Weird little differences

Hello Everyone! I'm slowly but surely readjusting to the Home of the Free and the Brave. I will be doing just fine for a couple days, then I'll see something like a photo and just get hit by a wave of Cardiff-sickness (like homesickness but not quite). Here are some oddities that I've noticed.

1. Price Chopper has a British Food section in their International Aisle. These include: Heinz Beans, McVities digestives, Marmite, Branston Pickle, Wine Gums, Cadbury drinking chocolate, Bounty Bars and some Worcestershire-flavoured crisps.
2. Floor numbers start at 1 again. Not ground-floor.
3. Professors here measure paper length in pages. British lecturers went by word-count.
4. I must sound a little schizo when I talk sometimes. I'll lapse into British slang and have to correct myself so that I can talk 'Merican.
5. I still write my dates like 28/8 instead of 8/28 and still manage to hang onto all those extra letters in spelling words.
6. I have to tell the temperature, volume and weight in Imperial measurements, not metric. For example, I'm used to mince being in 250g or 500g amounts. Here, it's called ground beef and it's measured in ounces and I am helpless to figure out how much to buy.
7. One of my housemates brought an electric kettle to school. So yes, they do exist in America. And yes, I do use it to cut down on pasta-boiling time. It is labeled in litres so I had to convert to cups for my macaroni recipe. Fun Fact # 40: 1.5 L is around 6 1/3 cups.
8. I can still bond with people over the rugby, like one of my Religious Studies professors.
9. I am back on a Liberal Studies curriculum. This means that I have some required courses to complete outside of my Biology major (such as history, English, fine arts, a foreign language, philosophy, religious studies and social sciences). British students specialise and do so early on. I won't be doing so until graduate school! 
10. There is no Peri-Peri anything in the stores I've checked.
11. I still default to the left when I walk to class and up the stairs.

I am in four classes this semester. They are: Religion: Theory and Method, Hinduism, Biochemistry and Traditional East Asia. I am very excited. I will be finishing up two minors this semester (Chemistry and Religious Studies. Quite the combo!). 

Theory and Method is interesting. It's about how we study religion. Rather meta. I am one of eight people in the lecture. There's another hard-science major in the class (she's majoring Physics and minoring in Religious Studies). Only one boy in this course!

Hinduism will be one of my more challenging courses. I'm climbing out of my little Abrahamic religions box that I've been in since forever and am starting to see what else there is. 

Biochemistry is my lone science-y course. It has an online component to it (in the form of homework). Organic Chemistry was tough for me. I don't really do well thinking about reactions in the abstract, so I hope that this will provide some context! The course is huge this year. The professor had to open up another lab section to accommodate all the students!  

Traditional East Asia marks my last Liberal Studies requirement. It is a history course focusing on China and Japan up until the West arrives onshore (1800's or so). The professor is from Taiwan. I got the opportunity to use my, admittedly rusty, knowledge of the region.

On top of all this, I will be taking the DAT later in the fall. It's going to be a year for the books, that's for sure!

Cheers!

Moving back to SMC

Hello everyone!

I'm a little unsure of the future of this blog. It might be time to retire it and transition to something different. But that's talk for another day.

I am getting ready to move back to my uni back in America, Saint Michael's College (as an aside: I know that college is a different level of schooling than university in Britain, but they are used interchangeably in America). I will be living in a set-up slightly similar to my conditions in Talybont North. I will have five other roommates (all girls) and our own kitchen (no longer a slave to meal plan!). On the other hand, my place of residence is a townhouse, not a flat. We have a common area, something I felt that my flat lacked (kitchen notwithstanding). I also have a double room with a roommate (the other girls have single rooms upstairs with a shared bathroom). Our shared room is gigantic and has a bathroom. I feel like I've hit the jackpot. My roomie studied abroad in Dublin this past spring. She is also a rugby fan (supporting Ireland), so we're looking forward to watching a couple matches. Six Nations could get a little crazy though...

I dropped some dishes, bedding, towels and more off at my room yesterday. It was nice to get some stuff all set up before my official move-in this Saturday (tomorrow!!).

I'm not using the Welsh flag as a blanket, I just needed a place to keep it for the time being!

