Wrapping things up

This is the season when we wrap up a lot of things. Classes come to an end and we start getting into the holiday spirit, which means that we not only wrap up classes but presents as well. This has been a week where I have wrapped up a lot of things. Since all the people I wrap up gifts for read this blog I guess I'll just talk about the other things that I am wrapping up

1. My undergraduate degree. I am officially signed up to graduate after March and am signed up for my last quarter here at the University of Washington. I have two more full time classes and a three hour a week, one class credit job at ILABS. This means I'll also have more time in my schedule to try to find a job. I am going to need to have some money saved up soon.

2. My application to Alberta. This Thursday I completed the last of things that I will have to do for the application. I rounded up the people to write me letters of recommendation, I paid for my UW transcripts and sent in my documents. Now it is up to them. If all goes well I'll be getting a phone call in January and conduct an interview. If that goes well I'll be moving to Edmonton at the end of March. This provides a large amount of the motive to be looking for the hypothetical job mentioned in point one as I will be moving in with Alexandra and we hope to have enough money to go to school and still pay rent and eat. We like eating

3. My classes. I am in my last week of class now. I have one assignment, one in class presentation and a few tests left. After this it is all smooth sailing. I'll be done with this quarter and on my way to the next. And this make me happy.

4. The 90 day count down to the time that I can be with Alexandra. We have literally been counting the days since the moment I left Edmonton. Alexandra and I talk on skype every day and each day we keep telling each other "only 70 days left" "only 34 days left" et cetera. Very recently we got to say "we are in the single digits now" or "one week left". Now we are both getting very excited to say "SIX DAYS LEFT!!!!" We are both very excited to be spending the holidays together and to introducing her to all of the family of mine who read this blog.

5. Christmas shopping. I have presents for Alexandra and my Dad already. Today I bought my mom's present. Today I went down to Barnes and Noble to get some ideas and it was a madhouse. Between the throngs of people, the gift wrapping station and the men dressed up as Storm Troopers from Star Wars I decided it would be better to hold off on shopping there until a week day where it should be a bit less hectic.

6. This blog post. I am getting close to being done wrapping this one up. This is this season of wrapping. I hope you enjoyed my blog this time and will be writing another one soon.

Thanksgiving

Well it happened again. I put off blogging for a little while and before I knew it I had too many things to talk about. So now I'll skip ahead to Thnaksgiving which was yesterday. I have a lot to be thankful for this year so here is a list of what I am Thankful for.

1. I am very thankful that I have found the love of my life this year.
2. I am thankful to have found my niche in linguistics
3. I am thankful for being able to spend Thanksgiving with my family
4. I am thankful for every giving me a wonderful birthday a few weeks ago
5. I am thankful to get to sleep in my old bed here in Port Angeles
6. I am thankful for good tea made with good water
7. I am thankful for good books
8. I am thankful for lazy mornings spent with family
9. I am thankful that in 2 weeks from today I will see the love of my life again
10. I am thankful to get to see Monk through to the season finale, starting today
11. I am thankful to be able to do what I love and hopefully get paid for it... someday
12. I am thankful for my love, Alexandra Mateu... did I say that already? I guess I must be really thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Week Five

Hi everyone! Here is a catch-up/new post. The past couple weeks have been really busy with schoolwork; I had something due pretty much everyday last week. So, since last Sunday (which was my cousin Andrea's b-day so Happy Birthday Andrea! I hope your day was fun) I was going research, I have to fill you in on two weeks instead of one. The 9th-11th were fairly uneventful. I just went about my normal routine, the only thing different being that the guy I've sort of been interested asked for my number...but didn't call me. Since the 11th was Veteran's Day, I had the day off from school and from work. So, I wasn't really expecting anything interesting to happen. A few interesting things DID end up happening though. My friend Caitlin came over, and we hung out by going to Northgate Mall. After that, I got together with one of my group members from my Dance 250 class. We are supposed to be researching a type of cultural dance to do a group presentation on, and we had chosen Croatian dance. However, we were supposed to be able to watch the dance and do field notes on it. Our field notes were due on Wednesday, and we hadn't found a place to do that yet. Luckily, one of my group members happened to find a Balkan dance folklife party at the Russian Community Center on Capitol Hill on Friday night. So, we did a little work coming up with some questions and didn't have to come up with some kind of excuse for not having appropriate field notes. However, somewhere in between me hanging out with Caitlin and working on my project with Annie, Lillian discovered a leak in our closet ceiling. The leak had caused the ceiling to crack and there was a giant mold spot. This time, our landlord responded to our E-mail quickly, but Lillian and I had to empty EVERYTHING out of our closet. While the maintenance guy was very prompt about fixing the leak, he STILL has NOT covered the hole in our ceiling with dry-wall. So, we STILL have not been able to put the mounds of things lying around our room away. It's starting to drive me nuts! However, when I got home from the library on Wednesday night, I got a text from the guy that I like and he offered to come over and help me move the stuff out of my closet. I had already done all of the work, but I didn't mind him coming over. So, we hung out for awhile until he had to join his friends for something. After that, I had a normal day on Thursday, although it was Eric's birthday and it took me about 20 minutes to sneak into his dorm to give him birthday present after tutoring. Then, on Friday, my roomates left for the football game (they're all in the marching band) in Oregon, so I was supposed to be home alone for the weekend. I took Eric out to lunch at Shalimar, a delicious Indian restaurant on the Ave. That evening, I went with my 250 group to the Russian Community Center on Capitol Hill and we took field notes, etc. We didn't get back until after 10:00. What made that evening especially odd was the fact that earlier in the evening, I had been invited to hang out with a different guy...someone who I'd always kind of liked and had sort of been friends with. Anyways, I ended up hanging out with him, but I didn't get to his apartment until about 12:30 and got home at about 4:00...went to bed at 4:30 and got up at 7:00 to take Eric home for the day because he had a job "audition" and needed some nicer-looking clothes for it. We went home and had a lovely little birthday celebration, then drove home. I got back at about 8:30, and was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch waiting for a text from this other guy that I really do like. He called at about 2:00...I was asleep. I didn't end up being able to see him at all that weekend. In fact, I didn't see him until this Thursday, except in passing. The whole thing appeared to be going well, but suddenly got very weird. I don't know what will happen, but I'm very sad about it right now because I don't have a good feeling about the situation. I haven't found someone that I really liked in quite some time, so I was hoping this would work out. On the other hand, I went to the ballet with my friend Caitlin last Sunday and it was a lot of fun. My birthday was on Wednesday. It felt like a normal day except that I was bombarded by texts, calls, and facebook messages which made me feel so good :-) I ended up having to work until 9:00, but my friends threw me a bit of a bday party anyways. So, thank you so much to Caitlin, David, Jason, and Brandon, I really appreciated that. My friend Craig came home for Thanksgiving on Friday (he goes to WSU and has a whole week off) and stayed with his friend Riley. So, I hung out with Riley and Craig on Friday. Last night, I got together with some of my London friends and we went out, which was fun too. Today, I made an ice cream cake for my roomate Katherine, whose birthday is tomorrow! Other than that, I've been very tired and lazy all day, probably because I feel down about this boy. Oh well. See some of you soon! Can't wait!

Week Four

Hi everyone! This is just a post to let you all know that I didn't forget about you and my promise to try to post. I'm just working on a research project and can't take a lot of time to post right now. I will hopefully have some time to post tomorrow!

Third Week In a Row :-)

Hi everyone!

This week's entry won't be as long or as interesting as the last couple of weeks' regular entries. I still have some homework to do tonight.

Since my students had their mid-term papers due this week, their teachers decided to go easy on them. Most of them just watched movies and discussed them in class so they had very little work to do at tutoring. The basketball team had their first game this Wednesday (they won), so now basketball and football will be going on at the same time. I foresee lots of rescheduling in my future!

I've been having a really fun time in dance. We were learning about swing dance this week, and we got to practice it on Wednesday. Our teacher is really good at it, and there is also an older lady in my class named Linda that used to do swing dance in the 60's after the swing crazy had pretty much died out. She taught us some really cool stuff! On Friday, I had a mid-term in my dance 250 class, then I had to tutor one student who had rescheduled. At 1:00, I had a mid-quarter meeting with my boss about how my students were all doing. It was really nice to just and talk with her. She's a super nice lady and a great boss. I can't imagine how much work it must be to keep hundreds of people in order from tutors to student athletes. Good thing she has such fabulous assistants and employees, right? When I had my interview for the job, she was out of the office, so her assistant met with me. I felt like this was the first time in the year or so that I've worked there that I really had a chance to meet with her, so it was nice.

