Babysitting in Britain: A Test Run (Emily this is for you!)

I got to babysit today!! (yes! my calling in life!)

How it happened is this.  There is a couple here at Cambridge who brought their 20 month old son with them to England. The mom is also pregnant. It hardly bares stating aloud that this couple is from BYU. Anyway, the parents are nice and I feel bad for them because it's really hard for both of them to be going to school in a foreign country with a kid. I mean its difficult to have a kid whatever the environment. But when you are at a fancy pants institution its especially difficult not to mention rather gauche.

So I volunteered to babysit for them a little bit. I mean,  I don't actually know them but if either of my wonderful sisters were in this situation I would be helping them out however I could. Plus, considering the path I'm steering my life on right now there is an overwhelming chance that one day I will be toting a kid or two of my own around in some foreign country. So I thought I might as well pay it forward. And, lets be honest, I really love kids.

This little boy's name is Anson and he is adorable. I only had him for a couple hours so we just walked around a bit, went to the playground in the park and had lunch. I really freaked out my War and Security professor when I ran into her on the street pushing a stroller. She totally would have passed me by but I said hi and she stopped, took off her sunglasses and just looked at me. I explained that I was in her class and quickly added that the baby wasn't mine and she was like "ohhhhhh, sorry. I just don't expect one of the students to have a child." Yeah, that's a pretty safe assumption most of the time.

The playground was really fun and Anson and I had fun playing on the slide and the obstacle course. When it was time to go to lunch, I took him into the King's College dining hall and felt extremely conspicous as all the women workers in the place zoned in on Anson and started saying how cute he was and asking how he broke his arm (apparently he fell off a chair awhile ago...?)

Anyway, props to all you moms out there because it was not an easy couple of hours. And lunch, the most mundane activity was probably the hardest. I had a tray piled with food, a stroller and a baby. It was quite difficult to maneuver and, as I mentioned before, extremely conspicous. After I dropped him off with his mom at 1 I felt so free. It was like "wow, I can walk on the sidewalk and then step down into the street for a second and then jump the gutter and be on the sidewalk again?" (the narrow cobbled street made the stroller difficult).

Handsome Anson

he does well for a kid with only one functioning arm

me and my replacement Milo
(just kidding Emily!!)

Ducky...quack  quack!

But yeah. To all you mums out there (EMILY and LAURA!) It is definitely very doable to bring your kid to England (I mean England itself is a very easy place to live) but it would not be hard to raise a kid here (so basically we should all move to Britain!) The people in the town and at the playground were really nice and I don't think it would really be any harder to live here than where you guys live right now --except of course that you don't know anyone yet.

Anyway,  seeing as I would really love to move to Europe and raise a family here I thought it was a good little test run and I'm sure I will be babysitting Anson a bit more while I am here.

The other thing I did today was walk with some of the other PKP students to Granchester for tea by which I mean scones. Apparently a lot of really famous writers used to go there. It was very picturesque and I had fun.

A quaint English house we passed on our way to Granchester

I love red doors!

It was hard to get lost when we had such faithful trail markers

When in doubt, pinky out!

tea at Granchester! 

The secret life of bees
(actually the bees were jammed in there--get it "jammed"?!?--because they were stuck in the remaining jam in the jar and then someone closed the cap over them and they couldn't get out. Poor guys. I thought about rescuing them but didn't want to get stung.)

this is England

I like the little European cars

So I'm sure many of you are thinking, "this is great, but when on earth does she do homework?" That's a very good question and I've been asking myself that lately. I mean to be fair I did spend about 7 or 8 hours in the library yesterday but it didn't really feel like work. I mean I'm working on a novel the same thing I would be doing if I was at home. And then I'm doing super interesting reading on security and international development. It's awesome. But I really should be doing a bit more. So with that I will sign off and hopefully force myself to do some writing.

Come Come Ye Saints

Happy Sunday!


