Sick as a Medieval Rat

So I've been basically bed-ridden most of the day... that was kind of the plan, what with Jana and I renting 5 movies from Blockbuster... but I've been laying prostrate like a dead body filled with stagnant, murky, putrid swamp muck, almost literally. In that time I had a dream that someone was giving me a tour of Streetsboro, Ohio, and the guide said he had no idea where the town came from-- just then, a family on bikes cycled past and I called out, "Hey! Local family! Where did Streetsboro come from?" and one guy got off his bike and said, "It was created because it's at a major junction of State Routes 43 and 14." Then he got back onto his bike and cycled off, after which I awoke in a state of nirvana.

I also thought about how much I beat myself up, also literally. I have an amalgamation of useless and laughable scars-- the one on my knee represents my blood sacrifice to the Walk Disney Company. Another more recent scar was obtained after burning myself while making a grilled cheese sandwich. I can't even remember how I got one scar on my eyebrow-- no, really-- I knocked myself out and can't recall a damn thing. But, I'm alive (for now) and that's what matters.

I think the subliminal messages in Back to the Future strongly affected me in my weakened state this afternoon, when it wasn't even five minutes into the movie and I wished I had big hair, aviator sunglasses, vintage Nikes, washed-out jeans, and a Walkman. Really, I did. I contemplated completely re-furbishing my wardrobe for a few minutes before Marty McFly went back in time and the god-awful style of the 50s snapped me out of it.

But really, I'm thinking sensibly now and I still want an 80s wardrobe. Think about that for my 24th birthday present this summer. Find me a pair of vintage Nikes and I'll be your pal forever.

I've been thinking a lot about my thesis project and the literature review I have to do over spring term. I've been refining the literature review idea and I'm still going to tackle the relationship between imagery and perception, but now I think I'll concentrate on the clinical evidence, mostly. I want to talk about neglect, cortical blindness, schizophrenia, and maybe some other populations that have famous double and or single dissociations (or associations) concerning imagery and perceptive abilities.

As for my thesis, something has been bothering me about it lately-- I feel like it might not be unique enough, might not be helpful to humanity in any way, really. So this is what I'd like to do-- I will keep part of the original idea: remember how I said the right and left hemispheres in the brain are asymmetric, and the right hemisphere is better at spatial processing than the left (to make a very general statement)? I would like to find right hemisphere dominance in an attention task when attention is overloaded in normal university students.

But instead of comparing university students to patients with visual neglect in this project (who cannot attend to one half of space), I would like to scrap that idea and compare normal participants instead to people with high-functioning autism. As you may or may not know, one characteristics of autism is abnormal attentional function-- whether it be inability to attend to things, hyperfocusing on certain things, etc. Not only does autism research get lots of funding, but perhaps I will now have something scholarly to talk about with my mom, since she is a teacher of autistic children. She assured me, after I told her my idea, that she is no scientific expert-- yes, I know that! But it would still be great to be able to talk to her about something I'm doing, for once. I say would because I don't know what my adviser will have to say about this idea. He claims he's open to studying attention in various clinical populations, but it seems he has been trying to shape my project to fit into his comfort zone... but I don't want a comfort zone project!

So now, I swear to you, that I will do my best to argue my case if he tries to evade my idea. That's one of my New Year's resolutions, in fact-- professors have always taken control of my projects after I have an idea, but I can't forget that this time, this time, the project is my thesis, it's mine, mine I tell you! And I think I deserve to be a little more possessive this time, since my name will be on the damn thing after all, and I'll have to basically write a novella over summer on whatever project I do do, so I'd better have a good say in it!

Okay, end of rant. It's New Year's time!

Approximately 20 minutes to go until the fireworks go off at the London Eye, and Jana and I are sitting in her room in our PJs giggling over a Youtube video of polar bears who are fond of destroying hidden cameras. Jana made Chex mix out of Shreddies (the English equivalent to wheat Chex-- they don't have any of the other kinds), and it turned out OK, except her oven doesn't work very well so half of the batch got burned and the other half got soggy... but all in all, it tasted... pretty... normal... I mean, once it was all mashed around in my mouth with pretzels, mixed nuts and bagel chips, it tasted the same as always. So... good job, Jana.

I bought us some real champagne to pop at midnight, so that should be enjoyable... after my dead swamp body day, that is.

Now, I leave you with this recent quote from Jana:

"There's this new show called Hole in the Wall, which is a gameshow where a big wall comes at you, and there are holes in it in the shape of weirdly contorted body positions that you have to match and jump through, or else you're pushed into a pile of goo... oh, and it Japanese-- of course it's Japanese."

A Bavarian Christmas: Part II

We made our way up the steep, winding footpath to the castle-- surrounded by a throng of Japanese tourists (who knew?). Horses hauling carriages full of more than a dozen people clopped slowly past us on our way up-- a real fairy tale experience-- if you think animal cruelty is a fairy tale! I told Jana about the pain I felt for those poor beasts, so I had the bright idea to pull her up the hill, at which point she grabbed onto the back of my coat and gave me dead weight. I struggled to take a few steps, and as I leaned forward, snorting and shaking my head, feeling my flanks burn with the effort, I really got a taste of what those horses have to go through on a daily basis!

Anyway, we stopped to grab a bite to eat about 3/4 the way there (the horses stopped here too, so it was OK). We sat in the shadow of the grand palace and ate Kaiserschmarren. Kaiserschmarren is a traditional Austrian and Bavarian meal made of a type of fluffy pancake with plum sauce-- mmmh the plum sauce had whole plums mixed in, with a dollop of creme on top. It was amazing! And an appropriate choice, being so close to Austria and in Bavaria. After lunch, we climbed the rest of the way to the castle, and took a tour in English.

I could tell you all the history of Neuschwanstein, if you'd like: for instance, Neuschwanstein literally means New Swan Stone-- King Ludwig II's family crest was the swan, so naturally the whole interior was filled with swan door handles, swan paintings, glass swans, swan carvings, swan swan swan! What is really cool, is that Ludwig was also obsessed with Richard Wagner's operas, so he seamlessly blended swan architecture with lavish paintings that tell the stories of the operas, including a whole room dedicated to scenes from Tristan and Isolde.

Ludwig decorated his castle with enormous paintings of enchanted forests (I'm sure the artist just had to look out the window for inspiration), and he even has a realistic-looking cave situated in a passageway between two rooms.

Ludwig II was a dreamer, not a fighter-- his army often lost badly in fights. The townspeople loved him because he built so many castles and villas that employed hundreds of local workers and boosted the economy-- the government sought to overthrow him, and made him out to be insane so that they could steal the throne that was rightly his. Not long after he was taken away for being "mentally ill", he was found floating in a lake, shot in the back. The fantastic life and tragic death of Ludwig II is visually exemplified in Neuchwanstein Castle-- the architectural embodiment of his spirit!

*

Okay, I'm really pissed now because this covered about half the post I actually wrote, before my computer crapped out in the middle of the entry. I'll hurry through the next bit because I don't feel like typing out 2 pages again--
*

Christmas Eve: went to Cham, the childhood town of Sonja's father. Picturesque-- historical-- did some last minute Christmas shopping before all the shops closed at 1PM-- beautiful facades and a famous bridge features in a WWII movie so appropriately named The Bridge. There was a winding path by the river that led to an enormous chathedral with votive candles lit in a charming alcove with a tannenbaum. There was an ornate fountain in the market square that depicts a group of men struggling with a rather frightening-looking witch. Folk tales are an integral part of history there.

That night, we went to Christmas mass. It couldn't have been a more beautiful evening with the snow glittering in the air. Sonja, her parents, and Jana and I walked together up to the castle, where warm pews awaited us. We sat before a brilliantly lit Christmas tree. Everyone spoke in German, but we knew the story. We sang German songs and listened to people recite parts of the Bible, and the kids even put on an adorable advent play.

There were angels and Mary and Joseph, and there was even a little star that had to be coaxed forward by a woman in the wings, who occassionally stage-whispered lines the kids forgot. At one point, they all sang a song together, got off the beat, and started singing different parts of the song all at once-- this made me laugh so hard I had to hold my hands in front of my face so I didn't make any noise, but I quickly got a hold of myself and made it through the rest of the service OK. The last song was Silent Night, which I sung in English, but Jana wanted to try the German. The woman sitting next to her let her borrow the songbook. Later, Sonja's dad told us the woman had asked him why Jana didn't know the words, as every German child knows this song by heart! She didn't know we were the ignorant Americans!

After mass, we had a special fondue-esque dinner where we had to cover various yummy things in cheese and stick them in an open kind of George Foreman grill to melt. And after dinner, we went downstairs for sparkling wine and Christmas presents-- Jana and I got a pleasant surprise when the family gave us a few presents of our own! Large bars of chocolate and some German souvenirs! We had a great time, sipping wine and looking at pictures from Sonja's sister's Nordic holiday.

The next few days were a blur of food and fun! Christkindlmarkts, we visited Regensberg, where Sonja, her boyfriend, and her parents all went to university.

--Half meter sizzling sausages, punsch, kinderpunsch--

One day, Jana and I made the family American pancakes with maple syrup and various fruit and jams, which they enjoyed very much--

The day before we left, Sonja's dad took us to the Czech Republic, which was quickly deemed too cold for us to leave the car, so we made it a scenic drive. Some of the architecture reflected a time of Communism-- boring, gray stone apartments all the same-- and some pre-war buildings were pretty enough to have come straight from a storybook. Sonja's dad got lost on the way back but didn't tell us until he was back on track. Until then, we weaved through farmland on a one-lane road covered in snow, and met the local wildlife-- swift red foxes, wintery grey deer, and even a Czech hawk.

All too soon, it was time to say good bye-- and we waited until the last minute, too! Jana and I almost missed our flight, waiting in a long line at passport control. We got onto our plane with five minutes to spare, and arrived back in England on Monday evening.

