Ruminations in the airport

12/17/12

As I sit here in the Manchester airport waiting for my flight to Dublin I’m starting to reminense about my first semester at Sheffield. I went back and reread some of my old blog posts and realized how glad I am that I made them. It’s great seeing where I started from and where I am now.

The beginning of the semester was indescribably difficult. Starting over in a brand new country; literally on my own for the first time ever. I was so lost the first few weeks. Having to plan out meals and time to do laundry and all of those adultish things I had never really done. I’m proud to say I can now cook a multitude of dishes, as long as they only have 3 or 4 ingredients. I have mastered the art of getting on and off the Sheffield tram. I now look the correct way for cars when crossing the road. Standing in a long queue is nothing to me now. While I still don’t consider myself an adult (and hope I never do), I’m beginning to full grown up for the first time in my life.

I think for me the hardest part of this is going to be going home.  It’s kind of like reverse culture shock. I’ll miss being able to walk where ever I need to go, or hopping on the tram. On the plus side I can now legally drive a car, so that’s nice! I’m planning on a Christmas drinking game where I take a shot every time someone asks me how England was.

I have met such amazing people this semester. Some of my good friends are from all over the world, well Europe mostly but it counts. I love hanging out with all of them and hope we can go traveling next semester.

And yes the classes were hard, harder then I honestly expected it to be. I look back on how much I’ve learned this semester and am honestly amazed. Hopefully next semester will be less intense, so I can you know, breathe.

I have loved every moment of my time abroad. There were some hard times, but I expected there to be. It was sad leaving my apartment this morning knowing I wouldn’t be back for a little over a month and a half.

So Sheffield, thanks for the memories and see you in the new year . 

A New Yorker in old York

12/10/12

On Thursday the 29^th a few of the girls and I went to York for the day. A friend of mine, liz, lives in York and was nice enough to show us around. We got to the train station around 9:30 for our 9:47 train, only to find out it had been delayed about an hour. While waiting for the train I met a pigeon that was not suitably afraid of humans. I thought it was going to jump up onto my lap! We finally got on the train and headed off to York.

I had never been on train before (not counting subways or the tram) so I didn’t know what to expect. It took us a lot longer for us to get there then normal because the trains were running slow due to flooding.

It was beautiful when we got to York, albeit a bit cold. We got of the train and immediately saw an old wall of the city. We all decided that it was the wall in the north from Game of thrones and started quoting the show. I even took a picture of me as a watcher on the wall. Liz took us to the medieval abbey first. I have a bunch of pictures of it up on facebook if you want to look. It was really cool because you could see where the Roman part of the abbey stopped and the medieval part started. There were also a few empty stone coffins, one of which Caroline planked on.

Next we walked on the wall of the old roman fort. It’s a long wall that used to enclose the city. We walked into several of the towers which was pretty cool Now I want to live in a place with towers, and castles. Next we did a bit of shopping. We immediately found the fudge shop where I got white chocolate fudge, yummy. Liz went to go meet up with her parents for lunch and we headed to a pub to get some food. I finally got my English fish and chips! Only took me a semester.

After lunch we went to the Christmas market. It was really cute, they had a ton of booths set up and food stands. People were selling holiday crafts, toys and of course food. Instead of normal booths they had little sheds that looked like houses. I bought a little penguin ornament that I immediately had to have after I saw it. I think I have a strange obsession with penguins, I don’t care there adorable. We stopped and got hot spiced apple juice (basically hot cider) and hot chocolate with baileys. After the market we went and got tea and warmed up. I love that here in England when you order tea they bring you a little pot of tea instead of just a cup.

After tea we went shopping at a bunch of the stores in York and went to an area called the shambles. The shambles are buildings built in the medieval period that look like they are about to fall over. They reminded me a lot of Diagon alley in Harry Potter. Around 7 pm we decided to leave and headed back to the train station.

We had a terrific day and I’m so glad Liz was able to show us around.  It was nice to actually see more of England then just Sheffield. Next semester our weekly work load in less intense and we’ll be able to travel more.

