One month to go, where is my pause button?

Marathon blog post time? I think it's marathon blog post time. So much has happened in the last few weeks!

The Election: This was a pretty huge deal here, and a lot of fun to watch from the sidelines. Our flat had up to 19 people crammed into our kitchen the night of. It was fully decorated with construction paper with the name of every political party in the UK, and there are some strange ones (Monster Raving Loony Party anyone?). TC made a cracking speech for Labour, followed by support speeches for the other two major parties. We had a late night tesco run, and had quite a few drinks. I lasted till 2:30am or so before giving up (not bad considering I pulled an all nighter for Geier's monstrous paper the night before, thanks to John for keeping me in one piece). Most of my flat partied on watching the results for every district roll in (also funny names: Tooting?!), they went to bed somewhere between 4-7am I think. I woke up to a hung parliament, and a study session with Jacob. Hung parliament means that no one party got a true majority, and they'd have to squabble around and make alliances. It also meant the Prime Minister spot was kind of up in the air. It finally resolved itself today, with Gordon Brown resigning from politics altogether, so David Cameron, the Conservative now is PM. I think Lib Dems may have allied themselves with the party in power, but I'm not sure.

Studying with Jacob was actually productive this time (last time we mostly looked at pictures, listened to music, and he attempted to teach me guitar things, which I failed at naturally). This time, though we did get distracted with election stuff and a comedy show, got through two past exams. It's nice that they post those here, esp. since they recycle questions a lot. Wish they had a key though. But as we ate cookies and discussed the finer points of siliclastic cementation, I realized just how many good friends we'll be leaving behind. My flat mates, people in my building, a few people from class... Not going to make coming home any easier, that's for sure.

I've been down to Guildford a few times in the past few weeks. It's quite pretty there, at least the bits I've seen. Went for a walk in the woods that Tris' college does work in. Saw a lot of cool trees, a badger set (but no badgers sadly), a literal field of blue bells. It was a gorgeous day to just climb tress and poke around. Had dinner at this amazing totally hidden Italian place. Watched a lot of movies and British comedies. Met his house mates, all of which were really nice. It's such a great place to just relax for a bit, and after these past few weeks, I needed it.

A few weekends ago was our last class trip as a study group. And it was EPIC. It was our Dylan Thomas (famous writer/poet) trip. The trip started a bit rockily. Everyone was tired, no one wanted to be there, and a lot of us were worried about getting Geier's paper/other work done. I for one didn't bring any work except reading, and just enjoyed it, it was fine.

Our first stop was Swansea, where we aimlessly wandered through the Dylan Thomas center. Not the most exciting place, but Maria and I found an awesome animated version of Under Milk Wood, that was very much not for children. I really should read that at some point. When we got out, five of us just decided we were hungry and went to lunch early. We went under a road in a ped tunnel, which was full of red liquid that we pretended was some sort of fruit juice...on the way back there were a few cops standing by the worst of it, so I'm a little scared to think what me may have just missed. We ended up in a pub called Yate's. Really good food, and lots of deals. And chocolate chip cookie dough cheese cake. Awesome. A demonstration started in the square across the street that we checked out. Communists, and labour parties and unions? It was an interesting group, and it was over after about an hour.

Next stop was 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Dylan's childhood home. This was an experience. The home is now owned by a couple that has restored it to as close to what it would have looked like as possible. Annie, the wife was absolutely nuts. Lots of inappropriate jokes (Geier's kids were amazed), she was wonderful. We were split into groups, one to take the tour, and one to make tea (we later swapped). It wasn't just making tea, it was doing it in formal Edwardian style. Table had to be swept and set just so. Tea had to be made just so, we had warmed fresh Welsh cakes with jam and local cheddar. It then had to be served properly by a luckless Casey E., who got heckled by Annie the whole time. Annie concluded that Casey would never get hired as a servant went on to say she doubted she'd have luck in less reputable professions... The tour itself was interesting, and the husband (with his "gammy" leg) took a lot of pictures of us. Then it was across to the park he used to play in, where Jim Jones, the Welsh professor accompanying us read us some of his poetry. Jim is the current archdruid for the national (I think?) Eistedffod, which is pretty cool, and means he's a very good poet.