Thursday night was extra cool because there was thunder and lightning as well as a massive hailstorm that lasted for all of 5 minutes. It was so exciting! One of my roomates' friends, who lives up near 50th and 15th, was watching when lightning apparently struck the building across from his apartment which caused all of the car alarms nearby to go off at once. Awesome!

On Saturday, I did my normal Sunday things...laundry, watched the football game. Our team was in California playing UCLA and my roomate Lillian was playing in the band there. We played fairly well for the most part, but ended up losing by one single point in a really painful ending to the game...*sigh* Last night, my friend Caitlin came over and we made dinner. The only problem is that our oven doesn't work. It never has. We were trying to be careful when we were making twice-baked potatoes, but they ended up burning anyways. Our friend Jason bought us some more potatoes and we salvaged our dinner then went out to a place on the Ave that had just opened, called Ruby's. At 9:30, we went to our friend David's housewarming party, which was so much fun! One of Dave's roomates just got a kitten and it was just about the cutest thing we'd ever seen. She was tiny, probably no more than 10 weeks old, and all grey. Sophie (Dave's roomate) named her Moxie because she's so unafraid of people. After that, we hung out for awhile and ended up coming home at about 3:00 in the morning.

Needless to say, I'm pretty tired today. Caitlin and I kind of hung out on the couch. I got some things done around the apartment, but I still feel like I've accomplished very little today, which I hate. I have a hard time sitting around for very long and not doing anything, but I guess today is just one of those days! Well, I'm off to do some homework! See you all next week for a new installment!

On-Line

Since the beginning of the quarter they have have been warning every student about the swine flu. There has been a lot of effort on the part of the administration to keep the students as healthy as possible. One of the effects of this is that my Phonetic's teacher always bring in a microphone to class and records his lectures. If you are feeling sick (or lazy as the ase may be) you can just stay home and follow everything from your computer. Today I am trying it and loving it. I no longer have to sit in a desk, I am in a comfier chair at my computer, drinking tea. Earlier I had a sandwich and I am listening to Mozart while the teacher is talking. Talk about luxury! I may have to start doing phonetics on-line every day!

Major Changes

The major changes I refer aren't changes that are major in any particular way but instead changes to my major. On Friday I had a quick meeting with the Speech and Hearing Science advisor to drop that major and just focus on linguistics. It went very well actually. My advisor was very friendly and aside from a little "was it something we did" joke there were no hard feelings. She actually seemed rather excited for me and asked me to let her know when I know where I'll go for grad school. (Or hopefully when I get accepted to the University of Alberta) She even told me that she is going to be looking for my name over the next few years because she knows I will do great things. Talk about a compliment!

I got a form, signed it and took it to the place where they handle the paperwork and the guy behind the counter changed my major in less than 5 minutes. I am officially a one major man again. I am getting really antsy here though, I am definitely looking forward to the day that I can be done with my Bachelor's Degree and start my Master's. At least I've only got one quarter left after this one.

Happy November!

I can't believe it's November already! I mean, c'mon school just started...didn't it? I love holidays, so I've been excited for Halloween, but then it crept up on me so quickly I almost didn't realize it had arrived. One of my students, who is a basketball player, was talking about how his first game is November 4th. I just said, "Whoah, that's next week!"

One thing I am really excited about is the fact that we got to turn out clocks back an hour today! I have a lot to do today, so it's really bought me some time. It feels like I've done so much already, but it's only about quarter after 2:00! Woohoo! Tomorrow, I'll be adjusted an it won't really matter, but for one day it's fabulous. I remember last spring, in Europe, I got to experience the time change twice since they do it later in England than they do in the US.

So, my week mostly consisted of dance and tutoring again. It's mid-term week, or the week before mid-terms for a lot of people, so I've been talking my students through writing their mid-term papers. I only have an hour to do so at a time, so one of them has asked if I can come in this evening and look over her finished paper before she turns it in. Even though it's nice to have a break from tutoring on the weekends, I really love it when students take an interest in their work and also take the initiative to ask for extra help. It shows that they are comfortable with me and my skills as well.

This week, we studied flamenco and tango in my cross-cultural dance class. Our practicum was on flamenco, and our teacher was so great! I've already been inspired to try out several of the kinds of dance that we've learned about in class, but this is one that would be really cool to actually perform. I would love to be able to do the dance styles that I've practiced all day long. I'm going to look into classes after I graduate. Normally we just have dance lecture on Friday, but this week we only have a half-day of lecture. My teacher brought a friend with her and they taught us about tango and demonstrated for us, then we got to learn a little bit about how to do it.

On Friday, I had lunch with Eric and we hung together for a little bit afterwards. When I was leaving, I saw a few interesting costumes. My favorite was this tall, skinny Santa Claus that was walking into a building near Eric's dorm. I also saw the most realistic-looking bloody wounds, which were gross, but pretty cool. On Halloween, my friend Caitlin came in from Mill Creek and our friends David and Dan picked us up and took us to Dan's friend Alysha's house to watch some movies. Now, neither Cait, Dave, Dan, or I like horror at all. David had brought The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, all of which are Halloween-y movies, but decidedly not scary...and all REALLY good! Alysha, however, loves horror movies. So, we started watching "Chukkie: Child's Play". It was creepy, but so campy and silly that it wasn't really scary. Not only that, but the copy she had rented from Blockbuster stopped working, so we watched Hocus Pocus instead, which was a lot more fun. I hadn't seen that movie in years! We played Apples to Apples all the way through the movie and counted our cards at the very end. I won; I had 21 green cards. Then we went to an irish pub that was near Alysha's house and had cider while we played Trivial Pursuit. There was a party going on upstairs, and some of the party-goers has the most interesting costumes I'd ever seen. I particularly like the mountie, Napolean Bonaparte, Jon and Kate Plus 8, and Jesus (although it was almost offensive, it was extremely creative). There was also a girl dressed as a unicorn with a mustache and sunglasses, which was remarkably funny considering I obviously didn't get it...anyways, today is my blogging, laundry, cleaning, homework, etc. day so I'm off to try to get some things done. Have a great week. I hope everyone's Halloween was fabulous!

Flying Squirrels

Hey Everybody! So, I got out of dance a couple days ago and I was waiting at the crosswalk to cross the street. The bus was driving down the road, but it stopped for me to cross. Just as I got to the middle of the street, I heard this weird smack on the ground. It sounded to me like someone had thrown their baseball hat in the air and that it had landed in the road. When I looked around, I saw a little squirrel running over to the sidewalk. It had fallen out of the tree and landed in road! I was so shocked; I'd never seen a squirrel fall out of a tree before! I looked around to see if it was ok, and it had disappeared so I hope it made the fall safely! Scary!

Important days: An anniversary, a birthday and Christmas

This Saturday was Alexandra and my five month anniversary. We celebrated the way most couples do, by spending a large amount of time doing homework in the afternoon and talking in the evening. We did this all while connected by webcam so it wasn't too bad. Late in the evening she found an old record of our conversations from the beginning of the year. It was so cute to see how our relationship developed from friendship to love. We've been extra ever since then.

In a few weeks I'll be having my birthday. My birthday is the day after Veteran's Day which means that every few years I get my birthday off. This year I have no such luck. Not only do I have school but I have a neuroanatomy mid-term that is worth 40% of my grade. Happy birthday to me!

This Christmas my family from Idaho is coming to Port Angeles. This is very exciting as I don't usually get to see these family members, especially not during Christmas. What's more they are coming to visit Alexandra who will be staying with us as well. I wasn't expecting to get to introduce her to those family members so soon. I was very excited to find this out!

Well there you have it, three important days. I'll bring up more as they come. That's the Braunsey Blog promise

One Week Later

Hi everyone! As promised, here is my weekly installment in the Chelsea files. A lot happens in my week, it's extremely busy, but it's usually filled with the same thing: dance, tutoring, dance, and tutoring.

Mondays I have dance from 8:30 to 10:30. Something that I really love about my apartment is that it is close everything. So, getting up and getting to class in the morning is a breeze. Mondays and Fridays I have dance 250 lecture in Gould Hall, which is only a couple blocks from my apartment so it's an easy walk. Last Monday, we read about and discussed Mexican folk dance, called ballet folklorico (with an accent over the second 'o'). After that, I have tutoring. I tutor a freshman football player in a building that's kind of in the middle of campus called Mary Gates Hall. There are constantly student athletes and tutors going in and out, which is a lot of fun. I've made friends with a couple of the other tutors, Lyndsi and Jonathan, and have met several of the students who have tutoring at the time that I am there. We have a lot of fun working together. At 2:30, I head to the dance studios where I have jazz class until about 4:00. Then I go home to shower and whatnot and I have to be back at tutoring at 6:00. In the evenings, I go to the Conibear Shellhouse which is next to the Husky Stadium, so it takes about 15 minutes to walk there (I've avoided getting in the habit of driving down there since it costs about $4.00 to park my car in the parking lot). I work with a volleyball player and two other football players.