This week is my last week of classes for this semester! I just have to finish up my skeletal analysis for my adult and juvenile skeletons and take my final anatomy exam on Thursday and I’m home free! This anatomy test is going to kill me I think. I’m terrified I’ll do worse on this test and end up failing the class.

I have the Osteo Christmas party this Friday and we’re all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. I got mine form a shop called Cow and it’s fantastic. I might have to wear it for Christmas eve!

I am never making a turkey again

11/28/12

Making a turkey is hard work, especially when the turkey in question is 20 pounds. On Thanksgiving I, Madelyn Rose Padalino, did a very adult thing and hosted Thanksgiving, complete with turkey making. The party started off being a small amount of people, then somehow grew until 20 people were coming for dinner. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving I made my Aunt Lynda’s brussel sprout casserole. It’s one of my favorite dishes and I had to have it for the holiday. Now I want to preface this with telling you all that I don’t cook. Unless there are directions on the box (yes it has to come in a box) I can’t make it. And sometimes when the directions are on the box I can’t make it, exhibit A: the Rice a Roni incident with Becky when we were like 15. The Brussels sprout recipe isn’t that hard but it’s involved. The first step is to make bacon.  Bacon in the UK and Bacon in the US is a little different, bacon here is thicker and has more fat on it so it cooks differently. I, of course, didn’t know this and promptly burned the crap out of the bacon and smoked my whole kitchen. Next it took me 10 minutes to chop an onion which I had never done in my life. The rest of the recipe went smoother but it still took me 2 hours to make the damn thing, not to mention clean up because for some reason my counters looked like a disaster zone.

The day of Thanksgivng a rose early to get my turkey out of the freezer. Some of you are thinking “Oh crap Matti put the turkey in the freezer and never defrosted it”. But AHA! The exact opposite! I bought the 20 pound behemoth of a turkey on Monday and left it out to defrost like my darling mother told me to. Too bad on Wednesday evening it was entirely defrosted and edging precariously toward room temperature.  I put it in the freezer Wednesday night so that it would cool down and got up at 8am to take it out and start getting everything ready. I wish you could have all seen the hilarity that was me preparing the turkey for the oven. I had to enlist the help of my roommate Cindy in washing the bird because washing a twenty pound slimy turkey is about as easy as, well, washing a twenty pound slimy turkey. After haphazardly washing the bird I left it to dry as I took my shower. After heating the oven I moved the turkey to the pan I bought. Turkeys in England are generally not as big as the ones back home, so the largest tin pan I could find barely and I do mean barely, fit my turkey. I threw it in the oven at set my timer.

After that I set about making the mashed potatoes. I was trying to be all fancy and made mine homemade with real potatoes. As opposed to how I usually make them which is out of a box. I had to peel, cut and boil four pounds of potatoes which took me about 2 hours.  During this time I was cleaning the kitchen, my bedroom and the bathroom. I know understand my parent’s frustration on Christmas when they are trying to get the house together while making dinner.

People started arriving and while I was still making the mashed potatoes, so I enlisted there help and gave them the rest of the potatoes to mash as I finished cleaning.

After everyone arrived Cheyenne helped me take the turkey out of the oven and carve it. Much to our surprise the top half of the turkey was done and ready while the wings and legs were still bloody. Not to mention that while I managed to get one of the giblets out I didn’t see the one in the neck and cooked it with them in. Cheyenne and Louisa cut up the part of the turkey that was done and then put the rest back in the oven.  Meanwhile we all grabbed plates and dug in. Everyone brought food and wine for the party. Caroline managed to make 3 kilograms (almost 6 pounds) of amazing macaroni and cheese. We’re all pretty impressed with her because her idea of dinner is a bag of microwave popcorn. For dessert Mairi made this kind of whiskey cream with berries that was delicious. I have no idea how to spell the name but I’ve been referring to it as Kraken.

I’m really glad everyone could come over, I would have been miserable all alone for thanksgiving. We had a great time and ate way to much. After everyone went home I skyped my parents at my grandpa’s house where they were partaking in the holiday festivities. It was so awesome to see everyone, and get to say hi.

