Last Post Before Leaving!

Phantom of the Opera Theatre - Her Majesty's Theatre - in Piccadilly Circus.
Lisa's photography skills - the flowers in front of Buckingham Palace.
JT on the lions in Trafalgar Square.
Me crossing Abbey Road.
Elisabeth, Lisa, Chelsea and me crossing Abbey Road.

Lisa and I in front of the fountain at Buckingham Palace.

So, here I am, leaving London tomorrow after four months of living here. It has been an incredible experience with some of my closest friends. None of us are exactly excited to leave the wonderful city, but we're all anxious to go home tomorrow. For the closure of our time here, I wrote the following note on Facebook, so I copied and pasted it on here so you could all experience it too. Thanks to all of you who faithfully followed my blog over my time here - I can't wait to see all of you again! Love, Gen


Things I've Learned from Studying Abroad...


-The entirety of the United States is afraid of commitment - from tooth whitening to relationships, diets to travel, Americans look for something perfect, quick, surface-level, and efficient.

-The world really IS as small as people say it is.

-I can't physically live without music. I nearly spontaneously combust without a piano and somewhere to sing.

-Everyone in the world besides Americans laughs at American politics.

-Americans take more pictures than anyone else in the world - except for Asians.

-If you're going to fly Air India, pack food to eat.

-Studying overseas is the true test of friendships.

-Don't let go of the people who live no more than three feet from you for four months - they've seen you at your best, worst, happiest, most depressed, and everything in between - and they love you anyway :-).

-Traveling can be the most liberating experience in the entire world.

-All shots are NOT created equally.

-All professors are not created equally.

-Laundry can be worn WAY longer than you think it can without being washed.

-Facebook is a wonderful tool for keeping in touch, but you'd be amazed at how good it feels to not look at it for a while.

-The power of positive (and negative) thinking is incredible.

-Irish karaoke = mic in one hand, pint in the other, and wordless song.

-German football games are CRAZY.

-Privacy is a privilege, not a right.

-Rice makes an awesomely cheap meal.

-The words "the next station is: Earl's Court" are EXTREMELY comforting after a long eventful weekend trip.

-As much fun as it is to ride the Tube, the bus is cheaper.

-Online games are WAY more effective at passing the time than studying :-).

-You know you have awesome friends when one word will make you crack up for hours on end (along with their farts - JT & Sarah!).

-Life's only predictable if you lie in bed worrying about it - and it's not predictable in a good way.

-A 50 pound luggage limit really isn't much when you're traveling BACK to the States.

-Winter wet-suits are warm in the water in Wales in January, but not when you take them off!

-Taking the stairs up the Eiffel Tower is a lot cheaper and a LOT more tiring!

-The statue of St. Genevieve, Patron Saint of Paris, is a phallic object. :-(

-Northern Ireland hospitality is awesome.

-You can't order an "Irish Car Bomb" in a pub in Ireland (Sarah!).

-Downtown Berlin is a really scary city at midnight when you can't find your hostel and you don't speak German.

-There aren't many public toilets in Hannover, Germany.

-Beaches are perfectly acceptable places to sleep when your hotel kicks you out.

-There are a LOT of stairs to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.

-The Superbowl just isn't the same without the commercials.

-Smart cars are hilarious.

-Normal roommates are a blessing.

-Doodling becomes a necessity to stay awake in 2-hour classes.

-Used book stores are dangerous places for me to be in. :-)

-Finding 5 pounds is WAYYYY better than finding $5.

-Anyone, no matter how close they are, can simply spend too much time together and it usually has bad effects.

-Trust is one of the most valuable things to be earned - and once you damage it, it's hard to get it back. But it's not impossible - and if you get the chance to fix it, take it with both hands.

-Sorry doesn't cut it - the actions have to change too.

-Everyone's problems and joys are completely relative to themselves - none are less or more important than the others.

-Last night paper-writing can be a bonding experience :-) (Lisa!).