On Tuesdays, I have to be to dance at 9:30, which is a class called Somatics Practices. The umbrella term for it is "alternative movement studies". It's kind like a mixture of yoga, pilates, and body awareness...it's interesting, I've actually learned quite a lot. I don't know if I can be considered very good at it, since I always have 8,000 things on my mind and it's going a mile a minute, but the class is pretty cool. After that I have more tutoring (freshman basketball) and then my salsa class from 2:30-4:30. On a side note, I had my rhythm exam in salsa last week and I knocked it out of the park! Yay! I have the same professor for Cross-Cultural Dance (250) and salsa, and she is pretty intense! Then I have more tutoring (more volleyball and football). This Tuesday was Kendy's birthday, so I called her on my way back from tutoring. I hope she had a fab birthday!

Wednesdays I have the same schedule for dance as Mondays, Dance 250 and Jazz, but we have practicum, so 250 is in the dance studio. Every week, we have a guest instructor. This week we learned son jarocho, a kind of Mexican folk dance, from Rubi Oseguera, who is from Veracruz, Mexico. Her dance troop is doing some kind of residency in Seattle so we are really lucky to have been able to dance with her. I have a lot of tutoring to do on Wednesdays, football and cross-country before jazz, and softball, cross-country, and baseball afterwards. I don't get done until at least 9:00.

Thursdays are just like Tuesdays, except that tutoring involves basketball, gymnastics, and cross-country. This Thursday, my friend Clane, who is a professional photographer, was featured on Evening Magazine. I was working and didn't get to see it, but he said he taped it, so I will get to watch it sometime soon. If you watched Evening Magazine, then you got to see my friend :-)

Friday, I have dance lecture, but then I pretty much have the rest of the day to catch up on whatever else I need to do. We studied tap dance for this week's lecture, and two of my classmates brought their tap shoes and had a "tap challenge" which was ridiculously fun. I had so much energy after that I had to go for a walk, so I walked down to the U Village, and then turned around and walked back so that I could meet Eric for lunch. I'm so busy, I almost never have a chance to see him! We hung out for awhile, and then he had to leave to watch Monk and I went to Mill Creek to stay with my friend Caitlin. We went to her house for dinner and then we were going to go to the movies, we decided to go out and have a drink instead.

On Saturday morning, we were supposed to get free H1N1 shots, but they decided that there were so many people that they had to give them to pregnant women and kids 6 months or younger first. I guess I'll just have to wait until they get the vaccine in at Hall Health here. I had promised to watch the UW football game this week since I missed it last week. They didn't play well and lost to Oregon by quite a bit, so that was disappointing. It's a lot of fun watching my students, but I kind of lost interest after awhile. I will probably have to deal with some cranky athletes tomorrow. Caitlin and I drove back into Seattle right after the game, and the U district was inundated with Ducks fans. At one point, Caitlin rolled down the window and yelled, "You're in the wrong city! Get out!" That evening, we met a friend of ours, Jason, and went out to a place called Flowers, then hung out at my apartment for awhile.

Sundays are usually my laundry days. I don't really have time to do my laundry on other days, but I have to change my clothes several times a day so it needs to be done. Caitlin spent the night on Saturday night so that she could go with me to the Chamber Dance Concert at the U with me today. It was a really good show, plus I had to see it for my dance class and write a paper about it which is due on Wednesday. Well, that's pretty much it This Week in the Life of Chelsea. I have some really fun stories about tutoring, but I can't tell you about them on here, they're classified.

Strange but true facts

Here are a few interesting facts I've learned over the course of my linguistic career:

A human being and a chinchilla have almost identical auditory processing abilities

Turkish has a separate verb ending if the speaker is gossiping

As many as 10% of English speakers make their T sound differently but it's so subtle nobody notices

Swedish has nine different letters for vowels each with short and long forms

The word "so" is prnounced rougly the same in English, Japanese and Swedish

Up until the age of 9 months a child can distinguish between all language sounds

Sign language speakers use their face to express tense

The same part of your brain that activates when you move forward, when you talk about moving forward and when you talk about moving forward in a metaphorical way

Anyways there are many, many interesting things to learn about language, this was originally just going to be about the chinchilla thing, since we learned that recently in my psychology of language class but I couldn't resist sharing a few more facts.

A Giant Hug and Kiss for you all!

Hello everyone...this is Chelsea! SURPRISE!
Ok, so I am going to attempt to fill you in on the past...uh...4 months. Lame, lame, I know!
I think the last time I posted was when I was in London after my classes were over and before my family met up with me in Europe. I had a fabulous time with my host family for a week, and then one day I packed everything up, hit the tube, and met up with my dad and brother at the King's Cross train station. This is indeed where Harry Potter supposedly meets the famous Hogwart's Express. However, the author got this wrong. She actually meant to say that Harry meets the Hogwarts Express at Charing Cross train station. King's Cross has no platform 10...and I'm not sure it has a platform 9 either...so therefore there can be no platform 9 3/4. Yet, the City of London had one built in for the tourists ;-)

Anyways, my dad and brother were completely exhausted, but we met up at the train station and headed for Edinburgh, Scotland. It was great to see my dad and brother, and we had a fun time together. Scotland is really beautiful, particularly the highlands. It looks a lot like the Olympic Peninsula. We spent our 5 days there exploring the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle, the Scotch Whiskey Experience, Greyfriar's, Holyrood, etc. We also spent one entire day on a tour bus to Loch Ness. It was a long drive, but the Lochs are very pretty...even though we didn't get to see any of Nessie!

After that, we went back to London where we met up with my sister, mom, and grandma Lemon. We hung out in London for a couple days and then headed for Paris. There were a few things that I had saved to do with my family, such as the Tower of London and the London Eye, which were very cool. We also went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum since Eric had been wanting to go there for quite some time. One of our favorite things to do there, though, was stroll along in the parks. I can't begin to tell you how beautiful a city London is and how well-planned out. There are gorgeous, and enormous, parks built right into the city that have been there for centuries. Whoever came up with this idea was a genious! The night before we left, Eric's girlfriend Alexandra, Alexandra's sister Victoria, and Victoria's boyfriend Olaf came down to London from Birmingham so that they could spend the day with Eric. We all went out to dinner together. Yes, Alexandra is a lovely and very nice girl and we're all glad that she makes Eric so very happy :-) The next morning we got up early in the morning to make it to the Victoria station where we hopped a train that took us under the English Channel and into Paris.

Paris was really incredible. Unfortunately, I was sick for the first couple of days and had to miss out on going to the Eiffel Tower. Luckily, I did get to see it close up when we took a boat tour along the Seine River a couple days later. We visited the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay. It was really amazing to see the Mona Lisa and all of the other famous pieces of art that were there! The night before we left to come home, there was a magnificent thunder storm that took the power out at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. Luckily, the generator came back on and we were able to catch our connection in London and make it to Seattle without any problems.

And now, there is a big gap in my information for you. I just couldn't bring myself to post during the summer because I felt like all I did was work and wait for school to start. I was very excited to see my family when they came to visit, and I had fun with my friends from home and visited some lovely places since it was so warm and sunny. However, I just couldn't wait to get back to my life in Seattle. It's my very favorite place to be. I love Seattle and I love college. I realize that this is a lame excuse for not posting, but there it is. I didn't feel like I had anything particularly interesting to say...even though I probably did.

On September 13th, I moved into my apartment in Seattle. It's a really nice apartment on the corner of 42nd and Brooklyn in the University District. Like, a REALLY nice apartment. I'm lucky to be living with one of my roomates from last year, Lillian, who I am very good friends with and have a lot in common with. She was studying in Spain and I was studying in London last spring, so we didn't have to do any of the work finding and securing the apartment, just printing, scanning, and faxing our information. My other roomates are friends of Lillian's from marching band and we've gotten to be fast friends. It's also enjoyable to room with them because we often have a large portion of the mellophone section in our living room!

I am loving living in Seattle, and this quarter has been great so far. I have made such great friends here that I am often busy just hanging out. I've gotten to hang with some of my friends from London, which has also been wonderful. I am taking only dance classes, 4 of them to be exact. My Cross-Cultural Dance class is my favorite. We read about a differnt type of dance every week and have lecture and discussion about it, then we get to practice it. We started out with West African Dance, then we practiced Capoeira (a martial arts dance from Brazil), and this week we did Cuban Rumba and Orisha dancing. Next Wednesday, we get to learn a Mexican dance called Son Jarocho. It's so much fun! I also have jazz, salsa, and a somatic practices class. I'm getting lots of exercise and always have lots of energy! I also got my job back, tutoring student athletes for the athletics department. I have more students and hours than ever. Monday-Thursday I have dance usually starting at 8:30. Then I have tutoring for awhile, then dance again from 2:30-4:30 and then tutoring, often until 9:00 or so. I'm so busy, but so happy! I'm sure you all remember my tutoring stories from last winter. This year, things are going along in much the same way. It's already off to a great start ;-)!

