Image swiped from my.ilstu.edu and modified by me.
After a day of feeling like everything was going wrong and walking down the road muttering about how much I hate this place, I decided to use the pictures I took of the cemetery before I went to bedford.
Here are pictures of the cemetery up the road. It's very pretty, and makes for a nice walk.
I was on the hunt for these, but I couldn't find any from much before 1800.
Huge group plot. I think it's for people affiliated with a church, like possibly a convent or monastery.
All the stereotypes about cemeteries are true here. Huge crooked tombstones like jagged teeth...
And then huge empty spaces.
Lots of the stones have broken; the pieces are all kept together.
A real, live holly tree. I think I was feeling a bit festive when I took this one. The tree was huge, by the way.
The ground here is really unstable. Almost all the headstones are tilted, and most of the monuments have sunk.
The "family burial ground" thing is kind of odd to me, somehow.
There are a lot of stones for people that were lost at sea or other far-away places. Sunderlandians got around.
Marble: pristine. Stone: so worn you can't even tell there were letters there.
There are these huge old buildings scattered throughout the cemetery, with broken windows and fences around them.
Like so. I do like the little round bit off to the side of the main building, though.
Entrance?
Fancy.
Lost at sea.
War graves always get me. "In memory of so-and-so, who failed to return"
Also, cat.
Our flat (now consisting only of Conor, Jessi, Flo, myself, and occasionally Adam) kind of adopted the Ginger Clanny House Cat, known alternately by us as Clanny, Kitty, Look Who Followed Me Home, Can We Keep Her, *tchk tchk*, and The Cat.
She follows us from further up the block, knows which flat is ours, knows which door inside the flat is ours, and also comes to the window to be let in.
Jessi bought some ham for Kitty's consumption (because that made more sense than cat food?), and despite the inherent dietary flaws, Kitty's not sick and she keeps coming back and eating more ham, so...
She's got a routine. Get into our flat, eat some ham, maybe have some milk (we have some spare containers of it, I don't know whose, and they're not bad yet, but they will be, so...), curl up on the chairs, and sleep until we put her out.
I hate putting her out. I feel so cruel. Jessi hates putting her out more, though. She seems to be afraid of cats, which quite mystifies me, and flinches away whenever Kitty moves her paws, claiming that she never knows what cats are thinking.
Well, this is true. She's terrible about figuring out what mood the cat is in. But I blame the single claw attack she's suffered (at no physical damage to her person, I might add) on her not knowing the warning signs of sudden rage and repeating her offences.
So here's some more things that I liked in Sunderland, mostly to remind myself that I ever liked it.
British houses
That random door in the cool wall
Wall
Good flatmates
Cheese and onion pasties... Mmmm.
Old churches
Walls
Walls
More walls
Even more walls
I do not tire of these pictures
But I'll throw in a picture of nutella, only 99p for the small glass.
Brick walls in various states of decay
Mosaics in entryways
Wall
That park down the road
A "stumpery"
Wall! Leading to the prettiest place I've found in sunderland.
Wall
Pretty bridge and autumn colour (in december, but still)
Pretty river
You guessed it: Wall.
Not wall. Slippery death trap, actually. But it was pretty.
Natural wall from where the river was
Little secluded area
As excited as I am to be leaving Sunderland and returning to Whitworth, I'm still going to miss this place. Of course, staying doesn't hold much of an attraction for me, since almost all my flatmates, who became my best friends here, are leaving, too.
So I'll think fond thoughts about Sunderland as I've known it, with two brits, two germans, two americans, and an australian as my companions, and be happy that I'm going back to a university where more of the faculty is sane and likeable.
This post will be fairly disjointed because I don't remember many details from the week. Nothing too interesting happened, although my lab report still wasn't due (Nazgul shriek of rage).
It's a little quiet, crank your speakers for the full effect of how I felt.
Oh, I gave a presentation wednesday that wasn't too bad. I wasn't very pleased with the end result. I was having a hard time coherently connecting the primary source to the secondary sources while making the slides, but I thought I did rather well in the end. My professor asked me some questions that I knew the answers to, and no one had that glassy, "this doesn't make sense and I can't even understand her accent" look, which was encouraging.
Over the course of the week, I worked on that lab report (grumble), made up the presentation, got serious about my english lit essay, and slept in too much. I also started NaNoWriMo, the "write a novel in november" thing that I keep hearing about. The idea is to write 1667 words per day to get 50000 words in 30 days. I'm slightly addicted to updating my word count. I take my computer everywhere in hopes of being able to work on the story in my free time, since I'm still in the euphoric phase that I get at the start of anything. I'm also trying to build a buffer for when I have to do, you know, schoolwork.