The semester is almost over, I can’t believe it. I only have two more weeks until I’m flying home! 

Grad school is hard, like really really hard

11/13/12

So I haven’t updated in a while, but I have a perfectly good explanation for that. I have done nothing, nada, squat, zero, other than sleep eat and study for the past 2 weeks. You think I’m lying or exaggerating but I’m dead serious.

Last Thursday, the 7^th, I had my first anatomy exam. The exam was worth 50% of my final grade so I was stressing out about it. On the exam was all of the muscles of the upper body. For every muscle we had to know it’s origin, insertion point, what action it does, what nerve innervates it, and be able to locate it on a picture. I have spent hours upon hours with my flash cards, my book and the biodigital human program on my computer. I don’t study at my desk because the chair is rather uncomfortable so I had all of my notes spread over my bed in little piles. Then to help me study I drew really awful pictures of the muscles which I will not include on this blog.

I had the test last Thursday and it went (knock on wood) well. I felt pretty good about it when I left the room. Of course this probably means I failed epically, but until I get my score I’m going to live in my fantasy. After the test a bunch of us promptly headed to the pub to get drunk. My brain was so fried that when we went to split the check I had like a brain fart and couldn't remember how to do math. That night I took my first real night off in weeks. I went home after the pub, ate half a pint of chocolate ice cream and watched the lion king.

I couldn't have too much down time because this is grad school and that just doesn't happen. On Monday I had a bone quiz on the teeth. Now teeth are really hard because A) there not easy to side, and B) all of the incisors and molars look the same. The difference between mandibular incisor 2 and Maxillary incisor 2 is so minute that it’s ridiculous. The actual quiz went alright, it was half on the actual teeth and half on everything else we have covered so far. There was one fragment that I stared at for a good 5 minutes without knowing what it was (turns out it was the foramen rotunda of the left sphenoid, I of course did not write this).

On happy news I am hosting thanksgiving with all my friends! I am going to attempt to make a turkey; mashed potatoes and my favorite Brussels sprout casserole that my Aunt Lynda makes. I called her for the recipe and it was so nice to talk to her. It makes me really miss all my family back home.  But I’ll be home soon for Christmas! Yay!

Craft store adventures and the day from hell

10/29/12

So I had to the day from hell. But first let me go over the last week so you all stay informed.

I spent most of last week’s free time (so like three hours) making my fabulous costume. I had the hardest time finding a haberdashery (craft store here in England [side bar I went around saying “I am in need of a haberdashery, just because the word is fun]) in Sheffield. In the states I would be able to choose from Michael’s, or Jo ann fabrics, or AC Moore, but I couldn't find anything even close to that here. Finally I was able to locate a shop called Hobbycraft in Carbrook that was like a smaller version of Michael’s. I am beginning to think that we just have unusually large stores in the states. Like the ‘big’ Tesco is the size of a small supermarket back home. I learned that I should never be allowed in a craft store without proper supervision because I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. I totally need all those cake decorating things, right? I was able to restrain myself though. I then went to the mall to find some bright green makeup at Boots and a corset. I couldn't find a corset that I liked in my price range, aka cheap, so I ended up buying a plain black one from Primark. I went home and made my fabulous headband out of gold leaves and bright pink and green flowers. I wanted to jazz up the corset so I super glued little green gems.  The dress I got for the costume, while awesome, had way to high of a neck line. So I cut a line down the middle and used hemming tape to make it into a V-neck.

While doing this I was also studying anatomy and the bones of the skull, but I figure you really don’t want to hear about me sitting in my room for 4 hours looking at flash cards.

Friday was Mἁiri’s party. I had a lot of fun getting to put on my costume and do my makeup all green and glittery. I think I base my costumes on whether or not I can play with makeup.  I even put some of the left over gems on my face using the glue for fake lashes. It works great to apply stuff like that to the skin and it comes off really easy. Because my mother always taught me to never show up to a party empty handed, I made my favorite Mediterranean pizzas to bring over. We first went to the Red Deer for a drink, which was really funny in green fairy makeup and a corset. The party was a ton of fun. It was pretty much all of my fellow grad students, and in true osteology fashion we had 3 people dress up as skeletons.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the bone lab going over cranial features. I had a bit of breakdown on Sunday after spending 6 hours in the lab without a break, which is never a good thing.

