Britain is getting closer!!!

Hello all!!

Things have been really really really really really busy lately :) but I suppose we're never not-busy :P

Study abroad class is almost over--then there's the summer--and then we're gone!!! It almost seems too good to be true!

But until then, I've got a report to write on the lunch 'n' learn that I had last week with my mentor--it was rather fun learning about what she had done last year and about different things to do while we're there.

Besides the mentor report, we're supposed to write this "letter to self" before we go, listing all of our dreams, wishes, thoughts and fears... it should be very interesting...

Until later!

~Laura

Oh yeah... I just remembered I have a blog to run...

Hello!

Things have been a little hectic around here lately!!

However, I can tell you that we had a big safety orientation last week! It contained everything from what our insurance over there covers, as well as tips on how not to act like a stupid American tourist :P

I think my dad's advice serves me better than those funny skits: Just keep your eyes and ears open--see what's around you--and don't do something stupid (i.e. don't go around shouting your atm pin number :P)

Anyway, right now I'm working on a presentation for study abroad class about the English custom/habit of drinking tea... and it's pretty interesting!! Did you know tea might just be good for your teeth?

More on that coming up... stay tuned :}

~Laura

P.S. Speaking of British culture, any Masterpiece theatre fans out there? Specifically Foyle's war, Austen and Dickens adaptations... I'm also looking into Inspector Lewis--at least the previews look interesting...

Study abroad news and such...

Well...

Not much is going on around here... We've turned in our papers to register for classes at the university in England.

And you know how I said that we found out where we're going to be living in England...well, that was a misprint on the forms they gave us--so we're ending up staying in the place that we wanted to in the first place! Though, apparently, the dryers don't work very well...

Our parents went to an info session this past weekend - and they seem quite pleased with it all...

So right now we're just waiting to hear back from the university--and praying that a second volcano doesn't erupt :)

~Laura

P.S. Did I mention that Mary and I know more about British culture than some of the other students in our Study Abroad class? I think it comes from watching too much BBC... like, for instance, season 7 of Foyle's War that going to be on tonight!!!!!!!

I'm sure you've noticed by now that the photos OFTEN have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the accompanying blog post... but if you haven't noticed, you know it now :)

The Dashing Sea-Captain

Captain Frederick Wentworth! The man whose heart was ever faithful to the woman he loved--even when she rejected him!

Captain Wentworth returns from a successful sea-voyage--now quite wealthy, but still broken-hearted about how he was treated by Anne Eliot (who was persuaded into rejecting his offer by her godmother).

Captain Wentworth returns to Kent to see Anne. Even though he has been deeply wounded, he cannot help but continue to love her:

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant." --Persuasion Chapter 23.

Now, if a young man today were to say that to a young lady today, she would probably cry, because either a) she was very happy that she knew and liked such a romantic young man or b) she was very sad that she liked a young man who thought he was living in the 19th century :)

Either way, it is a very romantic thing to say...

PJT 1747

I didn't want to spend yet another week on Edwin Drood, but I wanted to explain the meaning of these initials that Mr. Grewgious wondered about (so frequently throughout the novel). For those of you who have not read Edwin Drood yet, Mr. Grewgious is a character who lives in a house where the initials PJT 1747 are inscribed in the wall. Throughout the book, he wonders about what the initials might stand for, and thinks about it when he is bored or distracted.
Here are a few of my initial answers:
- Perhaps John Tyler
- Poor Jammed Toes (injured in 1747)
- Peanut butter and Jam Toast (as old as 1747?)
- Pete Jasper's Teeth
- Possibly Junky Tweasers
etc...

Later, I discovered what it actually meant. Here is an except from my story notebook:

"PJT stands for the initials of the president of that particular inn where Mr. Grewgious chose to take his lodgings.
President John Thompson 1747
President of the Staple Inn, London, 1747