home at last...

I am home for those of you who weren't aware! I'm ill and still very sleepy, but hope to be good as new in a few days time.

Pics from Dublin to follow at a later date!

You must be joking...

Nope no joke folks...I'm definitely not coming home today. My flight has been canceled. Big surprise huh? I have really unfortunate luck when it comes to travel plans going as planned!! Anyway, they've put me up in a swanky hotel for the night in London, are buying my dinner and breakfast tomorrow, and I made a friend while waiting in the line at the airport for 2 hours. These are the positives I suppose that I keep trying to bring to the forefront of my mind.

However, the truth is I'd rather be in the air flying home right now than sitting in this hotel room, typing a blog, because I have a whole lotta hours to kill before my flight tomorrow, that I may or may not have a seat on! What a nightmare. I'm also very ill due to way too many days with no sufficient sleep and too much of a good time in Dublin, so I have very little voice and my head feels very heavy...

More on Dublin later, I'll just say that it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING (albeit incredibly super unbelievably expensive).

Hope to see you all soon. I'll keep you posted :)

IT'S ABSOLUTELY NOT GONNA FIT!!!!

So we leave for Dublin in the A.M. and I need to have all my things packed because I will only be here Tuesday night before flying home....and let me just tell you it's definitely, absolutely, no way, no how, never ever gonna all fit into my suitcases! I don't know how this freaking happened. I sent quite a bit of stuff home with my mom and sister in December and I really didn't think I'd bought much more since then, but apparently that's a lie because I can't cram anymore in. I now need to sort out what I don't mind leaving behind until my August return....

So enough complaining about that (although it would be nice if I could have three bags on the airplane instead of two...) and onto other news...

This week has been a rollercoaster in the best way. It's been really hard saying goodbye, as I said the last of my goodbyes to my co-workers today. I already said goodbye to one of my housemates, as he flew back to Dubai this morning. The rest of the gang will soon follow...

I'm absolutely exhausted, due to not having much sleep for the last few days, primarily due to going out and having too much fun and then having to get back up and do it all over again...life is hard huh?

Anyway, I will be home in 5 days...so crazy!! I can't wait to see all of you. It promises to be a whale of a time...

Ta for now.

XO

The time has almost come...

In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!
Alive, alive-O! alive, alive-O!
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!

She was a fish-monger,
but sure 'twas no wonder
For so were her father and mother before
And they each wheeled their barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!
Alive, alive-O! alive, alive-O!
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!

She died of a fever,
and no one could save her
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!
Alive, alive-O! alive, alive-O!
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!

Well, Sarah, Addis, Rhian and I are gearing up for St. Patty's Day weekend in Dublin, Ireland and I thought you might enjoy an Irish tune!! We've booked a 4-day hostel tour, which includes ferry transport, coach travel, hostel accommodation, admission into the Guinness Brewhouse, and a variety of other activities, all leading up to the big parade on Monday!! I absolutely cannot wait. It should be an amazing time. The only downfall being that I'll be boarding a plane back to the US the day after our return from Dublin....

This week has kind of been an emotional rollercoaster, alternating from feeling really excited about returning home and seeing all of the people, places, things I've missed so much, and feeling extremely sad about saying goodbye to my friends, my job, and my home here. I feel unbelievably fortunate to have had such a great experience here in Wales and in traveling the rest of the UK and parts of Europe. I feel I've made the absolute most of it, and for that I can leave feeling really happy.

I also found out last week from Trevor & Katy that I may be getting a publication from my work here with them, which is incredibly exciting! This basically means that for all the work I've done here with them on the drugs/crime project, the authors for the publication to be written from their data will possibly/likely be listed as Bennett, Holloway & Beall. This really makes this experience even more exciting. I feel incredibly honored and have been so lucky to have had such wonderful people willing to teach me so much during my time here and letting me be a part of their projects/research.

The weekend last was definitely an exciting one! Beginning really on Saturday afternoon with Wales defeating Ireland in the Six Nations Rugby match. This means that they have one match to go to win the Grand Slam, which means they're undefeated!! We were in a Cardiff pub at 12:00p to share in the excitement! The shouting/singing/chanting was thunderous as they went on to overcome and defeat Ireland!!

