Great Bargains, Toilet Paper Mix up and Birthday Plans

Earlier Ollie and I went to Starbucks with the egift cards my mom got us for Christmas. The cashier had never seen them before. When they worked she thought they were magic or something. We had our grande lattes and were on our way. But first I dragged Ollie into Accessorize-I've been looking for a laptop bag for a few days, but I'm really picky. Until I came across a bag that said £5, sold as is. The zipper pull was broken, but it still zipped if you pulled it with one finger on top and my thumb on the bottom. It was gorgeous, I had to have it. So I walked out of the store with this:

Don't mind the model in the background holding the handbag. Just kidding, it's not a model, it's Ollie wearing his new Detroit hoodie that I brought back for him. Thanks mom!

So I have some awesome news! Ollie and I have decided to take a vacation this summer. We live in Europe right now, so why not take advantage of our geographical location and go somewhere cool to explore? We'd love to go to Prague, but I've already been there. However I'd go again in a heartbeat. That city is so rich with history. Plus the architecture is gorgeous. Also we're looking at Italy, Sweden, Iceland and Spain. Any other recommendations? We're going to think about where we want to go for the next week and then we're going to decide and book the trip. I'm so excited! I really do love traveling. I have my mom to thank for that, she's a world traveler. She's been everywhere! I've never been on vacation with a partner and nor has Ollie, really- unless you count our trip to London over Christmas, but that was in the country so I don't count it. So yeah, please-if you have been to any cities that you've traveled to and you loved please let me know!

After I got my purse, Ollie and I went to Savers down the street for paper towel, or as they call it in this country, kitchen paper. We found a great deal, 2 pounds for 9 rolls. We walked out and as soon as we got home Ollie turned around and said "Uhh...Leah?" and I said what? It turned out we bought cheap toilet paper rather than the paper towels that we needed. We were both too lazy to go back so I'll be heading back after my lectures tonight.

Ollie's birthday is on Sunday and I've been treating it as his "birthday week" and I've let him open a present every day this week. His biggest gift, which I will be giving to him tomorrow, I will be putting together while he's at work. Jilly was going to help me, but she's going home for the weekend. I've got this! I'm excited to see Ollie's reaction. It's a great gift and I know nobody's given it to him before. Well, at least I don't think. I will tell you guys after I give it to him, because he reads my blog and I don't want him to be spoiled on what it is! So far I've given him 4 types of loose leaf teas, a spoon specifically to scoop tea (called the perfect tea spoon), a USB cup warmer because his tea gets cold when he's working and now he can just put it on a little mount that warms his mug, and a few other things that are escaping my mind. The best is yet to come! It's time I get ready for my 4 pm lecture; Case Studies in Film History.
Adios!
Leah

I'm back!

Today I began my second term of grad school. I was 10 minutes late, but I thought it was a miracle I even showed up to my seminar because of my massive jetlag hangover. Getting out of bed this morning was not fun. I missed the UK. I missed my friends in Wales. Of course I missed by boyfriend. Last night my friends and I met up for Indian food to celebrate the end of the first term's assignments finishing. Jilly dipped her sleeve in Korma. Dan ordered the Indian version of spaghetti bolognese. Nothing Peter or Ollie did was noteworthy. However I felt like I had to mention their existence. Oh, Ollie just pointed out that he did do something cool, he ordered a sizzler. Basically this hot platter that comes out with the food still sizzling. I thought it was going to be a spectacle, kind of how fajitas are when you order them at a restaurant. The sizzling steak and peppers on the platter, the warm tortillas and all the fillings on the plate. I don't personally like fajitas, never have. Just wanted to put that out there. 

My first flight was 8 hours-a red eye. It left at 9:30 pm and arrived into Paris at 10:00 am. I had a nice layover in Paris for about an hour and a half and then took a plane to England. Was I done in England? No sir. I then took a train all the way from England to Wales for 3.5 hours. Luckily Ollie met me at the airport (he trekked 3.5 hours to pick me up, awwwwh) so the train ride wasn't as bad. So it's awesome I can say that I've been in 4 countries in 24 hours. How badass!

I brought Ollie over 20 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese from America. We have an entire cabinet dedicated to mac and cheese in our kitchen. While I type this Ollie is pacing (he paces all the time, it's an Ollie-ism) and drinking the tea I just reviewed on my tea reviewing blog. I didn't really like the tea and I don't need the caffeine. When Ollie paces he talks to me at the same time but usually I don't listen carefully enough and just agree with whatever he's saying. Then after I've registered what he's actually said I say "what???" and make him repeat whatever he's saying. I think that's the ADD part of me. I'm shocked he's never been frustrated with me over that, honestly.

Oh, so tomorrow I will be watching 2 silent films for my Case Studies in Film History module. I've never watched a silent film without being forced to. Honestly, silent films creep me out a bit. Especially the one we're watching tomorrow, it's a silent horror film. I think it's something to do with the music used in silent films in the background to add effect that creeps me out. I can't put my finger on it. 

I'd just like to point out that I've brought back over 7 kinds of tea from America to Wales. Ollie and I are in tea heaven. Also my cousin and I are mailing each other tea, like a tea pen pal. How great is that? She lives in New Jersey. Okay, time to finish watching American Horror Story, season 4. Only two episodes left!

Talk soon!

Leah

Be Back Soon

I'm traveling back to Wales tomorrow and I will be back with more stories soon!

-Leah

A New Blog

The other day I was on Google Plus (yeah it still exists) and in the tea community I was discussing my love of tea. Another member of the community asked me if I could teach her all about tea. I told her of course, and then I realized-why don't I tell the world about tea?

So that's where that conversation lead me. I've made a new blog. The first post talks about the basics and tomorrow I will begin with my first tea review on a herbal blend called Strawberry Lemonade from Teavanna, which is owned by Starbucks and partnered by Oprah. I know, I know-very consumerist of me. It is what it is, I went to Teavanna before it was bought by Starbucks and partnered up with the billionaire. Still, good tea is good tea. Although it is very overpriced and the employees are pushy. I walked in with the intention of buying one tea and I walked out with 3 and a bill of nearly $50.

