The Second Week...again...for the first time...in London.

And so I've made it through another week in London. This past week has involved more food, exciting travel, and classic American tourist excursions that you all have to look forward to reading about right now. How exciting. I officially give all readers complete permission to live vicariously through me. See the world through my eyes, experience the bits and pieces that I allow you to experience, and most of all, feel homesick when I feel homesick. I'm sure that's the best part anyway. Now for London.

WEDNESDAY(of last week): Wednesdays are good days for me when it comes to school. I only have one class in the morning and then I have the rest of the day off. The only problem with this is that it seems like I'm the only person in this program that has the rest of the day off. Shopping seems like the most logical thing to do when this sort of thing happens, so go shopping was exactly what I did. Only for bread and pastrami though. Not that exciting.

THURSDAY: In terms of excitement Thursday was full of it. I got to have tea at Kensington Palace, which I must say was one of the better experiences I've had thus far, and also one of the first clearly British things I've done. We sat at a table and had tea and mini-cucumber sandwiches(which I did try, for the record), scones, and cake. We discussed the weather and in general had an awfully British time. Other exciting news was that it was the first night of my group's weekly "family" dinners. Not a bad way to kick off the weekend(emphasis on the "end" of "weekend" because that's more British).

FRIDAY: We went to Stonehenge on Friday. It was my goal to be the most touristy person in my group, and so I wore the "Stonehenge Rocks" shirt that Spenser got for me. I had saved the shirt for that day specifically so that I could have an epic reveal of my nerdy tourism for all the world to see. It was very exciting. The rocks were cool too, but looking like a tourist and being super proud of it felt much more American. We also went to the Salisbury Cathedral where I got to see the Magna Carta and felt much less cool wearing my "Stonehenge Rocks" shirt.

SATURDAY: I went shopping again, twice actually, on Saturday. Once for myself and once to help show a couple people where the store was at. It was certainly good exercise. Plus, the grocery store was having an epic half-off sail, which means as a college student I have to take advantage by buying the complete supply of canned goods and non-perishable items. I didn't actually do that though, but my friends did.

SUNDAY: I went to a more normal church on Sunday. Now to move on to the fun part. I decided to use my Sunday afternoon to take a nice 3 hour walk around the city. It was very exciting. I walked through Hyde park, which is always exciting, and I also got around to going to Portobello Road for the first of many times to come. It was certainly a great place to walk around. Then when I was walking back through Hyde park I spent some time watching British people. It was very exciting. I saw a father teaching his son how to play football(soccer) in the distance and it made me think of how cool British people were. Then I walked by and heard the father talking in a perfect American accent. I don't understand why a British person would do this.

MONDAY: School started again on Monday, and it was my bad day of school yet again. The good news is that I got to have a hamburger that night for the first time since being here. It'd been a whole two weeks since I'd had a classic hamburger, so I was quite happy with it. Though, in all honesty, I've probably gone longer than that without having a hamburger many times in the states without even thinking about it. I suppose you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. I should get the rights to that phrase. It seems very original and clever.

TUESDAY: Tuesday my Humanities class went to The National Gallery for a museum trip. It was very interesting to stare at a few of the paintings for minutes on end. I'm so used to going to museums and just walking through quickly so that I can see everything that it is a nice change of pace to be able to have the time to just look at a couple paintings in one trip. I have the next two semesters to go to all of the museums here and see everything I want to see. Which is quite a bit, but also not very much.

WEDNESDAY: There is a communal guitar in the lounge here at the house, which I find myself playing for a couple hours each day, but not this day. I really like the guitar, but one of the strings broke and it made me sad. I could still play it, but it didn't sound the same and I really just want it to be fixed. It will happen soon enough, and when it is fixed I'll be even happier with it than I was before I'm sure. Aside from that the day was relatively boring. And it would seem that the sun has now set on this week. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

Week One...again...for the first time...in London

And so it would seem I have made it to another country. It has been a while since I've written and so I'm going to do the natural thing and pretend the last four months are completely irrelevant to this blog. I have decided to not use the format of attempting to write every Saturday, and instead I have chosen to write just when I happen to find the time. I'm a much more laid back person now. Obviously. Anyways(sorry Mom), I am now in London, England. It is quite the thrill really. But I'll share the intricacies of British life more as this blog progresses. I no longer have my little blue man, but I'm going to assume that the readership of this blog have the imaginations to place him where he need be. So I suppose now I shall tell you about the experiences of the last week.