I've also had the good fortune to see two great shows since I've moved in. On September 26th, my friend Caitlin and I met my mom, grandma Lemon, cousin Lexi, aunt Kim Lemon and her daughter Courtney, my friend Kaylie, her sister Marcea, and their mom and we all saw Wicked. It was very good, I'd highly recommend it. Then, my friend Caitlin and I saw Pacific Northwest Ballet's new Romeo et Juliet. It was also really great.

Well, that about catches everyone up...I'll try to be better about posting, mostly by hoping to make Sundays my blogging day...we'll see if I can keep that up!

The Simple Pleasures

Sometimes you really appreciate the simple pleasures in life. When you are a student and make little to no money that becomes mandatory. Today seems to be a simple pleasure kind of day. So here is a list some of my simple pleasures that made today much better:

1. Bagels with cream cheese and lox: This morning I had my 8:30 and due to some factors I won't go into here (okay I will, I was up late talking to my preance Alexandra) I woke up at 7:30, which gave me enough time to shower and have a little tea before rushing off. This means that I didn't have breakfast until later, more like 10:45-11:00. I went to the internet cafe where I can use my student card and they had the most delicious breakfast sandwich known to man (as someone who is not usually a fan of most breakfast foods outside cereal and toast this is quite a nice thing) a bagel with cream cheese, capers and lox. Yum!

2. Talking to my girlfriend. Being to students so far away makes communication difficult. We have managed to talk everyday since we've been apart but it is sometimes hard to get enough time in. In fact it is impossible. Today however her class was canceled and I only have my early class so we've been talking for a long time. The only reason I am writing this now is that we are taking a quick lunch break which brings me to simple pleasure number 3.

3. Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs. Lean Cuisine is a really nice way to get decent food if you don't have any cooking options outside a microwave, sink and electric kettle. This allows me to eat the finest in frozen dinners and oatmeal and not much else in the way of hot food unless I go out to eat. Of all the types of Lean Cuisine they have in stock my favorite is the Swedish Meatballs on pasta and today is the first day I've seen it there.

4. Library books. If they ever made a t-shirt that says "So many books, so little money" I would be tempted to buy that shirt but then not because I will have spent all my money on books. I am proud to report that outside of my textbooks, this quarter I haven't bought a single book. I've been checking them out from the library instead. They are awesome books about my future field and I am very excited about them. Reading them between meals and the love of my life.

Well there you are. A few simple pleasures from a relaxing day. Come to think of it a relaxing yet productive day can probably be considered a simple pleasure. I hope all of my blog reading public are finding equally enjoyable simple pleasures today.

My day of language and the brain

Today I had my neuro-anatomy class and my I-LABS job. They both went pretty well.
To borrow from Charles Dickens, "It was the best of classes, it was the worst of classes; it was a class that is very interesting, it was a class that requires me to get up so early I am too sleepy to remember a lot of the things we learn; it was a class where I get to act out a neurological disorder..." wait what was that last part?

That's right since this class is a graduate level course we don't have many assignments, just two tests and one project. We talked about the project a bit today and I found out what we are doing and am very excited about it. On Thursday he will give us all neurological disorders. It could be Parkinsons, Huntingtons or any of those other nasty -tons. We'll have to do a whole project about it, doing research collecting data etc. The cool part though is that we will get to act out the disease in front of the class, mirroring movement troubles and speech problems. It sounds like so much fun! I love doing this sort of thing. I am not allowed to tell anyone what I have (although I might let my blogging public know if they promise to keep it to themselves) and the class will try to figure it out by asking me questions and seeing my symptoms. It's going to be great!

After that class I have my job at I-LABS. It's very easy and there isn't too much to do really. I mostly direct families to wait for the researchers and page people. In between I catch up on reading and today someone left the paper there and I did the Sudoku puzzle too. They are completely renovating that building though so my job will be interesting this quarter as I'll end up learning new places to send people each week. It's an easy job but I do help people quite a bit, however I have one tiny complaint and it's about the person who works after me.

One of the only things that they care about in that job is you being on time. She stressed to me during my interview/training session that the only real requirement be that I am there on time. I am always 20 minutes early, I even timed myself today and it takes me 19 minutes to get there from my class before it. I make small talk with the girl who works there before me and take over at 11:00. Hypothetically I should finish at 2:00. This wasn't the case.

Last week the girl who takes over at 2:00 wasn't there right away. Courtesy dictates I give her a few minutes and sure enough she was 5 minutes late. So today when 2:00 rolled around I decided to give her 15 minutes (which is the amount they tell you it is acceptible to be late by the way) to get there. I was into the chapter of my book and it ended up being 20 minutes. If you are late more than once you fail the course so I didn't want to get her in trouble, on the other hand she was very late and I hadn't eaten anything since 7:3o this morning. I went to talk to the woman who handles these things and told her that the girl wasn't there and I'd be leaving. I let her know when the next appointment was and left. I hope that she isn't late again and that everything is okay. Still it was a bit annoying.

Anyways that's the big stuff from my day. Now I'm going to do my homework for phonetics, it should be interesting; I have to compare data from several world languages. That's it for the Braunsey Blog more news as it happens.

Three Blog Night: The Phonetics Blog

Three blogs in one day? Wow this is sure a change from this summer when it was more like 1 blog in three months. Anyways, I couldn't resist a third blog when I thought of this title so here it goes; a blog about my phonetics class.

Phonetics in Linguistics is the study of the production of speech sounds and how to describe them. We study things like what makes vowels and consonants, how various parts of the vocal tract make sounds, how our pitch and stress affect pronunciation; things like that. One of the most interesting parts of the class is that you get to hear a wide variety of sounds from a wide variety of languages. You also get an insight into your own dialect. For example I speak a Seattle dialect and in class got to demonstrate how my pronunciation of words like "egg", "leg" and "bag" are different than the Standard American English dialect.

One of the funniest parts of that class is that each time you hear a new sound or about the position of your tongue in a particular sound you hear about half the class attempting the new sounds. Today we had a Mandarin speaker in the class prnounce a word with a voiceless velar fricative. That is the like the CH in the Scottish Loch or the J in Spanish for those of you who aren't Phoneticians. Following I could hear a lot of people making that sound. Either we were in a Phonetics class or everyone there had hairballs.

Well that's the last one for the day. Hope you've all enjoyed your triple dose of Braunsey Blog...and maybe someday I can persuade my sister to contribute...

Columbus Day

Today while sitting in class before Phonetics my thoughts turned Columbus Day and just what it means to me. So I thought I'd express my feelings about it in poetry form. I give you Columbus Day:

C is canceled, which school is not
O is for Oh! That's today? I forgot
L is lame protesters all over the campus
U is for unlucky natives, from Nunavut to the Pampas
M is for MSN articles which make me remember
B is for but wasn't that in September?
U is unpopular, what can I say?
S is for Sweet! A non-holiday

Let's be friends

I have recently noticed that despite having the world's most amazing girlfriend, interesting classes and a wonderful blogging audience (it never hurts to butter you all up a little) that I have a recent deficit of male friends. Growing up in a close family with mostly girls in it gives you a rather unique perspective as a guy and some of my best friends in the world have been girls (my best friend in the world is the girl I'm going to marry in a few years). Now the great guy friend shortage of 2009 isn't the crisis that was predicted however. I'm mostly realizing this now due to a few events over the last few weeks.

1. My sister Chelsea, who I swear I've been pressuring to blog lately, has been having a wonderful time in Seattle. She has told me I should make friends with the guys she finds cute so I can say "by the way, my sister's available." Although from talking to my sister lately this may not be something I need to worry about too much anymore. We have a long running joke between the two of us involving the name 'the smoothenator' and she has informed me that if I make her a connection she will call me that...