I walked around on campus yesterday. Our new student center is almost finished. I watched it being built last fall, so I am curious about how it's turned out (There is no equivalent to the Taf there. Gutted). I liked being able to cross campus in about 10 minutes with only one crosswalk (my trek to class in Cardiff was around 20 minutes with 2 or 3 crosswalks, depending on the route and traffic). I also liked how the pavement wouldn't shoot water at you if you stepped on a certain corner (Oh, Talybont North). I enjoyed seeing old friends. I soaked up the atmosphere, since my last official day on campus was back in December! I am returning a more confident girl. I have a career goal, a new academic advisor in-the-works, and I'm a senior!! How did that happen?? 

 Overall, I am very excited for this upcoming year.

If anyone wants to send me some mail while I'm at school (my birthday is next month, hint hint), here's my address:

Saint Michael's College

Box 3257

1Winooski Park

Colchester, Vermont 05439

United States

Alright! I have to get back to getting ready/freaking out.

Cheers!

SMC and Fourth of July

Hello! Here's a quick update on some summer stuff...
On June 29th, I went up to Burlington to spend some time with my friend Katie. I hadn't seen her since Paris, so it was lovely to see her again. I also was able to see my uni, Saint Michael's College. They were busy building the new student center/connecting buildings/project that ate our quad when I left for Christmas. Now, the exterior is finished. They're still working on it from the inside. I am eager to see how this turns out... It was strange to be back on campus. I hadn't set foot there since December of last year. The place is mostly blocked off due to the aforementioned construction. I hope that they have everything straightened out before the freshmen move in around the end of August.

I also met up with my friends Amanda (who studied abroad last autumn) and Tori (who graduated this year). We visited a local farmers' market.

Street performer in downtown Burlington. He proceeded to do a handstand on top of all those chairs!

Katie surveys Burlington Bay

The boats

Lake Champlain

The oncoming storm

Duck family!

We got rained on! The thunderstorm rolled right in and soaked everything. We hid out in a mall (along with half the people off the street).

When we got back to SMC, Katie and I went to the academic buildings (since they're open 24/7). We watched Pitch Perfect and had a dance party. Naturally, I decided to bring a nice selection of electronica/dance/house/whatnot that you'd hear in Cardiff on a night out. We had so much fun.

I watched the Fourth of July parade that my hometown puts on every year. For those who don't know (I've encountered some people whilst abroad who didn't know why July 4th was such a huge deal to Americans), this is when the USA celebrates their independence from Great Britain. My family usually sets up right where the parade turns the corner. Prime viewing territory! Would you also believe that I've been in the parade a couple times? Well, without further ado, here is how a small town in Vermont commemorates this event.

Colorguard to start off.

Detail on a Jeep being driven by servicemen

Tractors!

Bands are always a feature 

You could only get away with this in Vermont!

Classic Cars

My old High-School won the State Championship in Baseball

More Cars

There are usually a couple more horses! 

Tractor! 

End of the Parade

And to close this out, here's a nice shot of my brother and two of his friends. I love their outfits. Very patriotic.

My brother is on the far left, in the American Flag shorts.

What else have I been doing? I have finally had an epiphany on what I want to do when I graduate (Which is this year. Where has time gone?). This is a really big deal for me. For the longest time, I had no idea what I wanted to do once I graduated. I decided on a major before my first year at SMC because I am passionate about Biology. Honestly, I felt like I had a list of careers I didn't want and not a whole lot of ones I would pursue. However, I have something (and strangely enough, my time in Cardiff did not have an impact on my decision). I am looking into dental school! I have been reviewing and studying up for the dental admissions test (known as the DAT). 

In the meantime, I have also been busy with my summer job. I work as a lifeguard at a neighboring town's pool. It is such a blessing to be out in the sun with a not-too-strenuous job. I have lost my ghastly pallor and gained a few more freckles in the process. Not to shabby! Oh, and did I mention that I performed a save towards the end of July! I had to go in after a kid who swam out too far and panicked when she couldn't touch the bottom of the pool. It always gives me a rush performing my job like that.

I will be heading back to SMC at the end of this month. And my birthday is in less than a month! This is a very exciting time.

P.S. If anyone is up in Colwyn Bay on the 14th, go say hello to the Cardiff Blues. They'll be training there around 4pm.

Cheers!