Enough of that though, wait until tomorrow for the full story. Just wanted to put it out there that I, Leah Nadeau, have a blog reviewing tea and I want you to be a reader!

Please check it out here: Leah Reviews Tea

My Facebook Page for my blog is ---> Here <---

PS, the new blog is connected to the old and this one isn't going away! I've just added it to my projects :)

Thanks!

Leah

Coffee, Tea and...Black Swan

I was a tea drinker before I was a coffee drinker.

Anyone who has known me only in my adult life would be surprised that I used to only drink tea. Today, I drink coffee every day. I spend way too much money in Starbucks and Costa and recently Ollie got me a french press for our flat. Here's the thing. After I graduated college and got a job, I realized that coffee would be what fueled me through my job, which was all physical labor. I used to work in a stable, cleaning out the horses stalls and feeding them. There were other aspects to the job, but basically I've always been an equestrian and I was offered the job without even a job interview straight out of college. With the economy and lack of jobs out there, I didn't bat an eye before accepting the job. But that's the past and I ended that job a year after I began it.

When I was 12, I began drinking black tea; English Breakfast. It all began when an acquaintance of mine in middle school brought some to class for an international foods day. She made the tea and asked if I wanted milk and sugar. I asked if that was how she would drink it and she said yes, so I gave it a shot. I was shocked that it tasted so good. At that age I thought tea would taste bitter, like coffee.

So that's what began my tea drinking. Of course I was very limited in what kind I drank. It wasn't until I was in college and discovered David's Tea and their amazing free samples and hundreds of options of loose leaf tea that I actually realized the many options I was missing out on. Eventually when I met Ollie he was SO impressed that I was a tea drinker. He thought tea drinkers in the US were rare. I wouldn't say they were too rare, but the only other person in my family that regularly drinks tea is my stepmother, who I'm having tea with right now. We both just tried Rooibos for the first time. I ordered some loose leaf teas from David's and they gave me 3 free samples, so we used her teapot. This Rooibos had cinnamon and cardamom, it's called Coco Chai. I had yet to try it because Ollie is hesitant to buy Rooibos, since it isn't actually real tea, it's part of the tea plant, but not the leaves.

Our tea collection in Wales is pretty extensive. Off the top of my head I can list the loose leaf we have: Irish breakfast, English breakfast, Glengettie, Mango Ceylon, Lapsang Souchong (although I'm too afraid to try it), Assam, Assam 'Adventure', green flowering tea and many more. I also have an extensive collection of bagged tea-I love fruit tea.

However, here's the thing with tea. I love it, but I love coffee more. However for me, what I want first thing in the morning is coffee. Until I get my coffee I can't have anything else hot to drink. At night though, I want tea. I use tea to wind down and coffee for caffeine. Where as Ollie drinks coffee when he craves chocolate, or something sweet and he gets a mocha latte. Then, in the morning he has his morning tea rather than my morning coffee. I love coffee and I love tea. Tea was my first love, and remains in my life, but coffee and I are more serious. :P

My dad, stepmother and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. In the middle of our meal one of the waitresses began sweeping the carpet near us. I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of sweeping carpet in a restaurant. I was laughing so hard I began to cry and shake, something I do when something so funny I can't stand it. The last time this happened to me I was at a friends house and we were watching Black Swan-one of the parts where the bouts of schizophrenia was scaring the hell out of the audience and we paused the film to see a woman standing in the background. We thought it was so funny because we kept pausing the film to try and figure out who this woman was, but couldn't figure it out! Here, I took a photo of it at the time and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. I'm not even entirely sure who this is. Is it Natalie Portman's character imagining her evil self? Is it Winona Ryder's character? Maybe one of you can figure it out. See below. Creepy. The woman who's back is to the camera is Natalie Portman's character, Nina. Spoiler alert: a lot of the film is her imagination and you have no idea what information that's given in the film is true or if it's Nina's schizophrenia.

Some of you think I might be crazy for posting that photo, but I'm honestly curious if anyone recognizes this part of the scene. Okay, I'm off to continue watching TV with my dad. I'm currently in the states until next weekend. Happy Saturday!

All About Americans

We eat too much
We work too hard and too much
We don't exercise enough
We have too many guns
We're too friendly
We're obsessed with capitalism
We're racist
We're ignorant
We love violence

These are all stereotypes of Americans. While some are very true, others are just not. One thing I will say is that us Americans are much more willing to talk to strangers than the British. I tend to use that to my advantage though, and one of my friends, Micky told me to do so. He said, you're really outgoing, use that to your advantage. So I have. I am no longer afraid to talk to strangers in the UK because of this stereotype that Americans are outgoing. I may be using this stereotype as a scapegoat to ask strangers for directions or help finding things in stores, but why not use it to my advantage? Also, what's the worst thing that could happen (besides someone shanking me with a knife for asking directions)? It's hard at first to put yourself out there because when you ask someone for help you're allowing yourself to be vulnerable, but I find it worth it. It also helps that I like interacting with humans. Technically speaking I'm an ambivert, so right in between introvert and extrovert. Ambiverts are flexible, emotionally stable, and intuitive-or they're supposed to be, anyways. Every ambivert is different, but I'd definitely say I'm a flexible and intuitive gal.

Another stereotype that I do agree with is that us Americans work too much. We work and work and forget to really live. I know older generations save and save all their money as if they will be able to use it in the next life. I really think people would be happier if they took more vacation time or extended weekends to be a full 3 days. It makes sense to work to live, not live to work. Also, there's a balance if you truly love your job and your job is your life. I think it's important to take some time to relax if you have a career. Just my opinion. :)

Racism, I find is more prevalent in the US. The UK has little to no racism at all. It's very, very refreshing that racism isn't a huge thing in the UK. Now, that isn't to say that there isn't any racism. There will always be issues with racism in societies. It's hard to describe and this might upset some people, but in the UK I feel like people don't look at other people and think about what color their skin is. That does, indeed happen in the US. When I'm in the UK I actually notice ethnicity less because everyone has the same kind of British accent and you can't tell someone's ethnicity by how they talk. This is where I discuss the elephant in the room. In the US, you can sometimes tell what ethnicity someone is by how they speak, despite being a native born American. For example, one of my roommates in college was Guatemalan, and you could tell she was by the way she spoke. In both England in Wales, (I can't account for Scotland and Northern Ireland because I've never been) everyone that was born or raised there has the normal regional accent for their area. Another example, Sandra from the British TV show GoggleBox that I watch is Jamaican. However she sounds just like any normal English person because her accent was influenced by where she lives, not where she's from.

