Laundry

Sorry for the delay in videos. The internet connection here has been inconsistent, which makes it hard to upload them.
Here is Sheri narrating the laundry room:



Sheri: Hi, Erin's family! I'm Sheri and I hope you've heard about me already. Anyway, this is the laundry room where I do my laundry sometimes. It's pretty expensive so I don't do it that much. I just got done washing my clothes and my friend's shirt which is still really dirty and I have to do it again with my dark clothes. So...
Me: Thank you.
Sheri: After paying 2 pounds for washing them, you have to pay another pound to dry them, so what I'm going to do is wash my dark clothes and then put all of it in one load of drying, so I'm saving a little bit of money.
Christine: She is an honor's student.
Sheri: I am an honor's student. So, I don't know...that'll go there.

3rd Floor

Carolyn: Alright, I'll narrate. Oh.
Me: Go / Christine: *giggling*
Carolyn: Ok. This is ... the 3rd floor and that was Erin's room - maybe you've already seen it. And that's Zan's room. She's a TA. And then we've got Brett goin' a little ways down. I think you should come. And this is the toilet paper that the whole floor is using to get rid of our colds. And this is Brett's room.
Christine: eeewwwww
Carolyn: And this is how it always looks.
Christine: You can't smell it...
Brett: Helloooo
Christine: You can't smell it, but it's disgusting.
Brett: It is not disgusting. It smells no worse than your room, Stinky.
Carolyn: No, yeah, it smells. No, it smells bad. No. No. No.
Brett: It really doesn't smell bad. If it smells bad it's from all that girl stuff you guys sprayed in there last week.
Christine: *whispering* We should knock on Eric's door.
Carolyn: Oh!
Me: Yeah, you got that face.
Carolyn: Here's a really cool stairway that leads up to a room of a guy that we don't really know at all...and here's our room! There's Maddy's room! And then there's Eric's room and he's asleep. We should bang on his door.
Maddy: Yeah, you should.
Carolyn: and then Olivia's room! That's the end!

My Room

This is the first in a series of video tours around the Highbury Centre and nearby locations. I'll try to post a new one everyday for at least a week. I typed out the dialogue since the video quality is pretty poor. Hopefully you still get a sense of the "atmosphere". :)



Christine: *knocks*
Me: Hello!! This is my room. This is my bed,
Shulan: Heyyy... *comes to see me, gets confused and stays in the hallway*
Me: and this is my fishtank (hears Shulan)
and what? and visitors.
and my birthday cards, my desk, my birthday sign, my window
Christine: Her sink - it's so beautiful
Shulan: Ohhh *realizes what's going on and hides behind the door*
Christine: That's it.

Valentine's Day

Last Thursday, we, the 19 girls, gave the outnumbered guys a little surprise. The TA's helped us by putting the 3 gentlemen in the early colloquy group and the main conspiritors in the later group. While they were in their discussion, we broke into their rooms with help from the Centre manager and did some decorating. We hung numerous paper hearts, sappy love lyrics, poems, pick-up lines, sprayed perfume on their pillows, spelled out LOVE on their sheets with twizzlers, bought them chocolate and tulips, opened their Bibles to I Corinthians 13, wrote flattery on their mirrors, and kissed their white t-shirts. Overall, they took it very well, though some left up the finery a few more hours than others. :-P

<-Eric "Liddlicious" Liddle's mirror

That evening they "got back at us" by getting us a chocolate bar with a personalized valentine and serving us dinner. We dressed up for dinner, Kristen's birthday, and pictures. After the festivities, a few of us went out for a movie. Such a great day.

p.s. Let me just say, I'm going to think twice about the consequences of coming down from the top of a double-decker bus in a full skirt before going up again.

Canterbury

We got back from our excursion to Canterbury on Tuesday night. The trip was pretty similar to our trip to Bath, but I definitely liked this one better. We stayed at Cathedral Gate Hotel, which obviously had quite a view. :)
I took this picture out the hall window right across from Rebekah's and my room
<---- The view wasn't the only feature that made the hotel endearing. It was the quirkiest building in which I have ever been...lots of winding staircases, ridiculously narrow hallways, 4' tall doors, slanted rooms that required bed levelers, a rooftop garden, and individually named and decorated rooms. My roommate, Rebekah, and I stayed in "Sleepy Hollow". It wasn't too spooky, though. I guess they figured the name was unnerving enough. While waiting for our first tour, a few of the girls and I went into a dress shop that was having a closing sale. I bought a fabulous dress for £15, marked down from £160!! I was very proud of myself. Since quite a few other girls found good buys too, we dressed up that night for storytime and card games.

The next day we had a tour again in the morning. I couldn't get enough of Canterbury. It is such a gorgeous town! I took over 300 pictures! I picked out 160 for the album, so take a look there for the beauty.

