The Minerva Pub

'Ello!!!

I can't believe that TODAY is my last day!! I'm really sad to be leaving but really anxious to get home too and take an actual "vacation" with Jake and the Montie's at Higgins Lake!

Last night in celebration of finishing up all of our projects, a couple girls and I went with the masters students to a pub called "Minerva". This was definitely the traditional pub, as it has been around since the 1500s!! It was a very small hole in the wall place that you'd normally pass by without noticing it. The whole front half of the pub was full of a variety of musicians from violins, banjos, acoustic guitars, to flutes accordions, and tambourines. The rest of the pub was filled with 50-70 year old men who had been going to this pub ever since they were little. The majority of the night we listened to the "band" play Irish drinking songs while the locals all slurred through the songs together in unison. It's so hard to describe an experience like that...but I finally felt like I had at last seen a traditional English pub.

We ended up "meeting" two 50+ year old men from Italy that spoke Portuguese. We couldn't understand a word they were saying yet they were still talking to us anyways. They greeted us like we were all old pals with a casual kiss on each cheek. It was quite the experience.

Tonight I am attending a graduation ceremony for the Year 4 masters students then probably going out with all the MSU students to our favorite pub The Fresher Professor to celebrate our last night in England.

I just can't believe how much I've learned and experienced on this trip. I had no idea what to expect on this trip and I can honestly say that this trip has and will change my life. I think it's really important to step into a different culture at some point in your life because not only do you learn about this new culture but you also learn a lot about your own culture back home. England is an amazing country and I definitely want to come back. I've never met people so friendly and kind. Every person that I've met has really had an impact on me and I hope that I've had an impact on them as well. I know I've definitely had to clear up America's name a couple times here, but hopefully a few words that I said will change that person's thoughts positively.

This is probably my last blog entry for this trip (I have to leave for the US at 5am tomorrow morning) so I just want to thank everyone for reading, commenting, and keeping in touch with me throughout this trip. You all made it so much easier being away from home in a foreign country so I just want to thank you for attributing towards my incredible experience here. Hopefully I will get a chance to talk with all of you about my experiences and show you my pictures! Until then...I will be back in the US at around 5:20pm tomorrow. Thanks again for keeping me company on my trip to Jolly Old. :)

Warmly,

Tara

Class and Homework

Hello!

Today was a pretty boring day compared to my weekend in London that I just had. I had class from 8-3 today. It was actually really interesting though, I got to attend 3 seminars put on by the other masters students from MSU all about different types of technologies that I can use as a teacher. They were very informative! I learned how to make an iPortfolio, incorporate gaming into my lesson plans, and also how to do some screen capturing (where I can record or photograph my activities online). I'm very excited to try these new tools out in my internship classroom next year!

Tonight and tomorrow I'm going to be working on and finishing my last big project for the study abroad program. It's going to be a doozy. It pretty much is a project that uses a type of technology that I've learned about on this trip and it has to describe how my experiences here in England have changed my views about culture in America. I think I'm going to incorporate aspects of the differentiating lifestyles between the two countries. Everyone is very laid back here, lives without worry, and goes through life casually strolling by. While lifestyles in America are fast paced, routine, and stressful.

An example of this is when I went out to eat here in Plymouth for the first time. After I had finished eating my food, it took the waiter like 30 minutes to come back to my table with the bill. My friends and I were complaining every five minutes about having to wait so long for our bill then we realized that in England it's customary to sit an enjoy your meal with friends and family for long periods of time. It should be a relaxing activity that isn't rushed. We all felt out of place once we realized how accustomed to the fast-pace American lifestyle we were. It's experiences like that that remind me just how different England is from America.

Anyways...I have some work to do on my project. Hope all is well with everyone, I'll be home in only 3 days!!

Cheers,

Tara

Tuesday: Back in Plymouth

Hello everyone!

I'm back "home" in Plymouth now and no longer in London (sniff, sniff). I had a wonderful time and I will always remember my experiences from there. Especially walking down the Thames river at night time, riding the double decker bus, and being 450 feet in the air on the London Eye.

Probably the best experience I had in London had to be walking down Abbey Road. It was an unbelieveable feeling to walk where the fab four had walked. There were also all of these walls that were full of grafitti in front of the Abbey Road recording studio. It was covered with Beatles lyrics and other cool things like "Yoko sucks". I decided to write "I am the walrus" and my name on it just to add something of my own to Abbey Road. The picture on this blog is of me writing it.