You may think that's the end, but it's only the beginning of our holiday adventures! We still have about 20 days until next term starts, and before that Jana and I will celebrate New Years-- with Chex mix, perhaps some fudge, and sparkling wine- and, on the 9th we're leaving for Disneyland Paris! And on the 16th, the day before school starts, Jana and I will see the Moscow Ballet perform The Nutcracker at De Montfort Hall-- only then will the Christmas season be officially over!

OK- sorry for the rushed second half of this post but you know how annoying it is to rewrite EVERYTHING--

Happy New Year everyone! Although I'm sure I'll write something before then!

A Bavarian Christmas: Part One

Ah, home again! Well, British home, that is. I've missed my American home all week, and the feeling was especially strong on Christmas day-- all I wanted was to be with my mommy! Nevertheless, the past seven days have been quite an adventure, and I will tell all now:

The arrival.
Okay, so I hate flying-- if you've ever heard me complain about it, you'd know this much. Planes are stuffy and cramped; airports are havens of sickness, suspicion and stress; the food is bland and overpriced; the bathrooms are unspeakable-- there is nothing good about flying. This was only a 2 hour flight from the East Midlands airport, and as far as flights go, this one went very smoothly. There was little stress on my part-- we found our gate OK, took our airsickness pills, and arrived in Munich right on schedule. Munich has two large terminals-- one for Lufthansa Air, and the other for everything else. We were in the "everything else" category, so we walked to terminal 2 to meet Sonja, whose flight would arrive an hour after ours.

We were immediately plunged into the spirit of German Christmas when we walked outside into the courtyard between terminals 1 and 2-- a Bavarian Wintermarkt (also called Christkindlmarkt or Weihnachtenmarkt) had been set up, and engulfed us on all sides. Everywhere you looked, there were large wooden booths displaying both foodstuff and gift items-- clothing (gloves, hats), blankets made of sheepskin, sausages, apfelstrudel (apple strudel), crepes, and all manner of other baubles, woodcarvings, and miscellaneous kitsch. I went for the apfelstrudel, Jana went for the crepe, and then we went into terminal 2 to wait for Jana's roommate.

When she appeared, her mother and sister emerged from the crowd, and we all finally met. Sonja's sister had brought with her a bag of authentic Bavarian pretzels (bretzels) and we were almost never without one the rest of the week. Speaking of food, Bavarian food is to DIE for-- there is so much meat in the diet, I decided to put my vegetarianism on hold so I could try all the different cultural meals (which I will be describing in detail throughout the rest of this post, I assure you!) Anyway, Sonja lives about 2 hours north of Munich, deep in the Bavarian forest in a village called Altrandsberg. That day I learned the word "ausfahrt" which means a road exit. (Aufgang means exit on foot). We must have seen the word a dozen times as we sped down the freeway on our journey.

The Bavarian forest is known for its mystery and charm, but best of all for its stories. The Grimm brothers tracked through the very woodland that surrounded us on all sides, collecting fairy tales from the townsfolk all those years ago. As we passed through expanses of evergreen forests, which covered the rolling hills on all sides, sprinkled in a dusting of snow, it was not hard to imagine big bad wolves and hungry old witches concealed deep within the wood. The land was thick with darkness and magic just beyond the cozy little villages that dotted the hillside.

Bavarian villages are designed similarly to English villages-- with tight-knit communities of households and shops, and church spires looming over it all protectively. Although similar in design, the features could not look more different: instead of skinny brick houses all in a row such as you would find in England, Bavarian houses are very tall and wide, with little in the way of mismatched roofs or flowery bits like overhangs. They are simply-designed, like dollhouses, made of solid wood with small windows that all emanate warmth with their inviting twinkling lights. The houses are well-spaced from each other, but not so much that they look isolated. The churches do not have crosses on top of the steeple, but rather onion-shaped domes-- the hallmark feature of a German town. There are lots of steep hills, and bridges big and small that cross chilly rivers, and from every angle you can see the forest stretching across the vast landscape.

We drove by many such towns on our way south to Altrandsberg, speeding down the autobahn (which, by the way, is the German word for "freeway" and is just as impressive as any interstate). Altransdburg itself is unique because it has a large castle on the highest hill, brightly lit at night so that it stands out amidst the forest darkness. The castle houses the local church, a kindergarten, and an impressive little museum. We arrived at Sonja's house-- actually, estate!-- at last, and were greeted enthusiastically by her father, who, as you may recall, has a love for the English language and everything that goes with it-- including the British Isles and America. He is an English teacher at the primary school ten minutes up the road, and he has a thirst for knowledge of the language as no other-- he must have asked me and Jana a hundred time what certain sayings meant, or if he was saying a word or phrase correctly.

Sonja's dad made us something to eat-- white sausages and pretzels! Sonja had also asked her sister to make her favorite meal, so the sausages were a kind of appetizer to a delicious warm stew of hot, gooey dumplings, vegetables and gravy, and slices of tender, savory pork roast. Mmmm is your mouth watering just thinking of it?

The next morning, we got up early to visit Sonja's dad at his school. He'd told the children that we would be there, so they prepared questions for us. When we met them, we were pleasantly surprised-- their English was superb! Many of them were shy, but those who spoke had perfectly clear accents, and they were all very curious about the two Americans who had trekked so far to visit them! Sonja's dad had a map of the USA at the head of the class, so Jana was able to point out where we were from exactly.

There were questions and answers on both of our parts. The kids were very excited to tell us all about themselves, and the boys all have a love for European football, and the girls love jazz dance-- "jazz" was the only word we couldn't understand right off the bat, because the Germans are used to a somewhat harsh pronunciation, so the English "J" comes out as "ch" and they called it "chess" dance... similarly, Sonja's cat was called "Chonny" though he was named after Jon Bon Jovi. The visit ended with the kids singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed (ret-nosed) Reindeer for us in English, after which they sang a traditional Bavarian Christmas song, which was very cute.

That afternoon we went to a scenic little Christkindlmarkt, where Jana and I were introduced to real mulled wine, called gluhwein in Bayern (Bavaria). In England-- and maybe we've only had bad mulled wine-- it tastes like regular red wine with some spices added to it. In Bavaria, the wine is made with the spices, and there is such a good blend of cinnamon and alcohol that you can't separate the flavors, and it tastes like hot cider with a good kick. There are many special alcoholic beverages around Christmas-time here-- hot alcoholic drinks with various fruit mixes such as berries or oranges, and the non-alcoholic kinderpunsch, which is fancy spiced cider. And of courses, sausages abound. I favored a stick of coconuty, truffley chocolate, and if you know German chocolate, you'd know it was divine.

That night, we attended a Christmas performance at the elementary school where Sonja's dad works, where each class put on a show of some kind. This was actually very entertaining-- one class turned off all the lights and shined UV rays onto specially-painted costumes made to look like Christmassy things, so it looked like there were bright white Christmas trees and stars all floating around on the stage without any humans attached, bobbing about to the music. Other classes performed skits and songs in German. The English class put on a delightful little sketch in English, and many of them had whole paragraphs of lines. Again, their accents were very impressive-- some of them sounded just like English children. Jana burst out into uncontrollable, albeit mostly silent, laughter during a few of the performances-- once when the kids were dressed as UV-glowing snowmen, another time when a very frightened but cute little boy forgot his lines, and another time when the kids all petered out during a song they didn't know the words to.

Some of the teachers, such as Sonja's dad, placed a lot of importance on the kids performance-- but the best parts were the mistakes! Kids are supposed to make mistakes, and it's the cutest and funniest when they personalities come out-- when they must do some improv to cover up when things don't go quite as planned...

The next day, we went to Neuschwanstein Castle! That is about a three hour drive further south, right on the border of the Alps! You would not believe how beautiful that area is-- Jana and I went with Sonja, her sister, and her sister's fiance. Sonja's sister speaks decent English because she is also a teacher-- but her fiance claims he cannot speak English unless he's been drinking, which is entirely true. He wouldn't admit he was shy to speak it, but it was still impressive he could talk to us at all, considering he did not have regular practice. Anyway, German was spoken the majority of the time, but I didn't mind-- it just added to the mood of the whole place.

We zigzagged through picturesque towns, and I admit I fell asleep for a good part of the journey. But when the tall, craggy, sharp, snow-covered Alps emerged over the horizon, dominating the scenery, I couldn't help but burst out with a shout of "The hills are aliiiiive with the sound of muuuuusiiiiic!" which my German pals-- get this-- have NEVER seen! We told them all about the movie and how it's a classic-- I will have to remind Sonja to watch it!

On our way to the castle, the fiance pulled over on the side of the road to let us get out and take some pictures from afar. You will be able to see all the pictures soon, of course, so you'll see how breathtaking a fairytale castle perched in the foothills of the Alps can be-- indescribable, really. But when we got back into the car to continue onward, the wheels had gotten stuck in the snow. Sonja told me and Jana later that the fiance had been boasting about his driving expertise very soon before the incident, so this was amusing for her and her sister, who had to endure it, and put a damper on his gloating for a while.

The funny thing about being surrounded by people you can't understand, is you miss a lot of funny or important pieces of communication. You don't know when someone is being annoying, or confusing, or even drunk in some cases because you don't know what slurred German sounds like. People get embarrassingly quiet, or unusually tense seemingly for no reason. A lot of it had to be explained to me and Jana later by a very patient Sonja, and Sonja's dad was always willing to offer a translation of the mundane or pleasant bits, followed by long strings of language that just blew on past. This is what happened for a lot of our Neuschwanstein visit, but it was such a great place that Jana and I ignored the fact that we were completely oblivious of the minds of our comrades.

BUT-- I will leave the description of the castle, and details of the rest of the trip, for part two of this entry! I have been writing for a VERY long time now and must take a well-needed break. In the meantime, I will try to get those pictures up on facebook!

