St-st-st-Staines

I'm back from the brink and I forgot to mention a few things last time. I had a room check on Tuesday and they left a notes on my bed saying it was "satisfactory". Satisfactory? My room was SPOTLESS they should have written on this generic note "your room was the best in all the land" but no. Now that there's not another room check for a month my clothes have returned to their natural place - on the floor. Oh another random thing that happened yesterday after I'd already posted. I was going to the bathroom, keep in mind this is an all girls floor, when someone appeared through the frosted glass. I looked up to open the door and there was a guy coming out of the shower! I gave him a genuine "what the?" look and he went "oh err...sorry". Really weird. No wonder the drains are always blocked...smelly boys.

Something else I've noticed. With regards to my sadness yesterday and monthly cry of "no one likes me" I think it's party BECAUSE I'm Australian. I thought the Brits loved Aussies? Well not at this University I don't think. I mean I have a good joke about it and everything and that's fine. But there are some who bring it up in subtle ways around me and I just wonder if it's a gentle reminder that I don't belong here. Sounds silly but its been adding up of late...

Onto today! Today is Wednesday and Miranda and I went to Staines! In all its stainy glory. The main reason for our trip was to go to the movies! - hang on. Someone is a-knocking. Some random girl asking if I knew security's number?? I gave it to her and asked if everything was alright... How strange... Anyway back to the movies! Last time I went to the cinema was... at least a couple of months ago. Staines had more shops than Egham which isn't hard to accomplish but there are SO many nice things here! I go into the bookshop and look around longingly and go into clothes stores and cry at the prices. Sigh. In my head I constantly play the if-I-had-a-million-pounds game. It's a nice little town. And by little I mean bigger than Egham but a lot smaller than London. Miranda and I are so sick of the food at the dining hall we splurged and had a huge lunch. I had creamy pasta and Miranda had chicken fajitas which are hilarious when mispronounced. It's 10pm now and I'm still full. I ate that much.

After lunch we went into a toy store and marveled at all the British variations on toys. I found an excellent new roommate. Alas he was a little too expensive for my taste. That and I didn't really need a big orangutan puppet except to annoy Miranda with and that served its purpose in the shop. The film was pretty good. We saw "He's just not that into you" and, yeah, it was OKAY but I didn't really like the ending. It was raining when we came out so we trotted back to the train station to go one stop to Egham. Got back to campus and found this door to one of the bathrooms in Founders which was the smallest door you could get through without mashing your forehead every time. Look at the photo! I look HUGE. Maybe the food here encourages growth - I guess you'll all have to wait and find out. Judging from the photos I took today - Staines didn't have too much to offer in the way of tourist attractions. It was funny though because a lot of the other international students were in Staines as well going to the cinema. We've all got cabin fever from within Egham. Have to get up earlier than usual for class tomorrow because of some thing the lecturer wants us to do. Knowing him we won't do it anyway! Hopefully tonight I'll rid myself of that ever-so-attractive bloodshot eye look and get some serious sleep. Nighty night!

Pity Blog

Yes one and all - it's come to this. A pity blog. All I have to talk about are my feelings and woes, not necessarily in that order.

Oh man I feel like total rubbish at present. My hair is awful because of the weather, skin dry, pimples, hat hair, looking like a frump in all my layers and no one around to tell me "it's alright". Yikes. Tuesday I went to my Therapy class and I just couldn't face it. I honestly did not want to get out of bed for that - I did though. Dragging myself to class I arrived at 10:45 - 15 minutes early thinking that at least the lecturer will have arrived. By five to I was beginning to worry if there had been another phantom email sent to everyone but me. No...people trickled in at about 10:59 and we had to start at 11:05. I guess I'm just overly punctual for class? The class itself was pretty mind-numbing today. We had to do a catch up class of last week's readings and then the readings from this week as well and also talk about assignments. It was a complete talking class. I just struggled because I still don't understand the slight differences between one discipline of theatre therapy and another! Even the lecturer admits "there is a lot of blurring". Why bother? They're all aiming at helping people lets just leave it at that! In the end she left two hours early to go somewhere and left us to do an exercise. Naturally, we finished it in 45 minutes and then left early. That was probably the best part about the class. Sigh. Oh no and I have to write this assignment!? Argh.

