Another Year of Life

As most of you know, I celebrated another birthday earlier this week!  It came at sort of a bad time, unfortunately.  I have a lot of work on right now with uni.  I had a huge exam the next day that I absolutely had to pass or would not be earning a Masters degree.  So the pressure was on and I spent most of my birthday in the library!  However, I was able to spend the morning with some of my lovely friends.

Brunch was planned at White Rabbit Teahouse with some of my classmates... really, any excuse for coffee and cake!  Turns out my "out of class" friends had been scheming with my classmates and they showed up also to surprise me!!  They even arranged to arrive early to secretly order me a slice of cake and gave the woman working candles to put on it!  Seriously, so thoughtful.

White Rabbit Teahouse

The group of us, minus one | My cake with candles :)

I have to say I wasn't particularly excited about my birthday, my feelings were coined the birthday blues.  But I ended up feeling so incredibly special and it was really warming to have these girls do so much for me!  Of course, I very much appreciated all the cards mailed to me, text messages, emails, Facebook posts, Instagram collages, and FaceTime calls also from family and friends near, far, old, and new!

My collection of cards from every one!

Considering my exam was the next day that was the extent of the celebration on my birthday.  But the next day I went out for Mexican with some other friends who couldn't make it to the brunch. They knew I had been craving it and it was bloody marvellous!!

It ended up being a lovely birthday celebration (spread over a few days)!  Many thanks to those that had a hand in making me feel loved.  

... oh, and I passed my exam ;)

Wicked Weather

Britishism of the week: 

brolly - an umbrella

My friends and family are keeping me very up to date on the snopocalypse happening across the US with weather alerts, photos, and snapchats.  I wonder how many people know that half of England is flooded?  Parts of the southern coast are practically falling into the ocean.  Ok, that may be a bit exaggerated.  But the flooding isn't.  There is a lot of animosity at the moment as there are not enough sandbags, nor are the agency responding as quickly as the tenants in the effect villages need.

Luckily, Nottingham is far enough north to not be affected much.  However, the rain has been intense lately.  I could deal with the rain.... but this rain is combined with cold and the most evil wind you every experienced in your life.  Brollies are useless because the wind just turns them inside-out.  Sometimes you have to hold your hat on your head.  Sometimes you have to just stop for a minute because you just can't seem to push through the resistance.  It whips through streets and against the buildings keeping you up at night.

Anyway, even though multiple people are without power in southern England and homes are destroyed, as in all natural disasters, people always turn up to help.... even Princes!!

School Spirit and Varsity Sport Matches

First, I'd like to apologise for my absence, especially for those of you that use this to keep up with me.  I was in the US for the holidays, and even though I've been back in the UK for a month now I have been really busy with school, and thus not much exciting has happened to talk about.

Until last week.... when I went to a hockey match!

Nottingham has a large ice rink and a renowned hockey team in the UK.  But that isn't why I was there.  Every year the University of Nottingham (my uni) has a series of varsity tournaments against Nottingham Trent University, which is on the other side of the city.  Apparently this is quite a big deal, and the two unis are pretty competitive rivals.  The tickets went on sale on a Friday and were sold out by Monday and then the venue released another 600 tickets which sold out within 30 minutes.  I haven't been to any student event in years, and this was quite exciting!  It made me miss undergrad a bit, because every one was so school-spirity and energised!  With somewhere around 6000 students from both unis watching the match I also got my first real experience of what a D1 sports environment is like in the US.

Upon arrival we bought tshirts and foam fingers to support our team

Within the first period we were down 3-0.  It was disappointing and frustrating, but the crowd was amazing.  Every one chants, mostly derogatory things towards the other Uni.  There is a rift between UoN and NTU because UoN is a prestigious university, with higher entry requirements and typically more affluent.  NTU used to be some equivalent of a community college, but now is an official University, however doesn't carry quite the same credibility to its name.  I didn't really participate in the chanting.  One, because I don't know the chants.  Two, I felt bad, especially having gone to a University for my undergrad that isn't considered a very high calibre.  Three, I'm just not a super competitive person and didn't see the need.  But I did get tons of enjoyment from listening to it all.

Anyway, the second period started and we managed to score, and again and again and again until we finally won 4-3 with just a few minutes left in the match!  It was quite exciting!!  Needless to say NTU students weren't too pleased, but we certainly were!!!  Claps for the hockey team!

They also host a variety of others matches over the next few weeks: American football, basketball, I think swimming, and maybe volleyball.