So I am sick. Do you know how I know this? I am not hungry. The thought of food makes me nauseous. We went out for Thai tonight because I thought I was doing better, but now I know I am not. But I still will probably go out because that's what you do when you're abroad. You don't stay in three nights in a row. You get out and be proactive! Even if it will make me sicker. I have decided that I am going to fight my cough, and the feeling that all I want to do is curl up in bed and not talk to anyone. I am fast learning that there are some interesting people in my program.
But, despite all that, today was a pretty good day. We had two "diagnostic tests," which are basically essays written about the topics of our class. I especially enjoyed writing about how creating new worlds was some of the most difficult, but most beneficial and "potent" kind of story-making. I got to write about Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts. Awesome. And I got all my books today. I have nineteen books. NINETEEN. What? This is ridiculous. However, of the nineteen, 6 are Jane Austens, 3 are His Dark Materials, 3 are The Lord of the Rings, 2 are Shakespeare (with two more to come), and 1 is The BFG. How awesome is this? (There are three other children's books that I don't remember the name of.) I LOVE MY BOOKS! And my tutorial is with an Oxford professor and Taylor, one of my housemates. Perfect. Although today, we had our "academic orientation" session, in which Johnathon scared the pants off of all of us with telling us how much work we would be doing over the next few months. Seriously--weeks five and six are going to be hell, because I am sure I will have four papers due at the same time. And then there's the lovely fact that all my finals are due, yes, you guessed it, the day after my birthday. Lovely. Whatever. I will already be 21 effectively anyways...
After the second diagnostic test in which I had to write about Shakespeare, I finally went on an excursion to find cough drops. We went to Boots, the lovechild of Sephora and Walgreens. Seriously, it was amazing. But I skipped over benefit (OMG I wonder if they have that urban decay eyeshadow I've been wanting...), and headed straight for the cough syrup section. Now, let me tell you something. The British do not have Nyquil. They have many drugs that want to make my "cough more productive." Which I don't think is what I want. I bought some anyway though, and it tasted like death. Not worth it. Truly. It did not even last that long. But have no fear! I bought three things of cough drops.
But then later today, we went to the Bath Abbey, which they kept open late for us so some of the women of the Abbey could welcome us and serve us some tea and cake that some of the congregation made! It was so sweet of them, and the Abbey is amazing. Right now, they are doing some renovations--digging into the floor to see if they can fix it up a little bit, and see if they can build underneath in order to create more office space. Keep in mind, though, this is an abbey, with a lot of signs that say, "here lay the remains of mary what's-her-face who did such and such while she was alive." Apparently, all these people were not buried in coffins, but just buried down there willy nilly. Cause there are a lot of free going bones beneath the abbey. Which they are treating with the utmost respect, just so you're aware.
After this tour, we went to have our mentor meetings, with our mentor and the other people in our group. It was not a very chatty group. But then again, I have not been my normal bubbly self because my sickness makes me out of it. Then my night got really fun, because we went out to a thai restaurant where our server was a transexual. I mean, that's not why it was fun, that was just interesting. Then we had epic amounts of bonding time in our dining room while watching "I used to be fat." It was quite awesome.
Alrighty, nighty nighty!
stay warm.
-L Pro
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