Love

Since Monday evenings have henceforth been appointed "flatmate dinner night," we got the crew together last night and ordered takeout. The Chinese joint we really liked was closed (on a Monday at 6 pm... weird), so we walked around until we found the closest place to eat: conveniently, another Chinese place. I had sweet and sour chicken with fried rice -- sooo good! A few of the girls went next door to Domino's and had a taste of home sweet home. I've been going hard on some pizza ever since I got here, so the Asian cuisine was welcome.

This morning started out decently enough; I had a finance lecture, then a long break until my photo class. Because I needed to do some research for my photo project coming up, I was going to hang out in the art library at Ashburne for a few hours and get stuff done. Little did I know that a gas leak over the weekend would render this impossible. Apparently, all the classes at Ashburne had been cancelled yesterday, and the heat had been turned off since Friday. The cafe and the library were both closed because they were "unfit for extended public use," so poor wittle Hannah got to hang out in a freezing cold building with literally nothing to do for 3 hours. Since the cafe was closed, lunch consisted of a bag of chips and a Pepsi from the vending machine. Mehh. I was in a pretty poor mood. Class started right on time, and even though I had absolutely nothing to do or show, I still enjoyed helping some of my other classmates with their shoots, calculating exposure, holding reflectors, and making test photo negs. Listening to Jesus music during my walk back to campus definitely helped too.

Once I got back home, I discovered that Steven had delivered me something. A gift! To ME! In England! It is Valentine's day after all, but being 4000 miles away from the one you love isn't exactly how couples like to spend their first Valentine's day together. Needless to say, Steven exceeded all my expectations this year! He had arranged to have a single rose in a vase delivered to me by one of the local florists, and he sent me a wonderful letter that arrived just in time for this special day. He went home in the middle of his busy day just to have a Skype date with me AND he even did a few more things to top it all off (ladies, if you ever find a guy who's willing to go the extra mile AFTER the extra mile just to make you happy, I suggest you hold on tight to him, because they are few and far between!). I'm so so thankful to have someone as wonderful as Steven, and I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world :)

After my day had been completely revamped by Steven's awesome self, we spotted the long-haired, orange community cat that so many other international students have been talking about, and lured her in with some Whiskers cat food we picked up yesterday. She has plenty of different names, ranging from Ginger to Clanny Cat to Marmalade. We call her Clanny Cat. Because all of the flats are laid out exactly the same, she knew her way around ours quite well. After eating some kitty food and playing with string, she took a nap on the couch for a while. I'm a total cat lover, so I loved just hanging out with Clanny Cat. She's so soft and lovable and friendly and playful. Hooray for mediocre days-turned-great!!

- Instead of saying "How are doing?" as a greeting, English people ask "Are you alright?" It still weirds me out because I keep thinking that I look like something's wrong with me... but they're really just being friendly and greeting me.

- There are very few stop signs on streets; instead, most of the smaller intersections simply have an upside down triangle painted on the road right before the intersection, which I've learned means "yield."