L-O-V-E

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around."

First off- Merry Christmas everybody!

With the Christmas season abuzz lately, I've been thinking a lot about the holiday favorite film Love Actually. Yes, that comedic (yet romantic) British movie that everybody loves. The film follows a multitude of relationships, from the platonic to the hopeless and, of course, the passionate. While the movie has it's ups and downs, it overall has an important message to it: love is everywhere. Whether it's from a spouse, a parent, or a friend; one is never far from love.

While the movie provides many quotable sayings ("I hate Uncle Jamie!") my favorite lines from the entire movie are the ones said at the very beginning. The opening of the movie is a series of captured video from the London-Heathrow airport of people being reunited with each other. What makes the candid shots so powerful is the absolute true emotion of love which is seen. Something which no amount of cinematography or acting can capture. Over top of these embraces Hugh Grant tells the message of the film.

I hope that this past holiday everybody was able to find love is the simplest places.  I know it's easy to lose the spirit of the holiday within the shuffle of the materialism. While we tend to try to show our love through presents around this time, it's much more meaningful to do it in other ways.

Remember- the first day of Christmas just began today. We have 11 more to go. Try to be a little more patient with a friend or relative, or give them an extra hug or real compliment. All of these things go far.

And never forget- Love is all around.

Rent

The first weekend of November I happened to find myself pretty sick after a random and sudden case of tonsillitis. It was a Friday night, and also Homecoming weekend, so I found myself alone in my room while my friends were all at the concert on campus. I decided I couldn't get myself to do anything other than just lay down, so I decided to watch something to keep myself busy while I was exerting all that hard energy. I just so happened to run across a recorded stage performance of the musical Rent on Broadway, and watched it for the rest of the evening.

Anybody who really knows me knows that I love musicals. I have a teensy-tiny obsession with Gene Kelley, and occasionally (and by that I mean quite often) will burst out into some of my favorite songs filling in all the roles myself. Although I'm too young to have partaken in the original movement of the musical Rent, it's become one of my all-time favorites, and definitely one which I can relate to on some level.

While most musicals are cheesy and full of flair, which no lie, is partially why I enjoy them, Rent is raw. It's not bright colors and skipping, but it's dirty- and it's not afraid to talk about the hardships of life. It deals with what real relationships are like, not ignoring their ups, but not denying their downs. It also isn't afraid to deal with difficult issues head on- with multiple characters living with HIV or AIDs, not knowing where their next meal is coming from, and don't really have a real place to live. As it says in the song Rent, "How can you connect in an age/ Where strangers, landlords, lovers/ Your own blood cells betray."

The characters of the musical are also extremely well developed. They all have flaws, but they're all relatable- not too over the top. They all deal with the same problems that people in real life do too. Everybody knows a drug-addict, a struggling musician/filmmaker, somebody dealing with a terminal illness, trying to keep a stable relationship with jealousy and mistrust involved, or just simply getting over being dumped. Maybe you're one of these people yourself! Not only do you begin to develop a relationship with these characters whom you're watching, but you find yourself in them and all of their relationships. When they're in pain, you're able to channel that feeling which you've once felt yourself.

One of my favorite things about the musical is obviously the music. All of the songs were written to have a rock edge to them, make it closer to the music of that time period. They easily sounds like songs which can be found on the radio. But most importantly, many of the songs from Rent can be read at poetry themselves; such as their hit song Seasons of Love which I've embedded the song in a video in this post. Just sit back and really listen to the words of the song.

If you haven't seen the musical, I highly encourage it. Unfortunately it's no longer being performed on Broadway, but most of the original cast (whom really took them on and defined them, since they were still being developed after they had been cast) can be seen in the movie- which is not to be missed. Or, if you don't really want to put in all that effort, you can find some pretty amazing clips online. I definitely encourage watching Another Day as a stage performance, especially with original cast if you can find them.

I just want to end this post with what I've learned from Seasons of Love. Time moves fast. Enjoy it while you can. Live every minute of your life with an agenda, and make the most of it while you can. Accept all of the things which come with living- the good and the bad, because just being able to feel is what makes life worthwhile.

Bittersweet Symphony

I'm leaving in about an hour for the airport. Almost everything is packed up and ready to go, just the tiniest little details are left. Having not gotten much sleep last night nor this week, I hope that I'll be able to finally get some sleep on the plane. If not, well then don't expect me to be a very happy for the first couple of days.