Bavaria Tomorrow!

Or so I hope!

Sonja was supposed to return to her German home on Saturday morning, and she left before I even woke up-- I've been spending the night at Jana's place these past couple of days since my roommates all went home for Christmas. Well that night, Jana and I were up in her room, when all of a sudden we heard Sonja's voice calling to us up the stairs. We rushed downstairs, dreading what news she would give us-- turns out, her flight had been cancelled!

She told us, very upset, about how horrible her day had been-- the plane was at first delayed five minutes, then 20 minutes, then everyone was told to get off the jet. Sonja had to wait in line all by herself for 5 hours to change her flight, all the time on the phone with her parents, who were waiting for her at the Munich airport with her siblings and cousins and other relatives. They could hardly believe the flight would not arrive, and Sonja even said there was no reason why the plane could not make it to Germany-- the airline informed them that it would be the plane's flight back to England that would be the problem, since apparently London is expecting "bad weather".

So now she will be flying out on Monday, and should arrive an hour after Jana and I land in Munich. Hopefully, all of our flights will be fine this time, but we've researched train tickets, just in case.

In fact, I am going to find the number to Eurostar trains for good measure. Nothing is going to stop our journey, nothing! Sonja even lit the magic candle in the local church, to encourage God to be on our side this time around. Sonja thinks of everything!

We will persevere!

Farewell my friends-- hopefully the next time you hear from me, it will be from Germany!

Christmas time!

This week has been both productive and relaxing... the first half was spent polishing off my essays, which are now both finished. Well, I still have to add page numbers and other bits and pieces to make them APA style, as well as a title page, figures, and references. But my references are already stored in RefWorks, a program that writes your bibliography for you in dozens of formats-- how convenient! And my figures are already stored in "My Pictures", so I just have to click buttons for both of those and voila-- fini!

On Tuesday night, we had our last Hiking Society pub quiz before the the holidays. We go to a place called The Old Horse which has amazing bread and butter pudding, and is eccentrically decorated with hundreds of teapots hanging from the ceiling. Last time I talked about The Old Horse, it was decked out in Halloween decor. Now, there are Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, wreaths on every door, and a huge display of santa and his reindeer right outside in the beer garden, which can be seen out the back windows. It's a cozy little joint, and has a regular pub quiz every Tuesday night-- and this time we were determined to win!

So Alex had asked us to research Wikipedia pages over the weekend, which I had completely forgotten about. I'm sure he was only half joking, seeing as he wanted to win as much as the rest of us! But when he brought it up again that night, I remembered I had looked up the page on Kate Middleton, and I generously boasted that I could now answer any question about the royal couple. However, one did not arise... There was one question I should have known, which was "Which CD came out in America in 2000 with the highest record sales?" I knew that answer, I just didn't know I knew it-- cos you see, I said "There's no way it could have been No Strings Attached by N*Sync, they weren't as famous as Britney Spears, so I'm going to say Britney Spears." So that's what we put, and it turned out to be No Strings Attached and I kicked myself for it.

But-- we won!

Well, we didn't win the whole thing. See, the quiz board is set up like bingo, so you win if you get a row of answers, four corners, or the highest number. We got two rows and four corners, and won 4 cans of Carlsburg beer! Yippee! And, although we did not score the highest in the pub, we scored our personal highest! Go team!

On Wednesday, I basically lazed around while Jana was busy in class. I had the compulsion to write a Christmas humor tale, which was going to be a normal story with a female narrator like me, and it was going to be about my car breaking down and Santa appearing out of nowhere to jump start it before disappearing as mysteriously as he'd come... but I ended up going with a story from a pine marten's perspective, though I only wrote a page before I got distracted by a Youtube video of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

Well, those little pine martens are hard to relate to. I made it so that they speak funny English, cos being non-human, it's hard for them to learn. Here's what I wrote before I abandoned it:

*
Pine Marten Christmas
*

Did you knows that pine martens er native to Englandness? Yes, you would think we was more exoticer than that, though I kin assure you that we er relatively elusiveth creatures, like the platypus or Sasquatch, so that makes up fer us livin’ in such a ordinary places. Picture a weasel has big cuter eyes, has fluffy tufty browner fur, has the cutest face you ever sawed, and you have a pine marten. We tends to pop around on our shorteth stubbly legs with seriously adorabley looks on our faces, pretendin’ we don’t want no foodstuffs from humans, which causes ‘em to take one greatest interest in us.

Lookit this one now—leapening over brushes and snufflin’ through the snows. Oh hey-ar—that’s me! I talks bout meself like that from time to time to perfectish my narrative making skill. I is, after all, a wee pine marten has little English practice. Any wayeth, see me stumpin’ fastly through the forest. I hurries because I see me fifter and I has a inkling to poke her with my nosey.

POKES!

“Hey Brilly, cut it out!” she chasties me squeaky. She has gooder speaking. She uses humanisms like ‘cut it out’ at many times.

“I kent cut it if I en’t got skizzers, Lulie,” I retort, smoothin’ the furs on my red-browny rump.

“It’s scissors, you dolt,” Lulie says in a longeth, smeary voice. She lickins snowflakes off a paws.

“Whys you lickin’, Lulie? You knows you gotta putten your foots back down.” I hop from me front to me back in playfully arches, flying snow all over her.

“Stoooop!” she whines. “You are supposed to be gathering berries! Mumarten said!”

“I knows what Mumarten says,” I says. “I gets berries from humanies.”

“You get bread crumbs and garbage from humanies.”

“Nuh-uh!” I protest. “Berries!”

“Old berries!”

“Yummy berries!” I digs around in me cheek pockets and pull out three bright redder berries.

Lulie gaspess, and I feel please.

“Oooh, Brilly! Where’d you get those?”

“I tolder yas, from the humanies! Thems young was out and has a whole bag full!”

*
Not The End
*

What I was going to have happen, was the berries were going to turn out to be poison, so when Brilly decides to eat one, it looks like the end, but Santa appears out of nowhere and squeezes her so she pukes, saving her life, then he disappears as mysteriously as he'd come. Christmas miracle!

I don't think I'll finish it though-- it's hard to write in pine marten English!

Anyway-- on Wednesday evening, Jana and I met up to go to the University Chamber Choir's caroling service put on by the Chaplaincy-- we were supposed to join in the singing at some parts but I hummed instead-- there's something about singing in a congregation that makes me nervous! The choir was excellent, by the way. There was a soloist at the very beginning who had such a pure, choiristic voice. Jana and I were disappointed they didn't sing "Carol of the Bells", but I figured it was too secular for a church service. Thet did sing a couple of familiar songs: "Noel"and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". And, they had mistletoe available to bring home (Jana took a sprig), and hot mulled wine and spiced cider, for refreshments! It turned out to be quite nice. I met Annie there, who wished me a "Happy Christmas" before leaving, and me, being such an inarticulate grinch, just said "Sure!"

Why can't I say "Merry Christmas"? I'm such a Scrooge!

Well now, it's Thursday, and I have a few goals for today:

1) run the pilot of my study. Yes, I spent a good five hours on Tuesday with my adviser, watching him program the task. I seriously can't believe how much code goes into such a simple attention task. This is literally all it is: letters flash rapidly in the center of the screen. One of them is white, to distinguish it from the others (the target letter). There is a circle of Gabors (fuzzy roundish patches) surrounding the letter stream. One of them is at an angle to the others (the target Gabor). That's it! That's it-- well, basically-- and it took five hours of programming. And not from scratch, either. My adviser cut and pasted and changed bits and peices of code that were already written. And I just sat and watched in relative silence the entire time, while he muttered to himself "That goes there, oh but I can get rid of that-- we want that to be .08.." etc, until he'd remember I was there and say to me periodically, "I told you it would be boring! I mostly just talk myself through these things..." He seemed a little self conscious about it, but I persevered, and it was a learning experience, watching as he tested the code several times and worked the bugs out one by one until the task was perfect. Anyway, now I only have before 1PM today to run the task on a couple of guinea pigs (the lab is booked after that), so we'll see if it works successfully!

2) I also have to run myself. I haven't been for a jog in a few days, and I'm determined to squeeze in at least a couple of hours this week/weekend before I am off to Bavaria. Despite the dreary weather!

3) Lastly, I should try to stick the figures/APA format/references into my essays by the end of the day. My adviser generously agreed to look over my research proposal for me, and Jana claims she will look over my imagination survey write-up-- so I should get some feedback, as well, before I submit those! I feel pretty good about my work, and I'm confident I've done my best.

And that's that. Monday, I'm off to Bavaria for Christmas! I'll be sure to blog all about it, and hopefully Jana will remember to bring the camera. I can't wait to see that castle! Oh, and you guys be careful in Ohio with all your snow and 0 degree temps-- it's been drizzling rain here at about 40-ish degrees, so it hasn't been too bad for us. I think it will be different in Germany, though!

I will try to write another blog before then, but if I don't-- everyone have a happy Christmas!

Ho ho ho!

Christmas Hike in the Peak District

Or, The Peak District: Round II. If you will remember, the last time we visited the Peak District, we went to Edge Moor. This time we went to Chee Dale, a spot near Derby, particularly close to the Chatsworth House (which I'm still raving about 2 years later-- refer to my pictures labeled "Matlock Bath, Derbyshire Countryside and Chatsworth House" on facebook here).

Well, this time I got down and dirty in the forests and valleys of the Deryshire countryside, for reals. It recently snowed a few inches and even more recently melted, so this hike will be remembered for its sheer mud level. I don't know how I would have lasted with anything other than my new heavy-duty hiking boots. There was mud almost up to my knees by the end of the trip, but it was worth it! We battle all the elements in our Hiking Society, that's for sure.

