Fake Birthday Recap in Pictures

Western themed menus

Sara finishing off the ice cream sundae

How to eat a burger the American way....not with a knife and fork like the Brits

Stephen enjoying his ribs

Jenny and Harm

Birthday girl with Harm

Drewsopher

Emma and Alan

A bashful Harm

The last couple weeks when anyone says pretty much anything I can think of a corresponding song. Well, apparently I've been saying "I know a song about that" too much since people have started asking me if I know songs about various topics. of conversation.

Me: "I have something in my eye."
Catherine: "Blow your nose."
Me: "What?"
Catherine: "It's all connected." (making a circular motion around her face)

So there you have it, the next time you get something in your eye, be sure to blow your nose and poof it will be gone. Man she's funny.

A Lovely Day

Yesterday Harm, Catherine and I visited a nearby castle in Arundel. We arrived at a descent time and set off to view the fortress, dungeon, keep, and state rooms. The visit ended up being very nice and also served as a moderate level butt workout thanks to the many sets of stairs throughout the castle complex. All of the areas of study at West Dean were represented inside with various tapestries, clocks, metal work, ceramics, furniture, instruments, paintings and even a couple books. Arundel is also filled with many antique shops and after careful consideration I have decided that my house will be filled with antiques I will slowly collect over the course of my life, now I just need to figure out a way to make enough money to make this dream possible.

Boredom at West Dean

Well last night for the first time in a long time I was bored. It was a strange feeling due to the fact that things have been quite lively since I returned. At one point Catherine and I were discussing our opinions on text message smiley faces (something she apparently does not tolerate). The next best moment was when we started watching a show in the telly about romantic fiction, sometimes I think I'm deluded by the idea of what love should be, I no longer feel that way.

I've said before that the students at West Dean will use any excuse to have a party, and this weekend was no exception. First of all we had a fake birthday party for Catherine where we visited Smith & Western which was pretty much amazing. Next we headed off to another party commemorating the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's.

That's right, a party celebrating a volcano, complete with a bonfire surrounded by painted sheet metal to depict an actual volcano. It was an interesting evening and I must say the best Mt. St. Helen's party I've ever been to.

Catherine was talking about how amazing it is that we walk into the dining room and food is magically there, and it's true. Sometimes what you need is a little perspective. I live not in, but very near a castle. Someone cleans my room and brings me new clean sheets and towels weekly. Everyday I am given three cooked meals plus tea and biscuits. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is an amazing point in my life and sometimes I worry I'll never be able to top it. I mean the words "the castle is closing" are actually in my vocabulary, and when I say them it doesn't sound weird. It makes me worry that I'm going to max out at the age of 25 and end up living in Dallas commuting to work for an hour for the rest of my life.

An Excellent Day!

Well I am happy to say that yesterday was an awesome day. First of all I slept in until around 11:45....something I haven't been able to do in a while. I fell out of bed headed to the shower and was able to get ready in time for lunch, which I didn't completely hate. Then I went to Chichester with Catherine and Jenny for a usual run of the mill trip into town. However I was plesently surprised with lots of funny banter, good music, my first delicious java chip frapaccino since last summer, and I even managed to find a summery dress which I purchased!

There has been a surrealist convention type thing going on here the last couple days and we were invited to the disco they were having. I ended the night wearing said new dress and dancing the night away to ABBA, Whitney Houston and even a little Shakira. And to top things off I was led out onto the dance floor by a really old surrealist guy who insisted I dance with him. Due to the fact that I never do that I had no idea what to do with my feet so I spent the majority of the time being spun around by this dude until the song ended and he danced me back to my friends. Needless to say it was all very surreal.

Remember two days ago when I said this:

"I think a huge piece of me would have dropped dead if I had opened up NBA.com and found out that my boys were out of the playoffs thanks to Golden State and their nasty throw back uniforms."

That piece of me is now officially dead.

