Well, it's been a long time. My good friend Katie has been here with me for the last week, and we've been busy enough that I couldn't bring myself to spend the time updating my blog. Sorry for that. And while I'm at it, I ought to let you all know that I no longer use my LiveJournal -- I really only keep the account so that I can keep track of my friends who use it. (*waves to Jen and Emily*) So, I will remove the link from here so that you don't get confused. And now, a few words about my week. OK, more than a few. It's quite a long post, but I tried to condense, and I've split things up so that you can pick and choose what you're most interested in.
Great news from Denton
Last week, I received an email from the University of North Texas, informing me that I have been accepted for a PhD in their English Department. Yay! They also gave me a Teaching Fellowship, which (if I remember correctly) waives my tuition, offers fairly minimal pay for my actual work hours, and includes a living stipend. However, I've been unable to find anything current on their website about the financial details of the position, so I'm not too sure. I'm looking forward to receiving more precise information from them. I do know that the Teaching Fellowship position requires that I teach at least two courses a semester. Anyway, I'm 100% positive that I'll be going there, as that just feels and looks like the best place for me to be right now. I'll be studying for a PhD in English, with emphasis in Poetics -- which means that I do the coursework for a Master's in Linguistics and in Literature, and then I do a dissertation that combines the two. I'm pretty excited for it.Tripping with Katie Bills
Katie and I went to the Lake District last Tuesday, but we didn't have enough time to do anything other than taking a short walk from Windermere down to the lake at Bowness (that would be Windermere Lake). It's very touristy, and I was sad that we didn't have enough time to take a nice walk in the woods or anything like that. We did get some nice shots of the lake, though. Then we ate traditional fish and chips, with lots of vinegar and salt. Mmmmm!On Wednesday, I had a class, so we stayed here in Lancaster and went to the castle. That's always fun, and we managed to catch them on a good day, when the courts were out of session, so we got to see lots more of the castle than usual. Lancaster Castle has been, and still is, in operation for about 1200 years, and that makes it very unusual. It has been a court and prison for nearly all of those years, and that's still what it is. So, the Crown Court is usually in session and you can't see the rooms they use, but this time they were gone and we were allowed to see much more of the castle, including lots of Gillow furniture. They also locked us in an old jail cell again, which was pretty creepy. I sure wouldn't want to ever be in one of those for an actual crime, or for a very long time.
Thursday we went to London to meet our two friends who have been on study abroad in Paris. In London we hit the really big, tourisy sites: the Tower of London, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, and then Harrod's. We had a good time, although it reminded me once again how much I detest living in large cities. With London, as with Vienna, I felt that I would be able to live there for a year or two, but certainly I wouldn't want to be there much longer -- definitely not for the rest of my life. I was very glad to get back to the countryside and Lancaster. I was quite impressed with the Tower of London, but wished that there weren't so many durned people there, as I felt like cattle being herded around the place. We did have a wonderful beefeater giving our tour, and he made things very entertaining! At Westminster Abbey, I was frustrated once again with the hordes of tourists, and the only part I really enjoyed very much was standing on Charles Dickens's grave and basking in his genius. Well, OK, I did also enjoy touching Henry III's tomb, but not nearly as much as Dickens. Unfortunately, there is now a gift shop at the Abbey, and that means that they no longer do rubbing of grave sites -- they used to supply the paper and chalk that you could take over to people's graves and make a rubbing as a souvenir of your visit there, and I fully intended to make one of Dickens's grave, but alas! it was not to be.
On Saturday we came back to Lancaster, which took pretty much all day, because of work going on with the train lines on the weekends. Sunday we went to church, and afterward we were invited to eat at the Kureczko's home. They are my favorite people in the ward, and Vic and Sue both are a lot of fun to talk to. We, the students, had been planning to feed the missionaries that day, so when Sue invited us over, we told her that was fine if she wanted to feed the missionaries as well, and she agreed. We had a good talk with the missionaries. One of them is from Shelley, right by Idaho Falls, and is a fairly quiet young man, although he gets pretty animated when you talk about things he's interested in. The main thing is that his companion, who comes from a little town in Arizona, is very extroverted and tends to dominate the conversation whenever he's around -- and the two of them don't get along very well. The next transfer is the first week in March, and both sets of missionaries are expecting to have one Elder from each set change during that transfer.
Monday night we had Family Home Evening with the YSAs in the ward, and that was also quite fun, as usual. JoAnna taught a few of us to play euchre, and Denise and I won. :) But all of this was only after we went to a charity event for Palestine. Let me explain: The Sunday before last, one of the girls in the ward told us that she had a good friend at the university, and this friend belonged to a society who were holding a charity dinner on Monday night, where they were serving Indian food and all of the proceeds would be donated to buy food and clothing for children someplace in the Middle East. So, we all decided to go and then have FHE afterward. Well, when we got there and had paid, we then found that the society was the LU Islamic Society (which I'm OK with, by the way) and the LU Friends of Palestine (which I'm not OK with, by the way), and they were sending the proceeds to Palestine. This is one of the problems with people who don't pay attention to politics or details of what their friends are doing ... :) Well, we were already there and we had already paid, and so we stayed. JoAnna and Katie and I just hope the pictures don't get back to our political roots, and that we'll all still be allowed back in the country when we go home. On the bright side of things, the food was good.
Oh yeah, Monday afternoon we went down to Preston and did a little shopping. Katie had been wanting to go to H&M some time, and that was the closest we could find one. Even if there had been one in Lancaster, I'm not too sure I would have wanted to go, since everything in Lancaster is so tiny, you don't get anything good anyway. However, Katie didn't find anything she loved and just had to have, but I found a great new shirt that I'm going to take with me to London for the theatre this weekend.
Speaking of which ...
3 comments:
Well, "Back in the saddle again" was the title of Christina's blog for Feb 14, 2005 (christinasmusings.blogspot.com). You didn't say we needed the original quote... And since we also don't need the original quote, I'd say that song was featured in Toy Story 2 (I'm pretty sure). Oh well. Thought it would be worth a shot.
Yay for PhD school in Texas!! That will be exciting. When do you start? What happened to another year in Lancaster?
Paul asked a good question that I wanted to answer, namely, what happened to another year in Lancaster. Well, to be brief, it just doesn't jive with me, in my head or my heart. As much as I love it here, I just think Texas is where I need to be. But I may well come back as a visiting student to do some research work with the people out here.
Oh, and according to the UNT website, classes begin August 29, which means I probably will have to be there at least a week earlier for (I hope) some teacher training.
Congratulations! I am so excited for you to be getting your PhD! And I am glad you feel good about a decision. That makes things less complicated. Sounds like you had a good time hanging with Katie. So glad you are having fun.... Enjoy!
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