This was our last hike before Christmas, so we all wore Santa hats for the occassion, and played Christmas music in the minibus there and back. Some people wore complete Christmassy outfits-- red and white scarves, festive sweaters, bauble earrings-- one guy zigzagged Christmas lights all over his rucksack, and pinned bits of holly to the pockets.

The hike went very smoothly, except for the part where I had to scale a bathroom stall like Spider-Man to unlock the door to the toilet (I had to go!)--though it was quite a lot of fun. At one point, we had to hop across stepping stones to get from one part of the river to another, and on the way back the rocks were actually submerged because of the flooding-- I was sure someone would fall into the water, but alas, this did not happen.

I must say though, because I was still feeling under the weather (still am today), and I couldn't breathe properly I suppose, this hike was particularly exhausting. I went over to Jana's house afterwards and nearly fell asleep watching Rupert and had to call it a night at around 9 o'clock. We did get a chance to finish It's a Wonderful Life, though, and the ending was just as sweet as the rest of it. A real warm, fuzzy ending. I especially liked that the movie didn't dwell on Mr Potter, or didn't even give him any kind of due for his thievery. The characters/cameras paid him no attention at all at the end, which just emphasizes the point that people are isolated who are that evil. The character was properly shunted into the background, and everything worked out for our hero in the end.

And as for today, I was able to hit my goal in EPR credits, and I completed my research proposal (at least the first draft), to boot! And tomorrow I will try to do the same for my survey write-up. My goal is to have those two out of the way before I go to Germany next week, so I have the whole rest of vacation to play!

Also today, I had a nice long conversation with my mum. She says she has sent me a Christmas stocking, which is SWEET! I couldn't ask for a better present. It is just what I need to feel connected to the family at Christmas! She's also signed up for a Skype account, so hopefully we'll be able to video chat soon.

Well, it's dinner time-- maybe I'll finish off that soup... yes, that sounds good. Soup and cheesy bread!

Night everyone!

It's a Wonderful Life

Some days you feel so good, you get into this state, this zone, where you’re just at peace with the world and your place in it. There’s usually some reason for it, so let me try and pinpoint exactly when it happened for me this last Friday…

Friday, December 10th: This morning I woke up admittedly crabby. Jana and I had not parted on a good note the night before; I’d been up all night, dry-mouthed, unable to breathe properly because of a cold; and I had four sets of experiments to attend in an attempt to squeeze in as many EPR credits as I could in one day, though I thought it would be a big waste of time, mostly because I wanted to work on my essays—get ‘em out of the way before I go to Germany…

But things don’t often work out the way you expect them to, and looking back on it now, I’m glad I got a break from my own research, after tirelessly preparing for those presentations for the past 10 days or so… and I actually enjoyed many of the studies I participated in today. One study had me pretending to be a used phone salesman, and I was asked to “research” the value of different cell phones before advising “clients” on which one to buy. I was allowed to deceive the clients about my confidence in my choices, to increase the chance that they would pick my phones. If “clients” end up going with my prices, I may actually win some real money.

Another study had me doing a reaction time test that apparently was supposed to correlate with my math skills—I had to take a very simple oral math test as well, and I’m sure I performed laughably… hopefully that’s good for the study, though.

But my favorite study of the day was very clever, and I fell right into the experimenter’s trap. It started out with unscrambling lists of anagrams (something I consider myself to be relatively good at), and as I was jotting down each real world next to the jumble, the experimenter commented, “You’re completing these much faster than most of the other participants,” which undoubtedly boosted my confidence. So when the experimenter stopped me in the middle to take a questionnaire, I answered positively to such statements as I enjoy this experiment, and I am good at this task, etc. Then, when she asked if I would like more challenging anagrams, I most happily answered, “Yes.” Of course, I received a surprise when I read the debriefing form after the task and on it was written, Some of you may have been told you were faster than others on the task. I had to laugh at this and ask accusingly if I really was any faster than anyone else, and the experimenter told me unabashedly, “No.” Well, she had me fooled, and I know I must have done everything she’d expected of me because of it. Well researcher, I hope your study goes as planned, and good luck on future projects.

Later, I was walking home from the grocery store, when this feeling came over me—with my heavy bags cutting out the circulation in my fingers and my hair falling annoyingly over my eyes, a feeling of “dusk excitement” overcame me. I bet you’ve experienced it, yourself; it usually occurs on cool summer nights-- it wasn’t summery tonight by any means, but it was warmer than it’s been all week—and I felt that cool-not-cold breeze of nighttime energy flow through me and I knew I just had to run right then. I hurried home and changed into my running clothes and without so much as a warm-up, I was off, sprinting gaily into the night, lungs full of the crisp, clean air left behind from a mild winter’s day.

I always get into a certain state when I run. It seems so much harder to have unpleasant thoughts, it’s so much easier to feel inspired, giddy, emotional, but in a positive way. I suddenly become a more open and friendly person, nothing bothers or fazes me, and for a little while I am perfectly Tao.

This time though, the feeling stayed with me all the rest of the night. The “dusk excitement” hovered around me as if the very atmosphere was clinging to me, refilling my lungs with its clear, cool magic. I felt life could not be better tonight—there is no inner turmoil, no nagging feelings, no worry about schoolwork or the future. For now I am blissfully at peace with the world, and I hope all the rest of life is like this.

This evening I cooked Jana and myself some stir fry and we watched the first half of It’s a Wonderful Life (how fitting) before her internet stopped working. This was the first time I’d seen the movie, and it stopped right after George ran his car into his neighbor’s tree, about the stumble onto the bridge where he would have his confrontation with Clarence—the climax of the film, if you will, and thanks to Jana’s internet, George’s life will remain frozen in its disaster state until we can see the resolution tomorrow.

I realized, though, how amazing this movie is—I can see why it is a classic. It makes you think about the important things in life, like any good story can do. It fit in so well with the rest of the evening, and as I was walking home from Jana’s place, I was still in that dreamy state, living in the moment, feeling that life is good and happy. I hope tomorrow will present another Tao breeze, another spell of excitement weather!

Good night, every boday!

Everyone is Sick

Everyone around me is sick due to the weather... one of my roommates has not been in class, her coughs have been drifting up the stairs all week, and now I can feel a frog in my throat, and I hope HOPE HOPE I don't get full-blown sick my first week out of classes!

Yes, class is officially over for the term-- I completed two presentations earlier today and they seemed to go very well. I'm not too worried about those grades even though they were partially peer-assessed, and I'm also not too worried about my essays. I can see the end is near for those... I just need to rewrite a couple of paragraphs each, edit, ideally have someone else edit, and then turn in before Jan.11th.

Now I have to squeeze in as many research participation credits as I can next week-- I'm supposed to have 30, and I will have over 25 by the end of this week-- so close! The system will not beat me!

Oh, and my adviser just e-mailed me and said he would have to push back task programming until next week... I expected as much, I suppose! Of course, this is what I get for not being able to teach myself MATLAB, but I en't worried-- most people won't start their thesis projects until after the holidays anyway, so if I must follow suit, I'm not fussed.

So this weekend I'm going to Cheedale in the Peak District with the hiking society. Don't worry, now-- it's not going to be as dangerous as last time! Or so they tell me. It should be just a moderate, pleasant walk through the snow, and I've got some new hiking boots to do some good ol' fashioned tromping.

I discovered a new sport today! It's called 'Orienteering' and I think it's mostly based in the UK. It is a combination of hiking or running, and navigating. What you do, is you tromp around the wilderness with a topographic map that's marked with points you're supposed to follow-- there are big gaps of space between each point, and your job is to find the fastest, most efficient route to each point and ultimately to the finish. It sounds so cool! The university does not have an official orienteering team, but it has an affiliation with a city-wide group that I might think about joining in the spring... especially if we can work in teams-- Jana's good at reading topographic maps so she'd kick butt finding a route that doesn't take us over a waterfall, and I've got the speed and agility part down--

Yes, read how hardcore I am-- I ran 5 miles on the day Leicester frosted over. It was about 28 degrees outside, and you know what? It wasn't so bad! Even Amish the soon-to-be Everest climber was impressed by my perseverence. Nevertheless, I am still planning on getting that sports card after Christmas. Although I found I can run in sub-zero temps (er, celsius, that is), I cannot safely jog on ice, so I will still go for the treadmill during those harshest winter weeks. I've come to appreciate the idea of picking up yoga, pilates, or some other such thing, as well, which would be free if I have the sports card.

I may post more later-- but I am off to a seminar now!

Ta ta!

Christmas Fair

There was a small Christmas fair on Queens Road, today-- I bought a homemade gingerbread man for myself, and I got my mum a couple of presents, which I will ship with Stefani's tomorrow or Tuesday. Jana gave me the idea for Stefani's present-- she's so good at picking em out! I'll try to find a festive box to ship them in and hope they arrive home by Christmas. Now I have to think hard about what to get my dad-- can't go wrong with a fancy chocolate bar or some such thing. He might want to try English chocolate, which does taste quite a bit different from American choco.

The fair was cute-- people were selling homemade mince pies, there were rows of wrapped-up Christmas trees for sale, and groups of kids entertained on a small stage. Sonja was unimpressed-- the Germans have their Kris Kringle fairs, which are much more elaborate than this little thing... can't wait to see the real deal! I am, of course, going to Bavaria for Christmas.

Right now I'm sitting nice and cozy in Jana's house, waiting until it's time to go see the fair's Christmas lights, which will turn on at 4pm. I don't really know what they're going to do though, cos there have been lights up already for about 2 weeks now, up and down the road, but maybe there will be some kind of show, or music or something.

Well, I'm off to suit up and join in the festivities!

Not So Short, but Sweet

Let's see if I can write something short and sweet for a change...

Well, it's the week before the end of term-- for me, that is. The prof says we started class a week early, so we're ending a week early as well. On our last class this Thursday, we will each present two powerpoints: one on our psychometric scale development, and the other on our thesis research proposal. I finished making those earlier this week and I've been rehearsing them since, and they seem to be pretty good.