Kiss Me I'm Irish

Ok, maybe I'm not Irish, but I'm sure if I looked far enough back in my family history there would be some kind of link. But lets face it, "Kiss me I'm a quarter Swedish, quarter English, half Norwegian" just isn't the same. Maybe "Kiss me I'm human" would work better.

Anyway, as I'm sure you all know St. Patrick's Day was on Saturday, and lucky for me I got to spend it with some Irishmen. Catherine had some friends visiting from Dublin and we decided to have a party in their honor...and St. Patrick's honor. As usual there was plenty of booze, chatting and dancing.

These are the Irish Girls

Me and Jenny

Harm & Catherine looking very festive

Everyone dancing!

I must say it was the best party yet. A special thanks to Harm for being our party photographer.

An Excellent Trip

Well, I must say the trip went much better than expected. We arrived just outside of Cambridge by noon and had a lovely pub lunch with the owner of the tannery before venturing off to see the place. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the skins they receive are already tanned (as in they don't smell of dead animal) and then they re-tan them and dye them various colors. We were able to see how the whole process works and I even bought two skins. One emerald green and a second deep purple/maroon. They had an amazing shocking pink (a rare color for quality book binding leather), but it was a special order from America and they were not sure if they would have extras so I will be emailing them later to find out if I can buy one off them. I really hope they have a spare.

The sleeping situation was fine and I got to sleep in a full sized bed which is always nice. The next day we visited Cambridge University Library and were shocked to find conservators that did not whinge and moan about their jobs, they actually seemed enthusiastic about what they were working on (a rarity in this field I have found). We saw all sorts of books and manuscripts and even a set of very early bones that were written on. This was the only visit we went on this term unlike last term where we went out nearly every week, so I'm really glad it turned out to be such a good experience.

Road Trip

Well tomorrow 6 of us plus our tutor David are going on an overnight trip to a leather tannery and Cambridge. I gotta say I'm not too excited about going to a place that has been described as smelling like dead animals. We saw a slide show about how leather is tanned and frankly that was enough for me, but I guess seeing as the trip has already been planned and the rooms booked I can't back out now. What is far more scary is the idea that we will be together for 48 hours straight....and I will be sharing a room with someone who is not Sonia as she paid a bit more to have her own room (that Sonia's a smart cookie). Anyway, it should make for some interesting stories and I'll be sure to take pictures and fill you in when I get back.

Spice Up Your Life

Well last night was round two of girls night and I must say it was superb. We started out by going to a pub for drinks and then took the party back to Jenny's room. Several things happened that I found very entertaining.

1. We blasted Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, and various other quality music and belted it out at the top of our lungs
2. Sarah was jumping on Jenny's bed and we were egging her on to "do something cool" and she did a massive seat drop breaking the bed
3. Three people got pushed out of Jenny's first floor bedroom window into a bush
4. We re-enacted several Grease moments including the hand jive, the Better Shape Up dance sequence, and the song where they make fun of Sandra Dee
5. The evening came to a close with a 5 person rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"

All in all an excellent girls night.

An Excellent Weekend

Well this weekend turned out to be pretty sweet. Harm and I arrived in London on Saturday around noon and headed right to Portobello Road. We walked all the way down to the bridge and had a lovely lunch at Falafel King which was excellent. Next we went to Trafalgar Square and visited the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. You will all be sad to know that the David Beckham portrait is no longer there. After that we had dinner at Bella Italia followed by a movie in Leicester Square. (a long but excellent day)

Next we headed to our hostel (YHA Thameside) where Harm was given his own 6 person room with ensuite bath, and I was handed a key to a room with 5 other girls. BUT thanks to some shameless eyelash batting I was able to secure my very own empty 6 person room as well.

Sunday Harm went to a 2 hour church service called Hillsong which I believe was basically a christian rock concert (if there is such a thing)...needless to say I opted out for that part of the day and went to Covent Garden where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also went for a slice of 1pound pizza and was shocked to find out that it is now 1.49 now, so if you are planning on eating nothing but pizza next time you're in London make sure to account for this price change. Next we headed to the Tate Britain (which I haven't visited in a long time) and I remembered why as it is mostly filled with Turner paintings. All in all I must say it was an excellent weekend filled with museums, good food, and excellent company.

