Pancakes

I've started posting less and less often because, well, there isn't a whole lot going on now. I think I'm finally getting in the swing of things, so my everyday adventures seem less extraordinary and novel. But that's not to say that I haven't been having a fabulous time!

After my Monday management lecture, I spent a good chunk of my afternoon/evening in the photo studio taking pictures of a rotten apple (oh how awesome Hannah! How can you contain your excitement!). Now that I've gotten a better handle on how to work the 5 x 4 camera, I was able to get around 6 or 7 paper negatives developed, but I was still super uneasy about moving to real film. After spending 4 hours in the studio, I grabbed my Bible from home and went to a Bible study with some girls from CU, then Becky brought her guitar over and we sang Jesus songs until midnight. We had a grand ol' time.

After my two Tuesday classes, I spent another chunk of the evening in the photo studio. This time, I managed to process my first-ever film negative! It was so exciting! It also makes me appreciate digital cameras a LOT more. I had to recruit about 3 different people to re-explain the process of exactly what to do with the negative and how to do it, but I finally had one developed, processed, and dried after about 45 minutes. Whew. Afterwards, I celebrated Fat Tuesday/Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday with the girls from my Bible study. We got Domino's pizza and made heaps of pancakes with all sorts of delectable toppings: strawberries, nutella, whipped cream, and milk chocolate just to name a few. Sooo good.

Today was supposed to be another get-things-done day, but I had a migraine for the first half of the day so I didn't really get started until 2:00. I've noticed that my migraines are a lot less frequent than they used to be; it's probably due to the fact that I'm less stressed out, but I like to think of it as the healing powers of ye olde English air. I still got quite a bit of shopping done even though I had less time than expected (I am a girl after all, so shopping is supposedly my forte). I got some toiletries & some cleaning supplies from Wilkinson, and all my groceries came from Aldi. I also stumbled upon a row of thrift stores in town, so of course I found some cute clothes and fabulous deals while I was there. A super cute sweater dress marked down to £1.49? Heck yes I'll take it! It might be that the "charity shops" are better quality than all the Goodwills I'm used to hitting up, or it could be that semi-outdated British clothes look fashionable and new to me, but the three stores I visited all seemed to have much better selections than the ones at home. Who needs Top Shop and H&M when you can find vintage and cute clothes for less than 2 pounds? I've been waiting to find the local thrift stores here, and I think it's safe to say they will be frequented in the future.

I cooked spaghetti for dinner, then Ash and I practiced for Friday night's music at CU. The rest of the evening will probably be spent watching American TV shows. All my thanks and love goes to Steven for this one, because he somehow managed to hook me up to the server he built in Boone, and now I can proxy through it and have a US IP address! So now I can get on Pandora and Netflix and Hulu and all sorts of other websites that don't work in the UK! Catching up on Glee has been a much-appreciated and pleasant streaming experience.

- When someone says "dark room" with respects to photography, they really do mean DARK room. You have to walk through two sets of doors to get to the film-loading area, which had a black ceiling, black walls, black floor, and black counter. Loading and unloading film consists of feeling your way around while staring into total darkness. Kinda creepy, but kinda cool.

- Deodorant comes in an aerosol can. Wait... what? (Yeah! They have some roll-on, but it's the kind with an actual ball that rolls. For the most part, it's spray-on. Crazy!)

- The second meal of the day is called "dinner," and the third meal of the day is called "tea."

- A lot of people eat their pancakes topped with sugar and lemon juice -- kinda funky, but kinda good!

- So far my British girl friends have called me: flower, honey, love, sweetie, and my personal favorite: petal. I'm totally bringing some of these sayings back with me.