From Cardiff we returned to Pontypridd at about 6:00p to set out on a pub crawl of Pontypridd and Treforest, which is where I live and where we normally go out on the weekends, and seeing as it was my last Saturday in Ponty, we thought we'd celebrate by hitting up all the worthwhile pubs (skipping over the danceclubs...thank goodness!). Needless to say it was a highly entertaining night of complete silliness ending with a slumber party at mine! What a laugh indeed!! Photos from this madness have been added to the bottom of the album and can be found HERE.


Sunday night I went over to my co-worker Harriet's home for dinner (tea). All of our gang from work was there, with their respective partners, minus Trevor. We had an amazing meal, a champagne toast to say farewell to me, and several hours of playing SingStar on PlayStation2. For those who don't know what that game is, it's like a karaoke battle. It was horribly embarrassing!! Although highly amusing! We found out that Katy is quite the rapper and Neil should be a country superstar...and I need to learn some R&B songs apparently, because I was absolutely clueless; however, I did do a rather impressive job with the ultimate stalker song, Every Breath You Take. Again, horribly embarrassing!

Anyway, this week I'm just trying to finish my last two projects at work and clearing of my desk, as well as packing up all my stuff, which I think might actually fit into my suitcases, minus a few casualties that will be left behind. We'll see how it goes! I'm hoping to have it all packed by the time we leave for Dublin on Saturday morning. Tomorrow night I'm going out with the girlies (and probably Addis, since he seems to be one of the girlies!) for dinner and drinks, saying my goodbyes to most of them I would assume. Thursday is my farewell luncheon with work. We're going for one last Indian curry. This should be a tear jerker... Then Thursday night we have a BSC talk in Cardiff and are hitting the town afterward for a final farewell night out! This really will be goodbye to my co-workers, minus my final few hours of work with Trevor & Katy on Friday.

So this journey is just about over and I guess a new one is ready to begin. I just wish I knew what the new one had in store for me. I guess I'll find out in a couple weeks time when that magic acceptance letter comes from UMSL, or when I win the lottery and decide to travel the world for the rest of my life...

Take care.
Can't wait to see you all, really!
XO

...the only thing that's left to do is live.

So I apologize that it's been awhile...I have been SOOO busy! I'm getting ready to say goodbye to another home and more people that I care for greatly, and it's starting to become a reality. So the only thing that's left for me to really do here is enjoy every last second! The good news for you all is that I'll be home before you know it and it'll feel like nothing ever changed!

Let's recap the last couple weeks, starting with The Smashing Pumpkins shows...


I arrived in Manchester on Friday at a fairly decent time, checked into my hostel, did a little shopping around the Northern Quarter for the last time (how sad!) and got some coffee before heading to the Rock Show!! Let me just say MEN Arena is very strange and the main entrance is through the train station. I was expecting this massive arena with tons of people standing in line to go in, all super excited about seeing one of the greatest bands EVER! This, however, was not the case...

I got into the arena and headed down to my seat after the first band left the stage. They were mediocre, as are most bands that open for the Pumpkins. So then the wait was on. The floor started filling up more and more. Seats around me began filling up, although I was quite surprised at how many empty ones there were. So let me just tell you I got a seat because I didn't want to be squished into the crowd on the floor, but my seat was six rows up from the floor on the right side of the stage. I didn't buy that seat to sit in it. I wanted to sing and dance and meet all the cool fans around me...

Well let me tell you that was not the case, making the fact that Travis wasn't with me even more sad (I've never seen the Pumpkins without him...)! So the show began with Porcelina, a beautiful, sad, exciting, explosively powerful song, which barely got the audience revved up as you can see here:



Needless to say the crowd was BORING! Therefore the show was not as great as it could have been. No one around me was standing or even really singing along! How lame!! So the band played for 2 hours and 20 minutes and did not come out and do an encore, which I completely attribute to the crowd's lack of enthusiasm. It was a great show, but could have been even greater.

So Friday night I was to meet up with Craig, but he had been ill that day and was in bed before I was out of the show, so I was totally bummed to not see him again before departing back to the US, but we'll have August I presume! This probably worked out for the best, as I needed to sleep a little before catching a 5am train to London.