Later that evening...

Miranda and I were desperate for a light dinner of sushi and the only place we could get it was down in Egham. So we walked. I was thinking that maybe the reason I'm sleeping so much here is because of the heavy food. Every dinner is swimming in gravy or carbs or starch. I feel bloated and awful after most meals. Wow all this whinging - what a fun read this must be. Anyway the Tesco sushi was average but it did the job and then we walked back up the hill where I met Tamsin, a very funny girl from the therapy class - we both make hilarious jokes about it as you could probably guess. We went to the Midnight Boilerhouse show which started at eight. Go figure. Two of the boys from my Directing class were in it and that was fun to see them doing their show - which was actually a professional show at the Edinburgh play festival thing. Onwards to the Student Union to catch the last half-hour of the Royal Holloway Players. They play for two whole hours - exhausting. That was funny. Then we went to Medicine because the student elections were being announced. FINALLY I was getting so sick having a pamphlet shoved down my throat whenever I left my room. The girl in my class, who I voted for, didn't win : (. That was so sad. I had a Snakebite for the first time - yes it's a drink - which consists of Carlsberg, Strongbow and Blackcurrant juice? I think that's right. It was pretty weird but I ended up finishing it so it must have been good! Yay! I have some photos to show this time. Quite funny actually because Tamsin kept posing wrong. Tee hee!Tamsin get your drink in the shot.

Tamsin get your drink in the shot.

Yeah. That'll do. Tamsin headed home and I eventually lost the trickle of friends who were there and decided to head on home. Why is everywhere I need to go uphill?

So this is where the sadness and aforementioned woes come into play. Walking back I was just hit with a surge of "Phoebe you suck" and got a bit teary actually. It was just all dawning on me - all the girls in my hall hate me, everyone at Royal Holloway hates me, the British public hate me - silly I know. One of the boys from Holloway Players asked if I was okay and said I needed "chocolate and a girly movie". I chose Minstrels (delicious British sweets) and Pocahontas. It wasn't until I got back to my room that I looked in the mirror (Urk) and say that a tiny dollop of blood was coming from my left nostril. Oh no! How long had that been there? At the pub? When the guy had seen me? Did he think I'd been roughed up? Oh dear. Long night I tell you. Anyway I'm sure that was very difficult for you to read and I promise to make the next blog far more interesting - I'm going to Leeds and Stonehenge on the weekend so hang in there! As will I.

And then it rained...

I'm so sorry about my slackness in this blog business of late. It's just that I've been waiting for something to happen so I can tell you about it and... nothing much has. I mean mundane to the max - returning library books, reading, online monopoly (it's addictive) and that's pretty much it for the past 3 days. On Thursday night I went to this art club and we got to sit around a big table and do portraits of one another. It was really lovely because everyone was really friendly and accepting of my awful drawings. There were some people there that were AMAZING artists and they were so modest about it. Incredible. Very lovely evening and there were even chocolate biscuits involved! I will definitely be back next week!

Then on Friday when I was returning all these books on domestic abuse (it's an assignment but it looked pretty funny) I ran into a girl from one of my classes and at the moment there is a student election on so everyone is campaigning. So she was handing out flyers for her friend, who was running, and the poor thing had been there since nine in the morning and had been rained, snowed and rained on once more. She looked so cold! I also went to see a student production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" which was good. I haven't seen it performed before so that was interesting.

Okay so that's pretty much covered Friday and Saturday. Although on Saturday the dining hall isn't open so I had a microwave dinner, in the fridge, waiting for me. So I finish another round of monopoly and head to the pantry to find - someone has completely ripped open the plastic bag I keep my food in, sprayed every item around and stolen the dinner! Yay! The thing is I could SMELL it. It had just been cooked and they had just escaped my wrath because, seriously, I'm totally over this petty theft thing and it makes me want to break things. So I went to bed hungry after dining on some crackers and an apple. Sigh.