WEDNESDAY: Wednesday was basically a non-day. Got to the airport at 11:30 to leave for London, and then was on a plane for ten hours until I got there. By the time I did get to where I am now it was...

THURSDAY: Arriving in London was quite the thrill for me. I have never been this far away from home and so it has been interesting to experience this new found freedom. It's like I have all of a sudden become more independent. Which is why I'm writing this blog for my parents and friends and family back home to read. Independence. My first real meal in London naturally had to be something completely British, and so we went to a restaurant called Wagamama's, where I had curry chicken and rice. So very British.

FRIDAY: Friday was spent in orientation for the London program, where we spent a whole lot of time hearing about what we would be doing in said program. Relatively unexciting stuff. But we did spend time walking around the city and getting to know our surroundings, which was exciting. Once again when we went to lunch I decided to have some good old fashioned British food. A spicy chicken sandwich with potato chips(french fries). So very British. I did enjoy the napkins they had at the restaurant though. Mine said, "Now remove all evidence." I found it quite clever.

SATURDAY: Saturday was the biggest day so far I'd say(though technically all of the days have been equally big, accept for the one I am currently in which is not finished yet, so who knows what might happen). We went on a group photo scavenger hunt which was very exciting indeed. Most of the pictures on this blog will have come from that one day. We basically saw all of the big sites in London, while acting like insane lost American tourists. But we did all of the normal things. Took a picture with a cabbie, took a picture with a man wearing a Union Jack t-shirt, and ate more British food... pizza. Totally normal British things to do.

SUNDAY: I went with some friends to a church called Hillsong. One fun thing about the church was that it was in the same theatre that shows the We Will Rock You musical. Though it did seem somewhat strange to go to a church that had a statue of Freddie Mercury on top of the entrance. The church itself was more like a motivational conference than a church. A band played music and there was lots of jumping around and that kind of thing. Then a preacher went up and talked, naturally having a slow musical build up as his sermon ended to make sure everyone had an emotional connection. Then there was more singing and jumping and then it was over. (The picture to the right is clearly not the church we went to.)

MONDAY: It didn't quite seem right to be going to school in a place like this. It really still seemed like vacation. But Mondays are certainly my toughest days this semester, considering the fact that I have 3 classes. Hopefully I'll be able to do alright in all of them. If not then maybe I'll try to be average in all of them. In any case, I'll be consistent. We did go out and have crepes for dinner that night. Not your normal run of the mill crepes. My crepe had Indian curry chicken with rice. Quite delicious. Quite British. As usual.

TUESDAY: I woke up at 7:30, even though I didn't have class until 10, because I'm attempting to turn myself into a morning person. I believe it's possible, it will just take some work. So that means if you're reading this in California and you want to talk to me you could just stay up until midnight and chances are I'll be awake and totally willing to have someone to talk to. School was much easier and somewhat enjoyable on this day, but I'm not getting my hopes up that it will always be like this. I'm sure it will be dreadful soon enough. In any case, I have now been away from home for an entire week, and in my opinion(which will always be correct) I have adjusted quite well. It's technically Wednesday now, but where I come from, the sun has set on what has been my first week in this grand new place. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Thirteenth Week

Let's just not have pictures for now.

And so we've made it to week thirteen. Lucky thirteen. This post, of course, is coming well past week thirteen. My apologies for that(Maybe thirteen isn't so lucky), I've had a busy time though, so I hope you will understand. Week thirteen brought with it much change. And I'm not just talking about the coins I found on the ground throughout the week (42 cents, but who's counting). I'm talking about the fact that I am now officially done with my freshman year of college. I survived. Only three more years to go. But let's just take it one week at a time for now.

SUNDAY: You'd think I'd have been studying for finals at this point, but no. Both of my actual finals wouldn't come until Friday, so I decided to give myself the weekend to rest. How nice of me, right? I did watch Pretty Woman for the first time though. It was pretty funny, but I think I like the Richard Gere-Julia Roberts duo a little bit more in Runaway Bride. But that's just my opinion.