2. When we've talked about getting married recently I've realized that I have less people to ask to be my groomsmen than Alexandra has to be bridesmaids. It makes me realize now that everytime I make a new male friend I'm going to ask myself: Is he groomsmen material? "I've had a great time hanging out tonight, Johnny, but if we continue being friends I'm going to need more of a commitment. I need to know that you are going to be wedding material"

3. I spend a lot of time talking to Alexandra on-line, which is as it should be. On Saturday I spent most of the afternoon working on my statement of purpose for the University of Alberta and the rest of the afternoon helping her with her homework for her classes. Then she went out to dinner with a friend of hers and I had dinner and showered. Then we talked some more, we ended up spending about 11 hours talking that day between the homeworm and the conversation in the evening. Contrast that to yesterday. It was Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday, weird I know, and she went to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Her friend is unexperienced in the ways of turkey cooking and didn't realize how much time it would talk. The dinner that was supposed to start at 5:30 didn't get going until after 9:00. We still managed to talk in the night though.

So I guess I've been thinking about friendship a lot this weekend. I do have quite a few good friends that I can think of. But if you have a good friend make sure you take the time to appreciate everything they mean to you. This weekend has been a good chance for me to reflect on how lucky I am to have all of you in my life (again with the flattery. See you read my blog and leave it feeling good)

The pressure's on

When you are a college student (and pretty much anyone else in the world) you have a certain amount of pressure in your life. I was originally going to only focus on one type of pressure. But in the interest of full disclosure I'll share several sorts of the pressure I get at school.

1. Grad school applications: So you've spent the last three years figuring out what it is you want to do with your life? That's good. However the hardest part now is j through all the hoops to make it happen. I finished the on-line portion of the Alberta application a few days ago. But I am still far from done. I have to get letters of recommendation, write a statement of purpose, get transcripts from my schools, and recover the sacred Incan idol from the sun temple by the next harvest moon. One of those wasn't true, although I'm not telling which. Anyways today I hope to get my statement of purpose done. But first I want to read an article in a book which was written by the person who I hope to have be my advisor. A major part of this job will be schmoozing. And it's nice to have some schmooze fodder if you can get it.

2. Financial pressure: In Sweden grad students are paid employess of the state and get salaries and vacation days. That doesn't happen here. So far I've been searching for a job and all I've come up with is the non-paying one. It's a great job, don't get me wrong but a second great job, one which pays real money, may be better. I've looked around but still haven't found anything that fits my schedule and I am qualified for. To give you an idea of the strange lengths you have to go to to get a job here: last year I wanted a job and so looked on-line at library positions here on campus. They said to go to the library. So I went. There was nothing I could do. So I went again, and again. Finally there was an appropriate job. Success! They gave you a website to go to apply. So I went back. It was a website, through the MYUW webpage and it had all the library jobs posted but you had to jump through all those hoops to get there first. I guess it was to weed out all the non-athletic candidates who would rather toss the hoops or perhaps do a little hula dance with them instead.

3. Water pressure: Okay so it's more of a heat issue than a water pressure issue but there are two floor to ceiling pipes in my room. I learned the hard way my first few years that they get very hot during the day turning my room from a place to study to a sauna. Saunas are all right when you can get out and get in the cold pool. For a place to live it's a bit excessie. Even though we put insulation over them it still gets way too hot forcing me to open my windows, which I am trying to do less this year. Now I really shouldn't complain about bad temperatures too much seeing as how two weeks ago in Edmonton it was in the 90s and now it is below freezing and snowing during the warmest part of the day. Soon enough I'll be there and have a whole new set of issues to blog about.

And now the reason I started writing this blog in the first place

4. Pressure I am putting on my sister to get her to blog again: Yesterday I only had one class to go to. 1:00-2:20 and then I was done. I also had a punch card filled out for a free bowl of Pho. So I texted Chelsea and asked her if she had eaten yet and if she wanted to have lunch. I hadn't really seen her much this week so we took this chance to catch up a little. I can assure you all that I told her in no uncertain terms that she needs to blog again and that she has a lot to talk about. Hopefully this means that she wil start soon. She has been very busy though and hasn't even had a chance to check the blogs recently. She has been alerted though.

So there you have it. Apparently pressure plays a major part in the life of a student. And I have more to look forward to. At least I know which sort of pressure I'm choosing. One of the benefits of being in a relationship with a grad student is seeing how everything works before you start school yourself. So with that I shall end this edition of the Braunsey Blog. Hope you all have relatively pressure free days.

A love hate relationship

And to quickly squash all rumors, no I'm not talking about me and Alexandra; if anything we have a love-love relationship...I'm talking about technology. Specifically Skype and MSN.

Now Alexandra and I talk every day on-line. Since the day I got back from Europe we haven't missed a day. We usually average somewhere between 3 and five hours a night. This is facilitated by my webcam. Trust me, when you are separated from your preance, seeing and hearing them makes all the difference in the world. And for that I am eternally grateful to technology. However it also seems that technology is consistently conspiring against us too.

Everyday we go through a little routine. We'll log onto Skype, type a few messages back and forth and after a few minutes I'll press the video call button. That will start a process which scares my computer into freezing up but still allows me to hear my love on the other end. We'll say helloooooooooooooooooo to each other and soon enough my computer will calm down and we'll see and hear each other as well. But that is not the end of our happy little story. At some point, some days after 3 hours and others, like today, after 3 minutes the quality of the picture will start to get worse. Sometimes it freezes, sometimes the color changes to make it look like the negatives for film, some days it randomly moves parts around to end up looking like a Picasso painting. Often it will be all three at once. Usually when this happens we'll have about 30 seconds before the picture will freeze and the sound will stop as well. Then it will randomly disconnect. Occasionally this will be due to a computer error in my laptop that is only fixable through restarting it. This usually takes 10-15 minutes.

We have recently been trying MSN which has a video chat feature as well. This usually works well with one slight problem. Roughly half the time one of us will be unable to hear or see (or both) the other one. We can both send messages but not see or hear the other person.

These make it very interesting to communicate. It really makes you appreciate when technology works well. Alexandra has no classes tomorrow and I have only one that starts at 1:00 tomorrow so we were able to talk late tonight. Still the first few hours were mostly a lot of trying to get the technology to work. The last few were pretty good...

So that is my love hate relationship with technology. I depend on it quite a lot in my day to day life and it likes to pull pranks on me, often failing at critical moments in the conversation. The one solice I can take in this is that soon Alexandra will be coming to Seattle and I won't depend on Skype or MSN to talk with her anymore. And for those of you planning on coming to Port Angeles this Christmas you will all get a chance to meet her. I am very excited to introduce her to you; and she has learned most of your names and relations pretty well by now which as any person in my enormous family can attest to is no mean feat.

The happy couple

Grad Schools, and I-LABS and GREs, Oh My!

Life moves quickly at the University of Washington to the point where you go to blog anf realize that in order to mention everything you'll need a series of novels to discuss it and short of getting J.K. Rowling to do an Erie Potter and the Chamber of Syntax book for me I'll just have to suck it up and do a long post. Well you guys asked for it so here goes:

Chelsea moved back to Seattle a week before Eric in mid September because she has an apartment she shares with several room mates. To know more about Chelsea's quarter after this point please consult the Chelsea section of your local library as I haven't seen much of her this quarter although I will pressure her into blogging again next time I see her... Let's hope it works this time.

Anyways I moved in a week later in part because we didn't realize until the week before that I was scheduled to move in Friday before 9:30. Now the drive from Port Angeles is 3 hours on a good day and my dad had to work that day so the prospects were looking bleak. Thinking quickly I logged in and changed my time. The only other available day was Thursday. No better luck there although I moved my time to between 10:30 and 12:30 so at least I could sleep. No I was left with the question of how to get me and a dorm's worth of stuff to Seattle without a car...

I also was applying for a for credit position at a place called I-LABS which stands for Institute for Learning And Brain Science. My girlfriend Alexandra worked there for two quarters last year and her linguistic heros, Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff (Pat and Andy to their friends) are the co-runners of the institute. They were looking to hire and I was looking for something interesting to do; it seemed like a good fit. Except she told me to come in Monday or Tuesday for an interview as positions would fill up quickly. Thinking quickly again (I'm quite good at that it seems) I asked my wonderful aunt Chukkie (Laura to anyone outside the family) if I could stay with them for a few days. I lived with them last summer and for a few days this summer (see my last blog for details on that if you don't remember) and so I am starting to feel like the fourth member of their household, 6th counting their cats. I came over that weekend with Chelsea who was kind enough to give me a ride there with enough stuff so that I could live for a few days. I set up my computer and got an e-mail saying that they had filled up all their jobs. I wasn't too surprised but later I got an email about an opening they had...which was exactly when I have another class of mine. SO I had to turn it down. Right after I moved into school I got a third e-mail saying last chance, there is one more position...and this one acutally worked somehow, I had my interview and orientation last week and had my first day today (it's a one day a week three hour job for one college credit) but more one that later.