Today I went to church for the first time in the Cambridge ward and it was quite the experience. Actually, when I was leaving for church this morning, I realized that it was my first time going to church in another country at all which in itself is a pretty big milestone. So yeah, the church building is kind of far away so we all just shared taxis there.

A rather old picture of the church building

It's been like three weeks since I've had the chance to go to church so it was really good to be there but also a little hard to get back into the swing of things (I could see many of my BYU comrades falling asleep during sacrament meeting.) I personally entertained myself by closing my eyes and imagining that Kermit the Frog was preaching to me from the pulpit because the last speaker had a voice remarkably similar to the muppet.

After sacrament meeting came sunday school which was like no experience I've ever had before. Our teacher was this old man in a mechanical wheelchair who was quite witty and very intelligent. It was like being taught by Stephan Hawking except that our teacher actually believes in God. The woman in the row behind us told us to watch out for his walking stick because he'd have us tripped onto the floor in no time. His lesson was sprinkled with World War 2 history, poetry recitation and acted out scenes from the new international translation of the bible. If sunday school were always like that it would be a magical magical place.

Actually, it reminded me of the stories my parent's tell from their student ward in Cambridge Massachusetts when they were my age. Since most of the members were from very good schools like Harvard, MIT and Boston University, their Sundays were loaded with intellectualism and well written talks and lessons. For any non-Mormons reading this blog, its really not that regular church is so bad. BUT we do go at least three hours a week so sometimes things can get repetitive. I love being in an environment where regular topics like the resurrection get shaken up a bit and sources that aren't usually consulted (like world war two poets) are brought in to illustrate some aspect of the scriptures.

After that we were on to Relief Society (the women's meeting). This was hilarious. Again, if church was like this every week it would be so awesome. Never have I heard so much banter in a relief society lesson. There was a general hum of talk the whole time and people kept speaking over each other and just saying the most ridiculous things. Most specifically I am referring to the straight twenty minutes we sat in groups of eight with copies of the lesson manual and a magnifying glass. We opened up to the chapter we were studying and spent that whole time studying and discussing the picture on the first page of a family reading their scriptures together.

Let me tell you. Never, was so much 'meaning' meant to be extrapolated from that cheesy portrait. We got the simple things like, "they are happy, each child has their own set of scriptures, their house is clean, they have a picture of the temple hanging in the room" and then moved on to things like "well, we know its the Bible and not the Book of Mormon they are reading because its much too long, its open to page 346" "--346? How on earth can she read that?" "she's making that up." "No really, its page 346..." (the print was MUCH too small to tell).

Or probably my favorite, "did anyone see what time the watch says?" (general buzz as women re-examine the photo with their magnifying glasses) "Didn't you see that its 6:00? And what happens at 6:00? Family Home Evening! Their having family home evening!" "there's no way she can see that." --maybe its 6 am. Maybe they're having early morning scripture study..." and so on and so forth in like ridiculous manner (make sure to include the English accents when you read this in your head).

Anyway, I had a lot of fun observing everything from the back and,once again, am thinking that 8 weeks is not nearly long enough.

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Today was your typical rainy English day. I slept until 10ish, spent a few hours in the library, and then walked around the city looking for a place to eat. Turns out this was a mistake as Cambridge is absolute mayhem on a Saturday afternoon. There were tourists everywhere. And then since it was raining, everyone had their umbrellas out and it was just this huge mass of bodies to get through trying to make my way up the streets.

Speaking of tourists, I should mention that they aren't just outside the college. Do people pay to enter your school grounds and take pictures of the architecture? Yeah well that's about every day here. I live right by the river which is also a big tourist attraction and let me just say that I never realized punting was so loud. There seems to be a lot of shrieking involved. Anyway that was the afternoon, I went to the library, got a minimal amount of reading done and then went out for dinner and a Shakespeare play with friends.

Yes, that's right. I'm so cultured.