So why was I catching a 5am train you may ask? I'd really like to know the answer as well! No just kidding! I got up at 4am to catch this 5am train to be in London at Oxford Street Zavvi (a record store) at 9am in order to get a wristband to come back that afternoon and meet Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain, who would be doing an autograph session of their new EP.

So I get to London (and I'm exhausted), but I make it over the record store bang on 9am. They were to hand out 300 wristbands...and I was #288. Whew! Just in time!! So I headed off in search of some much needed coffee, before heading to my friends' hostel to drop of my stuff, as they were letting me crash in their room that night for no charge (completely awesome and sweet of them!). So after dropping off my stuff and enjoying a nice (surprisingly sunny!) morning in London I headed back to Zavvi to await the arrival of the bald man himself...

At the record store, we were all herded into this fairly tiny gaming room, used for promoting Wii's and Playstations, etc. None of which were turned on, therefore providing no entertainment, nor was there any music playing (which was a bummer because out in the store area was Smashing Pumpkins playing all day!!), and finally there was no air conditioning happening. Did I mention that 300 people were crammed into this room?? Needless to say we were all boiling!

This process took forever, the guys were a little late showing up and we had to line up in numerical order, so obviously I was towards the end! I didn't even have a book with me to help pass the time! Anyway, enough complaining for now....I finally got lined up, did manage to make a couple friends around me in the line and had fun comparing notes on past shows with them. We finally get up close to the table, where they were only letting you have one thing signed and we rushing you through rather quickly, skipping over any likely chit chat. So I snapped a few pics (a couple you can see here and the rest are up in the album!) and proceeded to head over the booklet from the EP to the security guy in charge. He then hands it to Billy Corgan, who at this point hadn't looked up. He then looks up and I made a comment about being from Kansas City and asking him when he was going to come play a show for us there...and his response was, "We don't have enough fans there anymore." So I was like, "Are you serious??" and then asked them to come back to the Granada, promising just as much fun and excitement as last time, and he replies, "We don't do that kind of thing anymore," meaning they don't play small shows...

So that was my conversation with the man himself. The guy behind me in line told me it was at least good that I got some conversation going! Seriously! I guess, but I should have kept my mouth shut, because hearing Billy say that they don't play small shows anymore and all I can look forward to are arena shows and festivals is less than thrilling.

On the bright side of this, Jimmy Chamberlain is an absolute delight!! He saved the day and told me how great it was to hear my voice. I forever love and adore him...

So after meeting up with my friends who I was staying with that night for some food and drinks, I headed off to the London show at the O2 Arena. Now this is more what I was talking about! Massive arena, bright lights, Smashing Pumpkins scrolling around the cylindrical billboards...it was magical! Too bad my seat for this show was pretty crappy! I got a little wobbly from being up so high. It was absolutely terrifying, but I was on the left side of the stage and still had an alright view. I just really wanted to be down with the excitement. You could feel it at this show much more than in Manchester and the place was virtually packed. They played even longer (nearly 3 hours) and did come out for a one song encore. There was more playful banter and laughs during this show, which made it even better and Billy Corgan managed to score a few Brownie points back throughout the show, which was a plus after the record store experience! Here's a short video clip from the London show:



All in all, the shows were really great, it was just kind of a roller coaster of a weekend. Concluding on Sunday with more travel woes...my luck really is just terrible sometimes!

So I got up Sunday morning, after another night of not much sleep, due to the craziness of the hostel atmosphere (in a totally good way though)! I needed to catch a 9am train back to Cardiff in order to make it in time for my friend Rhian's birthday lunch, set for 12:30pm. So I hop on the tube after leaving the hostel at 7:30am and arrive in Victoria station to find that the District & Circle lines are delayed due to a track obstruction! Great! So I climb out of the underground and head for the buses. So after waiting for the bus, I'm finally on my way to Paddington Station, arriving just before 9am, rushing into the station, looking up at the board, only to discover that my 9am train had been cancelled!

Seriously?!?! I don't have time for this this morning!! So I stand in line at information (a very long line of people complaining I'm sure), and I hear a guy ahead of me get told that the next train to Cardiff was not for over an hour and there were no alternative options that would be any faster, so I step out of line, preparing to hang out in the station until the next train, thereby missing Rhian's birthday lunch... Then my luck changed!