I moved in on Thursday, Chelsea was also kind enough to give me and my meager posessions a ride and I was all set up. My girlfriend is very organized and I happy to say that is rubbing off on me. My room has never been so organized and I made labels for my drawers. They kind of sound like Jeopardy categories: Entertainment and Stationery, Toiletries, Useful Miscellany, Papers Letter Etc., Tea & Tea Accesories and "Kitchen" Stuff. In case you are wondering "kitchen" is in "quotes"
because we get a "kitchenette" here which is a microwave and a sink. High class digs, I know. And just to make you even more jealous we have a garbage can too (although we cannot have toasters, a small price to pay for such fabulous cooking ability. After I was settled in I met Chelsea and her friend for some tea and hanging out. But first I went to the library and got some awesome books. Cognitive Linguistics is pretty obscure and you'd have to go out of your way to find any books on it which is why university libraries are so nice. Any place with books about Indonesian Coffee sales in 1964 (An acutal book I've seen) is bound to have a few books of interest lying around. I've been having a field day with these books and no end in sight. I've almost finished Ronald Langacker's Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Volume 1. Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways in all the spare time that comes with being a college student I've been applying to grad schools. If all goes as planned I will be done with school here by March of 2010 and want to go to grad school ASAP. I've been narrowing it down all summer although I pretty much know where I want to go. It will come as no surprise to anyone who reads our blog that my top (and really only choice) is the universtiy of Alberta. There is a lot to recommend this school including a program I really want, the fact that Alberta hasn't been hit by the recession at all and is pouring their millions of Canadian surpluss dollars into the university, which is supposed to become one of the best in the world in a few years. However I'd say the best part is the people or rather person. And I don't mean the people on staff who were students of Ronald Langacker (although that is awesome) but rather to be with my girlfriend Alexandra. For those of you who don't know we both study linguistics and both want to become professors. In August I flew up to Edmonton to stay with her for a few weeks. I got back one month ago today (the 6th) and it seems like it was at least a year. We're planning on getting an apartment together when I go up there (should I get accepted). And you can say you read it here first folks, we plan to get married in a few years. Since the famous analogy "rich as a grad student" turned out to flagrantly false we decided we were "pre-engaged" and now she is my preance( Like fiance but with pre) We talk on-line for hours each night. Prior to writing this we just finished talking for five hours. I am very grateful for the webcam technology it makes a big difference. So going to Edmonton is the right choice for oh so many reasons but that is the biggest one. Our current goal is to be married before 2013.

One of the best ways to get into grad schools is to do well on a test called the GRE. Up until today I didn't know that that stands for Graduate Records Examination. It is scored in a similar manner to the SAT with a written, verbal and quantitative reasoning portion. I took it last Saturday and got 720 in verbal and 750 in QR. Those are very good scores. The U of A doesn't require you to have taken it but it definitely looks impressive and helps to tip the scales in my favor.

Beyond that I have been taking classes and doing homework. I'm taking linguistic phonetics (more interesting than it sounds), psychology of language (I'm fairly certain I'm the oldest student in that class) and a graduate level Neuroanatomy of Specch class which is early in the morning. Early for me anyways, as I'm sure the mom's reading this blog will tell me waking up at 7:00 twice a week isn't such a bad way to go. We had our second meeting today as spent 2 hours on terminology. I hope we start something else soon.

Okay so as far as I know now that is everything major. Just life altering decisions and school work... I will try to post more things whenn they acutally happen and get my sister to start posting as well. I know she has a lot to say. Anyways I guess I can say welcome back to the Braunsey Blog and we'll try to post more things as they happen.

Up to now...

It has been a very long time since we've posted anything. We know that everybody out there has been craving more Braunsey in their diet. There has been a lot going on these last few months. This is a lame attempt to make up for not blogging about them when they actually happened. And this is just an Eric post today. I can already hear you asking "Oh sure Eric, he is super cool but what happened to Chelsea?" Read on and you'll find out...
This has been a very good year for me. Like most people in college I have been bouncing around trying to figure out just what it is that I want to do with the rest of my life. I started out doing Asian Studies which was nice enough but not for me. I ended up going into Linguistics which I am very passionate about but always seems to raise the eternal question from my parents "Okay so how can you make a living at it?" Taking those words to heart I applied for and succeeded in becoming a double major between Linguistics and Speech and Hearing Sciences which would allow me to work on treating speech disorders and make money to end up going back to school later. The problem is that I'd also have to go to grad school to do this and after two quarters in the SPHSC department I began to feel dissatisfied with it. It's very interesting but it's just not what I care about. And so I began to wonder if it was right for me.
All through this I was still taking linguistics classes and loving it. It's just such an interesting topic to me. As many know asking me to talk about Linguistics is a dangerous proposition. But I've been going to linguistics club and taking linguistics classes and meeting other people who share my interests and passion. I made a number of good friends there and in my classes. In Syntax in particular my study group was kind of like the cool kids of the class. There was me, Alexandra, Sarah and in the second quarter to a lesser extent Grace. A number of other people also would talk with us or ask for our thoughts about problems from the homework. Being the cool kids in syntax is kind of like being the good smelling fish in a fish truck to most people but we were pretty awesome none-the-less. Near the end of winter quarter I began hanging out with my friend Alexandra a lot. At first we'd meet once or twice a week outside of class and pretty soon it was everyday. She is also a linguistics major and a very cool girl so we got along great. I even introduced her to such wonderful family games as mad libs and to anyone from my family reading this she can do mad libs with the best of them. This is all the more impressive when you know that she is Spanish and better with word games than most English speakers I know. One day we were hanging out in my dorm room having tea and I mentioned my doubts about sphsc. She looked at me and gave me the look she gives when she is concentrating and said the words I'll never forget "That's not for you. You should do this" And she showed me a field of linguistics that I had barely heard of called Cognitive Linguistics. I'm pretty sure that a light from heaven did not come down and that angels did not erupt in song but that is how I remember it now. It was exactly everything I was interested in in one field. The more I read up on it the better it seems. I could go into a long description of this field but rather than bore you here is a link you can chose to view or not: http://www.cogling.org/cl.shtml. I was so amazed that I gave her a spontaneous hug, which I am not known to do very often. This should have told me something right there because a few weeks later we ended up dating and are still couple. She is a smart, funny. beautiful, wonderful and quirky girl who I am hoping to introduce to everybody who reads this blog. There would be plenty of pictures but I am doing this on my aunt Chukkie's (Laura) computer.
And now for why this is not being done on my computer back in Port Angeles. The hardest part about two scholars dating is distance. We both want to be linguistics professors;although her field is language acquisition and bilingualism (a good field for her since she speaks Spanish, English and Catalan fluently). The life of a professor is pretty much bound to whatever school you are going to and she graduated from the UW and will be going to grad school in Edmonton. Not to mention she has been in Spain all summer. However we took a family trip to Europe to pick up Chelsea who had been studying abroad in London. Alexandra's sister Victoria had been doing the same in Birmingham so Alexandra, Victoria and Victoria's boyfriend Olaf all came to London for a day and we got to be together then. We managed to communicate by e-mail everyday while I was in Europe which is no mean feat. Ever since I got back we have talked at least once a day usually twice through this wonderful program called Skype. Which allows me to use a webcam to see her as well as hear her. It's free to use and better quality than a cell phone which would be free to use anyways. We'll do a post later on Europe and have some pictures up for you as well as some of me and Alexandra.
So why am I using Chukkie's computer? I am on my way to Edmonton and I leave tomorrow to fly up from Seattle. So I am staying with them for a few days. And for everyone who wants to meet her she'll be coming down to Seattle and then Port Angeles for Christmas. I hope everyone can meet her. I like to say I've found my two great loves this year: my field or Cognitive Linguistics and my amazing girlfriend Alexandra.
So that is my major news up to this point. I hope this more than atones for my lameness these last several months. Hope everybody is enjoying their summers.I know I will.

One More for the Road

And just because I thought that one post that took me about 4 hours to put together wasn't enough for one day. This is a really cute conversation that I just experienced from my room.

The Players:
Joe B, 13, my host brother
Louis B, 11, my other host brother
Nick, Louis' neighbor friend
Me

The Setting:
I live in a room on the third floor of my house. Joe and Louis' bedrooms are on the second floor.

The Event:
Imagine this all done in cute British accents as well.

Joe had gone out to go to the store, Louis and Nick came barreling up the stairs to Louis' room.

Louis:(whispering)If Joe comes up here, tell me.
Nick:(whispering)What?
Louis:(whispering)If Joe comes up here, tell me.
Nick:(whispering)What? What did you say?
Louis:(whispering)If Joe comes up here, tell me.
Nick:(very loudly)If Joe comes up here, what?
Louis:(whispering)TELL ME!
Nick:(whispering)Oh, okay.
Louis:(whispering)You can hide in the loo.
Nick:(whispering)But won't he see me in the loo?
Louis:(whispering something inaudible)
Nick:(whispering)Should I just come to your room if I see him.
Louis:(whispering)Yeah.
Nick:(Loudly and dismayed)But Louis, I really have to piss!