Being back in Plymouth I have finally just sat down and thought, wow...I only have 4 days left until I go home! It seriously feels like I just got here yesterday. I've had such a great time here (both in Plymouth and in London), yet I'm starting to get anxious about coming home. I'm in this weird middle-ground position where I'm sad to be leaving but really happy to be going home..I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. I miss everyone back home so much, though , so the fact that I'll be home in 4 days is exciting me more and more!

My second inquiry project went pretty well: 3.75. It was a podcast about my experiences in the elementary schools here in the UK. I would have posted it on here but a.) I haven't had time and b.) I don't really like how it came out. It's basically just audio of me and my group talking about similarities and differences between the two schooling systems. Kinda boring.

Anywho...

One more project to go....that's due in two days and no one has had the chance to start yet, including me. It's pretty much a culminating activity/video about what I've experienced during this trip. I have some ideas about what I want to do....unfortunately I have one day to do it. Siiiiigh....

As a side note (that is completely off subject): I think everyone should buy a Tide Pen, and this is why...

I was at the train station today waiting for the train back to Plymouth. I got hungry so I thought it would be fun to order one of these cool baguette sandwiches (it was very tasty)! When I was ordering I noticed that my shoe was stuck to the ground...I looked down and saw a HUGE gob of gum that someone just spit out in front of the cash register floor. I mean come on....who does that?

Long story short, I ended up wiping it off the best I could. Yet I didn't know that there was an even bigger gob on the side of my shoe until I sat on my foot and got gum all over the buns of my jeans! I ran to the bathroom and Kailey used her Tide-to-go pen on my behind. Lots of people stared but it came off! I ended up just making the train in time during this whole fiasco...phew!

Anyways, I should be going to finish up some homework. I hope everyone is doing well, keep me posted on whats going on back in the States!!

Cheers,

Tara

London Weekend

SOOOOO sorry that it's been so long for me to post. My weekend here in London has been packed as I haven't had a lot of time to see everything. Needless to say though, London is completely amazing.





Today was probably the best day. I went inside the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels; which were SUPER impressive. After that I went to Abbey Road and actually walked down the crosswalk!! Just knowing that I was where the Beatles had been was enough to make me freak out and act like a total tourist. After Abbey Road....oh wait I forgot! In the morning today I saw the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. What a spectacle!!! I took lots of great videos and pictures, they should be posted here soon!





Tonight I saw Wicked- which was of course amazing. The show included a free two course meal at a really fancy restaurant, too! After the dinner and show some girls and I walked back down to see Big Ben on the Thames River one last time. Everything was lit up and Big Ben reminded me of the scene in Peter Pan when they all fly off to Neverland. We sat there on a bench in front of it and just took it all in. As we were sitting there I heard some girl singing with an acoustic guitar. She had an absolutely amazing voice. I ended up talking to her for a while and bought her CD. She's from Brazil and totally rocks. Her name is Carla Peccorelli. What a great souvenir, eh?





Tomorrow morning we only have a couple of hours before we have to catch a train back home so we're going to stay close by our dorm and finish up some souvenir shopping.





Gosh, I've done so much this weekend its so hard to write it all down here!





I finally worked up the courage to ride the London Eye. The London Eye is a HUGE 450 foot tall ferris wheel that overlooks Big Ben and the Thames River. I took pictures from the top....from my seat... where I was clutching the arm rests until I had white knuckles. But alas- I survived to tell the tale here on my blog! Yay me!





I also rode one of those cool double decker tour buses. We sat on the top level (which is all open without a roof) and got a great tour of London. I got most of my pictures from this experience.





London is such an amazing city. It's SO diverse. We watched a bunch of people underneath the London Eye playing songs or juggling or breakdancing. The air is also so full of soot that it turns your white shirts grey. I also blew my nose today and found a lot of black boogies from the soot, yuck.





Alright, I should be getting to bed now. I have to wake up early again for a long journey back to Plymouth tomorrow. I hope everyone is well, and don't be too mad at me for the delay in posting this blog, haha.








Cheers,


Tara

Day 11: Tamarside Community College (High School)

Hey it was a sunny day today!!!! It's a miracle, hehe!

Today I got to observe at Tamarside Community College (which is really a high school). It was a really interesting experience. All of the teachers were great and so were the students. I spent about a half hour talking to an 8th grade class-pretty much having a Q&A with them about things they wanted to know about America. The questions were pretty ridiculous, ha ha:

"Have you ever seen anyone get shot?"