Violence is also prevalent in American media. There are arguments that it desensitizes us to violence, but there is no research that proves this point. I feel like I see more violence on American TV than English TV (shows). It's funny, in the UK there is swearing on TV after a certain time, but in America there is no swearing on TV-but violence isn't a problem. I'll never forget the first time I heart the f bomb on TV in Wales. I was so surprised and amused. I mean, it's just a damned word. It doesn't hurt anyone, does it? Violence is disturbing, words can hurt, where is the point we say enough? We can't really know because there are so many variables. We can't study the impact of violence and swearing on TV because we can't study humans' effects in their natural habitats. We can't describe violence. There's no one way to describe what violence means. Do you see how I can tear apart so many aspects of things that are subjective?

So what was the point of this blog post? Basically, I can accept that Americans aren't perfect. We have our flaws. The United Kingdom's citizens aren't perfect either. But it doesn't mean that one is necessarily better than the other.


.....who am I joking, America is the best. Sorry, I'm heavily biased ;)

Leah

British Greetings and a Poll

"Are you alright?"
"Alright?"
" Are ya'right?"
"Ya'right?"

"You alright, love?"

The first time a stranger asked me "are you alright?" it was the first day I was in the UK. I was in Birmingham, England with Ollie. I had arrived around dinner time and we decided to stay at a Holiday Inn Express rather than take the 3.5 hour train that same night. It was 4 am England time, 11 pm Detroit time and I was very jet lagged. I was headed to the lobby to ask if the hotel restaurant had any coffee I could drink and before I could say anything he asked me "are you alright?" I had heard Ollie ask his previous housemates this question before. I knew how to answer. However in that moment the appropriate reaction escaped me and it left me staring at him like a deer in headlights, stuck in my tracks. Eventually I just ignored the question, and enquired about the coffee.

It became more and more frequent, this greeting. It's a very informal way of British people saying "what's up?" The are a couple ways to respond to this. I usually stick with "yeah, you?" Sometimes instead some people will respond with "alright." In American English?
Are you alright? = Sup
Yeah, you? = hey man, what's up

Because if you think about it, a lot of times someone will come up to you and say what's up? and then one of the responses is "sup" which is also slang for what's up. I love these cultural differences!

Oh, and in the UK it's completely normal for (well, normal for them at least) men to call other men, women and children "love." The first time I was in the UK I watched a 14 year old girl at a chip shop say "thanks, love" to the 50+ aged store owner after handing her a fork like it was perfectly normal. I never experienced that until I started going to my university's cafe for coffee on Thursdays and this guy with a really London-y accent who works at the coffee bar looked at me and said "good morning, love, you a'right?" Then I saw him again and he called me love after asking me "what can I get you?" Hearing it hasn't become commonplace, but I may get used to it. I just think it's weird to call people you don't know terms of endearment.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been quite busy. Today I took grandpa to two doctors appointments and to the bank. He was very grateful We got to go to my favorite Grosse Pointe restaurant, Side Street Diner. While there we got to see Stacey, who was our regular waitress back when I lived in GP. She's very sweet and isn't afraid to sass grandpa back when he's a grump. However I've noticed that since my grandpa's heart attack he seems a lot less grumpy and more easy going. He's always been a sweetheart to me though.

My dad and Wendy come home tomorrow and I will no longer be having sleepover parties with Sailor. However I will get to see my dad and Wendy and it's always fun hanging out with all three of them.

I wanted to try something new this time; a poll. I just want to start out with something random.

POLL, clicky

Results :)

Thanks for reading <3

Plasters, failures and funny grandpa

Let us begin with the Leah fail of the day and that way it's less painful. Like pulling a band-aid off real fast. They call band-aids "plasters" in the UK. Fun fact. Anyways, tonight my cousin and I ordered pizza and we were going to bring it to my sister's new home. She's a new home owner! (Applaud here for successful adult) Anyways. So I go downstairs and realize that I left my car keys in my moms car. No big deal. Oh wait. Shit. My mom was currently on an airplane. Which means...her car is at the airport. So basically what's happening is I'm using my grandma's mini van (Rest in peace, grandma Lorraine) ps, isn't that a pretty name? So tomorrow when I drop Meghan off at the airport I have to locate my mother's car some how and get my keys out. Luckily she left her spare keys at home. 

Here's a photo of Carter because he's cute and you could use some cute in your day. We all could. 

So eventually Andi scooped us and then we still had to pick up the pizza and we were really late for it. Like 30 minutes late. We get there and it's closed. However there are still people inside and we get our pizzas even though they are kind of cold. Here's a photo of the "Detroiter" pizza. 

Hot dogs, mustard and chili. Diabetes? You bet. Never again. 

Tomorrow I have a million things to do. I'm a bit stressed because this week is packed with tons of doctors appointments and half of them are actually grandpa's that I am taking him to since after his recent heart attack he refuses to drive. He also refuses to do his laundry or his bills and makes my mother and sister do it. Poor guy. He's a lot happier now that he's living in a senior home. It's really cool, it specializes in caring for senior citizens that are veterans, so my grandpa fits in really well. Here's a photo of him from this weekend. 

What a guy. This was him laughing at me. Well folks, I'm off to see the wizard. And by that I mean have tea. See you soon. 

