Angel of the North

Hellooo friends!

I’ve survived another week in Newcastle! Pretty soon I’ll be starting my Master’s level classes and I am definitely nervous!  The higher education system in the UK is SOOO much different than in the US.  Most of the classes have large lecture hall sessions and then separate seminars or labs to do more focused group work. And they meet very infrequently. To give you an idea of what my next semester is going to be like, here is a graph of my tentative schedule:

Semester 1 Schedule
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9am		9am-11am Dissertation Training	9am-10am POSSIBLE Conflicts of E.H. Seminar
10am			10am-11am POSSIBLE Conflicts of E.H. Seminar
11am
12 pm		12 noon – 1pm Practice of History
1pm
2pm		2pm – 4pm Conflicts in European History
3pm
4pm		4pm-5pm POSSIBLE Conflicts of E.H. Seminar
5pm
6pm

Read it and weep, mortals.  I’ll have classes only Tuesday and possibly a seminar class on Wednesday.  The seminars are in italics because I’m not sure which one of the 3 groups I’ll be placed in.  Whichever group, I would only attend those seminar meetings and not the other 2.  I’m shooting for 9am Wednesday just so I can get out of my room a little more.  Next semester I will probably have a similar schedule so look forward to that post J

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So besides academics, I’ve been adjusting more and more to life in the UK.  I completed my first successful laundry attempt on Sunday. It cost me £3 ($4.67) so that was kind of annoying since La Salle’s laundry was always free… but then I saw how clean the laundry room was and how well the machines functioned and I got over spending the extra money real quick.  I mean, I’ll always have fond memories of the heinous laundry room in LA but there’s not much in the laundry world that beats a clean room and working machines.

I won a bottle of wine in my program induction on Wednesday. Yes you heard me right I won alcohol in my class. We were practicing giving our dissertations and our instructor had us first read popular song lyrics in a boring and dull voice and then with an enthusiastic, projected voice.  The object was to capture the listener and make them want to hear you say more.  Luckily I feel pretty comfortable with public speaking and I’ll basically talk to anyone who will listen. I've been doing it most of my life in one way or another.  At La Salle I was always talking to crowds whether in Gamma Phi meetings or student teaching and I always managed to get people to listen to me whether they wanted to or not haha :)  My past practice paid off and the instructor gave me a wonderful bottle of red wine.

A few days ago I posted on FB about my anxieties about making any kind of noodles in front of my roommates because they make authentic Chinese meals and I heat up ramen on the stove.  After the pasta making fiasco (see previous post) my favorite* roommate told me that after she saw how easy it was to make pasta, she went out and bought her own supply!  She said in China, they rarely get the chance to eat or make pasta so she wanted to give it a try!  I was so excited she was inspired to make her own pasta & I’m thinking of asking her to show me how to make something that she knows how to make from home.

(*She’s my favorite because she talks to me the most.  And was inspired by my cooking.)

Yesterday Carly and I walked to the Castle Keep in Newcastle.  This building was the building which gave Newcastle its name.  The ‘New Castle’ was built in 1080 on top of a Roman fortress after the Norman Conquest.  There are a bunch of pictures on my Facebook album if you want to check it out.  There were sooooo many stairs in that place!  Exploring it was exhausting but totally worth it.  Afterwards we visited the Cathedral of St. Nicholas which is right next door.  We walked back to campus and took a short nap on the grass outside the church there (shout out to Kerri Kap & Michele! haha).

Keeping in line with the sightseeing theme, today was the first day that it rained since I got to Newcastle. It drizzled lightly all day but it gave me an excuse to wear my super cute rainboots!  Carly and I met up with my friend Simone and we went to the famous modern art installation called the Angel of the North.  It was only a 25 minute bus ride out to Durham.  Here are some pictures from today:

Across the street from the Angel of the North. Clearly this thing is freaking huge.

We walked closer to it...

...and this is the Angel of the North! There are 2 people standing by it's feet for size comparison.  It is as tall as 4 double-decker buses and the wingspan is the length of a jumbo jet.

This is the base of the Angel.  Most of the support system that holds the Angel upright is deep underground.

Below the angel looking up.

Me next to the Angel :)

Plaque with some info about the Angel.

I still have no phone.  I tried to order one but my card got declined which makes no sense so I have to go to the store in the city center and try to figure out what the heck happened.  Using FB/Twitter/Email on my laptop alone is a little too 2003 for me so hopefully I'll be able to change that soon.

One difference I've noticed between UK and US culture is the food stores.  At home we're used to large food stores and even wholesale warehouses selling us food. Because sometimes I guess the US is the kind of place where you need to buy 7 tubes of toothpaste and 30 cans of tuna all at once. But anyway, in the UK the grocery stores are much smaller. They're about the same size as the average produce section of a Pathmark/Shop Rite/Fresh Grocer in the US.  Food is fresh but the expiration dates are much sooner than in the US.  They also charge for using plastic bags.  It's only 5 pence or 10 pence per bag, but that certainly ads up if you're doing a lot of grocery shopping.

Overall I’m impressed with the amount of sightseeing and independent living that Carly and I have accomplished so far. We have been really proactive with trying to go out and explore the city and North East area of England and live as mature postgraduate students.  We'll see how long we can keep up the ruse.