The only other examinations for this term are two papers on the same topics as the powerpoints. I am almost finished with both of those, and I must say I've found a love for writing introductions. In case you are unfamiliar with the process of scientific writing, the introduction always encompasses a literature review, which flows into the purpose of the study. My favorite part about the write-up, then, is researching interesting articles and making them all fit nicely around one coherent frame of thought. Just yesterday, I was learning about role-play addiction for my imagination survey write-up-- and the number one reason the role-players give for their excessive game-playing is "I want to escape from reality"-- usually due to unpleasant life experiences, or profound social awkwardness/anxiety. Though I am not partial to conducting survey research or personality research myself, reading about these things is always interesting-- so today, I delved into the motives of addicted RPG-ers.

As far as my thesis project goes, I've been refining it over the week and sharing ideas with my adviser. At first he asked me to try to design the task in MATLAB myself, but I told him I was not comfortable doing it on my own, and that it would be much better if I could watch him program the task. He doesn't seem to get it though-- the last time we talked, he told me to meet him next week after he's written the task by himself-- so how am I supposed to learn? I've asked repeatedly if I could be there when he programs, and he has not responded to the most recent e-mail in which I told him, candidly, that I would really like to be there when he writes the code, unless he is not comfortable with me looking over his shoulder as he does so. In which case he should suck it up.

Today, Jana, Sonja, and I are going to the city centre to do some winter clothes shopping. I need a good pair of gloves and perhaps I will stop by Blacks sporting goods to find a strong, waterproof pair of hiking boots, and a pair of waterproof pants. Oo, regular old winter boots might also be nice to have, since it seems the snow doesn't want to melt around here! Yes, surprisingly, there has been a small layer of well-packed snow and ice on the sidewalks for the whole week now. I didn't think it could happen in England, but they say it's supposed to be the coldest winter in a thousand years, so... there it is.

I'm feeling cheery and in the Christmas spirit after watching "Muppet Christmas Carol"-- of course, Michael Caine is the best Ebenezer Scrooge, as anybody who has seen the movie will agree. I happened to glance down at the date on my phone earlier today and couldn't believe it was already December 4th. I love the city centre at Christmas-time-- there are always streetcorner booths selling warm chestnuts, and there's an ice-skating rink somewhere closeby. I love seeing the festive decorations in shop windows, and the dummies dressed up in sweaters and scarves, looking so cozy. Hopefully after today's excursion, I'll look just like those dummies (ho ho!)

I will miss the family for Christmas, of course. Nothing beats a feast, a stocking and a tree. Hang up some of my ornaments for me, Mum, and remember to get Obi some Christmas catnip. :)

The Lake District Adventure

I will now tell you a tale of great excitement and danger—all of it true—about my adventure in the Lake District. Let me begin on the quiet evening of my departure…

I packed for the Hiking Society’s first weekend journey quickly and efficiently—my bag was full of warm clothing and little else, because we’d been told it might snow where we were going. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and judging from the pictures I could find online, full of craggy peaks and hills, and of course, lakes. We would be staying in a youth hostel in a village called Buttermere, which is situated right in the middle of the wilderness.

We met up in our usual spot at the university on Friday evening, and 14 of our group chose to ride in the minibus, while the remaining four took a car. Seeing as I had an unfavorable opinion of the minibus, I chose to ride in the car, which was NOT driven by the last nightmarish driver, of course (he’s since disappeared without a trace). My company was Ashley, the club prez; Annie, the officer whom I mentioned was Hagatha Twisty at the murder mystery party and Poison Ivy for Halloween; and Alex, the driver. Okay, maybe I should say more about Alex since the title of Driver is not very informative: Alex is a very tall Hiking Society regular, who has been with the club since at least the previous year, considering he and the officers are all on friendly terms. He’s into Reel Big Fish, the surfing society (though he seems grittier than your typical surfer type), and counts bacon as one of the food groups.

We piled our things into the car and had a very smooth four-and-a-half hour drive to Buttermere. It grew dark before we arrived, but I could make out the great silhouettes of the jagged hills that encased us on all sides as we took a steep, winding road up through the river valley. The car seemed to struggle a little bit on the steeper bits, but we made it okay to our destination. It was already quite chilly by this time, but the snow had not yet fallen.

The hostel was surprisingly nice for, well—a hostel. The rooms were warm; the sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases were all freshly washed; and breakfast was included in the cost of our stay. I had a peaceful first night, and woke up bright and early Saturday morning to prepare for the hike. My attire included a long-sleeve-t, a t-shirt over top, Jana’s amazingly warm fleece hoodie, my winter coat, two layers of gloves, and earmuffs on top—and a pair of tights, a pair of leggings, and a pair of jeans, with two pairs of socks and my hiking shoes on the bottom. These layers, I would later find, were all necessary to keep me warm throughout the proceeding adventure. My hiking shoes, which I had purchased for 10 pounds at a discount sporting goods store, were the most worrisome part of my kit—they were not properly waterproof, which I feared would be my downfall. But I persevered and had the brilliant idea of duct-taping over the cloth parts of my shoes, which proved to be 100% effective—very, very lucky for me—because, as it turns out, it had snowed the previous night.

Breakfast was buffet style, and I didn’t hesitate to load up on the carbohydrates. The journey was supposed to be roughly 10 miles up and down snowy, icy, mountainous hills and cliffs, and we knew it would be difficult going. From the hostel, the peaks loomed over us impressively, and they stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. We took off around 9:30AM and expected to return around 4PM. Little did we know, not everything would go as planned…

We started out our usual cheery selves—there is a good-sized Chinese population among our ranks, who were particularly giddy and prone to snowball fights, though that might have been because they had all become friends very quickly, as tends to happen in a chummy society like ours. The sky was clear, the wind was not sharp, and we all headed down a path that would take us around a large lake and into the peaks.

Almost at once, and perhaps ominously, one member of our group slipped and fell flat on his back as we made our way down the icy road. Though we were repeatedly reminded to watch out for slippery patches, they were often quite inevitable. I was relieved that my cheap hiking trainers at least had fair traction, and I would like to let you all know now that I only slipped twice—which was a pretty miraculous achievement, as you will see later on. In fact, one of the girls was so prone to imbalance that she clung to Annie’s arm for a good part of the journey—mostly on account of her poor choice of footwear, which was only a pair of street shoes.

Once we crossed the Bridge of Treachery (I call it that because everything is symbolic on a hike such as this), the road became much more treacherous (see?). Our path took us up a long row of flat rocks, which we used as steps to climb up and up and up— these were unevenly spaced, and sometimes you needed to make a wide lunge for the next one, and they were all, of course, covered in about an inch of snow. We snaked our way, single file, for a long time—many of our group had to take short breaks, and we were all very sweaty by the time we reached a more level ground.

At this point, though very high up, we were still only about halfway to the peak. The ground became increasingly icy, as we traversed over frozen creeks and streams that fell into the valley from whence we came. We toed carefully around these streams, but one patch of ice was particularly tricky—if you were not careful in stepping over it, you would likely slip and fall straight over the edge of the cliff. As I trod around the patch and continued on, I heard a scrambling sound and a girl's gasp behind me. I turned around to see that one guy had slipped, and was hanging precariously down the cliff side!

He clung to a couple of small bushes on either side of the icy bank, and said in a collected, somewhat cheerful voice, “I’m fine, but I might need some help getting back up here.”

I made a motion to grab for his hand, but the others behind him beat me to it, and they pulled him back up to safety. We continued along until we reached a small, frozen lake that sat at the foot of the steepest climb yet. We took a short break here, and soldiered on. At first the climb was only very snowy and rocky, but it quickly became more challenging as the incline steepened. Our single file snaking became more hectic— we were advised to leave a meter between each other so that if somebody toppled backwards, they wouldn’t bring the whole society down with them. The path was icy, and it became near vertical the closer we got to the top. We all made comments about giving the Mountaineering Society a run for their money as we used large boulders to hoist ourselves through a crevice. After the crevice, the top was in sight, and we hurried to reach the relative plateau of the summit. Those ahead of me let out cries of achievement and I rushed to join them. We burst onto the top of the peak and could see out over the whole of the Lake District from our location. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I will try to tag pictures on facebook as soon as others' put them up.

The club president informed us that we had climbed 807 meters up—that’s 2,647 feet, people. Let me spell that out for you: two-thousand, six-hundred and forty-seven feet. And that wasn’t even the beginning, as we would find out!

We spent most of the afternoon tramping up and down more hill-like areas at the top of the mountains. We crossed over about three more peaks, some with steep-ish inclines, but nothing compared to our first hurdle. But as the time grew later, after around 3 o’clock, the officers were becoming uneasy—we were not making as good time as we’d hoped, and we wouldn’t be able to follow our originally-planned descent path for fear of the sun setting before we hit the valley below. Our downward journey, of course, would be near impossible in the dark.

This is where it got really interesting: one member of our group, Scott, who’d been leading the way most of the time, knew these hills quite well. He proposed taking a shortcut down, and after the president consulted his map, decided a strategic shortcut would be best. We started our descent merrily, and went up and over a couple of the lower peaks. We followed a trail of markers set for hikers such as ourselves.

We emerged over a particular peak to see a zigzagging path of snow leading down to the next lower point. Those at the head of the group tried to follow the path of snow, since the grassy slopes on either side were too steep to walk down—but as they plunged ahead, they found it unbearably slippery. Every one of us lost our balance here. Many fell down and decided to sledge the rest of the way on their bums. I decided to step sideways down the hill, as I was in jeans and did not want to get wet. I made it without falling, but many of our number struggled to keep up at this point. Most were laughing and having a lot of fun careening down the snowy embankment, but that was before they hit the bottom—when the road got most challenging!