Leah

January 10th

This afternoon I was backing out of the driveway at my mom's house (with my cousin Meghan in the passenger's seat) and my mirror collided with the gate we used to use for the dog. The whole thing just crashed into the gate and suddenly the mirror was hanging on by a thread. Well, technically by a wire. Meghan thought it was hilarious, but it scared the hell out of me. I'm supposed to be driving a lot of places while I'm home and within the first minute I get into my car I've already been into a minor accident. My dad is unaware of this accident, and it should remain so until he gets back from his trip in California. For anyone wondering why, my parents bought me the car and it kills them everytime I damage it.. two summers ago I backed into another gate. When I was in highschool someone in the parking lot smashed into my car and didn't even leave a note. My poor car has been through a lot. Oh and that's without mentioning that the brake pads have been replaced because they stopped working and the battery has died 4 times. My car is a total lemon. Oh, and I forgot to mention-my parents bought me the car for my 16th birthday and it was new. We bought a new lemon. Although it doesn't help that I am great at running my car into stationary objects.

I got my haircut after the car debacle. I cut off 6 inches, it's a lot shorter. Ollie doesn't really like short hair but he said I look beautiful. I was worried he would say it was too short, but he loves it! After that I tried to fix my phone but it still won't work. For some reason I can't text or use the internet. Basically the 3G isn't working. Which is really frustrating when you're temporarily out of town from your partner. I'm off to the Sprint store tomorrow.

We went to grandpa's for dinner tonight to celebrate his 83rd birthday. It's on Wednesday, but since Meghan is in town this weekend we celebrated early. We did his laundry, ate Chinese food, and had celebratory apple pie. We all ate too much. Also, having pie after Chinese was a horrible idea. After dinner I accidentally knocked over my plate with leftover food an a cup of cranberry juice. Right on the carpet. Grandpa saw the whole thing in slow motion and after it all fell he said "I told you that table was going to fall!" Then he and I both watched as Andi, Meghan and my mom scrambled to clean it all up before I even registered how badly I screwed up.

Tomorrow I'm having a lazy day. Breakfast with the family-and we're drinking mimosas. My family is always drinking wine, but I don't drink wine. Oh, unless it's with orange juice! Of course, sparkling wine. I wouldn't put Merlot in with orange juice. I'm looking forward to Monday. The day I pick up Sailor!

It was a long, crazy day

Where do I begin?!

5:15 am: train to Shrewsbury, England

7:15 am: taxi to Birmingham International

9:25 am: flight to Amsterdam

1:30 pm (delayed): 9 hour flight to Detroit.

There was no in flight entertainment because the little media players that you get to use on international flights that I've come to rely on were broken. So I essentially sat and did nothing for 9 hours and thought it would never end. It didn't help that in my state of exhaustion within the first flight I sat on the toilet in a puddle of urine. As some of you know I'm a total germaphobe and that set the tone for the rest of the flight.

At one point an immigration officer began grilling the man next to me. We were stood in a crowd of people, irritated that the luggage was taking longer than an hour to come out. He asked the man where he had traveled from. He replied with "Africa" and slowly about 10 people turned around to stare in horror. One man grabbed his kids and hid them behind him. Even I was scared. The immigration officer even got the hell away from him! However he was in Somalia which isn't anywhere near the places in Africa effected by the outbreak.

I think I'm over exhausted because when I got home and took a shower I was convinced either my cousin (who's in town) or my sister came upstairs and purposely scared me. I jumped and said "oh my god you scared me!" Then when I came downstairs I found out that nobody had attempted to scare me while I was in the shower and I must have imagined it. I'm officially going nuts. Maybe I should get some sleep soon, my brain thinks it's 2 am.

Carter (my sister's dog) just bent down to sit in his bed and I was convinced he was pooping in the house and I yelled out "he's pooping!!" and my family just said Leah your traveling hallucinations are getting worse, go to bed!!!! He wasn't pooping at all.

I'm not going to bed yet. I'm enjoying hanging out with my family and sitting in front of the fire. Until tomorrow, readers.
Leah

My mom took a photo of me arriving :)

Black Mirror

I just saw the best commercial! For reference, SpecSavers is a store to buy glasses.
Watch it on YouTube here.

I wanted to talk about Black Mirror, the best TV series I've seen yet. This is a huge deal for me to name something the best I've seen. I love a lot of TV series. I mean, a lot. However this one exceeds anything I've seen before. It reminds me of The Twilight Zone in terms of genre, because all of the episodes (which don't correlate with each other so you can watch in any order) take place in the future. The brilliant Charlie Brooker is the creator of the series, which has a recurring theme of that hi-lights the downsides of future technology. In my favorite episode thus far, The Entire History of You, a new fad that quickly turns Facebook-like because everyone has one, everyone has a memory chip installed in the side of their head, recording everything they see and keeping it to replay it whenever they want. When they replay the memories they call it a re-do, which is creepy, yet genius at the same time. For example, one couple had one installed into their toddler, so after the nanny left, they were able to review what the nanny did while the parents were out with friends, a sort of nanny cam that is eerily built into a human. Without giving the entire plot away, it follows a couple that both have the memory chips built into their heads and how the pros and cons of recording everything can effect relationships.

Tomorrow is my last day in Wales and the next morning I'm en route to the US. I wish I had a direct flight, but unless I fly from London Heathrow that's impossible. Considering I don't want to take a train 6 hours and then a plane for 8.5, I'll have to just stick with the 3 hour train ride to the 1 hour plane ride, one hour layover and finally an 8 hour flight. I'm going to be exhausted on Friday!

