Sunrises, Doorways, and Street Art.

These are the things you find wildly entertaining when you're stuck in a library reading about neoliberalism and Millenium Development Goals 12 hours a day. Below is the morning view out my window. Makes getting up way too early much more bearable.










This week I was walking through the livingroom and noticed something didn't seem quite right with the broom closet door. Upon further examination, I realized it's because the top of the door's moulding is about 4 inches away from the other doorway's moulding.. but at the bottom, there's no space between them at all.
Photographic evidence:












This picture was taken at a straight angle, too. Or at least as straight an angle as possible when you're standing in a VERY CROOKED HOUSE. Sometimes I feel like I live here. And it does not surprise me at all that this place is in England.










Art I passed by en route to the Refugee and Asylum Seeker's weekly English meeting in the city, which has been one of my favourite activities the past month. Women of all ages from all over the middle east and Africa, talking and singing and hugging and kissing and eating from big pots of spicy food they've cooked up. Way more interesting than the library.

In other news, my dear Ina comes for a visit next week! It will be the first time we've seen each other since saying sad, dusty goodbyes in Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta airport 18 months ago. Also good motivation to get heaps and heaps of work done during next week's "reading week" (shocking, but no one else seems to actually be planning on doing a lot of reading) so we can party hearty all weekend, as the kids say.

Missing everyone.

Sights & Sighs.

School is upon me. Lots and lots and lots of school. It's daunting and exhilarating at the same time. Some photos from the week:








This is mainly for Auntie Sue, who shares my love for TJ Maxx in the states.
No idea why it's TK Maxx here.









I take a shortcut through a park on my way home from school, where there's usually some sort of rugby or footy game going on. Imagine my surprise this week to find AMERICAN FOOTBALL being played. Where am I, anyway?!

Leave it to England to turn a massive group of old war barracks into a grocery store.

The view up the hill from my house: Sheffield Ski Village. Because of a lack of snow most winters, there are "artificial alpine slopes", which from what I gather are large squares of brown carpet...

Peace Gardens in the city, during a sunny break.

Off to study with a friend in town today, though my flatmate has warned me there's a big game on between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United and it's not safe to go out. *sigh. The risks one must take living in England. Miss you all.

When It Rains..

There are so many ways I could (sarcastically) finish that sentence. To give you an idea of what
I'm dealing with, this was the view out my window yesterday, at 8am and 8.10am, respectively.

Makes it a bit tricky deciding what to wear for the day. People say England's rainy all the time. Based on the last 2 weeks, I would argue that England actually has the most erratic weather known to mankind. It seems to actually be sunny most of the time, with short cloud/rain breaks. There is just no predicting it.

My first week here, I experienced the wonders of LDW (Laundry Dependent Weather). This phenomenon takes place when, upon the completion of hanging all your wet laundry on the line, the sun INSTANTLY disappears and it starts to drizzle. On my honour: I hung up and took down my laundry 3 different times in one morning, before giving up. It got completely soaked, the sun came out again, and 6 hours later, it was dry. I'm beginning to wonder if I should just hang my dirty clothes on the line, pour some laundry detergent over them, and let the weather do the rest..

My second week here, it was 80 degrees for 5 days in a row, no joke. (My clothes dried almost before I could finish hanging them on the line.)

The only thing I have to say about this week's weather is that yesterday, in my 10-minute walk to school, I got sunned upon, rained upon, hailed upon (which is about the time I start asking God what I have done to grieve Him so greatly), and eventually had to stand under an overhang because it was pouring so hard I couldn't see 5 feet in front of me. It took roughly 3 hours to dry out completely in the library. Time to invest in a knee-length raincoat. I wish I could more fully appreciate that Sheffield's nickname is 'city of rainbows'.

Going to School in England.

Where I had my first class of the year. After spending my life being educated at the family kitchen table, a church basement, someone else's kitchen table, musty portables, and various buildings constructed in the 1970's, this feels like a pretty swanky step up. I need to savour things like this because all week I've been reminded not only how long it's been since I was a student, but how very different it is being a Masters student, in England.

The biggest shocker: We do not have exams. We have essays. For each class, we have one small essay due mid-term, which the feedback on will hopefully help us gauge how to write The BIG Essay, due at the end of term, which is worth 100% of our grade. One Hundred Percent. ONE Essay.
Another unexpected shock is having so much free time. Well, "free" time. Once introduction week was over and the smoke settled, I realized with one class Monday and Tuesday, and two on Friday, I basically have a mid-week weekend! Which is great until you realize that you're actually expected to be working -- studying, reading, writing drafts, peer editing, doing preliminary research, etc. And then you realize that there are 5 campus libraries for this very purpose, and one of them, apart from being open 24/7, has SHOWERS in it, and a WEB PAGE devoted to the most comfortable places in the library to take a quick nap between endless days of study. This is about when I start feeling like a 5-year old who just wants to be told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and when to give it to the teacher. Actually being expected to manage my time appropriately and responsibly is asking a bit too much. It's like the teachers think we're ADULTS or something.

Some very nice differences about the programme are that the professors all work together, between all the courses. For instance in one class, all of them will lecture over the course of the semester on their particular area of expertise within that class topic. And 3 of them will be going on the Field Class to Kenya, not just the one teacher who does most of the lectures. Seminars are also a big part of the courses, meaning you get to discuss what you're reading and hearing in lecture. There's one particularly intimidating class that is 'double-layered' -- our mark is based on how well we do writing a grant proposal for a hypothetical NGO, but just to pass the class, we need to complete 15 credits of work on other things. Fortunately you can streamline those credits to your area of interest, so mine will be volunteering at a refugee centre, writing book reviews, designing a website, and brushing up on French with a classmate from France who needs help with English. Can't complain about applicability.

While going over the syllabus for the class above, I found a section heading that made me laugh -- "Tender Writing Seminar". It turns out 'tender' is the term we use in the states for a grant, or grant proposal, but it's more fun to envision your whole class listening to sappy romantic music in a room full of roses while your teacher tries to lecture about how to write tenderly.