I was one of the first down, and as I looked over the last big peak, I could see far, far below a long stone wall that weaved all the way down the mountain. I should mention that the sun was approaching the horizon by now, and the rest of the way looked incredibly steep. Once we had all gathered at the bottom of the snow path, the club prez and Mountain Man Scott surveyed the ledge down, and determined that we needed to reach the stone wall, as it was a direct route to the valley.

“Okay, everyone,” the prez announced, “Be very careful here. One wrong move could have you tumbling into the abyss.”

Okay, he didn’t actually say that last bit, but that was the risk, and he did seriously warn us to take the next bit very carefully.

We were on a grassy patch of the peak, the leeward side, if you will. Amish went first—he was the fastest, as he is training to climb to Everest base camp, and he is in very good shape for scaling cliffs.

We were, of course, climbing down a cliff-like wall of grass. I am not even joking. Amish had to lay flat on his belly to pull himself along the weeds and onto a ledge of boulders, down which he nimbly climbed until he reached the next bit of level ground, several meters below. There was one girl in front of me, who lay on her belly as well, but she was having particularly greater trouble than Amish.

“What do I hold on to?” she fretted, turning in my direction. I looked for a handhold for her and caught sight of a rock in the middle of the grassy cliff face.

“Try that rock,” I suggested, pointing toward it. But instead of testing the rock to see if it was safe, the girl threw all her weight on it at once, and it instantly uprooted, and the girl and the rock went sliding down the cliff. The girl gave a shriek, Amish scrambled to grab her hand, and he helped her ungracefully down. I scaled the wall, weaved through the boulders, and continued to the next level down. Mountain Man Scott advised me to continue toward the stone wall, still so very far below.

I clambered down weeds peeking out of the snow, over rocks and down a steep and treacherous path. I looked back a few times to see if Scott was following, and as he kept nodding me on, I did not look back again for a long time. I methodically stooped and jumped, grabbing onto rocks and weeds—I imagined myself very adventurous at this point, and felt like a mountaineer as I moved deftly down, finding foot- and hand-holds swiftly and efficiently, thankful of my many childhood tree-climbing experiences. Before I knew it, I had lost the others, and I went over a small hill to look back for the group. The rest were like ants on the cliff face, most of them still at the top of the peak.

“Hey!” someone shouted. “Stay there!” I didn’t need telling—I hadn’t realized how far I’d gone. A couple minutes later, Scott emerged onto my hill.

“Thought we’d lost you,” he said. “You took that hill fast.”

A feeling of accomplishment swelled within me—yes, I had beaten that hill on which so many continued to struggle. I was like a mighty chimpanzee.

But dusk was approaching and we still had a long way to go. The club prez had told the youth hostel we’d be back by 4PM, but it was already four by this time. One girl had slipped on the dangerous cliff and hurt her leg, and others were ill-equipt to make the journey any faster. The prez made a split decision— three officers would remain with the struggling or injured members of the group and take the mountain at a slower pace, while a few of us carried on swiftly ahead with one officer, to try to keep the hostel from sending rescue crew out looking for us.

Our small group, we messengers, plunged onward and reached the stone wall. From there, we followed an uneven path, buried in snow, with hidden rocks jutting dangerously up from the hillside. We walked along a patch of trees and scaled one final slope, before we reached flat ground at last. The ground in front of us stretched out toward a farm, and as we hurried through the twilight, the snow reflecting a cold glow from the moon, we saw the dark outlines of dozens of sheep.

“The Sheep of Safe Journey,” I breathed aloud.

One sheep that had escaped onto our path was leading the way, before it ran into a fence and stopped.

“Here’s the Guide Sheep now, come to show us the way home,” I added, before it became startled and charged past up in the opposite direction, with insanity in its eyes.

We sauntered on until we reached The Cows to Hinder our Journey, which looked menacing and flicked their ears angrily as we passed. We found the road, and walked until we hit the hostel. We arrived back at around 5:30PM and well after dark. The hostel workers confided that they were starting to grow worried, but we assured them we were all fine. 20 minutes later, the rest of the group made it back.

“Is everyone okay?” Annie asked the prez quickly, as the group trudged, exhausted, up the stairs to their rooms.

“One girl fell and hit her knee,” Ashley responded. “It’ll make a pretty big bruise, but she’s okay. We’re all okay.”

That night, the officers made us heaping plates of macaroni and cheese, and we stuffed ourselves silly before calling it an early day. But that wasn’t the end of our adventure, as we would find out this (Sunday) morning.

It had snowed a little more overnight, but it was only about an inch deep on the road. The youth hostel workers warned, however, that the roads would be icy on the way out.

We started out okay. The minibus took the lead, with Mountain Man Scott driving, and the car followed behind. All of a sudden, we came to an incline, and the minibus slowed—the tires skidded, the wheels spun, but the bus started to inch its way down toward us. Without further ado, we leapt from the car and charged toward the minibus to push.

“Get out of the bus and help us!” we shouted at the people inside. Some of them were taking pictures.

The bus continued to slip, and Amish barged out the back door. The rest followed suit and 17 people nudged the minibus over the hill… but that was only the first one. We had to push the minibus up at least three more, all with increasing difficulty as our energy was slowly draining after each attempt.

Cars began to queue behind us. We finally got the minibus up the last large hill, and we decided to let Scott take it alone until he reached the main road, which would not be covered in ice. He revved the minibus and sped it up the road while the rest of the crew followed behind on foot. Scott let the momentum take the bus up and over a few more hills, a slightly less dangerous tactic without having a crowd of students in the back to worry about. Alex’s car had experienced similar trouble (Ashley, Annie and I heaved it over several hills, as well), so I also got out and walked so that Alex could drive at his own risk.

As the vehicles sped out of sight, we wondered about their luck. We came around a bend in the road a little while later to find Alex’s car stopped in the middle of the road.

“Everything okay?” Annie asked.

“Yeah, but I slid sideways,” Alex said. “See, those are my tracks.” He brandished his arm at tire tracks that led off the road, and there was a ditch carved into the muddy shoulder that had obviously been dug by spinning tires.

“I would have screamed like a little girl if I’d been in the car when that happened,” I said, matter-of-factly. So from then on I was more appreciative of the picturesque farm scenery as we walked the few more miles to the next town, where there was a cozy pub. We stopped there to have lunch, and then drove on home without any further trouble.

Thus concludes post #50! I know it was very long, but I hope it was exciting for you. That was definitely out longest and most challenging hike so far, and I was really proud of my achievement at the end. I actually very much enjoyed scaling those cliffs and pushing that minibus up those hills—and what kind of adventure would it have been if there were no effort involved, no danger?

I think this experience was one amazing adventure, and I hope our next weekend hike is just as exciting! Now I'm off to bed, after a thrilling and exhausting weekend!

Murder Mystery Night

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I decided to celebrate by going to a party put on by a girl I know from the Hiking Society. She is raising money to do a charity hike up Mt Kilimanjaro, and last week she sent out an e-mail advertising a home-cooked pasta bake dinner and cake for dessert, plus a murder mystery game afterwards to top it all off, for a fee of 7 pounds. I thought it sounded like fun, and it was for charity, so I figured I would skip Jana's elaborately-planned Thanksgiving dinner to join in the game.

I was supposed to come as an old-time film director, so I donned a white blouse, put my hair back and carefully traced a pencil moustache under my nose in eyeliner. I get to the party only to find out there is no pasta bake, and no cake-- just a table full of white bread sandwiches stuffed with grated cheddar cheese, and a mound of cookies. I thought at first these were just pre-dinner snacks, but then the host quickly explained that too many people had decided to show up and she didn't have enough pasta bake for everybody. This was very disappointing, considering I had come hungry, and she hadn't warned us ahead of time that there would not be a real meal! I stuffed my face with cold sandwiches and eyed the Brits to see if they'd say anything. They didn't comment, so I kept my scathing thoughts to myself.

Loaded with cookies and white bread (bugh), we eventually started the game-- which turned out to be a lot of fun! Most of us had never done a murder mystery before, so it was a great new experience-- we each got a little character booklet with lines we were supposed to say to each other, and we all got into our roles.

There was one girl dressed up like Lara Croft who was supposed to be an adventurer called "Emily Airhead" (Amelia Earhart, get it), and she played her part with ditzy gusto. Another girl had brought in a feathered fan, and she was playing the part of "Fanny Shaker", a can-can dancer. The girl who dressed up as Poison Ivy on the Halloween hike was there, and she had dressed up as "Hagatha Twisty", the tweed-clad, scarf-wearing, crime novelist. There was a prince, a widow, an inventor, and of course, me. I think we all did our characters justice, and we had a lot of fun accusing each other and discovering who the REAL killer was in the end.

If nothing else, the party inspired me to look into having my own murder mystery party sometime-- you can get the materials online, and when I came around to Jana's house after the party to drop off her blouse, I told Tom and Sonja how much fun it would be if we could all play the game together-- Jana hid in her room until I climbed upstairs, and I can't recall if I suggested the party to her-- I think I immediately jumped into expressing my grief over the nasty food.

Jana took pity on me and said we could have Thanksgiving lunch together the next day to finish off her leftovers, which we did earlier today, which was amazing. She'd made turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and of course her famous FUDGE-- and I got a taste of what I had missed the night before. She and her roommates had done the table up nice and fancy for their Thanksgiving feast, and had put everything onto porcelain platters, and drank sparkling wine together. You can see pictures on Jana's facebook, if you are her friend!

When I mixed my turkey with the cranberries and gravy, I got a sudden mental image of watching the Macy's parade, then sitting at home with the family, eating the same dinner with cheerful background noise in a big, warm house.

I do miss home-- I seem to talk about it a lot-- but! I will be going back sooner than you think! Yes! I am coming home for spring break, sometime in the month of April. So clear your schedules, start planning some Yours Truly outings, bake some pies, make pancakes-- I'm comin' home!

