If only the British Isles were tropical...

I can only think of a few things that would make Oxford better and right now tropical weather has moved up to number one on the list. It's been about 50 degrees all week, which the Connecticut native in me says is really not that cold, but when you've lived in a place that gets to be 100 plus degrees in the summer, anything less than 60 seems like you're in the Arctic. Worse yet is the realization that it will only get colder. Nevertheless, I still plan to travel to the various Scandinavian capital cities after terms ends. Under Armour should do the trick.

The other thing that would make Oxford better would be if they actually sold long sleeve t-shirts that said Oxford on them. You can buy Oxford tees or sweatshirts, but no long sleeve shirts. I've only seen one so far and it was ugly. I really want a long sleeve t-shirt though because, as anyone who has seen the inside of my closet can attest to, I have plenty of t-shirts and hoodies, but very few long sleeve shirts. I asked one of my teammates here about it and her response was that people don't wear them here, which is why she stocked up on them the last time she visited the States. If I can't find one soon, I guess I'll go back and buy the ugly one. Maybe it will keep me warm when I go to Sweden.

It's been a pretty full week this week. I had my first French tutorial on Friday night. Basically every Friday night for the rest of term while most people my age are getting ready to go to the pub or go clubbing, I'll be walking to French class. It went well. My essay was well recieved, so on the way home I treated myself to a "Texican Sweet Chili Wrap" from Burger King. Yes, you read that correctly "Texican." I'm not sure whether or not that is the British term for Tex-Mex, but it sounds kind of catchy and it tasted really good.

I went to Robert Muchamore's presentation at the Cheltenham Literary Fesitval on Saturday. I've never actually been to a literary festival before, but it was a really fun atmosphere and I'd love to be invited to speak at one someday. For those who don't know, Robert Muchamore is a famous British YA author. His Cherub series is incredibly popular with teen boys. I think the part of his speech I enjoyed the most was that he saw a need--books that would appeal to teen boys--and he tried to fill it. Though I have not yet reached his level of fame, I understand the senitment. He explained that he once offered to buy his nephew a book and his nephew informed him that there were no good books out there. In an attempt to prove his nephew wrong, they went to the bookstore, but as it turned out, all the books were either for a younger audience, for girls, or fantasy based. This inspired the creation of the Cherub series, which to put it very simply is about orphan spies. I can kind of relate to this because growing up I always wrote books that I thought kids like me would want to read. I was bored with what was out there, so I wrote my own stories. I think that's why Picking up the Pieces is so special to me. I was a sporty girl growing up and there really weren't any books about sporty girls. It seemed like all YA sports fiction was for boys, so I'm my own way, I saw a need and tried to fill it.

No other major plans for the week ahead. The Cuppers track meet is next Sunday. Hopefully everything will go smoothly with that. I also really want to go to the movie theater this week to see Life As We Now It. It's funny because some of the movies come out here the same week they do in America, like Life As We Know It, but others are a couple months behind. I'm pretty sure Dispicable Me premiered here sometime within the past couple weeks here and I'm pretty sure it came out a couple months ago in the States.

Also, if anyone wants a glimpse of British television, I'd recommend 8 out of 10 Cats. Karina and I first watched it at the B&B last weekend in Scotland and it was really funny. We looked it up on Youtube tonight and watched some more episodes. It's hard to explain the premise because I can't think of any American shows like it other than the The Soup or Chelsea Lately, but even those don't fit it exactly. It's a late night program with two teams, the captains are the same each episode, but the other panel members are guests and change each time. They basically guess the most talked about topics in the UK for that week, but the commentary is usually pretty funny. I think Jay Leno would make a good guest.

I think that's about it for now. I'll check back in later in the week. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

I went to Hogwarts today!

Tonight our group went to see a production of T.S. Eliot's play "Murder in the Cathedral". It was quite good. Not to give anything away, but the play itself is about the murder of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury and is meant to be authentic to the time. However, there's a twist at the end. The knights who killed the Archbishop come out in modern-day suits and plead their case to the audience that it was not murder, but rather suicide, because Beckett let them in--a comedic twist to an otherwise very serious play. As I'm sure you can imagine, watching "Murder in the Cathedral" in an actual cathedral was very impressive. The architecture of Christ Church is simply astounding, and for all you Harry Potter fans, Christ Church was the original filming location for the Hogwarts scenes, but they later moved it, as it was imposing on the learning process for the Christ Church University students. Long story short, I went to Hogwarts tonight and the creepy part about it was that as we were walking to the play there was an ambulance pulled up by the curb and quite an extensive blood trail on the sidewalk. We're still not sure what happened. No one appeared to be badly hurt, but it certainly set the tone for the play.

I had my meeting with my creative writing tutor and we agreed that I should continue work on my ghost story piece. I've had the idea for a long time and had some inspiration about make a unique narrative style while here. I'm not sure when I will finish it, but I'm glad to start putting pen to paper, well, okay, fingers to keys. Same difference. The idea I mentioned having in my last post was to write a nonfiction piece centered around my brother Danny, who is autistic. I still intend to write this piece, but in order to give it its due diligence, I need to finish two YA fiction pieces I've started, one of them being the ghost story piece. (It's not a scary story, but there is a ghost, and a murder, oh yeah and cheerleading.)

Other exciting news on the writing front is that my short story "Far From Home" is now available on Amazon Kindle UK. In order to have it sold in the UK Kindle store, I had to raise the price a tad, but it is still reasonable. If you have a kindle or kindle for PC, check it out. I wrote orginally wrote it junior year of high school and it probably remains one of my best works.

I had two track practices this week. I had to miss tonight's because of the play. I've been able to keep up well, but as far as I can tell I'm the only female "fresher" thrower. We haven't really started specific throwing drills yet. I've mostly been with the runners and jumpers, but I'm looking forward to getting back in the circle. My first meet will be Sunday October 24th. This meet is Oxford only and is open to all Oxford students, I believe. The meet on November 7th is Oxford freshers versus Cambridge freshers. In order to compete in that one you must be selected by the captain.

Well that's all for now. I intend to post again on Sunday after I have time to recover from the literary festival I'm going to on Saturday. There's also plans in the works for me to try Indian food for the first time. I had my first Thai food experience a couple weeks ago and loved it.

No cool new British phrases to report other than while walking to the track a man rode past me on a bicycle (with a beer can in his hand) and as he passed he yelled "You're all spies." On the same day, also on the way to track practice, I saw a very small dog carrying a very large tree branch in its mouth. The branch took up nearly the whole sidewalk. So as there are really no new phrases to report, I'll stick to my usual...

CHEERS :)