After the tour, we had a bit of free time so a few of us decided to do some exploring and then filming for a movie we're making. We also stopped for some fish and chips - which, by the way, are more delicious than I had expected or can describe!

We were all completely wiped out on the train ride back, but it was a happy exhaustion. :D

Pranks

Recently, the prank wars hit an all-time high. Since they have become such a big part of my life, I thought I'd share some (only those that have already been revealed, of course).

It started with basic key stealing, but quickly escalated.

About a week ago, Sheri, Bethany, Christine, and I stole Eric's Air Jordan shoelaces and then each picked an item out of his closet to wear to plenary. We decided to color Christine's junky shoelaces and then put them in his shoes, so that he would think we colored his. We cut letters out of museum guides and made a ransom note for the laces and put it in one of my out-of-state envelopes (from a birthday card).

He got pretty upset about the shoes because he didn't realize that we hadn't destroyed his real ones..so we decided to to partially abandon prank B. Instead of wearing his clothes on Monday, we just took a few pictures. :)

It ended well when he got back the clothes in a box with a sorry note and the real laces... "well" meaning less anger..more pranks.

Part of his retaliation was to take advantage of his 6'2"-ness and tie Christine's shoe to her ceiling so that she couldn't reach it (I think he also filled it with some kind of odor-inducing powder). Shulan had to come to the rescue on this one.

<---------------------

As a defensive strategy, Sheri and I switched our keys and key numbers (each key has a tag with the room number on it), so she has what looks like my key, and I have what looks like hers. We switch every time we come near a suspect, and switch back whenever we need to get into our rooms. It gets complicated, but has worked so far.

Unfortuantely the list of stolen and/or tampered with items is pretty lengthy: Christine's flip-flop, Shulan's flip-flop, Carolyn's teddy bear, Amy's peanut butter, Bethany's teddy bear, Carolyn's book, Christine's Cadberry spread, Carolyn's shoelaces, my laptop, Cecily's cell phone, Amy's cell phone, Eric's cell phone, Cecily's pen, at least 5 keys, and Bethany's apple pie.

Eric still has most of these items, much to the dismay of their owners. Here is a ransom picture he recently posted on facebook:

Some of the best pranks are currently underway, and I don't feel at liberty to discuss them at this point, but I will keep you updated. ;-)

Excursion and Birthday

Early Monday morning we took a series of tube trains to the overground, and from there enjoyed a gorgeous hour and half long train ride to Bath. The first stop upon arrival was the hotel, to get roommate assignments and drop off our luggage. Then a few of us found lunch at a really cute cafe and ate it in the courtyard of Bath Abbey/The Roman Baths. We visited the baths next. I had no idea they were so well-preserved! It was one of the coolest places I've ever been. In the afternoon we took a guided foot-tour around the city of Bath. It was FREEZING, but worth it. Bath is so picturesque. It felt like a dream the whole time. After a bit of shopping and a peak into the Abbey we went back to the hotel where they served us dinner. Tea and conversation followed the meal. We were all pretty beat, so we just sat around talking and playing cards until bedtime. On Tuesday, we spent more time at the Abbey, visited the Guildhall, Assembly Rooms, the fashion museum, Jane Austen's house, and lots and lots of shops. After a late lunch of pasties in the park we trapsed back to the train station to head home. I had such a great time! I can't wait til Canterbury next week. :)

<-- (L to R) Nigel - our tour guide, Amy, Sheri, Debbie, Me

That night (Tuesday), I stayed up with some friends and we opened the birthday package from my family at midnight. We proceeded to enjoy the contents and chat for another hour or so. After a birthday greeting/hug-filled breafast, we had colloquy and lunch. The afternoon consisted of seemingly endless gallery assignments. Though it did go it a little faster because of my friends' who-can-say-happy-birthday-to-Erin-the-most-game. It really did make me happy every time. :) That evening, when I was sitting in my room doing my reading I heard a page from the building manager, "All Houghton students please report to the library immediately." She's not the friendliest lady and usually means serious business, so I raced down the 4 flights of stairs to arrive breathless at the door, which I opened to... *suspense* ... a surprise party!!!! There was cake, ice cream, a group card, presents, a piano player, and a "dj" (Bethany) - all of which were impressive based on our limited resources. Afterwards, a few of crammed into Eric's room for a midnight Office marathon. It was a WONDERFUL birthday, and I couldn't be more thankful for my incredible friends. They really helped to ease the homesickness that day. (I have to admit that I was on the brink of tears when I got the audio clip of my family singing Happy Birthday to me.)

My solution to getting rid of the nasty root beer was to start the chug chant. Eric was not ok. -->

On Thursday night, Sheri, Eric, Carolyn, Christine, Brett, and I headed down to the theatre district to see Avenue Q. Despite a few sketchy scenes, it was a great show! We had a blast just getting out of the house, on the town, and away from our paper topics. Next weekend, we plan to see Wicked. I'm so pumped!