London Overdue

Hey everybody!
So, I'm going to attempt to fill everyone in on my trip since my last post, which I realize was half the trip ago. I'm sure my apologies will seem empty, so I will just get to it...since it could take awhile :-)

Previously, on Chelsea's European Tour:
Chelsea was visiting friends in Germany, and was taken to the airport by Uncle Klaus where she flew to London and had 3 days to recuperate before the second half of her classes for spring quarter began...

And that is where I'll start:
On May 1st, which was a Friday, I decided to visit the Beatles Store, which is right next to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street. Since Eric is a big Sherlock Holmes fan, I resisted the urge to go inside until he comes ;-) The Beatles store was very cool though. Since one of my best friends is a huge Beatles fan, I got her a really cool birthday present there (and today is her actual birthday, in fact. It's also my cousin Jessica's birthday. Happy Birthday Jessie and Kaylie!) I also visited Regent's Park, which is quite pretty.



On Saturday, May 2nd I decided to start working on my final project for Art, Architecture, and Society. Since one of my favorite musicals is Cats, and the poems it was based on are written by T.S. Eliot and take place all over London, I decided I'd make a scrapbook of all of the different places mentioned in Cats that involve UK culture and/or history. I was really ambitious and planned to visit those places and take pictures of them in addition to doing research. So, I took the tube to Hammersmith ("In Hammersmith and Putney, people shuddered at his name"- Growltiger's Last Stand). When I got there, I walked around in a loop and took a picture of a sign that said, "I love Hammersmith". That evening, I went out to dinner and drinks with a friend from the program, Elise, who was back from her trip to Italy. We went down near London Bridge to the Dicken's Inn.



Sunday, May 3rd was the last day that my group from my theatre class had a chance to meet in order to see a fringe play. Each group was required to see a fringe play together and report on it the next week in class. We were group 3 and the next week was our turn, but everyone was on holiday when we were supposed to have seen our fringe play. We had tried the week before everyone left; a group of us went out to a play that was supposed to be in a club somewhere. However, it ended up being some sort of gentlemen's club (possibly gay), and they were quite confused when we asked if there was a play going on. So, we all went out instead and vowed to find another play when we got back. Sunday comes around and I get a call from Alexa asking me to please look up a fringe play. 3 of the 5 of us ended up meeting in Camden Town at the Oxford Arms Pub for the fringe play which was playing in the theatre above the pub. It was called Holiday Vacation and was absolutely hilarious. London is definately the theatre capital of the world. It has very high standards, and even the actors in little plays off of the beaten path are completely brilliant.

On May 4th, classes started again. We had a really fun class with Fran, a professional actress and the daughter of one of our professors. We just did some acting exercises and talked about acting. At 7:30, we saw the play A View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller. Not only was it a great play, but one the actors from one of my favorite TV shows played one of the characters. If anyone has seen BBC Robin Hood and knows who Will Scarlet is, then you'll know what I mean. I was excited :-) (Photo: BBC)



Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Today, I didn't have class until 2:00, so I stayed home in the morning to finish writing my mid-term paper for Contemporary Britain. After class, me, Spenser, and Selena came back to our house and made nachos in honor of our Mexican friends. One of the things that England lacks is a wide array of good Mexican food. In fact, one of the first things my roomate did when she got home was to stop by Chipotle and get a burrito. But, back to my travel log...

On May 6th, I had class at 10:00. We went to Winston Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms which I had no idea existed until then. They were really cool. The whole thing was essentially a bunker where Winston Churchill and other leaders, particularly in the military, ran the show during WWII. The rooms were set up exactly as they would have been during the times that they were in use with items that were originally in the rooms. When we were done there, we had free access the Winston Churchill Museums, so most of us went through that. When we were in the gift shop, two of my friends from the program came in and told us that they had almost literally run into Bill Gates and said, "Hey, we're from Seattle too". Well, we all ended up seeing him in the museum. It was kinda funny because he was almost inconspicuous. At 2:00 we met with our AAS professor for a walk through the Wren Churches. Sir Christopher Wren was a famous architect during the 1600's, and a lot of his work can be seen around London. He's also one of our professor's favorites. That night, I went out with my friends Meron and Ruth to a club in Piccadilly Circus. They had been in London last summer and had some friends in the area. One of their friends was having a birthday and he told them to invite their friends. They invited about 5 of us, but I was really the only one that went. It was a lot of fun, although I have some pretty interesting stories...ask about them sometime. It was a late night, I took a night bus home because the tubes stop running at about midnight. Good times. Before the clubbing, when I was waiting for Meron and Ruth outside the Piccadilly Circus station, I met several people, one of them being Ash. More on him later.





On the 7th my AAS class met at 2:00 at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, but since it is so huge and popular with so much history, we used up the whole day to see it. It is a magnificent church and rivals even Canterbury Cathedral. We took a guided tour there, and then walked up into the dome and looked out over London. It was a fantastic view!




On May 8th I stuck around the house to register for classes. Hooray.

On the 9th, my friend and roomate from this last year at school was in town for the weekend. Lillian had been studying in Spain for spring quarter. She had no phone with her, so we had been facebooking each other, trying to meet up at the Swiss Cottage tube station which is near where her hostel was. The Swiss Cottage station is on the Jubilee line of the underground, and when I got to Paddington to change to the Jubilee line, it was closed (of course). So, I had to take the Metropolitan line to Finchley Road station, which is one station beyond Swiss Cottage, and walk. However, I was late and Lillian (and the other friend that she was meeting) weren't there. So, I waited, walked back to Finchley Road, walked backed down to Swiss Cottage and then decided to walk for awhile and ended up walking all of the way through Regent's Park (which is quite big) to Baker Street Station and then on to Oxford Street. I spent the rest of that afternoon doing laundry and watching Family Guy with Jeremy. I was disappointed that I missed seeing Lillian.

Happy Mother's Day all you mums! At 2:00 I went on a date with a neurology research doctor named Ash. He was a friendly and charming guy who I met in Picadilly Circus a couple of days before. The date started out well, but got progressively weirder. It wasn't a bad experience, except that I didn't feel like starting a relationship with him or moving to London which he suggested would be a good idea. So, when the time came to leave and he told me to call him, I simply said, "We'll see" and went to Leicester Square where Spenser, Selena, and I saw the new Star Trek movie. Ok, so I'm not that into sci-fi movies, TV, books are anything really, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was exciting and the Empire Theatre was awesome. Every time there was an explosion, our seats would shake!



The 11th was my mother's birthday, so Happy Birthday Mum! My theatre class went on a tour of The Globe, which was fun.



On the 12th, we had theatre at 2:30 where we were discussing Romeo and Juliet. Before class, me, Spenser, Selena, and Kelsi went to King's Cross Station where we found Platform 9 3/4 and took pictures running at the wall to get to Hogwarts. Actually, there really is no Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross because the numbers don't go that high, so they had one built in. I've been told that J.K. Rowling made a mistake when writing it and was actually thinking of Charing Cross station, which would have room for Platform 9 3/4. At 7:30, we watched the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Romeo and Juliet at The Globe. It was sooo good, except that we had the 5 pounds tickets, which meant that we stood in front of the stage for the entire performance. It was kind of exhausting.



After class on the 13th, Selena and I went back to The National Gallery to see the Monet, Degas, and Van Gogh paintings that I had not seen yet. After that, we went up to the Maida Vale tube station and walked over to Abbey Road. It was fun to see, although it is not a tourist-friendly area. You can't just leisurely walk across the crosswalk since people are actually driving through.



On the 14th, we visited the Tate Britain Museum with our AAS class which is full of British art. After that, we took a walk through Nash's London. Sir John Nash was another famous architect who built Buckingham Palace and Marble Arch to name a few famous and interesting places. After dinner, me, Spenser, Jeremy, Lucy, and Louis played volleyball in the backyard. However, we didn't use a real volleyball, so it bounced and poor Louis had to keep combinig over the fence into the neighbor's yard to get it.



On the 15th, Spenser and I met up with Selena and went back to Portobello Road Market, after which we went to Chinatown to get some Chinese food. We walked to Trafalgar Square to see the fountains. Up until just a few days before, the fountains had been under repair, but the scaffolding had finally been taken off and they were flowing again, yay!