Sunday! Went to the dining hall for a big breakfast - as I was starving. I even had BAKED BEANS! Who would have thought? So I sat down at a table by my onesies when the girl who lives next door to me, Jessie, invited me to sit with her and her friends who also live on this floor. Very pleasant! What a nice girl. Oh and we have a room inspection on Monday and she was telling me all about it - how slack the inspection people are because they usually don't show up until Thursday so I've done a bit of a clean. Meh. I also made a collage! I shall attach a photo of it because it is so cool and my room here is pretty bland. I have taken a photo of the whole thing then close ups so you can appreciate it's coolosity. I drew the mermaid!

Later that evening I went back to the "Royal Holloway Players" for another evening of hilarity. We played some different games this week and that was fun. Then at the end we played "hoedown" which I've seen on TV but I've never tried before. So I watched a round and then everyone made me go up! I was SO scared. Luckily I went last. So the game works where four people are in a line and they each recite 4 rhyming couplets. Is that right? 8 lines? Anyway they do that and you are given a topic like relationships and you make up a funny limerick about that. So, yes, I was last and so nervous, blocking my ears so I could think of something and not get distracted, dancing on the spot to help the though process - or maybe I just like dancing. My topic was Harry Potter so I managed to cobble something together at the last possible second and it worked! It was rather rude so I won't repeat it but I did it! Completely surprised myself. Everyone was like "Yeah! Great hoedown" and I felt special. Then a bunch of us went to the uni bar and I had some more cider - too much on reflection because I'm not feeling to hot at present. So that was really fun, chatting to the improvisation people. Oh! And then we went downstairs and played fooz ball (no idea how to spell it). You know, the game with the little soccer men and you move them back and forth with sticks - wow great explanation there. You must know what I mean. Google it. So at first I watched and then we played two vs two and my team won! What an evening! This naturally warranted a victory dance which I did. Haha! The night wore on and I was escorted back to Founders and managed to crash into bed only to have to get up every couple of hours to go to the bathroom. I miss my en suite! Walking down the hall is such a trial. Sigh.

Woke up this morning and it's seriously raining now. Every Monday morning the fire alarm test usually goes off at 8:30 and I woke up just before 8:30 and then there was no alarm and it's now 11. Surely I couldn't have slept through the alarm? It's not possible I mean that thing is SO LOUD. Maybe the alarm is broken. Oh well. It's raining there can't be too many fires around.

Snow Day postponed...

Yesterday was my day off from classes (scheduled day off that it because I didn't have class the previous day either) so I had to get this thing done for class the next day. Went to the library and got out millions of plays, read them, finally chose one (Streetcar Named Desire), picked a scene, got more books specialising on my chosen topic and then had to plot out a set design, costumes, lighting and so on! I then had to do brief notes in case I didn't get my first choice. Now if you've been reading this blog religiously, as I hope you all are, you should know that I have been stressing about this thing since last week AND the week before. Needless to say I went all out. So I finished it at 8 last night and plodded along to library to print out and a very helpful library man hovered around me during the whole process and then discovered that the printers weren't working - typical. So he printed them all out in his office for free! Not bad! I was quite impressed.

Earlier that day I went to Egham for foody type supplies and to get Miranda some tissues and juice because the poor thing is still sick. Walking past all the little houses was funny because each yard would be bare except for a big pile of snow in the middle which, I guess, looked like snowmen when it was colder but now look like melted corpses - which I suppose they were. One snowman, however, was doing well with an afro wig, red feather boa, rubber gloves and two huge breasts! Snowman? Whatever.

The walk to Egham is really peaceful - birds actually chirp which makes it so surreal. Almost took a tumble at least 30 times in the whole journey. I managed to slip the most when people were watching which was annoying.

Returned and now onto today.