MONDAY: Note to self: It's a bad idea to get a Nintendo 64 with Mario Kart the week of finals. It wasn't me that got it, but I did participate in the breaking in of the game. I just have no self-control whatsoever. Mario Kart has to be one of the best games ever created though, mainly because it's one of the few video games that I can do partially good at. By good I of course mean not come in last every time.

TUESDAY: Tuesday I finally got to studying, and I said good-bye to SAAJ as an actual class for the rest of my life. I will miss it for sure, but at the same time, I won't miss it. As much as I try to love a given class, the love of that class never changes the fact that it is still a class. And I love being out of class far more than I love being in one. We did have pizza though. Pizza makes it much much easier to be in class. If any professors or teachers are reading this...please take note.

WEDNESDAY: Wednesday was the last day of my Philosophy class. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the class, and I would recommend a philosophy course to anyone, but still I'm glad it's over. I'm like a broken record or something this week. But I ended up getting a B+ in the class, which in Mini-Mitchell-College-Grade-Vocab=College Platinum. Just wait... it's gonna be a thing. If not for everyone else then just for me.

THURSDAY: And out of nowhere we're at Thursday, my very last day of my freshman year of college. This would have been a much happier day had I not had two finals. First came my film final (which could have gone worse but thank goodness it didn't), followed by my Humanities final. But once I got through those I was off and running towards my nice comfortable bed in my home sweet home (not actually running of course. The journey takes enough time in a car, running would have been brutal).

FRIDAY: The toughest part about being home from college is finding something to do while everyone else is still away at college. So what did I decide to do on my first full day back? Well go to high school of course. I visited my former teacher Mr. William Turek at my former high school which I will choose not to name so that my real identity won't be compromised. It was quite the thrill, though I must say I felt quite old, but at the same time being around all the teachers in the teachers lounge made me feel so so young. Thank you Mr. Ernest.

SATURDAY: Saturday went much more like I expected my weekend back to go. I went to a Padre game, but more importantly... I bought a new hat. In my opinion it suits me just perfectly. It's a two and a half inch brimmed grey fedora of the Stacy Adams mold. Now all I have to do is get some good clothes to go with. It has been quite the week, but all I can really say is that it's nice to be home. I'll just have to spend my days for now preparing the way for all of those people who are still off and away at college so that when they get back we can all hit the ground running. No time to waste, we must move with haste. But the sun has now set, now in a much more familiar city. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Twelfth Week

And so we've made it to week twelve. It's amazing to think that I'm about to enter my last week of my freshman year of college, but I am. This week was considered dead week by most of the students, meaning the week before finals when most students don't really get too much work. This wasn't the case for me. My week wasn't necessarily filled with work, but it also wasn't really a dead week. Aside from working on school I spent a lot of time sleeping, plus I came to one big decision regarding my future in college... but you can read about that inside (I love cliffhangers). So here we go.

SUNDAY: Sunday was spent resting up from my "marathon" by sleeping as much as possible. On top of sleeping I also had to work some more on my paper for my film class (I forgot to mention last week that the professor extended the due date for the paper by a week. My bad). Working on the paper was a nice distraction from being sore though. I was actually a lot less sore than I expected to be, not to say I didn't really dread walking all the way down to the caf for my dinner, but I made it. That was unexpected.

MONDAY: I had a little bit of a thrill on Monday. It may sound conceited, but hey, this is a blog about my life. It's bound to come off that way sometimes. A random person came up to me and asked me if I was the marathon guy from the Relay for Life. It was pretty exciting. It is a very rare occasion for me to be recognized by people I don't know. Of course the humbling experience was eating lunch on my own. Humbling, but at the same time quite peaceful. In a school of three thousand people it's good to get some alone time.

TUESDAY: There is a class that I haven't really talked about all that much inside of this here blog. That class would be the Social Science Perspective on Film, better known as, "Tuesday Night at the Movies." We actually watched a pretty interesting film about how Hawaii became a state. I had expected it to be an extremely boring historical film, but it turned out to be much better than I expected. Apparently we Americans were real jerks through the whole ordeal. Shocking.

