HOME!!

Hey everyone! I've been home for a week now! After a great weekend in Michigan, I had to go back to work on Wednesday.

Sigh . . . I miss London.

I need some flat 22 love, minus the dirtiness.

At least I get to watch TV now! The season finale of Lost? That was some crazy strong crack. A flashforward? GENIUS!!

Yes, this is my life.

Today, I present bored girl:



Bored girl misses the craziness of London and would like to sleep again some time soon. Oh Friday night, you, me, and my soft fluffy pillow, can't get better than that (well it can, but I'm trying to be realistic here).

I do have to say though when I first laid down on my bed Wednesday night after four months sleeping in my Landward bed, I was greeted with the indeniably, wonderful feeling of an actual soft, padded mattress instead of the fake plaid board that masqueraded as one in London. I didn't even know what I'd been missing . . . oh glorious.

On a side note, today in HR, we got an interesting magazine in the mail. It had a scantily clad young man with rippling abs on the front cover and it's title was "Instinct." Now I'm bet you're asking yourself, "Well, Gina, what could possibly be wrong with that?"

Hmm, well, for starters, it's called INSTINCT as in primal, as in lustful, as in I really really really like Barbara Streisand and dressing in drag.

That's right is was a gay magazine.

Why a gay men's magazine is being sent to the CATHOLIC (and it has to be in all capital letters) University of Notre Dame is anyone's guess. Anyway, I was bored and skimmed a few pages. I have to say, some of the ads were hilarious in a disturbing "is that what I think it is?" way.

Oh dear God, this is what boredom has done to me.

Yes, it's 5:30! I'm outta here!

One More Day . . .

Wow, I can't believe it. Tomorrow is my last day in London. I leave for the airport bright and early at 5:30 Wednesday morning. I've had 3 finals so far and one more tomorrow and than that's it. I pack, clean the flat, and London's over.

I never thought I'd say this but I'm incredibly sad to be leaving (Don't even start Mother). I love London and can't wait to come back some day. This has been the best semester ever!

See you all very very soon!

P.S. Please excuse any strangeness in this post. I got about 3 hours of sleep last night. Oh look at the pretty butterfly. Here pretty butterfly . . .

I Have My Life Back

Hello everyone. I am making a triumphant return after two weeks of utter hell. Over the past two weeks, I have had 5 papers due, one for every single one of my classes. Because I'm bored and have no better way to spend my time, I've determined that I've written about 14,000 words, which is equivalent to over 40 pages. Now folks that's a whole lotta writin'.

So I've been a little busy, hence why I've been absent from blogdom (and yes, I just made that up).

Currently, I have 12 days left in London before I come home, which actually makes me very sad. I've really grown to like it here and I'll miss it a lot. I'll miss my flatmates too, who, besides their lack of cleanliness, are really awesome. I'll miss the Landward, not because of it's nice or anything (not so much) but because of the whole atmosphere and you know, the boys living right across the hall. Sigh, there's a lot of stuff I'll miss; I won't bore you with all of that right now.

But one thing I will NEVER, EVER miss is the freakin' POUND (or peso as Gramma would put it). When the exchange rate is over 2, it really, really kills my quickly diminishing bank account. Let's call my bank account Sally. Sally has had a rough 4 months. She's been kicked around, stepped on, run over by a double decker bus a few times (because they really don't slow down for pedestrians) and reduced to a much smaller version of herself called WeeSally. Now, WeeSally is in danger of becoming ExtinctSally and is very happy to be going back to the dollar. WeeSally plans to work real hard this summer and hopefully become just plain old Sally again (or at least TeenSally). And if that doesn't work she can also peddle her wares on the street corner. . . er . . . I mean selling lemonade on the street corner. Yep, totally, lemonade, yum, deliciousness.

I realize I've been very bad at reporting my trip to Rome to you all so I'm going to try and remember what we did for the rest of the trip.

Last time I left you, Krista, Molly, and I were eating gelato, our horrible day turned around by awesome Italian pizza and the aforementioned yummy gelato which we would eat at least twice a day.

So after eating our gelato, we preceded to go all over the known planet!

First we walked to the Castel Sant Angelo, which is like a round castle. We didn't go inside (it cost money)so we just walked around it. In the front of this castle, there were so many street venders trying to sell fake Prada, Coach, and Louis Vutton purses and sunglasses and a whole bunch of "Roma" apparrel. At that point, I think I bought an Italia sweatshirt. Well here's a pic of the Castel



We walked down the street a little and came to this:



which I believe was the Court of Justice or something to that effect.

Then we crossed the Sant Angelo bridge which was decorated with amazing statues. I have to say that Rome has so many bridges and they are all so cool. Insanely decorative and beautiful to look at.



We crossed the bridge, and then walked around to a lot of the sights. Rome is full of Piazzas and we went to a few of the major ones:

Piazza Navona




Piazza di Spagna (aka the Spanish Steps)



That first day we also went to the Pantheon, which was really cool to see.



We saw this Monument to Vittorio Emmaunuele II, and I have no idea who he is, but it was big and neat to look at. Yep that's all I got for that one:



Also we saw the ruins of a Roman ampitheatre:




That's basically all I can remember for that particularly day. Sorry there are no funny stories to go along with the pictures, but I really can't remember any more if anything funny even happened.

To wet your appetites for the next time, that update will include pictures of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Vatican Museum, and me (wahoo!).