Snow melting - had to go to class. Supposed to be snow on Saturday though - I'll keep you posted. Went to class and, yes, I had outdone myself tremendously on the hand-in thing. Everyone crowded round me and flicked through my "works consulted", appendices, diagrams and script. I didn't know! I'm really paranoid about uni here because they mark REALLY hard. So that was that done - YAY! Today in class the director got two people up and made them do a scene as if one person was in love with the other and the other person wasn't in love with anymore. Does that make sense? One person in love, the other not anymore. So this girl had to enter the scene and get really personal in front of us all. The tutor would stop them and be like "do we believe them? Come back and do it again but be more intimate and physical". So glad I wasn't chosen because the next pair were half-kissing, hugging and oh man I felt awkward for everyone in the room.The students that were doing it got right into, very maturely which is another reason I'm glad I wasn't picked. I'd squirm and giggle and not want to participate.

So that was my day and tonight I might go to an art class that I'll have to find on campus somewhere. I don't have any photos, once again, so here is a photo I took in Oxford in a graveyard. I thought it was a lovely photo so - yeah enjoy!

Snow Day!

Got up, got dressed, got motivated for class, waited...waited...waited in the snow. Still waiting for my classmates... No one showed. Or should I say snowed? HAHA!



Anyway no one showed up so I went back to my room, not knowing what else to do, and checked my email just in case. The website was down. So I rang one of the girls in the class and she goes "Oh yeah we got an email, like, yesterday saying class wasn't on because of the snow or whatever". Shame I didn't get that email. Mmm hmm after the maintenance on the site was done I checked my email and there was nothing there. Out of the loop once again. They really don't like helping international students here huh?


The snow is, sadly, melting but there were a couple of showers throughout the day - snow, rain and snow. I think it's melting now because when I was walking to class I had to do a quick dash under all the trees as various snow clumps fell off the trees and went "plop" on the ground. I took a photo of the Noh Theatre where I have class so you can really see the snow.


So this is before...

And this is after...

Nice and white! So yes, today was a snow day, because I didn't have class! I couldn't do a victory dance with anyone though because (cleverly) they were still in bed. So I got more study done and then at 1:30 discovered the joys of online monopoly...

As promised here is another video of Miranda and my antics. This time it features a good deal of London and, no, the people looking at us strangely were not actors - they were just weirded out. So featured in this video are the happenings of my last blog - Waterloo, St Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe, Camden Markets and our place of residence appears in a few shots. Enjoy!

It's Raining Snow!

Yeah this blog is pretty straight forward. I didn't do much today except studying - Sigh it seems to be life. So really I just want to show you all the lovely photos of the snow outside! It started last night and hasn't stopped until tonight. It's funny watching people making snowmen and riding various objects (like garbage bags and bread baskets) down the snowy hill. I went out briefly today - Miranda is sick so she couldn't accompany me. I had to dodge many snowballs to get some pictures so be grateful! It was hard to see what with all the snow flying in my eyes and then trying to keep my balance.

Yeah that's the snow residue from being outside for about 15 minutes or so. And my expression is... well yeah. Snow is exciting!

London - once more for the people in the back!

That's right everyone - I went to London again. It's got a lot going for it okay? Many things to see. Miranda was my travelling companion this time and we set off on the train - of which I now have a love/hate relationship. Love because it gets me to London and back - Hate because today there was no one available to buy tickets from, one of the machines was broken and you weren't allowed to get on the train without a ticket. Naturally, trains whizzed by us as we waited in the very long queue! Yay! Britain = awesome railroad, crap system.

