I'm sticking to my promise and updating the blog exactly a week after my last post!
I didn't really do much on Tuesday or Wednesday, I had a rare week of not having much work to do and most people were revising for exams so there wasn't much going on. We kept up the Thursday tradition of going to WT's which was good and we had a fun bus ride back with a drunk boy asking us if we knew certain people who he knows from England - Americans seem to think that England has a very tiny population!
On Friday, a few of us went to the mall in search of Halloween costumes as the big event draws ever closer. Most people, including myself, didn't find anything at all so we're going to have to make last minute costumes at some point this week. I found a bargain in Macy's as all Levi jeans were reduced to $29 for the day, so I got a pair of black jeans as I've wanted a nice pair for a long time. After a few hours of shopping, I went to the cinema with Emma and Ellen to see Easy A. It was a romcom based loosely around the theme of The Scarlet Letter, which all American Studies students are guaranteed to have read! It was very funny and not too girly, so overall very good. Later on, I got the bus downtown with Emma and the Italians and we met Joe, Ellen and Evan and spent the night in Professor Barley's. On the journey home, we had not one, but TWO eventful taxi rides. The first one drove around in circles for 10 minutes while on the phone to someone he was intending to pick up despite the taxi being full, and completely ignored us when we asked him to take us back. Eventually, he pulled over and demanded $4 each which is more than they're allowed to charge so we refused to pay that and he drove us back to where he picked us up and made us get out of the taxi. After a 10 minute wait, we got another taxi and the journey was going well until the driver spotted a girl walking along the dark road by herself so decided to pull over and shout at her to come over. Chiara didn't like him doing this, as the girl could have been anybody (an axe murderer, perhaps) and started telling him to go, which resulted in another argument - but he managed to take us home for $3 each - the standard rate.
On Saturday, I had a nice afternoon watching The X Factor. I wasn't keen on Cher this week, my favourite was definitely Katie, which I never thought I'd say! That evening we went on a trip with the International Student department to a Haunted Hayride about 30 minutes upstate from Albany at a place called Malta, New York. This consisted of a journey on a trailer being pulled by a tractor through a forest where lots of people jumped out on you and tried to scare you - mostly failing in my case. After about 20 minutes, you disembarked and walked through an area of clowns jumping out and blowing airhorns, which was slightly more scary then a haunted house, where it was pitch black in parts and a lot more scary. The final part was a prison style room of mirrors with lots of strobing, it was almost impossible to judge whether the prisoners were behind or in front of the bars and to work out where to walk - definitely the best part of the experience. Despite telling myself that I definitely wasn't going out on Saturday night, I found myself at Joe's apartment and then we went downtown to Bayou. We had to wait in a queue for around 30 minutes, then the bouncer didn't accept Emma's ID and took it off her, and threatened to get the police involved - really not a pleasant experience, so we went home.
Sunday was a lazy day - we watched Piers Morgan's interview with Cheryl Cole then the X Factor result, then Josh came round to revise as we had a test today. The revision session was actually productive, as we had to learn the historical significance of a huge list of events, people and organizations in order to identify them in our test and it turned out that the revision was extremely helpful. The test was good, so I'm expecting to get a decent score. Besides that, I haven't done much else today, I spent the night in the library doing some mundane work and now I'm going to watch the latest episode of Dexter before bed.
Nighty night!
Monday, 25 October 2010
Monday, 18 October 2010
Speedy Connection
I've got really behind on the blog, and only a message from Sean informing me of this reminded me to write a new post so I've probably forgotten things but I'll try my best.
The last time I wrote was a fortnight on Wednesday, and I managed to have three nights out on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday after that. I went to WT's on Thursday as per usual, then went out with the Italians on Friday, we went to a few different places, ending up at a salsa night full of Puerto Ricans, and then on Saturday we went to Ellen's apartment (which is amazing) then to a place called Bayou, which is the place that most resembles an English club that I've been to. Emma's boyfriend was over from England so she wanted to show him Albany and I think she succeeded. During the day on Saturday, it was homecoming, which was the first American football game of the season. Our team isn't great but luckily the opposition from Pennsylvania was terrible, and we thrashed them 49-0!
I had my first big essay to do on the Sunday and managed to leave it until the very last minute to write but still got it handed in on time. A few hours after I handed it in, I came down with some sort of virus, with a headache and general feeling of weakness but it lasted less than 48 hours so I was pleased when it finally went. On Thursday, I had two exams, in The World at War and American Legislatures. Legislatures was better but World at War wasn't too bad. At night we went to WT's (it happens every Thursday as you can probably tell). Everyone was drinking a strange concoction called a Star Trek, which has about 5 different shots in, but costs $8.50. After two, I came to the conclusion that they definitely weren't worth it.