See you all soon!

Sanity, My Dear Friend, How I've Missed You

Hello all, I'm back and fully medicated so you can put the straitjacket away. Really, it's not necessary.

Wow, so I really don't know what that last post was. That's what stress does to me. Temporary insanity, most likely. Oh, how joyous.

Anyway, currently I am trying to plan out the rest of my life, which basically means I'm trying to decide what classes to take next semester. It is definitely not as fun as it sounds and it doesn't even sound that fun. Grr argh.

And naturally, a few of the ones I wanted to take are already full (or will be by the time I register). Sigh, such are the days of my life.

In good news, I actually got a single for next year so I'm really excited about that. After living with 6 other girls this semester, it'll be nice to have a little privacy and you know, cleanliness.

Just in case anyone is interested, in one month I will be back in the states, which is crazy to think about. And that also means that I've been away for over 3 months! That's like a quarter of a year! Golly gee, Mickey, what do you know? I can divide! At 20 years old, I have finally conquered fourth grade math. Now if only I could learn how to tie my bloody shoes . . .

Since my last reference to the posterior parts of certain people that shall remain nameless did not go over well with said persons, I will refrain from mentioning them again. Not that you wouldn't notice them just by looking at them. Kind of hard to miss really. I mean, do you stare into the blinding sun and not notice that this gigantic orb is right in front of your face? Do you look at a raisin and not notice the wrinkling skin? . . . What? Did I do it again? *snicker*

Well, I'm going to go be productive now. Wish me luck on my class registration. And if you want to say a rosary or two I'd certainly appreciate it. I need all the help (and no not mentally) that I can get!

Hugs and kisses (yes, I'm five).

And because I promised in my last post, here's Salvador Allende, President of Chile from November 1970 to September 11, 1973 when he mysteriously turned up dead after Pinochet's US-supported coup. Hmm, nice.



Here endeth the history lesson for the day.

4 Days Removed from the Visit of the 3 Magi who Brought Myrrh, Frankincense, and Gold or M&Ms, Chex Mix, and Granola Bars

After four days of recuperation, free from the constant whining and having to drag Mom's big butt every and Gramma's saggy one, I'm finally able to get back to the things that really matter, like posting my exploits on this lovely blog here. Visiting with the family? Pfft, why see them when I can just make fun of them here?

Did you see what I did there? That's called sarcasm! Go me!

All kidding aside, I had a great time with the fam! Larry and I bonded while walking down Oxford Street and Gramma and Mom bonded over their sore feet and their mutual feeling of being totally and completely overwhelmed. We saw all the sights: the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben,Parliament, Madame Tussaud's (the wax museum), Covent Garden (an outdoor market), and loads of other stuff. I have a bunch of pictures but I haven't uploaded them to my comp yet so there'll be in a later post.

Currently, I am trying to be productive, but obviously I'm failing miserably as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this entry instead of doing work. Smell that? That's the sweet smell of procrastination, an odor I give off frequently and in abundance.

I'm also trying to figure out my schedule for next year which is about as exciting as it sounds and equally as frustrating.

I also realize that I still have to fill all you lovely people in about my Roman holiday, which was like 6 weeks ago. Yep, I'm totally on top of things. That too is on my list.

Sigh, on a rather disgusting note, there's been quite a significant amount of mucus building up inside my nostrils and at the back of my throat, which is rather annoying. I bet you all wanted to know that too. See? I'm just full of fascinating tidbits.

And if I'm writing about my nasal problems, it is a definite sign of me avoiding all productive means of utilizing my time.

To Uncle Wee Wee, the happy girl will not return today. Instead I present "The Sad Girl":



"The Sad Girl" is representative of, you guessed it, my sadness. Because now I have nothing to count down to and the only thing I have to look forward to is tons of papers to write and finals. And when that time comes around I will introduce you to the best stess-relieving remedy I know, which is singing Schoolhouse Rock songs at the top of my lungs. Seriously, you should try it sometime.

Today, you will also be introduced to "The Frustrated Girl" (which actually generated a lot of inappropriate results in my Google image search, who woulda thunk it?)



"The Frustrated Girl" is symbolic of, you guessed it, my frustration. My frustration at the aforementioned workload. And that shall be the end of my whining for the time being.

Promise:



Scout's honor:



I can tell no lie:



(That's a young George Washington and the cherry tree, just for clarification)

"I'm not a crook":



Yeah, I have no idea what that just was. I apologize. I'm going a little crazy. That's probably because I'm in London, right Mom and Gramma?

Until the next time, which I swear will be more coherent and contain less pictures of former U.S. Presidents, maybe I'll throw in a few Chilean ones, just for the heck of it.

Am I really posting this?

Why, yes, Gina, you really are. Just push that button right there . . .

It's positively CRACKTASTIC!!!

One More Day . . .

One more day left and then I don't have to listen to Gramma and Mom moan and complain about walking (god, forbid), crowds, and how London is just "insane."

Dad, Grumpa, take them back. It's your turn to watch them.

Counting down the minutes . . .

3 Days!!

3 DAYS PEOPLE 3 DAYS!!! I CAN'T CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE. MUST SCCREEEAAMMMM!!!! *Passes out from excitement*

*Shakes head, regains consciousness, remembers to breath*

I am sooo excited for my fam! Can you tell?

3 Days!

That's all I can communicate at the moment.