We need make it! Yay! And returned once more to Waterloo (more on this later!). Hopped on a tube and travelled to St Paul's to see, funnily enough, St Paul's Cathedral. Okay I've seen a lot of churches and what not before but this one LITERALLY takes your breath away. You just walk inside and let your jaw hit the floor because it's an epic structure. Christopher Wren really outdid himself. It's simply amazing and I have got some pictures of the outside to give you some perspective but pictures on the inside were forbidden. But I have to say that even if you could take pictures inside they wouldn't compare to the real thing. Just being in the building makes you feel so small in comparison. The ceiling just looks like the heavens - it's that far up. Which is where we went next! You can climb many stairs to get to the top of St Paul's and there are many - in fact Miranda and I had to stretch before starting - as you can see. The walk was totally worth it - despite the tiny walkways and very narrow stairs the view was an excellent reward. You could just see everything. It's summed up in such a few words but the view was magic. Looking in every direction you could see all the buildings and witness the history that has made this town. Very philosophical I know but that's the effect it had. I mean just looking down and imagining what it would have looked like when it was built. Horses and carriages rumbling on cobblestones, smoke billowing from every available chimney and people busily coming and going. It's strange how, even now, there are very few tall buildings. I mean this view is as good as the London Eye - just a slightly different position. Also very windy as you can tell by the hair flying in my face.

Downstairs there is a crypt with good ol' Nelson who (since I've been in London know) fought and won at the battle of Trafalgar. There are loads of military memorials dotted all over the cathedral which is interesting.

Well after St Paul's we decided to go Shakespeare's Globe. Now you may be having deja-vu and, yes, you would be right I have been there before. But Miranda hadn't. It was a fair trade because I hadn't been to St Paul's. Anyway the Globe was really interesting and I had a different guide who told a whole lot of new things about it. For example he told us about really dumb questions he's been asked on the tour - these are gold.

Someone looking up asked "Who painted the ceiling?" (it's an OUTDOOR theatre) "Does this building have air-conditioning?" and the best one "Does Shakespeare ever come and watch any of his plays?" SERIOUSLY. Why would you visit this structure and not know anything about the author. Apparently this woman thought that Shakespeare was alive and just wrote in an old style. I kid you not. Another girl was in the gift shop and was asking after the DVD of Romeo and Juliet on a boat. That's right a boat. After a long conversation they realised she wanted "Titanic". Brilliant. What brilliant people there are plaguing the Earth. So here's a photo of me there just so it's proven that I was, in fact, there.

Moving on from the Globe Miranda and I toyed with the idea of going to the "London Dungeons" or the "London Tombs". Looking at the entrance, however, boasting "London's scariest attraction" we weren't really in the mood to be touched by actors with jam on their faces. It might have been fun but we decided to keep our money and spend it at the Camden markets instead! Ha ha! On the way to the tube I did see an excellent ice-cream van with "Hot Dogs - Often Licked, Never Beaten" written on it - I'll leave that for you to think about. The Disney characters are kind of concerning.

So then we caught the tube to the Camden Markets. It was as lovely as it was last time except we ran into this one really annoying sales person. Miranda was looking at some coats and he started joking with us that if she bought one he came free. He then added he had just broke up with his girlfriend and wanted to marry Miranda. Meanwhile, he was helping her with the coat - stroking the coat smooth and so on. In the end he overcharged and we left with his co-worker pretty much mocking us. Some way to make a sale. Bleh. The market was really good though - it varies from second-hand clothes, new clothes, homemade items and little bits and bobs. After all this we were getting tired and hungry and decided to go to "Burger King". You heard correctly. But the sign on the door welcomed us with "No posh allowed" so we felt right at home eating our surprisingly satisfying grease bucket. Trained it home and didn't get in until almost 11! How hardcore are we? Coming home from London at that hour. We felt pretty special. Wow you're getting a lot of photos today. I guess there are many opportunities for hilarious photos.

Now moving onto today (Sunday). Slept in (awesome) and bumbled around doing uni readings and stressing further over this thing I have to do next week. Tonight I went to a meeting with the "Royal Holloway Players" which is a theatresports group! YAY! I haven't done or had the opportunity to do theatresports since high school. Theatresports, for those who don't know, is improvisation in games and so on. It was a lot of fun and afterwards I walked back to Founders battling against the snow that was falling. That's right - you heard correct - the SNOW that was fluttering onto my head, face and coat. It sounds elegant and poetic when in reality I was trying not to slip over with every step. I'll try to get a photo tomorrow if it's still snowing. It's so crazy. I mean I can count the amount of times I've seen snow on one hand and yet here it is before my eyes. Freezing my bum off!