I also got my first lab report back, and, well, I passed. Sort of. "Passing" is above a 39% (holy cow) and I got a 41%, so by my standards, I failed miserably. By comparing my grade to those of the other people at my lab bench (I've described some of them before; Adam and Jedward were the only two from my "usual" group), I pwned that assignment. I was the only one who passed, but I think they may have been kind to me on account of my internationalness. They won't go so easy on my second report, which was better anyway. I think it was better, at least; I can't actually remember what it was.
Hmm. It's the past now; I never look back. (ha)
I can't remember what day it was that I walked the accidentally long way back from the university. I think it might have been wednesday, but I'm not sure. I wished I'd taken my camera, because I don't have the motivation to take another random walk, and the area was starting to look a little sketchy. Not the area that I headed into so much; it was pretty residential. The street I ended up on runs parallel to Chester Road, which I have documented photographically in the past. I know this now, but I wasn't sure where exactly I was at the time. While it was nice, I was approaching a hill and had been walking for long enough, so I turned down a street that should take me over to Chester. It did, but not before making me afraid that I might have to bludgeon someone with my laptop. Relax, Mom and Dad, I keed. First, I didn't actually see anyone that looked suspicious. Second, I haven't seen anyone that looks that suspicious in Sunderland to date. I think it's the narrow roads and slightly rundown nature of most houses here. I saw a million "To Let" and "For Sale" signs in cute little houses, but I refused to let them influence me. (sigh)
On the weekend, I went to the Sunderland city library down the street to see if they had any books I could use for my lit paper.
I was disappointed. They might have a very small section on 18th century literature, but they mostly have modern, pop culture stuff.
I also got a very sneaky bottle of water that turned out to be flavoured. I was incredibly disappointed, and I think Jessi thought I was being irrationally so. Greggs has normal water and flavoured water, and while the bottles have some differences (like the flavoured one is pink, as Jessi pointed out), there are pink bottles of normal water in other stores (as I didn't point out because it really was my fault for not checking the label). I suddenly understood how the guys in the junior english class to which Meagan Bradshaw brought peppermint ice cream (which was delicious) were so offended by the fact that it wasn't fruit-flavoured. Sure, Meagan told everyone beforehand that it was peppermint, but they assumed that it was fruit or bubblegum and were extremely vocal in their disapproval of the gross deception.
That was how I felt. Imagine, expecting nice cold water and getting overly sweet raspberry cranberry water. Blech.
Sunday was Guy Fawkes Day, named for the main conspirator in the Gunpowder Treason Plot that attempted to blow up Parliament way back when. They were executed horribly either on the fifth of november or were caught on the fifth of november (remember remember the fifth of november) and Fawkes was burned in effigy every fifth of november for quite a few years/decades/centuries afterwards. In practice, it's like the fourth of july. Lots of fireworks, time spent with family, some old history revived, and fireworks. They also do a lot of bonfires. We didn't do much for bonfire night, since the place that had a fire was reported to be boring, so we stayed in and played with the Clanny Cat.
Also this weekend, I was finally able to get onto WhitNet and pick out the classes I want to register for, which was ridiculously exciting. All the classes I need and want fit into the same schedule! Yes! That's never happened before!
Monday, I helped one of my lab-mates with her graphs. I was starting to feel a bit used (how did you get this far in school if you can't even make a graph?!) until I found out that she has a lot of responsibility and stress at home in addition to being in one of the more intense majors work-wise. I figure that I can add a small amount of pedantry to my life to be nice. She did assure me that flapjacks are easy to make; all I need to do is look into "golden syrup", which I suspect to be closely enough related to corn syrup that I'm not worried. The one that I had today kind of tasted like honey, so I think the recipe is pretty flexible.
Now I'm blogging instead of working on my thesis. I'd like to thank everyone who reads my blog for giving me a reason to avoid my homework.
The flatmate post! I looked up the pictures on facebook.
We'll start with Michaela (Micha and Ela, depending on how long you've known her) in Room 1. She's german, and came over because her university requires it of her degree programme. She's studying tourism, which puts her in the business school here. She's 26 years old, which makes her the oldest in the flat. Despite the fact that she lives across from the kitchen, I don't see much of her. When I do see her, she's nice enough. No pictures because I can't find her facebook.
Next is Conor, in Room 2. He's American, but he's probably more different from me as anyone in the flat. He's studying ceramics, and doesn't really know what he wants to do with that. He's a classic art major: has a mac, is liberal, doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, etc.. He's from a little town near Boston and goes to school in Florida. I think he came over here for the same reasons as I did (wants to go to europe for a while at fairly minimal expense, actually speaks the language sort of). He currently holds the highest score in hearts for the flat (which is a bad thing; hearts is like golf).