"Do you know any movie stars?"

"Do you live by Run DMC?"

It was a blast talking with these kids, and I hope they learned some things about America; maybe I even cleared up some stereotypes or common disbeliefs! The kids were great today. I had a blast. Seeing these schools makes me consider teaching abroad one day in the future...I don't know- but it's been running through my mind as of late.

So I got my grade for my first project (the one posted on this blog) and I got a 4.0!! :) Yay, I guess hard work really pays off, eh?

After being at the high school all day then having class, I decided that I needed a shopping break with Kailey. It was lots of fun and I got a lot of cute clothes. The clothes here are way more fashionable than back at home!

Alright, I have to get working on some homework!! I will blog tomorrow-though it might be kinda late because tomorrow night is "80's Prom" with all of the MSU people here! It should be great fun! I'll keep ya posted!

Cheers,

Tara

PS. The picture is of me touching the waters at Bath! I'm a rebel, what can I say? :)

Day 10: Stonehenge and Bath

Phew what a day! The day started at about 5:30am. Everyone in my group took a 3 hour bus ride to see Stonehenge. It was awesome! The only downfall to the day was the TORRENTIAL downpour that never stopped. The pictures seemed to come out okay though, so that was good news!

Stonehenge was better than what I expected. Just knowing that where I stood today was where Romans were was insane to me. It was so rainy when I got there that I dropped my camera on the cement in front of Stonehenge but no worries it still works fine!

It's so crazy how all of those stones got there. It's still kind of debated as to how they did but that's the cool part! It was a very mysterious place. I also learned that across the field from Stonehenge are a bunch of massive grave sites. It was just a crazy very rememberable experience.

After Stonehenge we drove another hour to the city of Bath. Bath is where the Romans used to ...well bathe. It was kind of like a huge social gathering place for them. The city was full of buildings dating all the way back to the 1400s. It was amazing to see. The baths themselves were actually in really great condition. I took some great pictures and videos of them and even touched the water (even though I wasn't supposed to)! The water was really warm! Overall, it was a really great day. It's so hard to explain my experiences at these places because they are just so historic and incredible...it's very hard to explain it when I could hardly believe I was standing there myself!

Tomorrow I will be observing a high school class in Plymouth. Should be pretty interesting!! I also have to get some work on my second project done so my blogs today and tomorrow will probably be a little shorter than normal!

I hope everyone had a great day!

Cheers,

Tara

Day 9: Flowers and Bees

Hello everyone! Today was another Great day in the UK! It was my last day at Chaucer Elementary (sadly) and the kids were great today. I got to sit in a fourth grade classroom today and had a great time. I learned a new way to teach division (a method called "chunking") and then got to work one-on-one with students using this method. It was a lot of fun. I got especially close with one girl, Kelsey, and she asked me lots of questions about America. We had such a great conversation that she asked if she could write me a note in my notebook that I used to take notes with. She made sure that I promised not to read it until I come home (a.k.a my dorm) and then hugged me and ran away. This is what the note said:

"Bye, I will miss you lots!! Love from Kelsey King from the school 'at you came to in Plymouth"

There was also a bunch of hearts and smiley faces on the note, which made it extra cute, hehe. So after the fourth grade observation I went to watch the end of year play put on by the kindergarten, first, and second graders. It was a play about a bumble bee that couldn't make any friends but does at the end of the play. The children were all dressed as flowers and bees and sang songs aloud for a gymnasium full of proud parents, teachers, and me eagerly snapping pictures and videos with my camera.

I posted a short clip of one of the songs in this blog (pay attention to the accents in the song, SO cute).

So tomorrow is the big trip to Stonehenge and Bath! I can't wait! I have to wake up at 5:30am (yuck) but it will be worth it. I'll be sure to post lots of pictures in my blog tomorrow!

More news about London. Some girls and I have been planning our itinerary for the London trip that is coming up very soon. We booked our tickets to see "Wicked" for Monday night, yay! It also includes a dinner at a fancy restaurant! I loved this show when I saw it last summer and I can't wait to see it again in downtown London!! Alright well I've got to be going! I hope everyone had a good day, and I will post back tomorrow after the trip!

Cheers!

Tara

Day 8: Chaucer Elementary School

The day has finally come for me to visit an elementary school in the UK, and man was it an experience!!