On Friday, Ellen took me, Emma and Joe to BJ's which was similar to a cash 'n' carry so we could buy alcohol for cheaper. I found an absolute bargain - a 1.75 litre bottle of raspberry Smirnoff vodka for $20 (around £14) so I was very pleased with it. Later on, we all met up at the cinema and went to see Jackass 3D. It was very amusing but it cost us $15 because it was in 3D and it definitely wasn't worth that much!!
On Saturday, I managed to set up my computer so that it seemed as though it was in the UK, which ensured that I could watch The X Factor live and in all it's glory, which was very exciting! I'm a very big fan of Cher but I also really like Aiden and Mary but that could all change week by week. In the evening, we replicated the Saturday before, going round to Ellen's then out to Bayou, which was very good once again. A highlight of the night was the bus journey from Ellen's to downtown - when we got on everybody on board was singing Seven Nation Army then we sang a number of other songs including River Deep Mountain High, We Are The Champions, Baby Got Back and Barbie Girl amongst others! I spent Sunday catching up on British TV, I watched the X Factor result, Have I Got News For You and two episodes of The Apprentice. The internet was horrendously slow so it took nearly two and a half hours to watch one episode of The Apprentice so I was in a very bad mood!
Today I resolved the internet problem by purchasing an ethernet cable, meaning that my laptop has to be plugged in to the internet but I get a far, far better connection and I've managed to catch up with Dexter and Desperate Housewives without the video stopping every 3 minutes, so hopefully the nice connection will continue. I've also booked my flight back to New York after Christmas for January 14th, so I'll be back in England from December 20th until then. I'm really excited to come back although I'd quite like to stay here and travel but it's impossible because of how expensive it's been to live here so far!
That's everything that I remember, I really should try to update weekly so that I don't forget but it takes a long time to write a post! Bye for now.
The last time I wrote was a fortnight on Wednesday, and I managed to have three nights out on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday after that. I went to WT's on Thursday as per usual, then went out with the Italians on Friday, we went to a few different places, ending up at a salsa night full of Puerto Ricans, and then on Saturday we went to Ellen's apartment (which is amazing) then to a place called Bayou, which is the place that most resembles an English club that I've been to. Emma's boyfriend was over from England so she wanted to show him Albany and I think she succeeded. During the day on Saturday, it was homecoming, which was the first American football game of the season. Our team isn't great but luckily the opposition from Pennsylvania was terrible, and we thrashed them 49-0!
I had my first big essay to do on the Sunday and managed to leave it until the very last minute to write but still got it handed in on time. A few hours after I handed it in, I came down with some sort of virus, with a headache and general feeling of weakness but it lasted less than 48 hours so I was pleased when it finally went. On Thursday, I had two exams, in The World at War and American Legislatures. Legislatures was better but World at War wasn't too bad. At night we went to WT's (it happens every Thursday as you can probably tell). Everyone was drinking a strange concoction called a Star Trek, which has about 5 different shots in, but costs $8.50. After two, I came to the conclusion that they definitely weren't worth it.
On Friday, Ellen took me, Emma and Joe to BJ's which was similar to a cash 'n' carry so we could buy alcohol for cheaper. I found an absolute bargain - a 1.75 litre bottle of raspberry Smirnoff vodka for $20 (around £14) so I was very pleased with it. Later on, we all met up at the cinema and went to see Jackass 3D. It was very amusing but it cost us $15 because it was in 3D and it definitely wasn't worth that much!!
On Saturday, I managed to set up my computer so that it seemed as though it was in the UK, which ensured that I could watch The X Factor live and in all it's glory, which was very exciting! I'm a very big fan of Cher but I also really like Aiden and Mary but that could all change week by week. In the evening, we replicated the Saturday before, going round to Ellen's then out to Bayou, which was very good once again. A highlight of the night was the bus journey from Ellen's to downtown - when we got on everybody on board was singing Seven Nation Army then we sang a number of other songs including River Deep Mountain High, We Are The Champions, Baby Got Back and Barbie Girl amongst others! I spent Sunday catching up on British TV, I watched the X Factor result, Have I Got News For You and two episodes of The Apprentice. The internet was horrendously slow so it took nearly two and a half hours to watch one episode of The Apprentice so I was in a very bad mood!
Today I resolved the internet problem by purchasing an ethernet cable, meaning that my laptop has to be plugged in to the internet but I get a far, far better connection and I've managed to catch up with Dexter and Desperate Housewives without the video stopping every 3 minutes, so hopefully the nice connection will continue. I've also booked my flight back to New York after Christmas for January 14th, so I'll be back in England from December 20th until then. I'm really excited to come back although I'd quite like to stay here and travel but it's impossible because of how expensive it's been to live here so far!
