Yes, I know Halloween was last week but...

Yay! here it it, my Halloween post. Well, not that it's really exciting at all, but I had fun. So kids here don't really celebrate Halloween like we do in the US, or at least, not that we saw. No one really went trick or treating or carved pumpkins and whatnot, which was kind of sad. But those were just the little kids. Now the BIG kids went out and partied all night in 'costume'. I say 'costume' because about 90% of the party goers either dressed up as scantily clad devils or scantily bloody nurses. yes, even the guys. So I'm not sure if I should really call those Halloween costumes because it's not really any different than how party goers dress up on a normal night out. With the exception of all the ketchup smears. Now if only I had brought some french fries...

But here's my group with our 'somewhat' more imaginitive costume! We had a happy night of spooking until someone lost her phone and three other people wore really ouchy shoes and this really drunk guy wouldn't leave us alone...

Happy 4th Birthday Eve!!

Happy birthday monkey! I'm glad you got a certain package in time :)

Lots of love,
Pemo <3 (<-this is supposed to be a heart for all you chat illiterate people)

Ya I'm fine, why?

This one threw me off for the longest time, and still gets me :)

You know how back home, normal people say, 'hey, how's it going?' when they greet familiar faces? Well here, you say, 'hiya, you 'right?' (translation: hello, you alright?) and the proper response seems to be, 'ya, you?' As simple as that. My flat mates (the people who live with me on my floor) say that to me all the time whenever they see me, and it throws me off all the time. The first couple times had me clutching my face thinking 'ya I'm... fine, I think. Should I NOT be?' and making a complete fool out of myself, but now I've learned. But for all it's worth, I threw off all my flatmates by saying 'hey, how's it going?' None of them really knew how to respond to that either. Good times...

British English is so weird!

So I finally caved in and got some books for recreational reading, but some are just so hard to follow! At first I just thought the author had failed high school English or something, but after plowing through a couple volumes, I noticed it's a common trend among many different authors. So here's a few things that really bug me about British editing:

1. For example, if I were to say, "why hello, I just bumped into my friend and she said 'go away, I'm busy' and then stomped away into the mist," the British would say 'why hello, I just bumped into my friends and she said "go away, I'm busy" and then stomped away into the mist' The use of double and single quotes are backwards!!!! It throws me off.
2. They like to use the same word back to back all the time. For example, had had, has has, have has, been being are common phrases. I find myself backtracking all the time to make sure I'm not misreading anything.
3. The use of dead words is celebrated. Thus, I find myself reading things like; 'wow, that adventure was very fun!' and 'i like very big seashells'. Very invigorating.
4. Rather than explain something while it's happening, authors tend to explain an action far after its occurance. For example, commonly, an author will say 'such and such looked up' blah blah blah, talking about something totally unrelated, blah blah blah 'oh, and by the way, such and such looked up because she saw a cat in the window.' I feel blind.

But don't get me wrong, the plots themselves are ok. The editors are just very very british. Hm, I should grab a copy of terry goodkind or something and see if it's really just the editing or more just crappy authors who failed at effective creative writing. Happy reading!

Why thank you yes, I do speak English very well

So in all the computer confusion, I forgot to post about a rather funny conversation I got into with a cab driver. When I was heading to London last Friday, I grabbed a cab to the train station to catch the 12:30 train after class got out at 12:00. Ya, cutting it close, but hey, it worked out in my favor that time. But anyway, we're chatting about how I'm going to London, and how I'm an exchanged student when suddenly the cab driver says 'Wow, I'm impressed, your English is really good!' Ummmm... ooookaaaay? thanks? Apparently he had mistaken me for an exchange student from an Asian university. We had a good laugh over that one.

Let me explain, growing up in California, it took convincing for people to believe that I was even PART Asian, and then in Utah the attitude was 'oh, okay, I can see that' and then here to 'really, you're only HALF?' It's just funny how different the attitudes are here compared to back home. Here everyone only sees my Asian aspects, and back home most people focused on my Caucasion ones. Silly huh? But yes, I imagine that my English is very good. Thanks for noticing Mr. Cab Driver.

Aaaaaaaaaah my computer crashed!!!!!

Well, that about sums it up. Not sure why, not sure how, but my computer is currently under the weather ever since I updated it with vista's new service pack. So, off to vista's website to see if I can atleast turn it back on in safe mode or something and restore it to a previous version. Not cool at all. *grrrrrrrrrrr...

London take TWO!!

Sorry about the late update. My computer's wireless lan driver decided to completely vanish overnight somehow, so I've been doing all my online stuff at the library for the past while. Before I resort to actually calling customer support, anyone got any suggestions?

Okay, so unfortunately there'll be no pictures this round, but I'll post them when my computer's back up and running I'll get those up.

But, back to the good stuff. My totally awesome friends Michelle and Audrey (note back to the pancake party the night before I left) came up the England during their fall break and I got to hang out with them last weekend in London before they left. It was AWESOME!! So now, we had all already done the cheesy touristy things so we spend friday and saturday shopping!! (well, or atleast window shopping) We stopped at London's center of all shopping centers Harrods where we spend a good part of the day dreaming and admiring all the designer labels. They had pretty much anything and everything, from clothes, to furniture, you name it. That part was fun, but we were all more concerned with Harrod's FOOD center. It was amazing; cheeses, chocolates, olives, bread, jams, teas, pastries, sausages, seafood, you name it! And best of all, they let you sample everything! They even let you have whole chocolate truffles for tasters. Not just the kind where they get a truffle, smash it up, and give you a crumb, no, they gave you the whole thing! *drool... amazing. So we left Harrods with a good armload of chocolates, cheeses, and jams, and hoped they would last the trip home.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip, though, was Friday night's performance of Chicago! We got cheap reduced tickets at a place called tkts (note for anyone interested in taking trips to London any time soon, hint hint) and grabbed some half priced tickets in the nosebleed section and sat through an awesome performance that evening. The best part about London is that there are always tons of shows playing any night. On Friday there was Les Mis, Phantom of the Opera, the Lion King (which we wanted to see but they weren't offering reduced tickets), and a few others that didn't really catch our eye. Amazing. And, best yet, we found some great little hole in the wall sandwhich and falafal shops that were fantastic. Oh, and some gelato shops, too.

On Saturday, we stopped at shakespeare's globe (man, I really wish I could show you the pictures) and got a cool guided tour through the theatre and later wandered around the museum. The theatre itself was a modern recreation, but it was built exactly as it would have back in Shakespeare's day. It even had a thatched roof! After shakespeare, we wandered around Covent Garden, a cool market with tea shops, toy stores, and jewelry stands. There were always a ton of street musicians on the street, and most of them were actually pretty good. My favorite was a celtic string group that played a bunch of Irish gigs and whatnot.

Okay, the library's kicking me out now (can't use the computers past 7:30) but see you later!