This experience has been absolutely amazing, and I really wish I wasn't leaving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not despising going back, but there's just something here that feels so right and so fitting. If I could spend next summer here in O

xford, I would do it hands down, no questions. In fact, I really do want to come back to Oxford, I feel as if while I've been here I've been too much of a local and not enough of a tourist. There are so many things which I could've seen here, but just didn't take the opportunity too.

It's going to be weird not hearing English accents all the time, we were all having a discussion about that last night. (And for the record, I have a rubbish English accent, but an amazing Cockney one.) There's going to be so much here that I'm going to miss, and I know that it hasn't quite hit me yet. Especially the people. I didn't think we'd be interacting so much with the students here and become friends with them. I just always assumed there would be a barrier there or something that we would recognize them in passing, and nothing else. And it's true, the Texas program really was the only program that did actually hang out with them, so maybe we're just the weird ones; but regardless on whether or not we should've, we did. I got a little sad when hanging out with some of them last night when realizing that I'm most likely NOT going to see these people ever again. They've said so much how they would love to come to the US and see Austin, but it is an investment and can be a bit of a hassle. 

If they do, though, they can always find a friendly face in that big city.

There are some things I'm looking forward to: Mexican food, regular ketchup, watching TV online (most shows are blocked from viewing in the UK), seeing friends and family, sunshine and nice weather, and I'm sure much more once I finally arrive.

Please, for the sake of my transition, use 'lovely' instead of nice, 'cheers' instead of thanks, 'brilliant' instead of great, and 'rubbish' instead of bad. One of the guys last night actually made a comment about how well we had done at incorporating it in to our speech. I was talking about soccer, but had been referring to it as 'football' and he didn't think about how I had been doing that until halfway in to our conversation.

Oh yes, American football, add that to the things I'm looking forward to.

Well, Cheers Oxford, Hello America. Don't be a stranger, always stay a friend. I hope that isn't the last time that we'll be together. You'll always be a part of me.

We'll Always Have Brasenose...

Things have been pretty busy here lately, we're all trying to cram in all the last little things that we can. But me go back a little bit...

Aunt Sally was a blast! I played, and I wasn't horrible, as in I didn't hurt anybody or get any of the wooden sticks stuck in a tree, but, alas, I didn't hit the dolly at all. Not surprisingly, we got killed. But it was really interesting to learn more about the local sport and hang out with locals who aren't Oxford students. There was a lot of trash-talking on our side, saying at least we won the Revolution and the War of 1812, and even reciting (as much as we could remember of) the Declaration of Independence. But, since we did so poorly, we're going to be featured in the local newspaper! It's tradition when anybody loses all 3 legs of the game. I'm looking at it in a positive light.

Tuesday was a full day of schoolwork, just trying to finish up all the last little assignments there were.

But yesterday, was simply a great way to end! We went to the Globe Theater to see them perform Romeo and Juliet, and it was a great experience! This was probably the first time I've ever seen this play performed and actually believed the girl was 13, so good casting on that. We were groundlings, and we were right up front, so we were actually resting on the stage. I even got serenaded to by some of the musicians! So, that was definitely a special moment. But, the best part, was that we got to have a Q and A with the actors who played Romeo and Mercucio! We learned a lot of really cool stuff from them, a little bit too much to probably mention here, so hopefully I'll still remember by the time I get back to tell y'all. Oh- and the guy sitting in the chair in the photo is the actor who played Mercucio.

Oh yeah! I finally saw Harry Potter too! It's really interesting getting to see the movie while actually here at Oxford, just seeing the scenery and such. Just the buildings are just like the ones here, it's crazy. It just helped me see the movie in a completely different way, I can't really explain it any other way.

Tonight is our banquet night. I'll be getting ready right after this. We'll all be putting on our pretty dresses and having one last nice evening together, with apparently endless rolls and wine, so it'll probably end up being pretty interesting itself. I can't believe this is our last evening together, these 5 weeks have flown by really fast. I'm really not ready to leave this place, it's just such an amazing atmosphere. And I've become friends with a lot of the Brasenose people too, and it's just sad to think that I probably won't be seeing any of them ever again. I did some last minute gift shopping for myself today, some Brasenose sweatpants to help me remember this place. You get a lot of pride too with the college you're at. I'll miss this place.

Well, it's time to get a rollin' for tonight. One last night where we'll all be together up hanging out early in to the morning.

Also, Scotland photos will be up on Shutterfly soon. I'm uploading them as we speak, but they still have about 45 minutes until it's done.

Cheers!