See there's a Shakespeare festival going on in Cambridge for the entirety of July and August with several plays going on every night at different collages around the city. So tonight a bunch of us went to see The Winter's Tale. We were a bit dubious when we arrived and saw that the whole thing was taking place outside with minimal props and only about fifty audience members but it was really fun. And I actually understood it! Here is the blerb from the website describing the production:


Leontes, King of Sicilia, is driven mad with irrational jealousy, convinced that his wife, Hermione, is having an affair with his childhood friend, Polixenes, and that the child she is bearing is not his own. Polixenes escapes to Bohemia, whilst Leontes orders that the child, a daughter, must be abandoned on a desert shore. Leontes assumes the child has perished - but sixteen years pass before the truth is uncovered. The beautiful setting of Downing College gardens provides the backdrop for Shakespeare’s masterful study of suspicion and obsession. Watch out for some comic twists and turns, too... and a bear!

To be honest I'm not really a huge Shakespeare fan. That's one of the things that made me realize that maybe being an English major wasn't my calling. I understood this play the same way I understand French. Specific words flew over my head, but the general meaning was (for the most part) clear. There were parts when all of us were looking at each other shaking our heads like 'can this really be in the script?' because they definitely took some liberties with the blocking. For instance, apparently the bear (oh yes! '...the bear!") chases the kings servant for 16 years, the Prince and Princess make out on the grass for several minutes in front of their parents and the king's friend carries a ukulele. The biggest mystery for me though was not the fact that Hermione was somehow preserved as a statue for 16 years. No, the biggest disconnect for me happened when somehow the banished princess is reunited with her father as if nothing has ever happened and they (apparently) recognize each other for who they really are and proceed to take a bunch of happy family portraits.

Basically it was confusing and loaded with modern British humor which was a bit bizarre but I feel that I got a very authentic experience of contemporary British theater.

Here are some pictures I took after it finished:

Me, Brooke and Rob. You can see that my sweatshirt singles me out as a tourist.  No native would ever wear that.

This was the stage! It was a cool tree, so Mom I included this especially for you!

A Very Potter Ending

      

According to facebook, many of my contemporaries seem to be under the impression that their childhood has officially ended now that the final Harry Potter film has come out. I understand the sentiment, however, if leaving Harry behind is a landmark of maturation then I left childhood several years ago when the final book came out. If you aren't a Harry Potter fan then nothing I say here will be at all meaningful to you. If however, you are already a fan, then please do feel free to stroll with me on this path through memory lane.

Harry Potter. 

If you get it, you get it. And if you get it then you'll know that Harry Potter is so much more than a children's story or an adventure novel or a good mystery. It's this beautiful, fantastical, hilarious yet tragic story of love and loss that happens to take place in a totally magical setting. Most of us are in agreement that Harry Potter will become a classic. I'm a firm believer in the immortality of the written word--all I have to do is pick up one of the books, open it to a random page and Hogwarts will still be there. But I do think that maybe, even to a new reader, some of the magic will be lost. 

How so? Well my generation, by which I specifically mean me a 20 year old (and I suppose anyone within a few years of me on either side) literally grew up alongside Harry Potter. I was generally about Harry's age when each book came out so we grew up together and I got to go to Hogwarts as a fourteen year old, a sixteen year old, etc waiting in real time for the next book to come out when Harry and I would be about the same age.

Harry's angst in book five never bothered me because, guess what?! I was a hormonal teenager as well the first time I read it! I was probably just as unpleasant as Harry except that my main problems had to do with school and his main problem was that the most evil wizard of all time was hunting him down and systematically killing every person he had ever loved.

I'd be a bit moody as well. 

A lot of people who are different age groups don't agree with me and I'm sure a lot of people my age would argue that Harry was too whiny in book 5. That's fine, whatever. But it does bring me to something a bit bigger which is this: at no time will Harry Potter be as meaningful as it is right now because Harry Potter is a product of this time period. I'm sure there are cultural and social components of it which the modern reader takes for granted but which a future study of history may show to be endemic to our time. A bit of an obvious example would be the emphasis on social justice: respect for muggles, rights for House Elves, tolerance of people or species that are different than your own, a gay headmaster. Not only did J. K. Rowling work for Amnesty when she was younger, she also lived in a time when the definition of equality was becoming more expansive and when globalization was becoming a huge force in the world. I can't tell you what exactly the symptoms of this are in her writing because I am too close, but I know they are there.

