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soccerjulie27
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Name: Julie
Birthday: 10/11/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: soccer, running, God, school, sleeping, homework, rain, thunderstorms, sunshine, warm weather, you know, the usual
Expertise: fun! i also expertly know that i love thunderstorms
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
MSN: soccerjulie27@msn.com
Member Since:
2/9/2005
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| I'm living in Indiana and life is good so far. I'm still trying to find a balance between work, school, home, and friends. That'll be my biggest challenge. Ugh. The weather has been awesome, since I love rain and storms. I have a dog and she's great and she sucks at the same time. She's just a puppy, so that's part of the 'problem'. I don't know what else to say. I'm tired and I just wanted to post a new post so here it is :).
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| So...the only time I ever even think about Xanga is when I read someone else's post. Today since I'm procrastinating, I'm gonna write a random post, even though I know hardly anyone, if anyone reads it. Don't worry, I won't say too much. I'm only here in Wales for 7 more days! It's crazy! It's been a good few months and I don't want to go back to Iowa, but I do want to see my family and friends who are in Iowa. It's a decent trade-off, I guess. Ok, I will be done with my paper if I stop procrastinating and type up the in-text references and the reference list, so I'm gonna go do that. Later!
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| I am in Wales! After a long day of travel, I am here! I have been out and about, walking around everywhere and the weather is
'cold' but nowhere near as cold as what you're experiencing. hehe. it's
cool and rainy, with temps in the 35-ish area. it was really warm
today, but the wind was hellish. it brought back bad memories of
northwest iowa's hell wind where it blew so strong and cold that it
took your breath away. This was a lot warmer than an iowa winter wind,
but it still made what could have been a fairly warm day a lot cooler.
The sun came out for a little bit yesterday and it was nice. I am
lovin' the rain. some people are complaining about it, the Welsh are
enduring it...hey, it's their winter. I'm not complaining. I'll take
this to snow any day!
The whole town is sandwiched between 2
mountains and everywhere you walk you're either walking up or down a
hill, especially when you go downtown. If you go downtown, you know you
have a killer hill to climb when you come back. The locals, including
professors, call the worst hill Bitch Hill. I find that highly amusing.
hehe.
I live on a flat. Flats are just like dorms. There are 8 rooms per
flat, and there are 2 flats per floor. It's kind of like steggy with a
north and south side, except the hallway is nowhere near as long. :) My
room is just about as tiny as I imagined it. I took pictures, but
they're not very good b/c I can't back up any further to take the room
in b/c the wall is in the way. That's how narrow my room is. It's kind
of nifty having the bathroom in my room b/c once I turn in for the
night, I can use the bathroom and still be in my room, not having to
encounter another human being until I leave my room in the morning. I
like it. The kitchen is the meeting place and hang out place for the
flat-mates and friends. I've met all of my flat-mates in the kitchen so
far...all 3 of them. I still have 5 to meet, but I swear, some of them
are most definitely not here, or else I should have seen them by now. I
guess I have been out running around myself. Well, the girls I've met
so far are nice. One was an asian girl named Grace, one was an indian
girl but she was born in germany and she has lived in London the last 5
years and now she's going to school here, her name is Miriam. The other
is a girl from Britain, Jenny. She's funny. I spent most of last night
with her. Let me explain....
Well Jenny and 4 of her friends were hanging out in the kitchen and
drinking wine and I came in to hang out with them. They offered me some
wine and I had a little bit of 2 different kinds...it was a whole lot
better than that wine I had at Chili's back before I flew to Phoenix. I
think they each had a full bottle, 2 of the girls had ginormous bottles
of wine, at least a liter each....I think they held more than a liter.
One drank her entire bottle and the other had to have help to finish
off hers (I didn't help). I was feeling the buzz off of the little I
had and yeah. So anyways, they invited me to go out with them....pub
hopping (equivalent to the american version of bar hopping jic you
weren't sure, jic=just in case). At the first bar, one girl suggested
we all have a shot. She offered to pay for mine so I said sure. It was
nasty and the taste that remained in my mouth was black licorice. Ick!
By the time I had this drink, my buzz was pretty much gone. I was
afraid it was gonna get a lot worse after that drink, so at the next
bar (which you had to pay 1 pound to get into and had drinks for 1
pound) I got this non-alcoholic drink called an appletiser (it was
sparkling apple juice and it was pretty good). This bar was super
crowded and we went upstairs and sat around, drank and chatted. We left
that bar eventually and went to a club called the Octagon. It was a
dance club. Yeah, we got there at about 11pm. We danced for 3 hours, I
didn't have anything to drink in this bar. Ya know, it was a long day
anyways since it was still my first day in the country and I was done
dancing at about 12:30 and I didn't want to ruin everyone else's fun by
saying I was ready to go to bed, so I stuck it out until the bar closed
at 2am. I was pretty sore from all that dancing and my feet hurt from
all the standing and walking I had done during the day. My back hurt
from lugging my heavy duffle bag and my backpack forever in the
airport. Oh, I didn't really tell you about that, did I?