The announcer came on and said that the 9am service to Cardiff had been re-instated and would be departing from Platform 8, so there was a mad rush towards the platform as the train was due to depart in 3 minutes! I made it onto the train, which then left a little late due to the confusion, and they announced that the train had been originally cancelled due to crew members phoning in sick! Seriously?! Why is that our problem?? Get some better employees, or find someone else to run the service! Due to this I wasn't actually asked for my ticket though, as there was no personnel to do so...

Anyway, I arrive into Cardiff and run to the platform to catch a train to Trefforest, jumping on board as the doors were closing. At this point, it looks like I'll be slightly late, but can still make it if I just meet the gang at the restaurant...but oh no it can't ever be this easy! I get as far as Radyr (about 5 stops from Cardiff Central and still quite far from my final destination in Pontypridd) and the train stops and we're all instructed to deboard and reboard a rail replacement bus, due to work on the tracks. So there's a bus sitting in the parking lot, presumably waiting for us. Wrong!! The driver informs us that he's on break and won't be leaving until closer to 2:00pm.

So about 15 minutes later, another bus pulls into the lot and lets off a whole group of people to board the train back towards Cardiff, so we're all thinking this must be our bus.... Wrong again! This driver tells us he's pulling into the back of the parking lot for a scheduled hour long break. Nice, real nice. So we've got two buses, not going anywhere, it's 1:00pm and I'm certain to miss Rhian's birthday lunch at this point, and did I mention it's freezing outside?? Well not actually below zero, but cold nonetheless! So the first bus driver finally agrees to let us sit and wait on the bus, as it was at least warmer. So we wait and wait and wait. No other bus comes for us. Another train arrives and more people get off waiting for a bus that isn't there.

Finally at almost 2pm, after waiting for well over an hour, the bus we're on is finished with "break time" and we depart the dreadful parking lot. Just in case it was unclear, the point is I got up early for nothing and still managed to miss Rhian's birthday lunch! Unbelievable!!

So I realize this post is now incredibly long and you've probably skipped over half of it :) but I'm going to carry on because I will probably only post another quick one before leaving and then a final one to say whether or not I've been accepted to the PhD program!!

The following weekend Rhian, Sarah and I roadtripped it to Leicester for their friend Eiry's birthday. The highlights included Sarah totally crashing into a parked car in the parking lot at the rest stop (thankfully no damage!), Rhian waking everyone up screaming in the middle of the night due to Sarah tapping her on the arm to get her to stop snoring, and the hour long traffic jam on the way home that was filled with one of the funniest radio broadcasts ever, which had us all in hysterics (not helping the fact that we all needed a wee and were dead stopped in this traffic jam)!!


Last week, I went to a folk music night with some others from the University, which was an especially fantastic night! The music was terrific and there was such a wide variety of instruments, from harps to flutes, and bongos to harmonicas to violins. There was something for everyone and it was really awesome to hear truly British (Scottish, Irish, Welsh) folk music, as well as more popular music!

So that's pretty much the highlights from the last few weeks. I have a whole lot planned between now and exactly two weeks from now when I'll be on my flight back to the US. I really am looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up about all things that have happened while I've been away. This week I'm planning a "practice pack" to see what I need to get rid of and what needs to stay here until I return in August to retrieve it. This could be quite a challenge!! I also am going back to Rhian's gran's for tea (dinner) one last time! As well as trying to plan some sort of goodbye get-together for the weekend, as it's my last weekend in Ponty, due to our Dublin trip the following weekend...

Next week is equally packed and I'll try to get in another post all about it before I head to Dublin!

In other news, I have not heard anything on the PhD program yet, so still keep your fingers crossed. Also, if anyone has any last minute small souvenir requests please let me know and I'll do my best to try and cram them into my suitcases somewhere!! The album is now up-to-date, including pics from The Smashing Pumpkins weekend, Leicester weekend, Rhian's birthday night out, and some other random miscellaneous pics from our silliness...and can be found HERE!

See you all soon and could you make sure it's warm when I get home??

"Have you ever heard the words I'm singing in these songs?"