-Ranch dressing, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Ramen, Mountain Dew, and Taco Bell should NOT be taken for granted.

-The people that are first on your mind when you first wake up, and when you go to sleep at night are probably supposed to be there.

-Most importantly - although I may not have figured out exactly who I am, I've learned what I'm not and who I don't want to be. I've realized past mistakes I've made and how to fix them if second chances allow. I've regained the strength to stand up for myself, and found the patience to pick my battles. I've realized who I need in my life and how to let go and let live. I've discovered that you can soul-search all you want, but the truth usually comes as a slap in the face when you least expect it. I've realized I need to quit worrying and just live, and I've learned how to work on that. I've realized that I can't judge how someone will act based on someone else's actions. I've realized I still have a lot to learn. And finally, I've learned that as incredible as this experience has been, and how many stories will never be told in the States :-), there is no replacement for home and the people you love.

Thursday afternoon

The group of us out at TGI Fridays one night - we were really excited to find American food!


No class for me today as usual :-).

This week was quiet - class Monday and Tuesday. Dr. Austin (my religion professor) made my week Monday by telling us that he was reducing our 8-10 page paper to 5-7 pages because of the short amount of time we have left. SWEEEEEET!

Monday night we had theatre class - Dr. Dryden informed me that there's a British movie called "Genevieve" with Rex Harrison and that I HAVE to see it since it's my name. :-) He also winked at me when he said there's karaoke at the end-of-semester party for the program. Uh oh :-).

Tuesday I managed to get myself registered for classes next fall. One more semester of random gen. ed. requirements :-(. When I went to do a trial schedule online Monday it said there was a problem with registering for my music theory class (I couldn't register for Theory III without registering for Sight Seeing III). So, I emailed Marcia (the assistant to the director of the Honors College), and she managed to get permission for me to take the class without Sightsinging III and got me all registered for it. Marcia is nothing short of a GOD. Seriously :-). At any rate, I'm registered for Abnormal Psychology (I can finally tell all of you what your problems are! mwuahahahahaha.), Music Theory III, Introduction to World Music, World History after 1600, Biomedical Sciences 110 (Honors, with Lisa, a BMS minor - last honors class ever!), and Spanish II. After this semester my gen. eds will be done except for a few requirements of the B.A. degree - I'll still need to take two more semesters of Spanish and a philosophy class. I'll also be one class away from completing my music minor. I'm also going to talk to my advisor about double minoring by adding a gerontology minor. I figured out the class schedule and I can fit it in four years if I take a class or two next summer, which I think is worth it - so I'll see what he says (ps. did I mention my advisor has been Advisor of the Year the past two years? Yeah.. I got lucky :-)).

Tuesday night we had our very last BLC lecture and turned in our last BLC weeklies (our weekly papers)! Wednesday we went to the Globe Theatre for our BLC field trip - I'd already gone with Mom, Tim, Jeff, BJ & Marilyn, but it was fun to go again. Afterwards, JT, Sarah and I wandered over to the Tate Modern next door for a few hours. Since we'd been to the Tate Britain, it was fun to see the modern version. Last night JT and I went with the girls in Flat 9 to see the play "Woman in Black." The show was AWESOME. It's a ghost story about a woman that dies and then man that has to go to her house and sort through her will and papers. The play only has three actors - two men and the Woman in Black. I managed to refrain from screaming during the show, but not everyone did :-). It was great. The girls from Flat 9 have become pretty good friends of ours - plus they all go to MSU as well! We're looking forward to hanging out with them a lot next year too :-).

Which brings me to today - Lisa and I are off to Primark for the LAST time while we're in London. Primark is the equivalent of the prices of Walmart, but the fashion of a department store... yeah, it's been hard to refrain :-). I'm also going to (hopefully) finish up my souvenir shopping - for all you people back home!! :-) Oh yeah, and then I'll probably work on homework....hehe.

That's all for now folks - except for a quick message for Kaitlin:

I hope your arm feels better sweetheart! I love you!