Conor. Fairly typical of him on trips.
Adam and Conor, the other american.
Room 3 belongs to Josie, who is an Australian who wants to do public relations, mostly for charitable organisations that send her to exotic places safely. Her mom is german, so she's fluent in english and german. It's amusing when she's around a big group of germans. She came over mostly because her boyfriend James is English. I've mentioned him before, I think. He stayed here for a week, and it got so that we kind of thought he was a flatmate. Josie taught Jessi, Adam, and me hearts, which started off a massive amount of hearts-playing.
Josie.
Adam and Josie, the australian who only doesn't "pull a face" when someone asks her to smile.
James and Josie.
Josie also shares her room with Bob Diddyfish, who is a rapper goldfish. He stayed in Jessi's and my room for the weekend because Josie and Conor, who normally looks after Bob when Josie's gone, both went to London. Goldfish smell bad, and I think Jessi may have overfed him. Technically, we're not allowed to have him in the flat, but Josie decided to keep him anyway. He's got his own facebook page, and he's something of a flat mascot.
Bob Diddyfish.
Bob again. He's called "Diddyfish" partly because of the glasses.
Room 4 houses me and Jessi.
If you don't know anything about me, I'm studying biochemistry and came over because I wanted to see europe and I don't speak german well enough to attend classes held in german. I want to do research.
Jessi's real name is Sibel (pronounced si-BEL, it's way prettier than the american "Sybil", but Jessi discovered when she went to Colorado in high school that speakers of english can't pronounce it right and switched to Jessi, derived from her middle name Yasmine). She's studying law, wants to be a lawyer, I guess, and is very good at English. She gives me an inflated view of my own english skills whenever she can't remember the right word or when she's interpreting her criminal studies textbooks. I think she came over here because she wants to improve her english, and Sunderland was cheaper and less competitive than Florida State (the usual reaction to that statement, after verifying that she did indeed pick england over florida, is "Whaaaat?"). I think she also prefers the english accent (but not scottish). She also loves welsh and irish accents. She talks a lot during hearts, and would be terrible at poker. "Are you kidding me?!"
Jessi.
Jessi and me.
Room 5, which was vacant for the first week, belongs to Thomas. I've talked about him before because he came in late, but I don't feel like hunting down that post. He's irish, plays hurling, and is studying english and history. He wants to be a middle school teacher, which I think should hone his hurling skills. I believe he came over to england as something of a CV booster (sort of like a résumé), but possibly also for the history from a different perspective. Jessi has a crush on his accent. He doesn't play hearts, and isn't around enough for anyone to teach him. No pictures because I can't find his facebook.
Florian (Flo) lives in Room 6. He's a german studying mechanical engineering, and he actually just decided to stay in england to finish his degree. He's a new incarnation of "that guy" and his english is good enough to include heavy sarcasm and self-deprecation that almost covers his massive ego. He's pretty bad with relationships, and tried to break up with his girlfriend back home via text. He came over to improve his english and to boost his résumé. He played hearts a lot last year, so he tends to be pretty good at strategy. Everyone has a moment at least once a week where they hate Flo.
Florian and two girls I don't know.
Florian and Ingmar, also known as Ginger. Ingmar doesn't live in this flat. He's the one with all the hair.
Finally, Adam lives in Room 7. He's the lone english guy, and is studying film. I'm not really sure what he wants to do with that; probably make films. He's going to Maryland in the spring, partly because his girlfriend is american. I have some suspicions about her; she claims to be from North Dakota, so it's possible that somebody is making up stories. In any case, Adam is probably the mildest person I've ever met. I've never seen him really express strong emotion, unlike everyone else in the flat. I think the pictures of him with other people illustrates this fairly well. This mildness probably helps him win at hearts because people forget he's there. I skip him when he's before me.
Adam, the lone English guy.
Here's a few group photos, which are hardly representative of the whole flat. We don't have a whole flat picture at this point, but I'll post it on here if we ever do.
It might help if you click on this one to embiggen it. From left, James, me, Jessi, Conor.
From left, Kari, me, Jessi, Conor, James.
Kari is Jessi's friend from germany who is also in law.
I nearly forgot the Ginger Clanny House Cat! He's a resident of Clanny House, and even has a collar that says "Ginger Clanny House Cat", but he wants to be a resident in every flats. I don't know where he actually lives, but he does have a facebook page.
Ginger Clanny House Cat. Wants to be a resident of all flats.
I can has ur fud?
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
