This term is flying by! It's very strange not to have many contact hours- there was an article that just came out saying that York has the fewest contact hours of UK unis for history ugh, I'm noticing it as I've got ONE hour of contact time each for my two history modules, for an entire ten weeks, it's insane. So unlike Wooster, where you always have three hours a week for each module! So it's been a bit of a struggle to get myself to focus when I don't have any classes three days a week, but I've managed to get some work in! Group projects are also helping me to focus and be responsible.
My archaeology group project is quite interesting in that we have to work to identify objects from a York assemblage at the Yorkshire Museum. So far things have been going pretty well, although we still have lots to do to write our report! We have two hours of group time with our tutor in the museum for the first four weeks, and then we're on our own. I'm responsible for the illustrations in our report, which is fun, I get to draw all kinds of old things! I'm also working on the metalworking aspects, and researching an axe head and a pick axe head. Scintillating haha.
My Childhood and Adolescence group project has been a bit of a bumpy ride, not because of my group members by any means, but because the professor hasn't been so clear about what he expects of our project. We're writing a proposal for a textbook about female childhood and adolescence, and the word limit is a strict 3000, so we had each written 200 word summaries of what would be in our chapters (quite succinctly, I must say!), but it turned out that was not what our tutor had in mind, and now we're having to scrap the majority of it and start working on a new approach, which is quite frustrating. The result of having less than an hour of contact time in a term!! Seriously, we have two 20 minute meetings, kind of annoying, like where is my tuition going exactly??? But I think we'll get it done and it will be fine. And we also have an exam which is the majority of our mark for the module anyways, so I'm not getting too stressed yet.
Arabic is beginning to stress me out a little, I have my oral and listening exams this upcoming Tuesday and I don't feel at all prepared for them. I have about 600 flashcards and that's not all the vocab we've had to learn in the past three terms, ugh. Oh well, I'll just try my best I suppose! It's not for a grade, just a proficiency certificate, but I still want to do well. But after Monday, I'll be done with LFA seminars! So soon I'll be having no classes during the week at all, so strange!
In exciting news, one of my best friends, Denise, is coming to visit me next weekend!! I'm so excited to be able to spend time with her in England as a huge part of friendship is based on Harry Potter (and other English things haha), so this will be quite fun! We were hoping to meet up in London when I went to see the Tempest earlier this week, but it didn't work out. But we will be wreaking havoc in York. I hope she's prepared for a talking Viking museum!
It's been so nice out lately, with lots of sun (and some rain) and warm weather! Since we're so far north, and the clocks turned back, it's sunny quite late into the evening, and there have been some lovely sunsets lately out my window! But there have been some other not so pleasant things around people's windows- PIGEONS. They're trying to invade Le Page and it's not ok. During the Easter holiday, they got into the kitchen and a few rooms on the first (second to Americans) floor and left messes as surprises for us all, but this past week, they've been back in our kitchen twice (Rhiannon gets the Pigeon Chaser award!) and into another room, today alone! And they've come up on to the window ledges and pecked on the windows to quite a few rooms, including mine, which is a nasty shock. So now we can't really open our windows to let in the nice spring breeze without fear of an evil flying rat attacking us with their poo. The waterfowl are bit nastier than usual as well, as the geese have their little babies about, and they can be quite protective (which leads to them attacking Clare, who is petrified of birds hahaha). So the birds around here aren't so friendly as of late!
I'm still loving life abroad, and I'm not looking forward to leaving :-( My flight is officially one month (from yesterday) away, which is not a nice thought! So, not surprisingly, I've been considering how on earth to get myself back to England, and I'm pretty seriously considering coming back for my masters or PhD in York! My mum told me she's been waiting for me to say that haha, but it's somehow cheaper, even with the exchange rate, than many programmes in America, and PhDs are only 3 years here??? WOW. Not to mention my Le Page faves will be in their third year of uni if I come back, so I'd get to see them again haha. So who knows, I might be back in a year! :-p Seriously, I really do love living in England and I definitely wouldn't mind coming back haha.
If anyone has any questions about study abroad, studying in England or York, etc., please feel free to ask me as well!
My archaeology group project is quite interesting in that we have to work to identify objects from a York assemblage at the Yorkshire Museum. So far things have been going pretty well, although we still have lots to do to write our report! We have two hours of group time with our tutor in the museum for the first four weeks, and then we're on our own. I'm responsible for the illustrations in our report, which is fun, I get to draw all kinds of old things! I'm also working on the metalworking aspects, and researching an axe head and a pick axe head. Scintillating haha.
My Childhood and Adolescence group project has been a bit of a bumpy ride, not because of my group members by any means, but because the professor hasn't been so clear about what he expects of our project. We're writing a proposal for a textbook about female childhood and adolescence, and the word limit is a strict 3000, so we had each written 200 word summaries of what would be in our chapters (quite succinctly, I must say!), but it turned out that was not what our tutor had in mind, and now we're having to scrap the majority of it and start working on a new approach, which is quite frustrating. The result of having less than an hour of contact time in a term!! Seriously, we have two 20 minute meetings, kind of annoying, like where is my tuition going exactly??? But I think we'll get it done and it will be fine. And we also have an exam which is the majority of our mark for the module anyways, so I'm not getting too stressed yet.
Arabic is beginning to stress me out a little, I have my oral and listening exams this upcoming Tuesday and I don't feel at all prepared for them. I have about 600 flashcards and that's not all the vocab we've had to learn in the past three terms, ugh. Oh well, I'll just try my best I suppose! It's not for a grade, just a proficiency certificate, but I still want to do well. But after Monday, I'll be done with LFA seminars! So soon I'll be having no classes during the week at all, so strange!
In exciting news, one of my best friends, Denise, is coming to visit me next weekend!! I'm so excited to be able to spend time with her in England as a huge part of friendship is based on Harry Potter (and other English things haha), so this will be quite fun! We were hoping to meet up in London when I went to see the Tempest earlier this week, but it didn't work out. But we will be wreaking havoc in York. I hope she's prepared for a talking Viking museum!
It's been so nice out lately, with lots of sun (and some rain) and warm weather! Since we're so far north, and the clocks turned back, it's sunny quite late into the evening, and there have been some lovely sunsets lately out my window! But there have been some other not so pleasant things around people's windows- PIGEONS. They're trying to invade Le Page and it's not ok. During the Easter holiday, they got into the kitchen and a few rooms on the first (second to Americans) floor and left messes as surprises for us all, but this past week, they've been back in our kitchen twice (Rhiannon gets the Pigeon Chaser award!) and into another room, today alone! And they've come up on to the window ledges and pecked on the windows to quite a few rooms, including mine, which is a nasty shock. So now we can't really open our windows to let in the nice spring breeze without fear of an evil flying rat attacking us with their poo. The waterfowl are bit nastier than usual as well, as the geese have their little babies about, and they can be quite protective (which leads to them attacking Clare, who is petrified of birds hahaha). So the birds around here aren't so friendly as of late!
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| Sunset out my window one evening! The tree is also in bloom, which is lovely. |
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| Faith, Clare, and I <3 |
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