And then of course when I say that Rowling "lived" in that world of globalization and a broader push towards tolerance, I of course mean that she still lives there. And so do we. From a historical standpoint, it will take decades to be able to look back and really see what the underlying motifs idiosyncratic to this time will be. I don't know what future readers will find archaic in Harry Potter. All I know is that Harry is my contemporary and when my grandchildren or great grandchildren read the books they will be getting a glimpse of my childhood. I imagine they will experience it similarly to the way I experience something like classic Winnie the Pooh; I love it and think its incredibly sweet but at the same time I am very aware that it is vintage and I feel  distant from whatever world existed when it came into being.

That's a little sad isn't it? Not really. Harry will always be a beloved character. He will continue to be loved by new readers long after I have reached the sweet age of retirement and am rocking away somewhere in a nursing home. All it really means is that we should cherish the Harry we've got. Because we have the Harry of the 2000's and when we revisit the books we will simultaneously be revisiting the people we were when we first read them. When I go back to book seven I will always retain the feeling of pure anxiety I felt as I neared the end, literally praying in my head that the characters would be alright before remembering that it was all a story. When I go back to book two I will remember the fear I felt as a child, insisting that my mom stay in the same room as me while I ventured with Harry and Ron into the Chamber of Secrets. When I read book one I remember how much it made me giggle that Hermione wanted to sing from the top of the astronomy tower that Malfoy got detention.

  

I could go on and on, but the point, I suppose is simply this: that Harry Potter (as nerdy or lame or whatever as it sounds) is a good friend and a key aspect of myself. Not just the child within me but the person I am and will continue to be. In celebration of this fact I decided to dress up for the last big hollaballo (the last one that will be socially acceptable at least. I'm sure HP will provide Halloween costume inspiration and themed parties for many years to come) I dressed up as Luna Lovegood. 

This was mostly due to the fact that I didn't have any costumes with me and that I needed an excuse to debut the new yellow coat I was bragging about earlier. But it was very fun to have a bunch of girls over, listen to the Harry Potter theme song, take pictures and walk down to the theater together.

That's the Great Hall Behind Us. I'm making weird expressions in all these pictures because I'm Luna

Emerging from the Gryffindor Common Room. Hermione, Bellatrix, Luna and Mrs. Weasley

One of the many Vanishing Staircases.  This picture snapped just in time

Having fun on the grounds

Hermione, Luna and Molly Weasley 

Final showdown between Bellatrix and Mrs. Weasley

A very excited crew

After the movie. Thats our authentic British friend Chris next to me

Well, the movies may be over, but the books are immortal. So when I say LONG LIVE HARRY I'm also, in a way, saying, LONG LIVE CHILDHOOD. Thank you Mrs Rowling, for reminding the world that we're never too old for magic and thank you Professor Dumbledore for explaining that just because something takes place inside our heads, why on earth should that mean its not real?

A Fond Farewell

Ode to Cambridge

Alright I should be doing my homework right now but really I just cannot contain how much I LOVE it here in Cambridge and I just needed to share that. Why exactly do I love it so much?

WELL.
Reason #1
The most recent reason is that I just bought the most awesome coat. And if you think that was an irresponsible purchase, think again. It is soooo cold here. And apparently it will be for at least the rest of the month.  Plus, I really have a weakness for coats. And seeing as I live in Utah and have to walk around outside a lot, I don't really feel too bad about this coat fetish. It's probably cheaper and more useful than a shoe fetish for example. What kind of coat is this you ask? All I can really say is that it is yellow and awesome. I've always wanted a yellow coat but couldn't pull it off. However, now that my hair is brown I feel that my time has come. The age of yellow is here.

