roughly 1 USD = 3 PLN? So I got a liter beer for 12 PLN which -- yes -- means I got a liter of beer for FOUR DOLLARS. AMAZING.

Then it was back to the hostel for Jessica and I, we got a good night's sleep then in the morning we checked out of our hostel, but they said we could leave our stuff all day since our flight wasn't until later that day. So we roamed around Krakow, went to THE BEST MALL I HAVE EVER SEEN, people-watched a souvenir shopped. It's an amazing city, I loved it so much.

We caught a train to the airport, and camped out for a while because our flight didn't leave until about 10pm. I had a beer before I got on the plane, haha. When we landed in England we got a shuttle to our hotel at Stansted, which was nice, and once again I had a really great night's sleep. The next day we took a bus to London, walked around, went to the British Museum, took a picture at PLATFORM 9 3/4 at King's Cross (!!!), then caught our train back to Grantham and saw our friends Courtney and Mallory coming back from Ireland. That worked out well because then we just split a cab back to the Manor and got back by dinnertime!

POLSKA was fantastic and I would recommend that people go there. It's CHEAP, the people are so nice, the hostels are fantastic, and Krakow is incredible. But there are pigeons everywhere.