Lazy Wednesday

Well Wednesday is the day where we have a science lecture in the morning, work for a couple of hours and then have free time after lunch. I gotta say West Dean has some genius ideas when it comes to educating people.

R.I.P Little Red

A sad sad thing has happened. Last night Catherine's little red Micra was stolen by a couple of bastards and taken for a serious ride. The police found her in a ditch in Lavent and the damage was so bad that they won't even let Catherine see it yet. Needless to say it is a sad day for Micra's the world over. May she rest in peace.

A Surreal Evening

Michon made a comment once that my life should be a reality tv show. Now I’m not saying that my life constitutes having an entire show devoted to following me around or even considering the fact that I am that interesting, but last night would have made a pretty sweet episode. Several of the instrument makers have been working hard on bring their dream of having a good old-fashioned American jug band complete with washtub bass. Well, last night that dream came true. I sat in the Dower House common room and played the jug while the rest of the real musicians made music. The band consisted of a washtub bass (which was made from an oil drum cut in half with a stick and a string) , banjo (made with a large tin that used to house cookies), mouth bow (made of a stick, string, and a tin can) guitar, two sets of spoons (one set wooden another metal), the jug, a cheese grater, and a shaker. And you know what the craziest part was, all of the instruments actually made music that sounded like music. At one point I was sitting there playing the jug in a state of shock because I couldn’t believe this was going on around me. Needless to say West Dean can be a pretty strange place, and last night it was taken to a whole new level.

Warning: Boredom May Occur

Well I was thinking about the things I've seen here and what we do and I decided I needed to mention it at least once in this blog if for no other reason than to avoid being called a transponster in the future. Last term we saw a lot of pretty amazing things that I managed to take some pictures of, so I thought I would share a few of them with you.

I thought this book was interesting mostly because it looks like a patch work quilt. I fully intend on trying to produce one of these some day.

The cover boards of books used to be made of old waste papers laminated together with paste or glue. This cool looking guy used to be part of a cover board before the board was humidified and the sheets of paper making the cover were separated. I think it is a sketch of one of the carvings on Canterbury Cathedral.

This one is a super fancy book with really heavy silver embellished covers. Really amazing and really heavy. I'm pretty sure the original owner of this book would take one look at me and ask where her tea was and why I am so slow at answering her every beckoned call.

This is what happens when a velum book comes in contact with a fire. Not pretty. Sadly there isn't a way to make this one go back to its original shape, the plan is to humidify the pages enough to temporarily flatten them and scan them so that the contents will still be available for readers. The binding itself will go back to this shape once it drys out.

Ok, hopefully you made it through all of that without suffering some sort of head injury from your melon hitting the keyboard. Then again maybe you learned something new, maybe that thing was that Kristi is boring and should never talk about conservation again.

Girls Night Out

Last week amidst my mental breakdown Sonia insisted on taking me out to dinner, and I must say it was exactly what I needed. Once it was over we decided that it should be a weekly event. Girls night out. This week was the first time we tried it out and it went really well. We ended up with 6 girls; Sonia, Catherine, Jenny, Sarah, Emma and myself. You wouldn't believe how many people (men) we had to turn away from our fun. We went to The Fox Goes Free to have drinks and were rudely interrupted by "quiz night", a game English pubs like to play where everyone puts in a pound to play and the winning team gets to keep the money. I have played this game once and did horribly due to the fact that most of the questions are about English history or sport, making it hard for a team of Americans to play. So after listening to the quiz-master repeat the same question three times we decided to head to another pub, The Earl of March. We spent the next three hours exchanging stories and laughing A LOT. All in all a fantastic evening. Long live girls night out.

Silence is Golden

This morning I sat eating breakfast at a full table with 4 other people. We spent the entire meal in silence. No talking in a room filled with chatter for 20 minutes. I'm not sure which is more strange, the fact that we sat there for so long with no words, or the fact that I enjoyed it so much.