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Hello, all! I thought I better up-date one more time before I head back to the US for Christmas break. The first term at Brunel ended officially today, and I had my last lectures yesterday. And while it feels good to be able to say that I made it through Term 1, my work for this term is not quite finished yet. I have three essays that will be due the first week I am back in January. That means that although I have plenty of time before I must submit them, I actually had to work on them before the term ended so I could find the sources I need from the Library. That has made for a pretty stressful past couple of weeks! I am a little calmer now that I have the (first draft) of the biggest one written and am over half-way done with the second. The third essay I can't write until I complete my participant observation which I have planned to do while I am home. That one doesn't necessarily require citing of particular sources, so I can even write that up on my flight back in January. So, to sum up, I have been stressing, researching, reading, and writing the past couple weeks. However, I still made time to experience a little of the holiday spirit and have added two new photo albums.
London-2 Dec.: On Saturday, December 2 Oxford and Regent Streets (2 popular retail streets) in the city of London were closed to traffic for Very Important Pedestrian (VIP) Day. This was the first time ever for this event so of course Yiota, Lindy, and I had to check it out! Just as promised, we saw street performers, carol singers, rockin' Santas, a reindeer--and even got to pose on the red carpet! Being the true VIP's that we are, we even picked up a few freebies like a whiskey-filled chocolate (our first freebie of the morning) and a sample of Starbuck's gingerbread latte. We left campus early enough that we arrived at Oxford Street just as the festivities were getting started. We think we saw London's mayor posing with the one Santa group and may possibly have been on TV since there were several TV cameras there (unfortunately none of us have TVs so we'll never know). By the end of the day the whole street and sidewalk were packed with people, so we were glad we got to enjoy everything early in the day before the crowds. Since it gets dark so early now, we just hung out until early evening and got to see Oxford Street all lit up. Beautiful! We each only bought a couple of things, but all the music and lights really put us into the holiday spirit! And now we can say that we were part of the first ever VIP Day in London!
Christmas Dinner: The next Saturday (9 December) Lindy, Kate, and I attended an English Christmas Dinner for International Students sponsored by the Christian Union. For only 1 pound we had a huge Christmas dinner (similar to the American Thanksgiving dinner with turkey), Christmas crackers (a tube that when you pull the ends breaks open with a popping sound and contains a crown, joke, and sometimes a little toy), games, and prizes! We got to meet some other International Students from Brunel and enjoy a delicious homemade meal, including Christmas pudding and mince pies for dessert. Our table even won the Christmas quiz contest and got a prize of tasty chocolates! It was a good thing we had a bit of a walk to get back to campus from the church where the dinner was held after we ate so much!
In other news, after a couple week long hiatus from excessive fire alarms, Kilmorey Hall is back on track with two Sunday night/Monday morning at about 1:00 am and 3:30 am. That was followed by one Tuesday afternoon around 2:00 pm or so. As Yiota said, there really is no safe time to take a shower because you just never know when that awful alarm will sound!
And now, sadly, I must return to my essay writing. Several of my flatmates have already left for the break so things are a little quieter than usual in Flat 36. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at home and having a little break from the university life. Happy Christmas!
P.S. I spoke too soon about the fire alarms. After I posted last night Kilmorey Hall added fire alarm #4 at about 1:30 am and alarm #5 about an hour later. Luckily it was only raining lightly both times so we didn't get too wet. Grrrrrrrrr....
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