WEDNESDAY: This was actually the most simple day to get through of all of the days this week. At this point I was basically free of all work until finals week, which means that I had a dead half week, or a half dead week...? No. That can't be right. We'll stick with a dead half week. So this was the start of my dead half week. I spent it watching a few friends of mine giving utopia presentations for their class. It was quite exciting. One group had a utopia in which it was ruled by women. Strangely enough, it was the group that had the highest ratio of guys to girls. Now that's progress.

THURSDAY: So this day brings the resolution to the previous cliffhanger. I'm trying to build this thing up as much as possible (Which isn't very much since this isn't really much of a surprise anyways). On this day I finally did something that I'd been thinking about doing for quite some time. Something that I knew that I was going to do but just couldn't find the time to do it. I declared a major. I am now majoring in film studies. Super exciting stuff. I'm sure most of the world is just shocked by this because of my blatant loathing of all things film. So yeah. That's the big event. I hope it was worth the read. If you're bored at this point (Which most of you probably are) then you could probably just look at the pictures and move on.

FRIDAY: I had no class on Friday, which meant that I got to sleep in a whole lot on Friday. It was very nice. I woke up at around 1:15. I feel like I'm already preparing myself for the summer, but during the summer I'll probably be waking up around 3. Just kidding. I hope to wake up by noon each day. I also had my work barbecue on Friday. I never have anything against free food, especially when it's free.

SATURDAY: Once again on Saturday I savored the chance to sleep in, but this time I woke up by 12:15. Improvement. I went to a friends 21 birthday party almost immediately following waking up. It was very fun. Nothing like waking up and playing Mario Kart. She also made a bunch of food for her party, which meant more free food for me. Once again, no complaints there. It's hard to believe that I've already made it through this much of the year. It's really flown by. Before too long I'll be married with seven children, 23 grandchildren, and 62 great grandchildren. But now the sun has set on this glorious week of ours. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Eleventh Week

And so we've made it to week eleven. This week sort of marked the last real week of school for me. My final paper for my film class was sort of supposed to be due this week, though you'll here more about that later, and that was my own personal indicator of when the year was officially over (except for finals of course). I'm glad that it's sort of all over, but I still can't wait to be home in a few weeks. There are good things about being in school, don't get me wrong, it's just that I really love being home. Mainly because there's more freedom, which sounds off, but it's totally true. Just a side-note, most of the pictures from this week come from the Relay for Life. I suppose I'll talk about my week now.

SUNDAY: Sunday involved doing a lot of research. On Sunday I realized that I'd hardly done any work for a film paper which had a rough draft due Tuesday. This worried me. And so I got to work reading and writing about various films. When it comes to writing papers I can be very indecisive. I had my original claim for this paper two weeks prior to this, and now three claims later I've written a paper. Though, not yet.

MONDAY: Today was the day that I finished the paper. I actually didn't finish very much of it on Sunday. My original goal for Sunday was to write three pages, which was half the length of the paper, but that quickly changed to two pages. When Tuesday finally came I had five and a half more pages to write. I'm such a good worker. Despite my procrastination I was still able to finish my rough draft. So all's well that ends well.

TUESDAY: Tuesday I went through the canyon with a couple of friends to get some supplies for a project that we had to do. It was pretty fun. Funny story though; apparently you are not allowed to take pictures inside of a Trader Joes. So appreciate this one, because right after it was taken I was told to put my camera away, which is odd considering the fact that I shot a whole video at a Ralphs mere weeks before while working on another project. But at least I still got the picture.

WEDNESDAY: I had a presentation with my Social Action and Justice class, which was in front of about 180 people. Luckily, my group was chosen to run the outside booth, which meant that I never had to personally be in front of all of those people. I stood outside with fair trade chocolate the entire time and told people all of the people that asked about where and how to buy fair trade products, which was about three. In any case, that class is now over, which is extremely nice. One down, three to go.

THURSDAY: Nothing very significant happened on Thursday except for finding out that my philosophy class is not having a final. Very amazing news. It made me very happy. Thursday night I played pool with a friend for a long time. Usually I'm not very good at pool, but I got lucky a whole lot of times, so it was pretty fun. Not that losing isn't fun... oh wait... it isn't. But the company can be fun no matter what.