I've packed my bag and it's all ready to go. I have Jaffa Cakes for my mom, StarBars for Brit and another candy that I will not name for Andi because I want it to be a surprise. My stomach is unfortunately in knots because I hate being away from Ollie- he's my best friend and it's hard being away from him. I was very glad when we ended our long distance because missing your partner is not fun at all. I feel bad because I will be going home while he has exams and I feel I should be there for him, but he will be studying all day and I'd have nothing to do but sit home and watch TV. However I'm looking forward to seeing my family and their puppies. Ooh I miss Carter and Sailor so much! I will post some photos of them on my facebook page while I'm home. If you're wondering the page is right here. Carter was rescued in Oakland, California. He's a Bichon Frise mix. My sister and her husband were riding their bikes and they found him on a busy road eating cheese off a cheeseburger wrapper. He was covered in fleas and was very skinny. They scooped him up, took him to the vet for a check up and shots and then took him home to give him a bath with shampoo to get rid of those pesky fleas! He's been apart of our family ever since. He's a very sweet boy, and when he first joined the family he would howl when my sister left the house and I was babysitting him. He does a dance when her or her husband get home, which I've named "the monkey dance." He gets up on his hind legs and he throws his front paws up, jumping up and down and wagging his tail. It's very cute. Oh here, I've found a picture I took of him doing it when she got home!

Then there's miss Sailor, who's just a baby! My dad and Wendy, his wife got her in late July this past summer. She's a Goldendoodle, which is a Poodle and Golden Retriever mix. Her and I are best buds because I took care of her over the summer when my dad and Wendy were at work. She's very sweet and outgoing and loves to run around! Here she is:

And finally, here's a photo of both of them together with my brother in law, Ouz

Well readers, I'm off to have dinner and watch another episode of Black Mirror. Until tomorrow!

Leah

Coffee refills and double deckers

500 more words and then I'm free.

Instead of having exams for my Film Studies classes, I have papers and presentations. I finished the presentations during the semester, well I should say I gave the presentations. One was on the depiction of women in Indian Cinema and the other was on cultural and audience perspectives. After finishing the presentations I had 5 papers, each at 3000 words. I've finished all of them except this last one, my research proposal for my dissertation. It's technically not due until the 20th of January, but I'm going home to the US this weekend for a couple weeks and don't want to have to deal with it then. Plus, I need to take my laptop into the Apple store-I've got a "service battery" warning. Don't worry, it's covered under Apple care.

I made a list of things I wanted to talk about here today. I didn't make a post yesterday because I didn't do anything "blogworthy". I like that term, blogworthy. It may be made up, but it's still awesome. First on my list is the word "fine." In the US, fine has a negative connotation. Fine, for women, is the calm before the storm. If you're in a relationship and you ask your partner if she's okay and she retorts with "fine" you'd better buckle up, because it's going to be a rough one. For women, fine means I'm not good, and I won't be until you figure out why I'm mad at you. Well, at least in what I've observed. We seem to think our partner is responsible to figure out why we're mad and then when they can't figure out if they've done anything wrong, we say we're fine. But really, we aren't. We're mad!

In The UK, from what I've gathered, there are two terms used here that are seen as good, but Americans only use to describe themselves as bad. Here, if someone in the UK says they're "not bad" after asking how they are, it really means they're great! If asked how someone likes food you've just cooked and they reply with not bad it is a positive. However, in the US that would be an insult because not bad really means there's a lot of room for improvement. It's the same with the word fine. In the UK fine is good. I remember going to a restaurant here and I was telling the waitress what I wanted and this is how it went:
Me: Can I have the chicken club without the onions?
Waitress: fine
You can imagine my deer in the headlights look when I got sass from a waitress about the removal of mere onions on my sandwich!!! However, lots of waiters and waitresses say fine. It's like saying okay. However if a waiter or waitress said that in the US, there would be no tips for them! Ah, but that leads me to another cultural difference. See, in the US, waiters and waitresses rely on tips for their salary, whereas in the UK they get paid an hourly. You can imagine the difference in customer service! However, UK vs US customer service is a discussion for another day, since I have a lot to say about it.

Okay, *one* story, but that's it. It was the first time Ollie ever came to the US-actually the first time he ever went on an airplane was when he came to meet me in person for the first time. By the time we were hungry for dinner it was 11:30 pm at night and the only thing open was a Ram's Horn, which is a chain of restaurants in the US that are open 24 hours and have typical American food that is very affordable. Ollie ordered a coffee because he was exhausted from flying 8.5 hours and understandably needed the caffeine. He had finished off most of the coffee-about 1/4 of it was gone and all of the sudden he is looking at me with a big smile, and begins applauding because the waitress had refilled his cup without a word. To him, it was magical. It was so novel to Ollie that every few minutes she would come around to make sure everyone had their coffee filled up. This sort of thing doesn't happen over in the UK. Refills of anything but water are not a thing. What a funny story and reaction!

I got to ride on my first double decker bus today. Okay, well I've been on a few but never went on the second level before. Ollie told me it was like riding a tame roller coaster. I have to disagree. When I worked at Cedar Point I got to ride roller coasters all the time, either on my midday breaks or for test rides as part of my job. I do miss the thrill of a good roller coaster. It's been almost 5 years since I've been on one. Anyways, there is a significant difference that I've found in UK busses and the only other public transit system I've used (with busses). In San Francisco, if you want to get off the bus at a certain stop, you have to push the button and wait by the door and when it stops you jump out. Otherwise, if you're in the back of the bus or not anywhere near a door and the stop arrives, you're screwed. No getting off for you! However here people don't arrange themselves according to bus stop. The bus gets to the stop and you could be behind a herd of people and the bus driver still waits as you take your sweet time getting off the bus. It actually drives me insane. Because with that way, you collide into the people getting onto the bus since I've yet to see a bus with a back door. In San Francisco the front door is mainly for people who want to get on that need to buy a bus transfer and the back door is for getting on with a bus pass or getting off. I prefer the SF method, personally. I get anxious here in the UK thinking the bus is going to drive off if I take my time. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Thanks for tuning in,
Leah

Crazy Americans! A List of Things We Do (and they don't!)

Reddit has inspired me to make a list of things that non-Americans (and tons of Americans as well) find crazy about us. I will begin in no particular order.

1. TV commercials are roughly every 5 minutes. Yes, it gets annoying. I'm so used to it that I'll be watching TV here in the UK and think I'll go to the bathroom when the commercials come on! Only to be crossing my legs and thinking they're taking forever.