The school that I went to was called Chaucer Elementary and I got to see the 2nd and 3rd grade! The kids were adorable running around in their little uniforms and ties. In the second grade classroom the teacher set up a "hot seat" session with me and kids. I pretty much sit in a chair in the middle of their carpet area as they sat all around me and asked me questions about America and what it's like there. One boy, Jai, was particularly funny. He sat with me and hugged me all day asking me what language I spoke.

Me: "Well I speak English, that's how we can talk to each other right now."
Jai: "Noooo you don't! You sound funny!"


Kids wondered about American Football and were amazed that the kids in the US have school buses to take them to school (because they don't have that here). Overall it was an incredible experience today. The schooling is very different yet very similar to the US. Tomorrow I get to go back to Chaucer Elementary to see their end of the year school play. They sang songs all day and practiced for it. One major weird thing was that they had a school prayer in the morning assembly. They prayed to God and thanked all of the sporting coaches-i.e. for Wimbleton and Soccer. Very different from the US, but an incredibly awesome experience!!

After coming home from the elementary school I was pooped and fell asleep in my dorm room for an hour. After that I went to a restaurant called "Pizzarelli" and ordered a super good fetuccini Alfredo w/ mushrooms. Yum!

I just put a load of laundry in at the dorms and that was an experience in itself. The machine temperatures for the water are all in Celsius and the machines only take pounds. It's culture shock everywhere you go, even if it's the laundry room!


Anyways, it was a really fun day and tomorrow should be the same!! There's a big 80's prom party this Friday so everyone is buying outfits for that. Apparently its at a restaurant on the water and should be a BLAST! I'll definitely post pictures from that on here! I'll also post my finished project on tombstoning! I hope you all like it, I worked really hard on it and I even interviewed people around Plymouth for it. I'd like to hear what you all think!

Until tomorrow..


Cheers!

Tara

Day 7: Tintagel Castle

So if you want to know how I spent my day today I only went back in time to a medieval castle to see where King Arthur was supposedly born.

Needless to say...my day was AWESOME.

Tintagel Castle is nestled in the small village of Tintagel, England. In order to get there we had to take a train, then a taxi, then walk about 1,000 stairs up towards the castle. You might think that this is crazy, but it was SO worth it. I'll start with the train ride...


So the train was a cool "Harry Potter-esque" experience as we boarded at "Platform 4". The trains go really high into the air here in England and you find yourself going through bunches of trees that form a canopy over top of the train (almost like a tunnel made of BRIGHT green leaves). Once you make it out of these tunnels you have a panoramic view of the rooftops of England. It was an amazing sight.

Once we got to Bodington Parkway we took a taxi to Tintagel. Our taxi driver was a very nice old man who told us all about the culture of England. Apparently the taxi drivers must go through 2 years of training in order to have superb depth perception on the roads. This is extremely important because the roads are SO small in width and are winding paths in between about 7foot high hedges. It was definitely an adventure. Namely the part when we were stuck in the middle of the road because a herd of cows had broken through. It was nuts! The video was too good to not put it on here!


Once we got to the castle we had to walk (like I already said) about 1,000 steps. It was extremely tiring but once we got to the top of the "castle" (small parts of the castle walls are all that remain now) we got an AMAZING view of the ocean and coast of England, It's easily the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen.

From the top of the castle we could see these caves along the shore down below and decided to venture down into them. They were called "Merlin's Caves" and MAN was it an adventure. You can only get to it if the tide is low, and lucky for us it was. Inside the cave was what you would expect...dripping, darkness, and crazy birds that were mad at us for being in there so far. It was an experience I'll never forget.

After seeing all of the sights in the caves, shore, and castle we finally climbed ALLLLL the way back up to where the main town was. We went into a pub dating back to the 14th century called "Ye Olde Malthouse" to get out of the rain. We then had the same taxi driver drive us back to the train station and we finally just got home to Plymouth.


It was an amazing day. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was. I'll post a picture on here, but I doubt it will give the place any justice.

Tomorrow is my first day at the elementary school!!!! I'll let you know about that tomorrow! Until then..


Cheers!


Tara

Day 6: Rain and Wind

Well it's official...I've experience my fair share of English rain and wind.

It rained SOOO hard today ALL day. It was overall a pretty sucky day.

I was supposed to go see the city of Tentagel- where supposedly King Arthur was "born"...but that didn't pan out. Some girls that I was supposed to go with canceled which left me stuck here.