FRIDAY: Friday was the beginning day of the 24 hour Relay For Life. It was a 24 hour relay in which my team of 13 people always had to have someone walking around the track for 24 hours. It was actually really fun. The first seven hours, which was the Friday portion of the event, were spent mainly having simple fun. Played some basketball, walked a few laps, and the best part... played Chutes and Ladders. It was amazing. I ended up getting last. I wanted to be an encourager. I also realized how great my vest is for holding energy drinks. No, I did not drink them all, but I was up all night.

SATURDAY: Now is when things got interesting. So I had two shifts of walking for the relay. My first shift was at 2 AM, my second shift was at 6 AM. While walking my first shift I thought to myself, "I could either stop after my shift and sleep, or I could just keep walking until my next shift at 6." This thought led to another thought, "If I walk that long, maybe I could walk a marathon." And that's just what I did. I walked a full 105 laps around track. I even ran the last mile. It was quite the thrill, and I will now always be able to say that I went a full 26.25 miles at one time. 7 hours and 44 minutes. But now the sun has set on this fine week. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Tenth Week

And so we've made it to week ten. I decided I'd go with a somewhat step oriented theme for this week. I'm at a school where I climb up about a thousand stairs a week (not an exaggeration. In fact it's probably much more) and I still haven't really talked about them that much. Here at Pepperdine (Stepperdine) we have a very wide variety of stairs that can be taken to get to any one location. If you don't like stairs you can always just walk up or down a hill, but that can be painful and can often lead to things like sprained ankles (Jeff). Anyways. I can't say I walked up any more stairs than usual this week, I just thought it'd be interesting to bring them up. So here's my week.

SUNDAY: I was actually home on Sunday. I think I failed to mention last week that I went home for the weekend. It was Easter of course. Not that I wouldn't go home without a special occasion of some sort, it's just that it's highly unlikely that I'd be able to get a ride otherwise. But I did get a ride and it was nice to be home since I was able to eat lots of good food and see a few people that I hadn't seen in a while (meaning a few weeks since it's really only been a few weeks since I had spring break. A month really, but who's counting? (Me apparently)).

MONDAY: Worked all the way down at the equipment shack on Monday, as usual, it's just that I never talk about it. Mondays these days are the days that I go all the way from the equipment shack to the law school for lunch before I have philosophy. It's probably upwards of about 200 stairs, plus there are hills between the stairs. It's just a really long walk. Totally worth it though. It's the best way to make a Monday seem a little bit better.

TUESDAY: Tuesday I had Humanities, which was absolutely no fun at all. But it was also Tuesday that I started writing children's stories about a little boy named Johnny. I think they can be quite entertaining and even happy if you stop at the first ending that I give the story. Anyways. Tuesday night was spent working on a presentation due the next day for my SAAJ class that I stressed way too much about. You'd think I'd know by now not to stress too much.

WEDNESDAY: My group had to give it's presentation for the class on Tuesday. I was super worried about it and basically thought we were going to fail, but that's just me being an optimist. Believe it or not, but the presentation actually went really well. If you ask me ten years from now I may even admit that I was indeed a part of it. But seriously, it went well. Celebrated that night by watching my RA Eddy (Another shout out) work into the early hours of the next morning trying, and succeeding, at beating the super mario bros 3 on the recently acquired original Nintendo.

THURSDAY: The fact that Eddy bought this Nintendo means that these next few weeks are going to be extremely difficult to remain focused on my studies. Which means I should technically get a head start and begin studying now, but we all know that's not going to happen. I thrive in pressure situations anyways. I actually have no way of knowing if that's true. I don't remember if there's ever been a time where I haven't procrastinated to create the pressure situation, so maybe I would actually do better without it. We'll most likely never know.

FRIDAY: Friday I received the extremely spectacular good news that I got a C on my humanities essay. This may not seem like much, but for me, in Humanities, it's possibly one of the greatest thrills of my entire life (Which I suppose is saying that my life hasn't had a ton of super great thrills) and you can't take that away from me if you tried. In celebration of my wonderful accomplishment I bought myself a good fruit smoothie from Jamba Juice. That too made me happy.