2. Speaking of the TV, you will often find commercials on daytime TV about prescription drugs.

3. Additionally, following the previous point, you will also see commercials regarding recalls on prescriptions and how to take legal action on the pharmaceutical companies.

4. Debt rules our culture and ruins many lives. Health bills (even with insurance?) cost a lot of money. Education costs even more and in some countries higher education is free!

5. Our depiction of politics in the media. It may be 2 days after an election and the news could be reporting already on the upcoming election in 2 years. Politics in America seem like a never-ending ebb and flow.

6. Here in the good ole U.S. of A you can be trusted to drive a giant hunk of metal around the country (a car) but heaven forbid if you want to have a beer with your dinner. Not for you, mister! Not until you're 21.

7. In relation to the previous post, you can fight for your country at war at age 18, but you can't drink.

8. Here's one I thought of just now: swearing on TV, no matter what time of day it is-completely prohibited. However, violence People being tortured and killed? No problem. Here in the UK swearing is fine on TV after a certain time. As an American I find this so novel. Everything is censored in the US on TV.

9. We make a huge deal out of the Super Bowl, and the non-Americans don't see what all the fuss is about! As a woman who isn't a fan of American football (or any football at all) it's more of an occasion for men and women all over America to get drunk while watching TV and eating extremely fattening yet delicious treats. Also, the commercials are amazing. However the cost of a commercial during the Super Bowl is really expensive. Mainly because everyone and their cousin will be watching TV so the companies advertising are getting a ton of exposure. Because of that, the commercials are always carefully crafted and typically genius.

10. Black Friday. Why would we all sacrifice our lives for a bargain? Especially on the day after a national holiday spent with family. To tell you the truth, this one still boggles me, even *I* find this American tradition outrageous. I'll stick to the cyber Monday sales, thank you. This year Black Friday was in the UK-the Brits were not impressed for this fad to come here.

Hope you enjoyed!

Leah

Accents, Health Care, Lions (lie-ins) and Tigers, Oh My!

When I first got to the UK, I had a hard time understanding accents. As a student, it's really very difficult when you have a hard time understanding what your peers in class are saying. Now, I have to admit, I only had a hard time understanding *some* accents of course, not all of them. Typically if people are prone to mumbling and they're from Northern England, that's a recipe disaster. Typically Southern English people have very easy to understand accents. It's just my personal experience. One of my peers is from Manchester and he mumbles a lot and most of the time when he speaks to me I'll just automatically nod along with whatever he's saying if I can't understand him. It's usually a word here or there that he says that I think "what??" but if you miss a few words here and there, the entire sentence becomes useless to decode. The hardest part was understanding British accents in old British films. Two of my lecturers kept showing British films from the 50s and 60s in the beginning of the term and the accents were even harder to understand then. In the film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), the main character (Albert Finney) was from Nottingham and his accent is hard to grasp. Here's a clip of him, see if you can clearly understand him. Now, notice that you can clearly understand some words he's saying and other words just blend together. Well, that's how it is for me anyways. It has gotten easier as time has passed. Now I can understand the majority of accents, unless the person is far away. For example, earlier today a woman in a car was parked outside of our apartment. Now, that sounds totally normal, but the road outside our building doesn't allow cars. Typing that last sentence and then re-reading it, it sounds silly. A road that doesn't allow cars? I hadn't even thought about that until now-however the road is quite narrow and it leads to the caste ruins. Anyways, to get back to my point. The woman was in her car and had her window down, and a Welsh man came up to her asking why she was parked on a no parking road. She responded and they had a full blown conversation but I couldn't understand her because her accent was extremely Welsh and I couldn't see her mouth, which gives me a sort of context if I'm talking to someone. Enough of accents for now, readers.


Let's talk about healthcare. Now, I normally I leave politics to my sister, the politician. However, I thought it might be interesting for me to discuss the health care over here in the UK. To sign up, all I had to do was go to the closest clinic near my apartment, and luckily it's only a 5 minute walk. I filled in a form and all the sudden I was registered. No fees, no insurance. When I needed an appointment, I'd call and set one up.

I remember when I ran out of my thyroid medication back in November, previously believing that I brought enough for 6 months. I had brought enough for only 3.5. I panicked momentarily because I didn't yet understand how the National Health Services (NHS) worked here. I was in a different country, without a very important prescription (I can't live without it) and I was scared. Luckily, Ollie explained to me that we would call the DR.'s office, explain what was going on and I'd get my prescription that day or the next. So far, the NHS has treated me well. Although, getting an appointment here at the clinic I go to isn't so great. If you want an appointment, the wait time is anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. However, I've discovered a way around this if it is urgent. Although, the majority of the people that go to this clinic only go for urgent matters. The trick is, you call the clinic at 8:00 am and request a same day appointment-they set aside a few spots for people who need urgent appointments and you can get an appointment that day. So that's okay, but there's no happy medium. You have to either go in that day, or wait 2-4 weeks. Oh, and something else I love is that in Wales, prescriptions with the NHS are free. So I got my thyroid medication for free the last two times I've filled it! A big change from the US. However, this is only my experience with the NHS clinic I go to. I've heard horror stories from other people that are either chronically or terminally ill and can't get appointments at their clinic. Ah, clinic, that reminds me..

I woke up today at 2:00 pm. I slept in very late. You know what people call sleeping in here? They call it....wait for it... a "lie in." No, not like the animal a lion, although it's pronounced the same way. I have no idea how they came up with the term "lie in." It sounds morbid to me, that term. I much prefer the American way of saying sleeping in, or "let's sleep in tomorrow!" I mean, I won't "take the piss" (be unreasonable) I can see why they call it a lie in, sure. You've been lying in bed all morning, asleep. However when the phrase "lie in" is used, I honestly think of two people lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. *Shrug* maybe I'm just set in my (American) ways.

In a couple days I leave for the U.S. I'm excited to go, yet sad to leave Ollie. However, he has exams and it would be boring to sit here all day and do nothing while he studies. That's what I have been doing since we returned from London. I can't wait to see my family and my furry friends, Carter and Sailor. I think I'll go back to what I was doing before writing this blog...absolutely nothing.