Love to all,
Gen

Saturday afternoon

No pictures to add today - just an update. JT, Lisa, and I have spent the last few days slugged out and enjoying London. Most of the girls in our building are off in Spain for the weekend, Sarah's in Exeter meeting Toby's parents, Chelsea's working, and (for those of you who don't know) our other roommate Zai was sent home a couple weeks ago - so the three of us have had a quiet weekend to ourselves; which has been nice after all the traveling we've been done!

We were going to try and make a trip to Scotland this weekend or next, but we didn't book train or coach tickets before the prices skyrocketed. So we're officially done traveling outside London - so we're going to spend the last couple weekends exploring the corners of London and doing HOMEWORK.

Wednesday JT and I managed to get our flat some free groceries (legally! I promise! :-)). When we moved into the flat there was a TON of travel and left-over text books just sitting here. After tripping over them multiple times, Lisa finally asked the program director if we could find a used book store and sell them. She said yes so JT and I took off Wednesday to try two different used book stores. I had found one in Notting Hill the weekend before (it's an AWESOME store - a little hole in the wall where I got 3 books for less than two pounds), but we decided to try one in Kensington (on Gloucester Road) first. After filling SIX Sainsbury's bags with books, JT and I took off, making the trek with only a couple stops every block to ease our hands and arms :-). We threw ourselves in the door of the bookshop and when they responded "yes, we buy books" JT and I found the energy to do a happy dance. The woman bought about 8 of our books and paid us 20 pounds! She gave us stronger bags to carry the rest of them and we took off on the Tube for Notting Hill. My now-favorite bookstore bought the rest of the books and we walked away with a total of 34 pounds! So we made our way to Sainsbury's, bargain shopped so well that Sainsbury's almost owed US money when we walked out, and walked back in the flat with six Sainsbury's bags - this time full of FOOD! We were VERY excited.

Thursday the three of us slept in and made our way back up to Notting Hill to SHOP in the bookstore and just wander the area. I left with six books for five pounds - one of which I gave to Chelsea as a feel-better gift. We spent the rest of the day goofing around and playing cards in the flat - oh, and making a midnight run to Sainsbury's for chips, salsa, and Nutella! :-)

Yesterday (Friday) we once again slept in :-), and found our way to the Kensington Public Library up on High Street. We're all in the religion class together (which is really more of a philosophy class) and we all have 8-10 page papers due the 15th - so while everyone's fretting over taxes back home, I will also be fretting over adding the remaining 8 pages to my paper :-). Just kidding - kind of... but at any rate - Lisa and I are both writing our papers about a Buddhist scripture, so we were successful in finding some resources at the library yesterday. No one can say we didn't do anything for school this weekend! And then we continued to once again watch movies and play the night away in cards.

Which brings me to today - Saturday afternoon - I'm still wrapped up in my blanket, and we're all still in our PJ's. We've got no plans for the day except for intending to do homework.. we'll see how it goes. Our friend Jo (a girl name) is having a bit of a bad day, so she's up here spending the day with us and drowning her sorrows (and our appetites) in the chocolate cake she's currently baking in the kitchen. NO complaints here! :-)

Tomorrow's JT's birthday, so we've got plans to go out tomorrow night. The Olympic torch will also be going through London tomorrow late morning, so we're going to get our lazy arses out of bed to see it :-). It's not too often you can have the conversation "Should we go see the Olympic Torch tomorrow? It's going through Notting Hill and Piccadilly Circus." "Yeah, let's catch it in Notting Hill - it's only two tube stops as opposed to six.." :-)

Other than that - life's all about finishing up classes and enjoying the last 22 days in London. Although I'm not necessarily excited to leave London, I'm ready to go home. I actually had a dream about being back on the US dollar without an exchange rate. It was awesome. :-) I also informed Dad that immediately after picking me up from the airport we need to make a stop at Taco Bell. It's the weirdest things that you miss......

That's all for now folks!
Love to all,
Gen

PS. HI TO KAITLIN! I LOVE YOU!