Dear Aunt Sally...

You know you've been in the United Kingdom for 5 weeks when... You get urges to spell things with a 'u' in them, you begin saying 'cheers' to them, you say 'pardon' instead of 'excuse me,' and you get taken aback when you receive crispy bacon instead of Canadian ham when you order bacon.

I'm sure I could think of more later on...

So I'm back at Oxford and I have one more week left. This whole trip really has just flown by, and I'm really going to be sad to leave here. I absolutely love the UK, and I really don't want to leave. I've done so much, but I feel as if I've done barely even touched what there is to do. I actually believe I'm going to get Oxford-sick when I get home. It finally just hit me this morning that we're almost done. One of the girls here, Jess, who we've gotten pretty close with is leaving for holiday tomorrow, and so tonight is out last night hanging out with her. Sad.

Anyways, enough depressing stuff. Update on me. I had another slightly stressful traveling situation yesterday with the British rail system. Although I definitely wish the US used more trains and depended a lot less on driving, it's definitely not a perfect system. I planned it out so that I could get in to Oxford comfortably enough to have time to unpack and get dinner in our hall. Well, my first train came in 20 minutes late. I only had 2, but still, it was enough so that I was going to miss the connection for my next train and get in an hour later than expected (just in case you didn't pick it up, the trains run about hourly). Well, on my first train, we had a lot of difficulty getting in to Carlisle, and that 20 minute delay turned in to a whole hour delay. So once I finally got to Wolverhampton, I only had about 5 minutes to go to the sign to find out where my platform was (happened to be the same platform- awesome), and run on to the bus. No way was I going to be sitting there for another hour and miss my FREE (or really already paid for) dinner at Oxford! But I made it, in the nick of time thankfully. So, although I got in an hour later, I'm glad that I had been prepared for a situation like this, and I barely made it in time for dinner! Which was actually a pretty good one too- Butterbean soup, Ribeye steak, Potatoes, Yorkshire pudding (I actually really like this stuff), and then strawberries and cream for dessert.

I ended up just crashing last night. I borrowed a friends movie of Emma and kind of fell asleep during it... Well, I woke up in the middle of it, but decided I would go back to where I had left off later and catch up.

But tonight is what I'm really excited for. Apparently the Texas group here at Oxford has gotten our name known around town... how? I'm not exactly sure, probably from some of the students here who we've befriended. Well, it turns out that we were invited to play an intense of 'Aunt Sally' down at a pub tonight by the mayor of Oxfordshire, or somebody really high up like that. Really awesome, right? Except for none of us know what Aunt Sally exactly is, and somehow I got chosen out of 8 people to be on the official Texas Team. But free food and drinks, so we're not one's to say no to that, even if we have to make ourselves look like fools in the process.

Here's a clip online I found of Aunt Sally- this is all I know about it too! I just hope I don't accidentally hurt somebody in the process...

Ok, well I'm off to writing some more Shakespeare journal entries and reading some of Woolf's novel the Waves.

Catch up with y'all later!

Landscapes and Costumes

So I woke myself up early this morning to go out in to a new day in Edinburgh! I had a hard time getting out of bed, but I was still able to make it out by 9:45. First stop: fooooood. I stopped by a coffee shop recomended to me by Elaine. I ordered a Cafe Latte, 2 meat rolls (in my defense- they were cheap and I knew I needed a big breakfast since I wasn't planning on getting lunch), and took out my Woolf novel. A group of Englishmen came in and sat down next to me and were kinda loud, so I wasn't really able to get much reading done. But I got my nutrition, and was off for the day!

First stop: Arthur's Seat. Something I've kinda learned about myself from the past year. I actually enjoy hiking. This may be strange remembering the 'Milkshake Incident' when I was younger, but I do enjoy it. Not a huge fan of walking through parks, but hiking, I do kinda like. So I was really excited when I first got there. It was probably about a 2 mile walk already down there, and on top of it I accidentally left my water bottle back at the flat, so I decided not too push myself too hard. Plus, it's such a massive Park that I would have to spend an entire day just trying to hike it! Which of course I would love to do sometime. Next trip to Scotland... Once I got to the top it was absolutely gorgeous! You could see the entire city. I decided to sit down on the cliffs and sit down and read some more Woolf. I sat there for about half an hour just enjoying the view and the weather. Surprisingly enough, the weather has been amazing here this past weekend, so it was quite nice to sit there for a bit.