I spent the day shopping at the mall and got some really cute clothes. I'm excited to wear them, they remind me of the fashion that I see people wearing here!


It's weird, the fashion here. The punk phase is big. I see lots of facial piercings and neon-colored hair. All boys have shaggy hair with "emo" bangs while the girls have really short bluntly cut hair. Scarves are extremely popular here....the light fashion scarves, that is. I bought two today because I like them so much!

I think I might be going to Tentagel again tomorrow, so we'll see where that goes. Hopefully I'll have time. It's a bit ridiculous the amount of work we are expected to do here. This is supposedly our free weekend and all of us have had to stay in our dorm in order to finish these projects, it's stupid. We are going to have a talk with our instructors tomorrow about it because the workload is getting a little out of control. Anyways...hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and I'll have some awesome castle pictures to post on here. My tombstoning project is going very well (which is good because it's due by Monday morning). I'll post it on my blog when I am done and you all will have to tell me what you think about it!


Alright well it's late and I have to catch a train tomorrow morning, hope everyone has a good night!


Cheers,

Tara

Day 5: Happy fourth of July!

'ello all!


Just want to wish everyone a very happy Fourth of July!! It's very strange being in England on this day...I mean it's just like any other day over here...but alas we found a pub nearby to our dorm called "The Fresher Professor" and they had a fourth of July party for all of the study abroad people here!! The whole pub was decorated from head to toe with American Flags and even the bartender was dressed like Abe Lincoln!!! And if you know my family lineage (aka I'm related to John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Lincoln) then you would know that this was an extremely funny ordeal to see!

The pub was a great time today. I met a person from London at the pub, as a matter of fact, and he gave me lots of suggestions about things to see and whatnot when I go there next weekend. I love asking people about "football" (aka Soccer) here because they all feel very passionate about it. Apparently Green Street Hooligans is a very accurate movie as far as the fighting that happens during the football games. It's very interesting to hear about it. And once again, I have met another fan of techno music!! Yuck!!


I even met a girl from Poland at the pub!!! We talked a lot about Polish culture and she even suggested a great place to buy pierogi from!!! :) It was awesome!!

Tomorrow I decided that I am going with a group of girls to Tintagle which is where King Arthur was supposedly "born". It's a castle, anyways...which I'm super excited to see! I'll have to blog when I get home about it tomorrow and of course I'll be sure to take pictures.

Remember when I talked about the Dick-Van-Dyke-looking man who heads the program here, J.P? He was drinking wine tonight at the pub (of course because he is french) and was dancing to Kanye West....one of the most HILARIOUS things I've ever seen!! haha.


Anyways....I should be going to bed...I have to catch an early train tomorrow and then a bus ride to Tintagel!! I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!!

Cheers,
Tara

Day 4: The Navy Pub

Hello All!


Sorry it took so long to post today's blog- I literally was gone from 6:30am-12am. I got GREAT footage of the tombstoners today. I got three videos of them up close jumping. One of them is posted on this entry, yay!!

I talked to a few of the boys that were jumping, which was quite the experience in itself. One of them though that I was from Australia for some reason. I guess I sound weird when I talk to them!?

I asked them if there was any method/form when they are jumping and this was the quote "No. You just run and jump over the rocks."

Me: "What if you don't make it over?"

Them: "Then you're F*****."


...So yeah. Apparently the cops don't care that they do this, either. The cops drive by without even stopping most of the time. The reason why they wear wetsuits when they jump is because the shock of the water (both the cold temperature and the force in which you are hitting it) are very strong- the wet suit comes in handy in this sense.

After the tombstoning interviews we went over to the Navy Pub, which is my favorite pub here so far. I had my first Strong Bow and loved it! Yes, the first beer (*cough* ale) that I actually like! A group of five Navy guys talked with us for a long time about British culture (which definitely helped with our homework/research project). One of them was from Liverpool, while the others were from just below Scotland (which makes it a VERY thick accent). We talked about music for a long time and I was surprised to find that some of their favorite bands were: Phil Collins, The Beatles (of course), Oasis, and then TECHNO...yes techno.

They were asking us questions about our bars, cars, and politics. It was an overall very entertaining night and we all learned a lot from them. We only got called Yanks a couple times and got made fun of for how slowly we all drink our ales.

I also happened to notice the basket of condiments on our table and even snatched a few to bring home: Mint sauce and Brown sauce.

Overall it was a very long but good day! I'll post another one today after the day is over, 'cause I know how you all love reading, haha ;)


Until later: cheers!