We were pretty tired and passed out on the bus after that, until we arrived at Fern Hill, a place where he summered with some relatives. The people who owned it have passed, so it was locked up. We just stopped and listened as Jim read us poetry over the bus microphone and went back to bed. Pretty sweet. (Not the bus ride though, our driver was not that good, and the bus seemed ready to fall apart, and leaked in the solid rain storm we had that day.)

We arrived in St. Davids in Pembrokeshire, which really is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. We had some time to explore that night before dinner. We checked out the cathedral and Bishop's Palace, and wandered down a lane. We met some gypsy vanners (read small horses that very much resemble cows), and fed one grass for some time. I got stung by a nettle in the back of the thigh and was in a bit of pain the rest of the night. Caroline and I raced dandelion leaf boats in the stream. Dinner was really good at The Bench, but took almost 3 hours to get all of us served all 3 courses. Sadly everyone was tired/wanting to get back to work after that, so I couldn't get anyone to come with me to Solva to meet up with Ed at the pub. So I read and worked on Tris' birthday present until we went to bed.

Morning meant more time to explore, but we had to wait for breakfast (which also took ages). We were headed to St. Non's healing spring and chapel ruins when we saw it. The coolest playground I have ever encountered. As one, the group stopped, looked at each other, and ran screaming into the playground, taking over and playing on every single piece of equipment. It was SO much fun. The Geier's found us, and we played with the kids for awhile before moving on.

We all washed in the spring, and Casey E., Jackie, Stacey and I headed down the cliff path for a walk. It was so pretty. Saw some cool little harbours, and rock climbers, and kayakers. The gorse was in full bloom, as were a bunch of wild flowers. We headed back into town via the main road. We reached Bishop's Palace to see some people waving things at us out one of the ruined windows. It was our study group! WITH WOODEN SWORDS! I don't know if I mentioned it, but it's been one of the groups main goals to have a sword fight in a castle. As soon as we got in they attacked us, streaming out of very good hiding places. We of course bought our own swords on the way out and carried them around with us the rest of the day. We got ice cream before lunch, and it was excellent. Lunch was not that great. A very salty roast that also took too long. Pembrokeshire, besides being pretty, with amazing weather, was the culmination of our group bonding and letting our inner child out. I'm going to miss these guys more than I could have ever predicted.

Our last stop of the day was Laugharne (pronounced Laan, weird), where Dylan lived for quite some time. We saw his home "The Boathouse" which overlooks an amazing beach. And his writing shack. We walked by his father's apt. and his old pub (now closed, shame) and then visited his grave. Jim read us a poem he wrote a few weeks after Dylan's death, which was pretty moving actually, and very good. Back on the bus to Cardiff, where we had another group dinner at a really good Indian place. I ended up sitting next to Jim and his wife and found out that they have been to St. Louis several times, as Jim has a colleague there who he exchanges work with regularly. This guy runs a pub called Dressel's and I have been sent on a mission to find it, and have been promised drinks on the house. Small world guys.

We've had a few other group meals, one at North Star, and a dessert binge at Blackwier, but now the group has scattered to all sorts of places. It's weird that we won't be together as a whole until the reunion at Geier's sometime next spring. Sad really.

This weekend was another fun one. I met up with Casey G. and Margaret in London after a boring but productive bus ride. We ended up in a gorgeous apt. just off of Hyde park of Margaret's mom's friends. They had designer cats. I was afraid to touch anything. They took us to an amazing Lebanese place and bought us dinner. We then legged it (well tubed it too) across town to THE GLOBE THEATER!!! Ahhh! We saw Macbeth, and it was mind blowing. They pulled out all the stops while keeping it pretty simplistic. We were groundlings, meaning we stood in front of the stage for the full 3 hours of the show. It was tiring, but worth it. As a twist they had us all under a big black cloth tarp, with just our heads sticking up, as they sprayed us with things often (usually water, but I almost got stage blood on me, because I was standing right behind a spot where actors regularly would pop up). It also meant that actors could run unseen around your ankles which scared a lot of people. The show was so gory, but so amazing to watch. An incredible experience.

So it's just down to 3 exams. Four final papers submitted. One back so far, Geier's back on Thursday, right before my first exam. I'm not going to look at it till the exam is over. Terrestrial Ecology is going to kill me regardless.

Time rushes on.