Reason #2
At the moment I am listening to this up and coming singer named Dan Masterson. He is doing an eight week tour of England by himself and just happens to be my friend Brendan's roommate at Harvard so he gave us a private little concert last night in Brendan's room. I was a bit dubious but he's actually really good. Check him out: http://danmasterson.bandcamp.com/album/the-father-time-ep  .   If you only have time to listen to one listen to Father Time or Jack and Jill.  This has to do with my love for Cambridge because I feel so cultured that I'm surrounded by such smart and talented people.

Reason # 3
People say cheers. All. The. Time. Really, it's cheers this, cheers that. Cheers seems to be what you say for both 'thank you' AND 'you're welcome' as well as 'goodbye'. It's a very cheery place.

Reason #4
The architecture. It's absolutely amazing. Here are some pictures I took the other night when I was picking up my laundry. Guys, this is where I LIVE.

See the corner right where the two sides meet? That's my staircase. I'm on the top floor.

The entrance to my staircase. See the spiral starting?

Reason #5
School. I'm taking a class on War and Security and it is soo interesting so far. And tonight I'm going to a lecture by Sir Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and Master of Pembroke College here in Cambridge. I would go to this anyway, but it's actually required for the "Spooks and Spies Class" that I am taking next block. 


Reason #6 
The stores here are awesome. The shopping is great and they play really cool music. I mentioned this about Scotland but its worth saying again, because it's really made an impression on me: the music they play could be off my personal playlist. Now I know I'm not that original so the music I like IS popular, but it's just not extremely popular in the states. So it seems I have found my kindred spirits. Also so far, I am definitely more drawn to English fashion than to French fashion.


Reason #7
I could probably go on and on, but I will finish by saying this: it just feels right to be here. It hardly took any time at all to adjust to my little life here and the idea of leaving in about 7 weeks just sounds like way too soon. So to all of you who have made fun of me the past few years for my obsession with England, I want to tell you that my gut feeling was right. I really do love this place and I think I could be happy here in the long run. I will definitely be coming back and graduate school at Cambridge or Oxford is on the top of my list. 
I also want to say thank you very much too my mom and dad for making it possible for me to come here. I know that I am extremely spoiled and that I don't deserve it.


I guess that's it for now, I love you all and the only think that could make this trip better is to have you here with me!
Cheers, Jenny

A Very Rainy Weekend

Hey friends. I got back from SCOTLAND on Sunday night and am finally posting all the awesome things I did there! It was a wonderful albeit crazy weekend filled with lots and lots of walking. I will just go chronologically.

Thursday Morning:
Hop on Charter bus at about 8:30. The seating was horrible with hardly any leg space but I got to sit next to a friend so that was nice. We stopped for lunch in Richmond which has this cool castle. pretty much all the pictures I post are from other people's facebook pictures since my camera ran out of batteries.

Richmond Castle, an "ancient monument" in case you couldn't tell

View from the castle

Outer ruins of the Castle. Very fun to climb on

Epic

There's a light at the end of the tunnel. Really. I've see it.

So I had fun exploring the castle with two friends, Maddy who goes to Princeton and Rosalind who goes to Yale (and has blue hair!!). After that they wanted to eat but I didn't want to spend too much money on food when there was random junk to be bought so I hung out in the market place for a bit where I met a man selling vintage maps of England. He was really cool and we had a nice discussion and I ended up buying three maps from him. Two of them are from the 30s and the other is from the 50s or 60s. They are pretty cool and I plan to use them to decorate my room back at BYU. The man was super nice and it was cool to just talk with a local. After that I succombed to hunger and bought a really cheap Cornish Pasty at the market and it was quite good- just don't ask me what was in it because I prefer not to think about that!

When we finally arrived in Edinburgh that night (it took forever because we kept having to stop) we checked in to our rooms at the University of Edinburgh and got dinner. And oh what a dinner it was. At Cambridge we have a meal plan but we pay by food item, not buffet style so we all REALLY loaded up while we were in Scotland and just ate as much as we possibly could. The food wasn't too good but it was unlimited.