Until tomorrow,

Leah

Crisps, Chips and Caramel

Caramel.

I love it. Mostly, I love caramel flavored coffee. However, there's a problem. See, I've always pronounced caramel like this- car-mull. This is how I've always said it. The Michigan pronunciation. Or at least, according to this neat survey, half of the US pronounce it the two syllable way, rather than the way British people do, 'care-uh-mell." So this is typically my experience at coffee shops lately.

Me: hi, can I get a small 'car-mull' latte?
Barista: a...what latte?
Me: *(oh right, I have to pronounce it differently)* 'care-a-mell'

Now, I've gotten a second opinion on this from Ollie. Apparently the different pronunciation of caramel is pretty much one of the only things that Brits aren't aware of. Almost every other phrase or pronunciation is known due to the mass media that comes from the US over to the UK-TV shows, films, Youtube videos, you name it.  Then there's the whole chips vs crisps debate. Us Americans call chips fries, and we call crisps, chips. I must say, the 'crisps' in this country are much better than those found on the shelves in the United States. Here there's prawn flavor, bacon, roast chicken, even ketchup flavor! I realize you can also get ketchup chips in Canada, but I don't go often. I don't think I've been in 10 years. For those of you who aren't familiar, Canada's border is 30 minutes from Detroit, Michigan, so a lot of people visit or have family in Canada. Recently, Michigan citizens could get into Canada without a passport, but a few years ago the rules were changed and now you need either a passport or an enhanced driver's license. The more you know!

When the sun was setting tonight, Ollie and I walked to the castle ruins by the beach. It was a lovely sight. I took a photo for you, readers- here it is:

After we got back from watching the sunset and taking a quick detour to the arcade for a quick round of Guitar Hero, we got home, took the trash out and I went upstairs to take a shower. It took me an hour and a half due to the new shower head. By the way, I took a photo of the layout of my bathroom so you can now see what I mean by it being absolutely..stupid. Here, let's look at this visual.

See that shower head? Yeah, it's attached at the side of the tub like my previous blog post stated, and now you can see what I mean by the ceilings are cottage style at some parts, slanted and if you're taller than 5'7" you can't stand up in the bath without hitting your head. So basically you can have the water out of the shower head spray at you, but it only hits your midsection and for whatever reason no matter what shower head we put on that hose, the water pressure is nothing, the water just drips. Can you tell I'm frustrated? Oh, and I forgot to mention. The water comes out either ice cold or scorching hot, so it took me about 45 minutes until it cooled down enough so it wasn't scorching, but it was luke warm at best. Enough of this bathroom, it's bumming me out.

For those readers who are in Europe or Asia, there's a meteor shower this weekend, and the peak is tonight. Don't want to go outside and get cold? No problem, there's a live broadcast at 11 pm. Find the link here.  Well, I think I'm off. Ollie and I are off to make some strawberry jell-o. Or as they call it in this country, jelly.

Talk to you tomorrow,
Leah

TGIF

I have been doing absolutely nothing today. I was just on reddit and I came across a thread that had a gallery of the world's toilets. It reminded me of when I was a Freshman in college and one of my roommates was from Jordan. Well, when I say roommate I mean suite-mate because we all had our own rooms that were connected by a hallway with two sinks and a bathroom. So all we shared was the communal area. Anyways, back to the story. Let's call my old roommate "Sarah" to keep her identity safe. Within the first few weeks of moving in, my other roommates and I started realizing that the bathroom began to smell. Like, really bad. We couldn't really figure out what would smell so bad, the college had a cleaner come weekly to clean the bathroom, so it really shouldn't smell. Then, a few days later, one of my roommates who was from Southern California (the other from Hawaii) pulled me aside. She had figured out why the bathroom stunk. It turns out that Sarah had been putting her used toilet paper in the small bathroom trash (I mean small-like, the size of a box of crayons). My other roommates, Southern California and Hawaii, couldn't figure out why she would do that, but I connected the dots. The sewage system where she's from most likely could not handle toilet paper in the drains, so she was putting her used toilet paper in our bathroom trash. My other two roommates asked that I spoke to Sarah about this. It was awkward, but it had to be done. Sarah had no idea that it was totally normal in our culture to flush toilet paper down the loo. I told her that if she could now flush her toilet paper down the toilet instead of stuffing it in the trash, all would be hunky-dory. I wonder, do British people know the meaning of the phrase "hunky-dory?" I love cultural differences! What's another American saying, or something I believe originates in America. Ooh! How about the phrase "close, but no cigar?" I feel that phrase is mostly said by an older generation in general.

This is the third episode of The Big Bang Theory that I've watched today, previously I watched the fantastic musical film The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews is so beautiful. She is so terrific in that film. It was a nice refreshing change to watch a film that had zero violence in it for once. Of course the nazis come in by the end of the film, but no actual violence is had. Compared to the film I watched last night, The Dark Knight, The Sound of Music was a nice breath of fresh air.

I've never seen the film Big Fish by Tim Burton, but I think that's the film I'll be watching tonight with Ollie. If I wasn't a film student I would feel kind of lazy watching film after film, but it's so relaxing and I love the escapism aspect of films. I just sit on the couch and I feel like the main character in the film and like everything happening in the plot is actually happening to me. Then you have to consider one thing, do films hinder one's imagination because the film narrative is shaping what we imagine? Or does the film help us to imagine further? There's technically no wrong answer, so consider away! Personally my belief is that books leave the most to imagination. For example, when reading the Harry Potter books I pictured Harry, Hermione and Ron a bit differently, but that is because my imagination took me somewhere different than that of the casting director. However, for people that did not read the books have their imagination limited due to the unnecessary need to imagine something that's in front of you: Dan Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are what Harry, Hermione and Ron look like.