That's everything that I remember, I really should try to update weekly so that I don't forget but it takes a long time to write a post! Bye for now.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Snowed Under
Time for another quick update!
We went to Naomi's birthday on Thursday night at WT's which was nice. Most of our group of friends was there so it had a good party atmosphere. The night was spoiled slightly by the torrential rain as we left but we got Chinese which was very very nice.
Friday was a quieter day. In the afternoon I went to the cinema with Josh, Emma and Jacopo to see The Social Network (the movie about facebook) which was better than I expected, then I spent the night giving my room a proper clean for the first time...
I went to the mall on Saturday morning to buy a new camera as my old one still didn't work when the new battery arrived. I found a $250 Sony camera that had been reduced to $150 because it had been bought and returned, so I asked the shop assistant to show me how it works and it had lots of nice features so I decided to get it - and it's an absolute bargain! Afterwards, I met Emma and we went downtown and met some other friends to go to Oktoberfest, which was a street party trying to emulate the German beer festival. It was quite good but a bit too pricey and busy so we eventually headed back to Joe's apartment where he had a small party. Joe and Ellen managed to get into arguments with miserable bus drivers on the way there and the way back! At 12ish, we went to another party which wasn't as good so we stayed for a short while then headed home.
As the temperature is starting to drop at a quicker rate, I needed to buy some winter clothes so I met Josh at the mall on Sunday and bought a couple of jumpers from H&M. I still need to buy a winter coat but I've been looking for one that I like for about 3 years and still haven't found the right one. If I don't see one I like in the next couple of weeks, I'm just going to have to settle for one. At night, me and Emma went to visit our friend Austin who was doing his radio show, as we need to shadow 3 DJ's before we're allowed to get our own show. He showed us a lot of things and most went way over my head!
Since the weekend I haven't really done much because I've got two essays and two exams next week so I've been trying to get all the work for them sorted - I'd like to think I'll be relieved when they're out of the way but I'll probably have more work to do for the week after as they set smaller tasks on a more regular basis, compared to Nottingham where you tend to just have one essay and one exam at the end of each semester.
On a more positive note, I'm in the process of organising a trip to Boston in November with Emma and Josh. We've already booked tickets to a basketball game (Boston Celtics vs. Oklahoma City Thunder) because Josh is a huge Celtics fan, and I'm hoping to get the hotel and bus booked in the next few days, so that's something to look forward to while I've got so much work to do! I want to go out tonight for the first time this week but I'm not sure if it's such a good idea. We'll see.....
We went to Naomi's birthday on Thursday night at WT's which was nice. Most of our group of friends was there so it had a good party atmosphere. The night was spoiled slightly by the torrential rain as we left but we got Chinese which was very very nice.
Friday was a quieter day. In the afternoon I went to the cinema with Josh, Emma and Jacopo to see The Social Network (the movie about facebook) which was better than I expected, then I spent the night giving my room a proper clean for the first time...
I went to the mall on Saturday morning to buy a new camera as my old one still didn't work when the new battery arrived. I found a $250 Sony camera that had been reduced to $150 because it had been bought and returned, so I asked the shop assistant to show me how it works and it had lots of nice features so I decided to get it - and it's an absolute bargain! Afterwards, I met Emma and we went downtown and met some other friends to go to Oktoberfest, which was a street party trying to emulate the German beer festival. It was quite good but a bit too pricey and busy so we eventually headed back to Joe's apartment where he had a small party. Joe and Ellen managed to get into arguments with miserable bus drivers on the way there and the way back! At 12ish, we went to another party which wasn't as good so we stayed for a short while then headed home.
As the temperature is starting to drop at a quicker rate, I needed to buy some winter clothes so I met Josh at the mall on Sunday and bought a couple of jumpers from H&M. I still need to buy a winter coat but I've been looking for one that I like for about 3 years and still haven't found the right one. If I don't see one I like in the next couple of weeks, I'm just going to have to settle for one. At night, me and Emma went to visit our friend Austin who was doing his radio show, as we need to shadow 3 DJ's before we're allowed to get our own show. He showed us a lot of things and most went way over my head!
Since the weekend I haven't really done much because I've got two essays and two exams next week so I've been trying to get all the work for them sorted - I'd like to think I'll be relieved when they're out of the way but I'll probably have more work to do for the week after as they set smaller tasks on a more regular basis, compared to Nottingham where you tend to just have one essay and one exam at the end of each semester.
On a more positive note, I'm in the process of organising a trip to Boston in November with Emma and Josh. We've already booked tickets to a basketball game (Boston Celtics vs. Oklahoma City Thunder) because Josh is a huge Celtics fan, and I'm hoping to get the hotel and bus booked in the next few days, so that's something to look forward to while I've got so much work to do! I want to go out tonight for the first time this week but I'm not sure if it's such a good idea. We'll see.....
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