frustation & oxfordation.

"Life is a journey, not a destination - we determine our destiny by the direction we take."
-Anonymous

Is it me, or are the best quotes always by an anonymous figure? Or maybe there is a really brilliant thinker out there named Anonymous. It could happen. After all, with names like Moxie CrimeFighter and Pilot Inspektor out there, Anonymous is, by comparison, quite normal.
End tangent.

Not too much has happened in the past week and a half. I've been spending a lot more time at the uni trying to get some work done, now that the semester is halfway over. It's kind of a scary thought, considering I haven't had an exam or received a grade in any course besides British Life yet. Although, it's not scary enough to stop me from going to Scotland this weekend and Paris next weekend! We've also been busy trying to book hostels and transportation for spring break, which in itself is frustrating. It's slowly coming together though, and we are definitely going to Greece, Italy, and Spain for three weeks! The U.S. needs to jump on the bandwagon for a longer spring break. Technically we only have two weeks here, but they attach on a reading week beforehand, so what's a study abroad kid supposed to do?

Last week, Sara, Mateusz and I went to see Wicked. It was my second time seeing it in London, and despite it being two years later, I saw the same actress play Elphaba. Kerry Ellis is absolutely fantastic. For those of you who actually know something about the musical, her "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" are good, of course, but she blows "No Good Deed" out of the water. If you haven't heard her sing version yet, look it up on youtube. Brilliant.

On Saturday, we had a British Life trip to Oxford. For those of you who don't already know this, Oxford University is split up into 39 independent colleges around the city, and the architecture of some of these colleges is beautiful. Actually, the architecture in the entire town centre is a sight to see. We ate lunch at a pub called The Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to meet with a group called 'The Inklings' to have discussions with fellow writers. There was even a letter on the wall signed by both that said they had drunk to the pub owner's health. Pretty awesome to be sitting among such history. Then we took a short tour of the city, led by the one and only P.Woods! (No, he's not famous. Yes, he's just our professor. Yes, there is a fan page for him on facebook. Yes, we always laugh at his terrible jokes.) We ended at Christ Church College, to tour the college and the adjoining cathedral. The entrance hall and the Great Hall from the Harry Potter series was based on the hall at Christ Church, so I was quite excited to walk through there. None of the paintings on the walls moved, though, and sadly there were no floating candles or enchanted ceilings. The entire time, we were thinking about how strange is must be to eat lunch in that hall every day, and go to college at a place constantly being visited by tourists. I'm thankful that nobody wants to visit Albany. We finished off the day with a trip to our favorite pub in Kingston. It was our last weekend in Kingston for over a month, so Kaitlin, Sara and I met up with Matt, Matt, and Mateusz to celebrate. (Really, I just put this in here to emphasise the fact that we hung out with three Matts. Craziness.)

In terms of classes, things have been going pretty well. Evidence & Issues is now into the forensics section of the course, and I'm enjoying sitting through DNA and digitial forensic lectures much more than the ones on crime data. Chemistry practicals remain surprisingly short and easy, statistics continues to contain the most uninteresting material on this side of the solar system, and discussions in British Life have included the class system, press, theatre, school systems, the monarchy, and everything in between.

At the moment, I'm actually spending more time worrying about classes at home for next semester. I already knew there would be problems when it came time to decide between forensics/internship and the honors program, but everything managed to become more complicated when they added a new "comprehensive forensics" track, with even more credits. Personally, I'd rather do the new forensics track with an internship and forget about the honors research. It would mean suffering through bio, but I'm not very interested in research, and I wouldn't mind throwing a few criminal justice courses into my schedule. My advisor, the forensics prof, and the department head are going to meet and try to work out this honors and forensics mess, so I'm interested to see what they come up with. It's frustrating to not be at home to talk directly with everyone to figure things out, and it doesn't help that they haven't encountered this problem before this semester. But whatever track I end up taking, it looks like I'm going to have at least four Friday classes next semester. Goodbye, three day weekends. I thought I'd capture my frustration on webcam for you, mainly so my dear friends at Albany who can't hear my usual scheduling rant this semester don't miss my frustrated face too much.

Now that I've ranted and wasted a good chunk of time (mine and yours), I should probably return to my chemistry homework. Be on the lookout for pictures from Scotland and France soon! =]