I then walked the Royal Mile back up to where all the action from the Fringe was taking place. There were a lot of street performances going on to promote all of the different shows going on these weeks. They were only about 20 minutes long, but they were for free, so it was a really nice deal! And there was a lot of costumes too. People were there passing out flyers in their clothes from their performances or just wild and crazy costumes to get people's attention. There were many interesting ways of passing out flyers too, including laying down on the ground and others.

But the best things were the street performances, which I saw a lot of too. Once again, free! A lot of them were your typical street performances- comedy, fire, painful things. What I wasn't expecting though, was being part of it myself. It just so happened that I was right at the edge for one of the performances, and the guy asked me to inspect the glass bottle he was going to break and to join the rest of the glass that he was going to lay on. Well, he then pulled me out of the crowd and told me that I was going to be helping him for the rest of the show along with another man from Liverpool. And of course I got teased, many times. Such as with this...
(He had asked me my name once and forgotten it, so I reminded him again)
SP (Street Performer): Or do you want Kissindra to do the trick?
Me: Kendra, it's Kendra!
SP: Oh of course, but what difference does it really make! Or do you want Kendra from- now, where are you from?
Me: Texas
SP: Oh an American, that explains a lot!

And then of course I was pointed out for being a tourist and much more. The crowd ended up wanting to watch the other guy stand on his chest while he laid on the glass, but I still ended up helping by keeping the guy steady. I really wish that I could've had photos of it. But since I was alone, I had nobody to take photos for me. But, I can offically say that I've traveled to another country and had a lot of strangers who I'll never see again take photos of me to show everybody they know! I spent about 3.5 hours walking around the Royal Mile area, and never got bored. There was always something to watch. I also did some shopping for treats, got something for myself and mom and dad- so start looking forward to me coming home!

On my way back home, I stopped by this art exhibit I saw a sign for. It was art done by Scottish prison inmates. It was actually really powerful to see some of the stuff there. I was able to sneak some photos of it, so I'll be able to show y'all. The art also included poetry, which was really cool to read. I'm glad that I stumbled across the sign and decided to walk in.

After 7 hours out for the day (and lots accomplished) I headed back to the apartment. I went down to the little corner restaurant and got dinner, nothing really special, and I'm on my way back to Oxford tomorrow. I'll probably go ahead and leave fairly early in the day tomorrow so I can make dinner at school.

So I'm not sure if I'll really do anything in Edinburgh tomorrow, since it'll be a Sunday and most likely nothing will be open. But if not, I had an amazing time. Out of all the countries that I've visited this trip (which is 4: Scotland, England, Ireland, and France), Scotland is probably the country I would want to come back and visit the most. I would love to come back and actually see the Tattoo or some performances from the Fringe. But, mostly, just to visit more places. I would love to do more of Edinburgh, and then also visit the Highlands and Loch Ness. Although I would love to go back to England- but just do something other than the London thing; maybe Liverpool or Manchester or Nottingham.

Oh well, I really can just say that I am extremely lucky to have this opportunity. I wish all of y'all could've been here with me to enjoy it. 1 week and I'll be home, so sad.

I'll try to post one later with a bunch of photos, once I'm on my own computer.

Will blog later!

Haggis, and Kilts, and Bagpipes, Oh My!

So I'm blogging from Scotland! Cheers!

It was an interesting, and a little nerve-wracking, getting in. I was a little scared something was going to go wrong, and well, I was right. I was going Oxford to Wolverhampton to Lancaster to Edinburgh. I had contacted Elaine (my contact in Edinburgh who was there to pick me up from the station) that I would be coming in at 7:30 according to my specific plan. I was mostly nervous that I was going to accidentally miss one of my connections because they were only about 10 minutes. Well, I got off at Wolverhampton to see that my next train was running 20 minutes late. I had only 7 minutes in between that train and my one after it. Yeah... I missed it of course. So I had a longer wait in Lancaster (and got some nice photos of the train station) and had to wait for the next train, which runs hourly. Not only was I running an hour late to Edinburgh, but I don't have an international phone plane on my cell phone, so I had no way of contacting anybody that I was late. So I had a nerve-wracking travel from Lancaster to Edinburgh. Thank goodness that I was right that not very many people would be walking around the train station in burnt orange 'Texas' hoodies, so it was very easy for Elaine to know who I was. And yes, she was thankfully still waiting there for me! So it was an experience... but I'm here and that is the most important thing!