So now we are ready for my day from hell. This morning I had my bone quiz, I have never felt more underprepared for a test before in my life. The temporal bone alone had 35 different features she could have asked up about. The quiz itself I felt about 50/50, half the time I knew what I was looking at, the half I was like “what the fuck is this?”. We got out and I felt like I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time. I went to the library and sent some emails, then headed to the café to hang out with some friends. In lecture I started to feel pretty sick, like stiff neck, headache, and nausea sick. Meningitis is a problem in England so I was kind of worried I had that, later I was reassured from my mother that I am, in fact, vaccinated against it. After class my jacket zipper broke and now it won’t zip up. I also realized that I had somehow lost my cell phone. I searched everywhere for it, the department, the café, and then in the library. My friend Nathalie sent me a facebook message saying that a guy found it in the library and called the last number I had dialed (Nathalie).  Lucky she went and got it for me and I picked it up from her. So to recap, bombed my test, sick, jacket broke, lost my cell phone, and now I’m eating half a pint of cookie dough ice cream to ease my pain.

Lovely

Follow the green fairy

10/22/12

Carpal bones are really hard to side, well some of them anyways. So for the past week I have been diligently studying the bones and morphology of the arm, forearm, and hand.  On Saturday,  after I went into the city center, I hung out in the lab for four hours staring at bones. Sunday I was in the lab from 3-8:30. But it wasn’t like I was there alone or anything; most of the Osteology class was there with me. Like I said, we’re suffering, but we’re doing it together.\

Today we had our bone quiz. I think it went alright, I felt more confident on this test then the first one. One of the questions we had to stick our hand in a bag and identify the bone by touch. For our next quiz on Monday we are doing the bones of the skull, which is going to make me kill myself. The sphenoid bone looks like nothing, like I cannot identify anything on the fragments. So another weekend in the bone lab, yippie!

This Friday my friend Mἁiri invited me to her Halloween party. I’m going as the green fairy from the Absinthe bottles, I’m pretty excited. If I can find it, I’m going to bring a bottle of absinthe and everyone can take shots. I found the perfect dress for it at Republic for 7 pounds which was great, and tomorrow I’m headed to the city to go to a haberdashery (craft store) to get fake flowers and a glue gun. I’m also going to need to stop by boots because all my fun green/gold makeup is in the states L so I need to buy some. Poor me I have to buy makeup, whatever will I do?

sorry for my inability to edit videos

10/15/12

Had a great weekend here in Sheffield. On Friday I went out with a bunch of girls from the Archaeology program to Bar one, which is one of the on campus bars. We usually go to the pub next to the department but we decided we wanted girly cocktails instead of beer and cider. We hung out there for a while and chatted. I demanded that my friend Mἁiri to use her Scottish powers to bring me Ewen McGregor or any other suitable Scottish husband.

 After the bar Caroline, Cindy, Lousia and I went to a club called Space. It sounds really weird typing that, we went to Space, haha. Because Cindy always needs to be annoyingly punctual we got there at 11pm when the club started. We were the first people there, it was really awkward. But since it was bubble night we got free bubbles which more than made up for it.  We danced until about 1am when we, as old grad students, went home to bed.

Saturday Cindy and I went to Harry Potter trivia night with the harry potter society. We were split up into our houses and were playing for house points. Most of the questions were really easy but a few we had no idea, like “who is the actor that voices the sorting hat?” It’s Leslie Phillips.  My house (Ravenclaw) came in second while the Gryffindor came in first. I found out that the society is having a formal Yule ball in December so I now have an excuse to buy a dress and a cloak

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Sunday I did my laundry, boring, and made this video showing you all how I get to class! Sorry about my inability to edit videos correctly.  I sound really out of breath in the video but it was really windy out that day I swear! It's a private video so you need to have the link to acess the file

so just click here  http://youtu.be/TIyETdUy9F0