Tara

Day 4: Tombstoning

Hello all!

Another day has come and gone in the beautiful city of Plymouth. Today was quite eventful, much like the majority of this trip has been. I've been working hard on my first project and spent the day touring the city and coast for pictures to represent the teenage British culture. What I found was completely awesome! It's called "tombstoning". This is when elementary-high school kids find the highest point alongside of the coast and dive into the water. You may think this isn't really anything to brag about but you should see how high these rocks are that they are jumping off of. They also have to make sure they jump out far enough to avoid landing on the jagged rocks below. It was insane to see this!! I got a few pictures, but I hope to go back later this week to get some better ones and maybe even interview a couple of the kids doing it. Apparently this tomb-stoning is a daily affair, and tombstoning occurs everyday at sunset.

After the tombstoning experience, Kailey and I walked over to a pub called "The Navy". It was a cozy little place and was a real good time. They even had good, cheap food on their menus which was a real plus! Kailey and I ordered some nachos and each had a Fosters. Not too bad. The bartender was really nice and so was the waitress. We ended up staying there and watching some of tennis games with the locals.

So the Bath/Stonehenge trip is canceled for tomorrow and is rescheduled for next week. At least we are still going!

I am getting very excited about all of the cool new technologies that I am learning about. I can't wait to start incorporating these into my teaching for my internship this year!

So I finally tried the infamous British "brown sauce" that is so popular here. It's kind of weird and has molasses in it. I dunno...it's no Heinz ketchup that's for sure.


Another weird thing is that the music that is played in the pubs here (American music) is soooo old- like from the 90s. For example, I heard today at a pub a song from the Backstreet Boys.


There are also these "party buses/limos" that drive teens all around town to the pubs every night. They all blare their music. One of them in particular was blaring "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin.....can we say 90s?

Anyways, I should be off. I have homework to do and need to go through my pictures!! I hope everyone is doing well back at home!!


Cheers,

Tara

Day 3: I'm a photographer?

Cheers!!


I'm back to fill you in on another fun-filled day! Today started out with a great English breakfast again, yum eggs! After breakfast I had class from 8-4:30, so needless to say it was a long day. In class today I learned all about photography and how to take good pictures (i.e. contrast, perspective, etc...) we were then given an assignment that was called a "Picture Challenge". For this assignment we had to choose any adjective then walk around town and take 5 pictures that represent that adjective. During tomorrow's class session, everyone in class will try and guess what everyone's adjective was only based off of the five pictures they took.

So I figured I would get my picture taking done with as soon as I could (i.e. 5pm). This was hard to do because EVERYTHING over here closes by 6pm, except the pubs of course. Kailey and I ventured around town as it started to rain. First it was only a couple of drops, then it was pouring and the wind picked up. Trying to take pictures in these conditions were really hard yet I think we managed to hold the umbrella over our camera and do the best we could! I'd say they turned out pretty well!! I'll try and post my 5 pictures on here and then you all can guess what you think my adjective is! :)


Word on the street is that there is some issues involving our Stonehenge trip....which sucks. Apparently we had planned to visit Bath and Stonehenge on the same day (Thursday)and this will apparently result in us spending about 7hours that day traveling. My group leaders are trying to re-plan everything, so who knows where I'll be going on Thursday! I'll keep you posted though!

I ventured to the Supermarket again today-primarily because i had to have another bag of the BEST sea salt and vinegar chips again. It's well worth the long walk into town for those things, trust me. That and I bought some pasta and sauce for my dinners this week. The sauce was actually pretty good, I was surprised. I have to start thinking about my first big project that is due next Monday. It's supposed to be a digital story about some aspect of culture that has fascinated me so far on this trip. I think I'm going to do mine on British teenage entertainment. I've seen so many teens skateboarding and playing soccer, I think I'll be able to get a lot of good pictures.

I went to a technology seminar today about gaming in classrooms and how to use games as a teacher. I was SO excited to learn all about this but the seminar was pretty uneventful, sadly. All we did pretty much was play games on the Internet and talk about things like how South Korea is the leading champion in the World Gaming Olympics or something like that. Now that I think about it the lecturer was from South Korea....I wonder if she's ever enlisted in this tournament?

Anyways...sorry it's kind of a boring post today. It was pretty much a homework day for me and I was running around town taking pictures all day. I'll try and post them on here! I hope everyone is doing well!


-Tara