On the 16th, Spenser, Selena, Jeremy, and I went down to London Bridge to go to the Borough Market. It's a really fabulous farmer's market type deal where you can buy the most delicious food. It's right near Southwark Cathedral, which Shakespeare attended, so we popped in there to have a look around. We went home and Spenser, Jeremy, and I watched The Wedding Crashers while we ate dinner. After that, we walked down to Muswell Hill where we saw the Star Trek movie at the theatre there. I thought it was better the second time, and Jeremy enjoyed it for his first time.



On the 17th, I walked to Muswell Hill to go to the grocery store, but I pretty much stuck around and did homework for the rest of the day. Yippee.

On the 18th, I went down to the East Putney Station to meet with my Contemporary Britain class. We went to the mosque to learn about the Muslim community and how it functions in London. It was quite interesting. The people there were very gracious and kind, and afterwards they fed us some of the most delicious food. At 2:00, we had to meet for our theatre class and discuss our final projects with our group.



On the 19th, I did not have any class so I met Selena at the Charing Cross tube station and we went to South Kensington to visit the Natural History Museum. We were literally in the museum for at least 5 hours; it was such a fabulous place! I'd highly recommend it to anyone.





On the 20th we had to get up super early to meet the bus outside of King's Cross on York Way at 8:30. We were spending the night in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is where Shakespeare was born. On the way there, we stopped at Anne Hathaway's Cottage. No, not the actress, Shakespeare's wife. We settled into our Bed and Breakfast (called Lin Hill B & B) and then had a walking tour of Stratford where we saw the "American Drinking Fountain", Shakespeare's birthplace and the museum there, a ton of Elizabethan houses and architecture, several old churches and gardens, Shakespeare's grave at Holy Trinity Church, his son-in-law's old house and office (he was a doctor), etc. We were all exhausted by that time, but we managed to find a place to eat and hang out before we went to the theatre and saw a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It was probably my least favorite performance that we've seen so far, although the character of Brutus was done quite well by another of the actors from BBC Robin Hood: Sam Troughton who plays Much. After the show, some of us went to the Dirty Duck which is where the actors like to go after the show. By the time they got there, we were getting a little too silly and were leaving, but I did speak to Brutus/Sam/Much on my way out the door, so my evening was complete.




On the 21st, we packed up early and went to Mary Arden's house, which is still a working farm after some hundreds of years. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother. There's a working falconry there and the falconer showed us a demonstration with one of the birds, an owl named Angus. I got to hold and feed him, it was fabulous! I also almost put a goat to sleep (not the death kind of put to sleep), and it's a good story that requires some facial expression, so ask about that later. After Mary Arden's house, we spent the rest of the day at Warwick Castle.





On the 22nd, I got up really early again and went to Dover with Selena. We saw Dover Castle and the beautiful white cliffs. It was such a gorgeous and clear day that we could even see all of the way across the English Channel to France! One of the coolest things that we saw was the Secret War Tunnels and the fort-like area that was built in the early 1900's and was used to man the operations of the Dunkirk Evacuation. There are actually 3 1/2 miles of tunnel spaces underneath the hill that Dover Castle was built on, the origianl tunnels having been built by Napolean! It was sooo cool!






On the 23rd, I decided to be ambitious again and work on my Cats project. While Spenser and Selena climbed the Monument, I went to Putney and a few other places, then got really tired of it because there are constantly repairs being done on the tubes during the weekends and holidays, so it made traveling extra difficult.

On Sunday the 24th, we took the train to St. Alban's which is a beautiful place just outside of London. Our AAS professor, Peter, lives there and he hosted an amazing lunch for us at his home. It was a really hot and sunny day, so the tour we had of St. Alban's was really difficult to pay attention to. After the tour, we went back to Peter's and ate and then went to Clarence Park and played ball in the sunshine for a little while.



On the 25th, we had to turn in all of our response papers for our theatre class. I got a 4.0 on all of those, which was good. Afterwards, my group met in Red Lion Square to practice our final project. For our final projects, we did what was called Lunatic Fringe Theatre, which means we had to write, direct, and perform our own plays based on experiences that we had during our stay here. Ours was a really hilarious skit based on the homestay experience of one of my group members. We had a really interesting time practicing.I think there must have been some kind of Renaissance Faire going on or something because there were a bunch of people dressed up in really weird costumes.

On the 26th, I met with my group to practice at 12:30 after which we had class at 2:00 where we discussed the Samuel Beckett play "Waiting for Godot". That evening, we went to the Royal Haymarket Theatre where we watched the play being performed. It starred Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart as the main characters, so, needless to say, it was an amazing performance.

On the 27th, my Contemporary Britain class met at High Street Kensington to go to Kensington Palace, which was interesting except that it was a very cold and stormy day. After that, I met up with some of my friends from the group that live in my area, Meg, Naomi, Katie, and Sarrah and we went into Muswell Hill to a famous fish and chips place called Toff's. We all had fish and chips and then decided to order Spotted Dick for dessert, just to say that we'd all had it. As you can imagine, hilarity insued.



On the 28th, our AAS class went on a walk through South Kensington, which is famous for its Victorian era influences. We broke for lunch and then went to the Edward Linley Sambourne House, which is now set up as a museum of the famous cartoonists life. I went to my friend Selena's house in Kensal Green to help her group with their project since one of their groups members was not particularly helpful or good at making himself available. We ended up changing their skit into a musical and had so much fun. When Spenser and I got home, we made cookies and were excited because a little cat decided to come to the door which we named Smalls. We let it in and played with it for a bit. That night, Jeremy was supposed to be home by 8:00, at least that's what he said when he called to tell us he was out with his colleagues from work. Our host family was away on a camping trip that week, so we made dinner and saved some for him. We had to get up early the next morning because we were spending the weekend in Newquay with Selena. However, Jeremy didn't get home until midnight...a hilarious story insues here, so ask me about it sometime.

On the 29th, we met Selena at Paddington and took a lovely, 6 hour train ride to Newquay. Newquay is a gorgeous little surfing town in Cornwall, in southwestern England. We stayed at a really cute B & B that was owned by some of the nicest people we've met on this trip so far. We essentially spent that day, as well as all of the 30th and most of the 31st on the beach or body-surfing in the Atlantic. It was perfect, beautiful, sunny weather without a cloud in the sky. Sooo nice! Aside from the masses of drunken stag parties and the fact that there really is NOT a shower in the public bathrooms near the train station, Newquay was fabulous and we had so much fun. It was interesting to see all of the people playing British sports on the beach. I got invited by some guys to join their cricket game, but politely declined. On train rides, you often see European wildlife. On the way home, I saw some rabbits, some pheasants, and a fox.




On June 1st, we essentially just went to theatre class to turn in our final papers, practiced with our groups, and went home to do the mass amounts of homework that we had accumulated over the course of the trip because we had forgotten that we were really in class.

On the 2nd, we had our last theatre class and performed our skits for the rest of the class. Needless to say, all of the skits were hilarious and very well done. I was complimented many times of my performance, and told that I had a great future as a dominatrix (I played an evil host mother who carried a whip).

On June 3rd, we had our last Contemporary Britain class and turned in our final papers. We all went out to lunch at a pub called The Perseverance with our CB teacher. At 2:00, we went on a tour of Modern and Post-Modern London and then to the Docklands and Canary Wharf with our AAS class after which we turned in our AAS journals and our final projects. Since we had an AAS exam the following day, Spenser and I went to Selena's with her to study for the test.

On the 4th, we had our last day of AAS class. We took the exam and went out to lunch at The Rugby Tavern, which is where we ate lunch on our very first day of class. Then I went out with a few people to celebrate. Elise and Erin wanted to do a pub crawl, so I accompanied them, Megan, and Molly to a pub and got Ale Trail maps. They invited a British friend, Matt, along. More and more people from our group kept showing up until the end of the night when most of us were together. It was a really fun way to say goodbye!

On the 5th, Spenser and I decided to visit the Tate Modern museum, but first we had to say goodbye to Jeremy because he was moving out and leaving for Devon. We had croissants and coffee with him, his mum, and Lucy, then said goodbye on our way to the museum. That was the first difficult goodbye...the Tate Modern was fairly interesting. Some of the stuff I really liked and some of it I really disliked. I guess that's how Modern art goes for me. That evening, we went out the The Flask in Highgate for a drink with Ed and Lucy.

On the 6th, early in the morning, I had to say goodbye to my roomate Spenser. That was my second difficult goodbye; we've gotten to be such great friends! My host family has been kind enough to let me stay with them until my dad and brother come on the 14th and we head for Edinburgh so I have just been hanging out around here, trying not to spend too much money. I can't wait to see the other places around here, but I'm also excited to see everyone back at home. My life has kind of been on pause for the last couple of months. See you all soon!