So that concludes blog post #49. I should put some virtual confetti on blog post #50, to mark the momentous occassion. Of course, my next entry will be on Sunday night, when I will have another adventure to tell: my weekend hike in the Lake District. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and it's breathtakingly beautiful all year round. There is supposed to be a blizzard on Sunday, but I hope we miss it. Otherwise, it should be around freezing but sunny the rest of the time. Now I am off to get my last few things together for the long journey-- I bid you adieu, fair readers-- see you on Sunday!

Oxford Adventure

So it's been nearly a week since I've posted anything here, and there is one reason for that:

MATLAB.

MATLAB is short for Matrix Laboratory, a computer programming language that is used mostly by mathematicians and engineers, but is sometimes used in psychology to create visual computer tasks. Such as the task I will be using in my experiment.

Do I have to learn MATLAB? No.

Do I want to learn MATLAB? Yes, for 2 reasons: 1) it looks good on a CV, and, more importantly, 2) I want to be less dependent on my adviser in designing the different experiments for my thesis project.

After a week of intense study from a MATLAB book written specifically for psychologists, I have learned very few things. I know the basics: the ideas behind matrixes, contingencies, indices, vectorizing, "for" and "while" loops,"if" and "switch" statements, and input-output. The most complicated thing I can do now is write code to password-protect something. But can I create my own code out of thin air? Not a chance.

My biggest problem, is that I don't have the ability to parse things into tiny, simple steps. So, for example, if someone asked me: "How do you walk up a flight of stairs?" I might answer, "Well, you put one foot in front of the other and go up until you reach the top". My answer was made up of 2 directions: 1) put one foot in front of the other, and 2) go up until you reach the top.

Really, a complicated task like going up a flight of stairs is more accurately described by a lot more directions: 1) pick one foot up, 2) move foot above the first step, 3) place foot on first step, 4) pull rest of body up to first step, etc. etc.

This, I cannot do! Not for experimental tasks, anyway, and not in programming code. I always skip steps, and I always find ways to mess up the loops/statements/etc. You must have great precision and patience in writing code, and I have neither, naturally. I'm a hit-or-miss type person. I blunder through things. Here's a cooking example: I cut apples like a ninja on crack, and I can never figure out how to time the use of the kettle, microwave, and oven to systematically have all parts of dinner ready at once. So, my explosive style is what hinders my programming ability. If I could only learn how to leave out unnecessary items, and put all the necessary items into a perfectly logical order, I can master MATLAB. And also cook better.

My adviser wants me to have a visual task programmed in MATLAB by the end of this week. So I have five days to translate my task design (which I wrote out in great detail in English this morning) into MATLAB language. My adviser gave me a few bits of code to start with, and everything else I have to come up with out of my meager store of programming knowledge. I will make a most valiant effort, but if I do not succeed, I am wholly prepared to let my adviser write the program for me. I've resigned myself to knowing that I at least came up with the English version all on my own, if nothing else.

So! Now that I've got you all up to date on my academic ventures, let's relax a little and move on to my "Funday" of the week. This Funday happened yesterday, and yesterday I went to Oxford with Jana and Sonja. Remember how I told you we were having trouble finding direct routes/cheap tickets to Oxford? Well, Jana solved that problem for us, when she learned that her Museum Studies program had booked a personal coach to Oxford for students and their friends. Well, actually, I believe the coach was just for the students, but friends (such as myself and Sonja) bought seats before all the Museum Studies students could dredge up the 10 quid fee, and we successfully infiltrated an exclusive field trip.

Oxford is the most unique city in England, and you can see some great photos from my previous Oxford aventure, here. I felt it was unnecessary to take more pics since I took so many good ones last time, and everything was in bloom then, so the gardens were prettier, anyway-- but, as Oxford is so rightly named "The City of Dreaming Spires", those mighty old spires are awe-inspiring at all times of the year, and I must say my memories could never be more wondrous than the actual thing. Here is a city out of a fairy tale-- which actually gave birth to several fairy tales, in fact, among them His Dark Materials, Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Ring.

The coach took us right outside the Pitt Rivers museum, which is this excellently decorated natural history museum, with real dinosaur footprints stamping the front lawn of the building. We broke off from the group here, and made our way to the Botanic Gardens where we found Lyra's bench for reals this time. Jana had written out detailed directions from The Amber Spyglass, and we followed them until we reached a bench in the newer section of the garden, close to a small bridge, and sitting under a young tree.

Let me explain, for those of you who haven't read the books: at the most heart-wrenching part of the final novel, the main character, Lyra, vows to sit on a bench in Oxford's Botanic Gardens-- for a reason I will not divulge here, in case you would like to read the series sometime. Anyway, the last time we were here, we picked a random bench we thought was most likely the one which Lyra would have picked; against the wall, in front of this huge, awesome "Whomping Willow"-esque pine tree. But upon re-reading the books, we found we were much mistaken in our location of the bench, and we decided to follow the directions this time around. But we still have beaming pictures of ourselves sitting on this random bench that is not Lyra's, which I still think should have been Lyra's, because it's in a much cooler place.

After the Botanic Gardens, we went to a bumbling cafe for an overpriced and mediocre meal-- not to mention they got Jana's drink order wrong three times-- but this actually did NOT foreshadow the rest of the day-- which was simply amazing! We went to Alice's Shop, and looked at all the Alice in Wonderland -themed goodies. These included Cheshire Cat pillows, Queen of Hearts clocks, teacups and tea sets, every edition of the book you could imagine, an assortment of jewelry, and barley sugar candies (the real Alice's favorite snack from that very shop, before it was called Alice's Shop, of course). I got myself a pair of silver Alice earrings, to complement the march hares I'd purchased on another visit.

We explored Christchurch Meadow, where cows grazed with their young, and I saw some shaggy bulls for the first time, with their long, twisted, menacing horns. After that, we walked all along the main streets, popping in and out of festive shops, already decked out for Christmas, selling ornaments, wool blankets, advent calendars, and many trinkety gifts. We passed several bakeries with their pastries displayed beautifully in the windows, and clothes shops where all the dummies were wrapped in warm sweaters and scarves. There was a shop that sold quills and stuffed owls, there was a toyshop that sold murder mysteries and gadgets.

We walked by a fudge shop, and the rich, sweet aromas wafted toward us from a block away-- but we didn't stop, because we were headed for the famous Blackwell's Bookshop, which has a unique collection of new and used books, cheap paperbacks on tables and rare first editions behind glass, bestsellers and classics, on any subject you can think of. We found a poster in Blackwell's advertising a "Rupert Bear" exhibit at the Bodleian Library, so of course, Jana and I being faithful Rupert fans, had to check it out.

Afterwards, we went to my very favorite tea shop in the whole world (so far) called The Rose and had a perfectly wonderful tea party, with scones and the most delicious tea you will ever drink. This time I made sure to ask where they get their tea, and they told me it was at the covered market right up the street at a shop called Cardew's, and I found it so quickly it must have been kismet. The shop was small and busy, and huge containers of tea leaves lined the back wall. There was not one inch to spare, as the whole rest of the place was taken up with different kinds of pots and trays and strainers and spoons and all other tea-related things. I got myself a hefty and excellently-priced bag of vanilla tea, and a nifty little strainer to go along with it.

To top off a brilliant day, we ended at the Ashmolean Museum, another natural history museum-- smaller than any national museum, but its structure, style, and richness of artefacts were on par with any of the giants. Of course, we had to make a stop at the Near East exhibit, as my dad has instilled in me a wondrous curiosity for ancient Mesopotamia. And that, my friends, is Oxford.... The City of Dreaming Spires... a city out of a fairy tale!

Hiking at Rutland Water

It was nice.

We hiked somewhere between 10-11 miles around a huge reservoir that was positioned on top of an ancient town. One member of our group says an old church is still intact somewhere, submerged under the murky depths, since it used to be illegal to demolish churches. Now the reservoir is popular for sailing (even this far into the fall), and fishing-- fishermen are called anglers here, and they walk into the water up to their waists to do their sport.

All around the water are beautiful rolling hills, dotted with plentiful sheep and swans, but what made the biggest impression on me were the picturesque towns tucked neatly in the hill valleys. With the little brick houses poking into view, church spires easily the highest points around, it reminded me strongly of Sleepy Hollow. If you don't like the idea of Sleepy Hollow (I think it's very pretty in every movie, but that could just be me), think of your favorite storybook village, and you have the towns surrounding Rutland Water.

We walked through one such town, and it is as picturesque within as it is from far away. Ivy and flowers scale cobbled walls, pumpkins sit merrily on doorsteps, autumn wreaths hang festively from doorways. Some of the houses had thatched roofs, believe it or not, but those were the exception. Each house had a simple, yet charming name: The Cottage, Old Hall, etc. I imagined this place would be very homey around Christmas-time-- I imagined buying hot pies from stalls, decorating the town hall with strings of lights, sledding down the hillside, listening to carolers in the street, drinking cocoa in front of a crackling fire. Ahhh...

After our journey around the reservoir, we took a stroll around the nature reserve. Birdwatchers are popular; they come for the swans, geese, and other creatures that live near the water. The setting sun looked striking against the black silhouettes of trees, and it somehow enhanced the green of the hillside. After our walk, we went to a nearby pub where I ordered my usual plate of potato wedges and we all sat around wooden tables, warming ourselves up with cocoa and spirits.

I had a dream about the nature reserve 5 months ago. That chalks my deja vu experiences up to 2 in the past week, since I also dreamed about the Arcadia in Birmingham. However, when you remember your dreams as well as I do, you'd know you go through thousands of dream scenes, some of which are bound to have correlations in real life, whether you'd actually seen them before or not. So I could take this phenomenon in one of two ways: 1) as an indication that the mind is so sophisticated that it can construct new places in a dream as well as an architect could in real life, or 2) I'm psychic.

Either one would be really cool.