Enough film student talk, today was a big day for my family. As some of you may already know, in November, one of my sisters Brianne was elected councilwoman of Ward 1 in Washington, D.C, which is the capital of the United States. Today, Brianne was officially sworn into office. It was on TV, and I'll provide an image. I also posted this same image on my Facebook page for this blog, which is here. I created the Facebook page to try and reach a bigger audience of readers. We shall see! Anyways, my mom was even right there in D.C. to support my sister and I'm so proud of her. If you're interested in checking out what my sister does, her website is BrianneForDC.com and it's pretty cool. Ooh I just thought of something! Brianne will most likely have a Wikipedia page in the near future! What an honor. I can brag and say I have a sister that has a Wikipedia page. Anyways, my point is that I'm really proud of my sister because she's always been so driven and career minded and it clearly has paid off. It must feel so good to have the career that she worked hard for. She is an awesome human being and I'm so very lucky to have her in my life.

So I haven't spoken of this publically-only to my friends and family, but the "shower situation" in my flat is kind of unconventional. So when we moved in, it was a tub with a hose connected to a shower head. A makeshift shower, if you will. Basically one hand holds the shower head and the other cleans your body. Why not just put the shower head on the wall, Leah? Then it'll be almost like a real shower! Well, we have a shower head holder attached to the wall, but it's on the side of the bathtub. Also, the reason we can't have an actual shower head that is normal installed is because the ceilings on our second floor are cottage style, so they're quite low in certain places. The original shower head broke 3 months ago and the hose wasn't a normal size. We bought a showerhead to replace the original but it wasn't the right size. Eventually we gave in and we started using a straight up shower hose to bathe. One hand holding the hose, another hand doing the soaping. Well today, the real estate had an engineer come by and install a new shower head. It works great, but its' still annoying that it's on the side of the bath and in its holder it only can spray half of my body at a time.

Ah, another big difference in the UK and in the US is the bathroom faucet(s), or as they call them here, the taps. Right, so here almost always there are two different faucets, one is cold one is hot. There aren't sinks here that are climate controlled, meaning you turn on the hot and cold at one time and the temperature of the water is a variant of the two-not too warm and not too cold, depending how much you turn the taps. However, since each faucet is different and one does hot water and the other cold, when I wash my hands it's either burning hot or ice cold. This is probably the most frustrating thing in the world. Can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night, cold because there's no central heating in your apartment (my first experience living without heating) and you sit down on the cold toilet at 4 AM and then you have to wash your hands in ice cold water because burning your hands is out of the question.

I've just realized that the overall theme of my blog today seems to be the bathroom. Oh well, no shame here. Have a good night

Thanks for tuning in,
Leah

Post NYE hangover and the origins of slang

I woke up this morning at 5 am and was able to wish some of my friends from the US a happy new year. However, I didn't intentionally wake up. I had the worst indigestion and a full bladder. It was my own fault. Last night I had 1.5 mimosas and high fat foods. My heartburn and stomach ache was all completely my own doing. So I sat up in my bed while I waited for the chewable antacid tablets to do their job. That's the last time I drink for a while. Well, at least until I get back from my trip to the states and my friends here go on a night out. Then I'll drink as well, but we purposely do it very rarely, because we find drinking exhausting and can't do it often. I've never been a drinker.

As a film student, I feel it is my duty to inform my readers about the fantastic film Ollie and I experienced last night. Its description on American Netflix (I have access to many versions of Netflix due to an add on called Hola) left out a ton of details and I'm glad it did. A user on r/NetflixBestOf on reddit recommended the film The One I Love (2014) with Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss. It's only an hour and 30 minutes, a refreshingly brief film. The advice on the reddit thread was to go into the film knowing nothing about it, and just trusting the recommender on watching the film. The film was brilliant. I really don't want to spoil anyone on the film, but I cannot reccommend the film enough. Readers, if you go on to watch this film please contact me on how you felt about it! There are several ways to contact me-Twitter, email, Facebook, Instagram. You name it. I just get really excited about films that have some form of cerebral stimulation.

Despicable Me is on TV right now and I've never seen it before. I knew the minions came from this film, and that Steve Carrell voices Gru, but that's it.  I just saw candy in the film and it made me hungry. I haven't eaten much today because of the heartburn I woke up with. I went to the fridge, saw a mini custard egg tart, wanted to eat it, but then thought about how horrible I felt this morning and went for strawberry yogurt instead.

I want to discuss the phrase "take the mick," or "take the mickey." This is a British English phrase that I have recently been exposed to. For whatever reason it took 5 months of me living here to come across people using this weird phrase. But before I try and explain what taking the mickey is, I must explain the phrase "taking the piss." You see, in the UK to "take the piss" means to be unreasonable. So, in conversation, let's say, Ollie comes home from a lecture and says that his professor assigned the class a 5,000 word essay due tomorrow, giving him less than 24 hours to complete it. He would say that his professor (actually Britons don't call them professors, but still) was taking the piss, or being unreasonable. Then we come to "take the mick." It's just another way of saying take the piss. However, taking the mick has a crazy backstory that we will explore. However before we do I need to explain another phenomenon in this country, Cockney rhyming slang. I'm going to enlist Wikipedia to help explain this one:

The construction involves replacing a common word with a rhyming phrase of two or three words and then, in almost all cases, omitting the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied), in a process called hemiteleia, making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know.^[3]

One example is replacing the word "stairs" with the rhyming phrase "apples and pears". Following the pattern of omission, "and pears" is dropped, thus the spoken phrase "I'm going up the apples" means "I'm going up the stairs".

Another example that I've heard Ollie say is he's going to use the dog and bone. Which means he is going to use the phone, because phone rhymes with dog and bone. It's mostly outdated because you will mostly hear older generations using this kind of slang. At this point English, at least British English, is no longer something Americans and Brits have in common. Since living here it has only highlighted more and more how different the two are. My intention here is to bridge the gaps that media has taught us about the UK. Now other Americans and people from other nations can get more of an understanding of the UK, since the media can only depict so much. I mean, of course I won't be able to tell you every single difference between the UK and US because some things just cannot be articulated. However I think it's fun decoding the UK culture.

I'm off to watch Despicable Me, the storyline seems to be picking up!

Happy 2015, readers

Leah