SATURDAY: Nothing like the joy of waking up early on a Saturday to spend some good quality time at an orientation for studying abroad. The orientation itself wasn't super great, but the food that we got afterwards was spectacular. I was able to have something that I haven't had in many many moons. Texas chocolate cake. It was a beautiful thing and made the whole morning worthwhile. Then afterwards I took a three hour nap to recuperate before playing some good old basketball and failing miserably at pool (It's apparently a bad idea to hit the eight ball in early in every game, so I stopped doing this and instead scratched while going for the eight ball, which apparently is just as bad). Only three more weeks left, but now the sun must set on this fine week. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Ninth Week

And so we've made it to week nine. I can feel the school year beginning to wind down now. I basically have one more of everything for all of my classes. It's crazy. One more paper for film, one more paper for philosophy, one more presentation for my SAAJ class, one more test for humanities. I'm counting it all down already. I just have to remember to be prepared for it all, which is the hard part. The easy part is looking back on what's already happened. So here's what happened this week.

SUNDAY: Every week must start somewhere and it seems like mine always seem to start with Sunday. It's something I just can't seem to avoid. I ran into Josiah and Audra Pleasant at church on Sunday. That sure was pleasant. I also spent some good time working on a philosophy paper that I had due the next day. Nothing special. Just about whether or not a person's mind and soul are a separate thing from the body. If they are in fact separate I think my mind is really seventy-five, even though my body is still seventeen... wait... eighteen. It's so hard to remember these things with a mind my age.

MONDAY: Monday was quite an interesting day, but not for very interesting reasons. In my philosophy class, instead of going into deep philosophical questions about a text, we instead watched I robot. It was amazingly fun to watch a movie like that and discuss the philosophical questions to be found inside of it. That's not saying I'd do that with all movies, I feel that would be much too mentally draining, plus I don't think the philosophy of Napoleon Dynamite would be quite so intriguing.

TUESDAY: Tuesday was a rough day, caused partially because I had a lack of sleep the night before, and partially because of why I had the lack of sleep the night before. I was up to the wee hours of the morning studying for a humanities in-class essay. There's always that pro-con list that must be made in a person's mind about the opportunity cost of studying later into the night or getting that extra hour or two of sleep. I would do a more extensive study on the subject, but I just don't have the time.

WEDNESDAY: I got to go on another field trip for my SAAJ class on Wednesday. It was very interesting. We went to an aquarium in Santa Monica (not a major aquarium. It probably only had about twenty fish or something like that. But interesting nonetheless). It took an hour and a half to find a parking spot when we were going though (Yet another reason that cars are terrible. You don't have to worry about parking when you're walking). I also went to the 3rd street promenade after the field trip, where I used the power of the human will to avoid buying myself a hat, which is quite the achievement for me. Be proud. I avoided contributing to the capitalistic ways of our consumeristic society.

THURSDAY: Thursday was April Fool's Day. I actually participated for once. Moving a suitemate's things from one room to another placed in the exact same way can be quite entertaining. As can covering a suitemate's floor with cups of water making it extremely difficult to get out of bed. Good times. You the reader are probably completely confused by those last two sentences. My apologies.

FRIDAY: Ah the weekend. Nothing like starting off a good Friday (Think about it) like going to Celebration Chapel in the morning. I heard a few songs that I'd never heard before that were quite appealing to my senses. They smelled wonderful. The female singer who was helping lead worship had a voice that was divine (Even if it wasn't it was still pretty amazing, and in eighty years or so she'll die and it'll become heavenly. The thought's not so morbid if you just stop and think about how beautiful it is). Music is always uplifting for me, mainly when it comes from other people. Listening to myself sing can ruin it.

SATURDAY: The important thing that happened today hardly even happened today. It happened at night. I'm sitting in my bed thinking about various philosophical questions (as always) and I think to myself this thought, "People talk about moments that come once in a lifetime. That's not crazy at all. What's crazy is that people don't realize that every moment only happens once in a lifetime. Even if it happens again it's a different moment. That means that we should all live our lives knowing that each moment only comes once in a lifetime." That's my deep thought for the week. Make the most of every moment, because each moment only comes once in a lifetime. And now the sun is setting on this week that was here for once in a lifetime. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.