At the manchester airport, we were supposed to meet in terminal 2 and
my plane let us out at terminal 3. I had walked to terminal 1, which
wasn't very far away b/c it was on the way to terminal 2. I was hoping
terminal 2 would have been terminal 1 b/c it was a long enough walk
with all the stuff I had. Anyways, after I sat and chilled in the food
court, zoning out in the peace and quiet, cooling down, staring at all
the airplanes, I got up, determined to make it to terminal 2 in this
run. I swear, terminal 2 was a mile away. It took me at least 20
minutes to get there, but I'm not completely sure b/c I wasn't checking
my watch. I was exhausted and all hot and sweaty throughout all that.
My back was killing too. I'm ok now though. I got a good sleep on my
super hard mattress. It's uhhh....very nice.
So after my night out I went to sleep, after showering of course, at a
little after 3am. That was a long day, let me tell you. Then I had to
get up at 9:30 in order to eat bkfst, get ready, and walk over to Top
College, which is were we had our meeting at 11am. Just orientation
stuff. You would love Top College, it looks like a castle, it's pretty
cool. Maybe you can find a pic of it on the bangor website. It has a
library in it. The department of history is one of the departments in
the building. I will take a picture of it too. It has a court in the
middle of it too! It's beautiful!
After our meeting today I ate lunch by mooching off of other people's
food b/c I don't have the money to buy any yet. stupid northwestern
college. the 3 girls I met said I could eat their food, I just don't
know which is theirs that's in the fridge. The fridge is packed with
food and stuff. I just use a little without it looking too obvious that
somebody was taking/using their stuff. hehe. so sneaky. I did steal
somebody's hamburger bun. They would only miss it if they were
counting.
We walked around downtown bangor and went through the shopping center
and the people I was with bought their cell phones and other
necessities. I guess according to Tecwyn, the guy who is in charge of
us people who came through central college, Bangor is the ugliest city
in Wales. he he. it's pretty to me but I haven't seen much else of
Wales yet. I am so excited to climb the summit of Snowdon! They have a
stable nearby Snowdon and you can ride horses through the park there!
I'm pretty stoked about that!
Don't worry about me, I'm not gonna start drinking heavily, it's just
part of the culture here to go out to the pubs. The girls I was with
said they do that about twice a week, I am definitely not gonna do that
twice a week. It's not really my thing....once in a while is ok though.
I was not anywhere near drunk, and I didn't do anything crazy. It is
kinda crazy that I went out to the pubs my first night here though,
huh? Well, have a great week and I will write again once something
exciting happens. Our first field trip is on Monday. Oh btw, here's my
full address, complete with room number and all:
Julie Hagmeier M101 Y Borth
Bangor University Ffriddoedd Site
Ffriddoedd Road
Bangor
Gwynedd LL57 2JD
Wales - U.K.
And in case you were wondering how to say Ffriddoedd, the Fs sound just
like one 'f', kind of roll your tong on the 'r', and the 'dd's sound
like 'th'. I can tell you in person next time I talk to you, he he. K,
until next time....
-Julie | | |
| Life has been good.....for the most part. I finished this past semester of college with the highest GPA of my college career, so that was pretty sweet. Since finishing last semester, I've been to California, where I met some distant cousins and visited a graduate school (CSUN), I've been to Arizona, where I visited some of my teammates and another grad school (ASU). Now I'm working and getting as much done as I can while I'm still in the states, b/c I am flying to Europe to study abroad for my last semester of undergraduate college. I graduate this May and I'm super excited to be almost done! I'm super excited to go to Wales, but I'm kind of anxious about it too b/c it's something completely different and I'm going alone and I'll be so far away from everything I've known all of my life. It'll be good though. Well, I'm gonna go finish a book I've been reading so that I can go do something else b/c today is my day off from work! Later.
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| So I have mostly survived another semester here at college. I am overwhelmed with the buttload of work I have to do in the next week in a half, but after it's done I have a month of no school! Then I will be flying to Wales to study abroad for the next 4 months! I'm super excited about that. This semester has been interesting, to say the least. I have been pretty busy with stuff even though I am only taking 12 credits, compared to 18 credits last year. It's all good though. Well, I thought I'd post a little somethin' somethin', even though it doesn't matter b/c nobody reads this anyways. K. Bye.
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