"Stand Inside Your Love"

You and me, Meant to be

Immutable, Impossible

It's destiny

Pure lunacy

Incalculable, Insufferable

But for the last time

You're everything that I want and ask for

You're all that I'd dreamed

Who wouldn't be the one you love

Who wouldn't stand inside your love

Protected and the lover of

A pure soul and beautiful you

Don't understand

Don't feel me now

I will breathe, for the both of us

Travel the world, Traverse the skies

Your home is here

Within my heart

And for the first time, I feel as though I am reborn

In my mind, recast as child and mystic sage

Who wouldn't be the one you love

Who wouldn't stand inside your love

And for the first time, I'm telling you how much I need and bleed for

Your every move and waking sound

In my time I'll wrap my wire around your heart and your mind

You're mine forever now

Who wouldn't be the one you love and live for

Who wouldn't stand inside your love and die for

Who wouldn't be the one you love

Just a little taste for all of you of what's to come over the weekend!! That's right folks, tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Manchester for a weekend filled with THE SMASHING PUMPKINS! So this post is just a V-day tribute to the bald man himself! It's gonna be amazing! More upon my return! I absolutely can't wait!

8 pints, 6 sunny days and 4 shows...

So last weekend in Manchester was absolutely amazing! I got in late Saturday afternoon and Craig met me at the train station. We dropped off my stuff at Jen's place and the three of us went to canal street for some drinks and to catch up!

Craig and I then headed to the Academy 1 for a night of punk rock awesomeness! We got into the venue just in time to see The Briggs. It was so strange to see them in such a large venue, complete with a full on light show! So unfortunate that they were on first and only got a 30 minute set. They totally rocked it though and the crowd seemed really into them! Here's a video from the show (the sound quality's not great on the recording...it was much better live!!)...



The Mad Caddies then took the stage and Craig and I slowly made our way over to the bar to get some drinks. Well the set up was absolutely inconvenient to the crowd and the queue was like 8 people deep to get even close to the bar. So we decided we'd get two each and we headed to opposite ends of the bar to have a better shot, agreeing to wave a hand if we got up to the bar...

Well this was good in theory, but once we split up I totally couldn't see Craig anymore! Therefore, we both made it up to the bar at approximately the same time and each ordered 4 pints...2 each right? So we meet back up towards the back of the venue, each of us with 4 pints in our hands, with nowhere to set them and no way to even really drink them! I couldn't even get my wallet back in my purse! We were then laughing uncontrollably at our amusing situation! I then started checking the crowd for anyone old enough to drink without any drinks! Thanks to my entrepreneurial skills we were able to sell some drinks for the same price we bought them for and saved someone else the hassle of getting through the line! What a mess!

The rest of the show was really good, although the sound wasn't the greatest for The Dropkick Murphy's, which was kind of a bummer! We had an absolute blast though!

Sunday we actually managed to set out just after noon. We headed to Space, possibly my favorite pub in Manchester. It was gorgeous and sunny and such a nice day to sit outside, a total tease for spring/summer! So we grabbed some lunch and some cider and spent the afternoon soaking up the sunshine...which is such a rarity here in Britain!

Today was actually the 6th sunny day in a row! It's been absolutely incredible and definitely helps motivate more productive days! I know it won't last, so I don't feel too bad if I'm jinxing it; however, it would be nice if it lasted through the upcoming weekend too!

Anyway, Sunday night we set out with some of Craig's mates (Neil, Darren and Darren's entourage of women) to go see MxPx at the Academy 3 (much much smaller than the Academy 1). I'm not the biggest MxPx fan, but we had fun nonetheless! Heading to Big Hands (yep, you guessed it...another pub) after the show, where we were joined by the band members! It was another really cool night!

It was great to geek out about music all weekend with Craig and we had a massive swap of some of our favorite albums as well! Getting really sad that Friday will be the last time I see Craig for quite a while! I don't want to start saying goodbye to people! Who will indulge me with non-stop Jonah love when I get home??

Anyway, another post about the upcoming weekend shortly! I'm so excited I can hardly wait! Four shows in one week, capping it off with the best for last! This is sure to be the greatest Valentine weekend EVER!

So on that note, Happy Hallmark Holiday to all of you!
See you soon!
xo