Last night after I got in, Elaine and I got dinner and basically just hung out around her flat talking and such. I learned some more stuff about Scotland. We discussed accents, traveling, and such. Fun fact for the day: In Scotland, it is traditional for 21st (sometimes 18th) birthday of a young man, his parents will buy him a kilt and the rest of his family will buy other parts of the outfit to make it complete. I find it funny that the 21st birthday is almost more important over here than it is in the US. In England, when somebody turns 21, their parents throw them a HUGE party, traditionally spending about 3 grand. It's suppose to be a sign of them finally becoming independent from their parents. Cool, huh? Another funny thing I learned. I had mentioned that in Ireland, people could tell without us speaking that we were Americans and I was wondering how they could do it. Elaine told me that even though she wouldn't be able to say precisely American, she knew I wasn't Scottish because of how tan I was! I wouldn't have thought about that...

Ok- back to Scotland. This morning we woke up and got brunch. We went down to this nice little organic/green Cafe, which was pretty nice! The night before I had been talking Haggis with Elaine, and so she decided to order a side of it, and her friend got the veggie version, and sure enough I tried it! Be proud, ok! I never thought that I would ever eat it... I myself ordered French Toast with maple syrup and bacon. Much to my surprise, it was American bacon and it was suppose to be eaten on top of the toast! It was absolutely delicious, I loved it. We then wandered around town, and I was shown Princes Street and the Royal Mile, which are the 2 biggest places in Edinburgh. There are tourists everywhere here for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo Festival (starting this weekend) and the Fringe Festival (which started last weekend)- so for once I don't feel too odd being a tourist.

At the end of the Royal Mile is the Edinburgh Castle, so Elaine and I parted there. She left for Wales today for a frisbee tournament, so I'm alone for the rest of the weekend. I love castles, and have been to a few by now, and I had a blast at the Edinburgh one. It seemed very... Scottish. It was really rustic off of a rocky cliff with a lot of grass. Exactly how I think of Scotland. The view up from there was absolutely gorgeous, and one of my favorite photos that I got was of the back of a cannon where you can see the view peaking through where the cannon sticks out. At the castle I went to the Scottish War Memorial, the Scottish War Museum, the room where Queen Mary gave birth to King James, saw the Scottish crown jewels, saw where the crown jewels were buried during WWII, and where King James was almost murdered- but then killed his suspected murderers instead. I actually loved looking at all the outfits at the Scottish War Museum, and the bagpipes too. Unfortunately I couldn't check out the chapel, because there was a wedding going on! What a great place to have one. Plus great place to take photos!

I walked out of the castle back to the Royal Mile, where all of the action for the Fringe Festival is. There are a lot of people passing out flyers for shows going on with the festival for comedy, music, and theater. There were even people passing out 'Free Hugs'... along with flyers. They would also dress up really crazy like; such as Snow White, polar bears, underlings, etc. There were also a lot of side shows on the street to. I stopped to see the most pierced woman in the world (creeeeeeeeepy), a dance done by a Korean dance group (which was actually more comical than anything- it was very oddly coreographed, but they didn't commit to it), and my favorite which was these 2 Frenchmen who did a comedy/tricks act. I also saw a man in a kilt playing bagpipes, so my trip to Scotland has offically been complete. A lot of people who live on that street would just watch everything out of the windows. There are a few flyers which looked like interesting shows, such as this one with Australian women dressing up as Disney princesses for a satirical performance on gender roles, but I doubt I'll check them out. I'm a little bit nervous walking around a strange city in a strange country at night alone. Elaine's apartment isn't in the middle of the city either, it's in it's own neighborhood too. So next time I come to the Fringe Festival...

Oh yeah! I also stopped by the Whisky Shop, located right outside of the castle, to just see what was there. The actual tour was 11 pounds, so I decided not to do it, but I did go in and see all of the Whisky they had. Over 300 kinds. The castle also had a whisky taste testing set up, but I decided against it. Still does not seem appealing.

Tomorrow I'm planning on waking up early and going to Arthur's Seat. It's a hill in Edinburgh where there's a great view of the entire town. After that I think I'm just going to hang out on the Royal Mile for the rest of the day. Watch some street performances, collect flyers, buy some touristy things, and who knows what else. I'll find something to do, I'm sure. I'm still debating on going out to watch the fireworks after the Tattoo tomorrow night. I would love to see it, but once again, walking home alone. Not quite sure if I'm in to that.

Well, I've taken over 100 photos so far. And I'm in none of them. So hopefully even more will be taken tomorrow!

Love y'all! Keep Followin'!