Yann Tiersen is like Sex

On Tuesday night, Jana and I took a cushy trainride to Birmingham to see our favorite foreign composer-- Yann Tiersen. If you've never heard this name, I recommend you check him out. If you do a Youtube search for 'Rue des Cascades', the first search item that comes up is the version of the song that made me a fan from that point forward.

If you've never heard his name, I'm sure you're familiar with his work-- most notably, he composed the score for the film Amelie. But he has worked on several other French films and also has many stand-alone CDs, my favorites of which are Les Retrouvailles- a whimsical studio album made up mostly of pieces that haven't featured on other albums, and C'etait Ici- a 2 disk live concert recording of all Yann's best music (in case any of you want a starting point for your own Tiersen exploration!)

OK back to the concert. Going in we knew we would have a problem with time. The last train back to Leicester was scheduled for 10:20, and the concert started at 8. (Jana and I actually did pretty well leaving early together, considering a shouting match would typically have ensued from having to miss our dear Yann.)

Once we arrived in Birmingham, we found the venue was conveniently right around the corner from the train station. The Glee Club-- a generic club venue with a bar, a stage, a small amount of standing room and nothing else-- was inside an open-roofed Chinese mall, which looked like an Asian Downtown Disney. The setup was actually kind of strange, once I thought about it: to get to the club, we first had to pass under a Japanese archway, walk down a row of cozy-looking Asian restaurants, ascend some stairs and suddenly, we were surrounded by modern clubs and theaters, overlooking all the Asian stores (and an Italian restaurant).

The opening band was very fitting for a Tiersen concert-- made up of a guitarist and drummer, who occasionally played some kind of piano horn. The music had very lulling, rhythmically deep vocals and interesting meter, and it was all in English sung by Frenchmen, which sounds really cool as is. The audience pegged a stagehand as Tiersen early on (granted, he did look like an uglier, messier, version), but when Yann finally materialized on the stage (he seemed to come right out of nowhere), there was no mistaking him-- that powerful, casual swagger; that sleight, proportionate frame; that magical stage-presence radiating like an aura around him; this was a musical phenomenon.

It is peculiar to add, looking back, how small the venue was. Granted, he's no arena performer, but this place was tiny! I was so close to him I could have touch him if I'd reached out. It made me realize how selective his fanbase is. Do I wish he were mainstream? Some would argue that popularity changes an artist-- I say, if I could hear Yann Tiersen on the radio, I would be ecstatic.

He played music from his new album Dust Lanes, which I have never heard, but the music was so pleasant and wonderful I didn't care. Just before 10 o'clock (our premature cut-off time for the concert), he had all his bandmates leave the stage, and he stood alone with his violin.

He played Sur le Fil.

If you don't know what that means, go here.

Just him. Alone. With his violin. Shredding his bow.

My heart was beating so fast and hard, I could feel my pulse in my head and feet and everywhere in between; I could feel the music in my teeth; I liken his playing to foreplay, sex and orgasm-- he runs his hands along the neck and curves of his instrument so gently, then thrusts into the piece with his body, and ends abruptly on this amazing chord of notes--

And for a split second, there's silence afterwards, and you can see his face is still in the piece--

Then the applause, like the throbbing of hearts and genitalia (OK I'm done with the sex references here, but that's the takeaway message: Yann Tiersen's music is like sex)

Jana says my solitary shout of approval provoked the thanking smile the artist gave to the audience for sharing in his most intimate performance.

And then we left, back to Leicester much too soon. Jana and I promised to go to another of his concerts to finish the damn thing-- God knows he tours England plenty!

BUT that is a performance I will never forget, and I count myself lucky to have witnessed his genius, and with my very favorite instrument.

Bonfire Night

I'm wondering why I wrote that last post-- I'm keeping it up cos I've decided not to delete anything I write here. I always get rid of things and regret it afterwards (some of my DBZ paraphernalia, as laughable as that sounds, as well as my livejournal account, to name a couple). Anyway, my dreams are always vivid and random, but I seem to be going through a heck of a lot more of them nowadays-- I wonder if that means I've got a lot on my mind? I don't feel overwhelmed or anything, and I'm always well-rested, so maybe all the dreaming is a good thing-- I look forward to sleeping, at any rate.

Last night my dreams were full of randomness-- my dad was building a house all by himself, which was turning out to be a nightmare-- I was a spy and I had to swim through a dark marina to steal a sea-doo-- I was weaving in my old car through a parking lot and grazed a bumper in my haste to turn around, and decided to drive away instead of doing anything about it... You'd think my dreams would be of England or university or something relevant to my experiences here, but my brain decided that was too logical for me!

All through the daytime yesterday I was running data analysis for my reading study. I finally finished running it on Friday and I was excited to see the results. As you know, I had given students garbled passages to read last week, which were actually transcripts of audio from a patient with a language disorder. This week I gave students the normal passages. When I ran the tests on the data, I found (not unexpectedly) that they scored significantly worse in answering questions on the garbled passages than the normal passages. I also found (to my disappointment) that the patient scored pretty similarly to the garbled-passage condition, which just goes to show that nothing too interesting was going on in her head that I couldn't have gathered from her transcripts. What I mean to say is, she said exactly what she could understand, and answered the questions comparatively. I had hoped that she would score closer to the control condition, which would have meant she was comprehending more than she was generating, which would have been a really cool effect.

I've been looking for some theoretical support for my study, and found that there is a lot of debate among language scientists about how we process the written word. When we read, do we draw out the sound of the word first and access the meaning, after? Or, can we access the meaning of a word without the pronunciation of it in our heads? Several studies have found conflicting results. Mine, I guess, seems to show that meanings of words are accessed better if the phonological representation (pronunciation of the word) is accurate.

My study might still be useful, though. One previous study argued that their patient with aphasia was still able to understand meanings of words even though he could not pronounce those words. But, what the researchers didn't do, was compare their patient to controls... when my patient took the comprehension test, she scored about 70%, which seems like fair comprehension, considering she scored better than chance. However, when my controls were given the jumbled words (and those words could provide no semantic access to real words, unlike the words given to my patient), they scored almost the same. So that just goes to show that my test was probably too easy and people can guess the correct answers even if they were given nonsense to read, and it looks like phonological reps are quite important to the meanings of words... so I'm going to write up these issues and findings as a scientific poster and hopefully present it this spring at the BPS conference in London.

Okay, so I titled this post Bonfire Night for a reason, and that is because the 5th of November is a holiday here not unlike our 4th of July in practice. Here's a history lesson, Yanks-- on November 5th, sometime in the 1600s, a group of conspirators plotted to blow up the House of Lords, similar to today's Parliament, to bring down the Protestants and bring back Catholicism to the rulers of England. Guy Fawkes was in charge of guarding the explosives that had been strategically placed for their act of terrorism, but authorites caught him before he could do any damage, and he was maimed and tortured and had a public hanging and all that horrible stuff. Ever since, England has celebrated its amazing luck with fireworks, bonfires and barbeques every 5th of November.

This year it rained. Which sucked, because Jana and I didn't actually go see any fireworks on November 5th, but there was a big party in Abbey Park the day after with plenty of fire and sparks to make up for it, cos we went there-- and here's the story:

Around 5:45-ish, it was getting dark and chilly, and Jana, Tom (her roommate), and I made our way down to Abbey Park. We met a couple of Tom's friends on New Walk along the way, one of them another American who had this double-air about him of 1)amused bewilderment at anything English and 2)slight disdain for Leicester and superiority for naturally being an American. However, this attitude might have spurned from his being from New York, more than anything. The other Brit seemed to be as casual as Tom, which is probably why they're friends.

We hit the park and first thing we saw was a huge pile of wood, all stacked neatly into a boxy shape, and surrounded on all sides by a barrier. Just in front of the pile was a tall metal frame stamped with the visage of none other than Guy Fawkes himself, pointy 17th century-esque hat and all. There was a big TV screen right above a stage that everyone was crowding around, where BBC Leicester radio DJs hosted, and entertainers performed.

The first thing we did, of course, was run to the food stands-- Jana, Tom and I got some great crepes-- not your typical, teeny weeny, limp, thin, crepes-- but massive, thick, crispy pancakes that were each spread over its own round grill, batter dumped from enormous buckets, and filled with lots of goodies. Jana had hers filled with strawberries and cream, mine was filled with cheese, but you could get it loaded with fruit, or meat, or a combination of fruit and liqueur (as a side note, I finally bothered to look up the real spelling of liqueur).

We made our way across the field to watch the lighting of the biggest bonfire I'd ever seen. The barriers were a good long ways away from the fire itself, but the heat coming from the flames was enough to make us finally turn our back to shield our scorching faces... we warmed up very nicely for a good half hour, before the fire died down and what was once a heaping pile of wood was reduced to ashes. Jana proposed the idea to hop the fence and do a "fire walk", but none were stupid enough. As we made our way back across the field for the fireworks, a streaker bounded across an empty plain that had been blocked off for the display, and I missed him, unfortunately, and only saw the aftermath of three cops charging after him behind a building. But Tom and his friends saw the guy, and that turned out to be better fun than all the entertainers of the night, who were quite mediocre for a 10,000-man crowd. I mentioned to Jana, of course, that Stefani could have done this place well.

The fireworks were very pretty, but the show was much too short. Really, the bonfire and crepe made the night spectacular. The boys decided to hit the pub before going home, but I went back to my place to read some Harry Potter-- which is like a whole new book when you read the British-English version. Here's a new word for all of you: scarper. It means basically the same thing as scamper although it suggests more of the "hurrying quickly away" quality of the word and less of the "panicked or mindless running" quality. Here's another term I learned from Harry Potter: "Get out of it". This phrase basically means "Go away" but in a less-direct sort of manner.

So next time your annoying little brother/sister/cat intrudes on you, you can say in a severe tone, "Get out of it," and watch them scarper.