There is a dormant old volcano right in Edinburgh (and literally just next to our rooms) called Arthur's seat which we decided to climb up to watch the sunset so we could stretch our legs a bit (this was mostly the BYU kids since everyone else was going to pubs). I ended up running ahead with this guy, Nick because everyone else was so slow and we thought they were just going to play Frisbee at the foot of the volcano/hill/mountain thing. So Nick ran ahead and I finally caught up to him and we just sat and talked and watched the sunset over the city and it was quite picturesque. Later we found out that we had gone the total wrong way and the actual summit was waaaaayyy higher. But that's ok. Plenty of time for hiking later as you will see.

On Friday morning we left for hiking in the Trossachs which are about two hours away from the city. I didn't totally understand that I was expected to have a lunch and water for this endeavor so I didn't bring any money with me. This was a mistake. We stopped in the town of Callander right before reaching our trailhead. Keep in mind that there were two coaches full of us and that a lot of the Ivy Leaguers were freaking out like they had never been outside so everyone was loading up. In the end, that kid Nick who I hung out with the night before and I ended up buying and sharing a loaf of bread, some jam and a huge bottle of water with the agreement that I would of course pay him back. The only problem now was that neither of us had any way to carry the food. Apparently he's kind of a genius though because he ended up making make-shift satchels out of both of our jackets and I wore mine like a one shouldered backpack across my shoulder all through the hike and it never once came undone. Impressive.

See the sweatshirt tied behind me? That has my huge two liter waterbottle in it!

Now as I said there were WAY too many people hiking at once (like at least 100) so it went very slowly and we opted to just go slow at the back so that we could take our time instead of being right in the middle of the heard. It wasn't a very hard hike but it was very wet and my running shoes are now extremely muddy. But the views we saw of the Loch below us and just of the hilly countryside were amazing.

Katelyn and I bought the same windbreaker

Me and Jacqueline. She's pretty awesome.

Oh what a beautiful Loch

Nick and I enjoying our pastoral lunch of bread and jam. We had enough to share with everyone. Matt is the one in the back taking a picture. 

See. Here's the picture that Matt was taking in the back. It really captures the essence 

Silly

We had to retake this because I wasn't growling well enough. I just kept laughing

It was a bread and jam party

So as you can see the hike, though long and muddy was defintitely a success. And we got back just in time to shower before going to the Scottish Caleigh which is a traditional Scottish dance party. Think square dancing or barn raising party but scottish style. It was SO FUN. They were pretty much all partner dances and there was so much jumping and twirling it was just impossible to not smile. And since it couldn't possibly be done very well, everyone looked equally silly. That's how dance parties should be. It's probably good that I don't have any pictures of dancing (I was so hot and sweaty--it was like a three hours of intense dancing!) but here is a picture afterwards with the Scottish band. 

Gotta love the matching kilts

As you can imagine we (we being mostly BYU people) were very pumped at this point so the natual thing to do was just to stay up all night walking around the city and then hike Arthur's seat to see the sunrise. I'll let the pictures explain how extremely fun this was.

A great view of my butt as I bow down to Adam Smith.

We were taking a picture in front of the Adam Smith statue when those two totally drunk blokes in white just kind  of jumped into the picture.

About four in the morning at the top of Arthur's Seat. INSIDE a cloud.

We were sitting just over this ridge. It kind of looked like Mordor.

We were very tired

We got back from the hike (after many wrong turns) at about six am. I slept for a few hours and then by ten o'clock was off again. I visited the National Gallery and did some window shopping (the music they play in stores here is awesome--as if it came right off my pandora playlist!) 

We also went to Rosslyn Chapel which was made famous by the DiVinci Code. While this was really neat, the coolest part of this may actually have been the ruins near the chapel. We saw a couple taking wedding pictures there. 

That's right! He's in a full Scottish kilt!

After the chapel, we spent the rest of the day just exploring the city. Of course we made the obligatory pilgramage to the Elephant House cafe where J. K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter. I've been there before but it was really fun to go back. And the toilets were quite entertaining. 

Ok, maybe I was a little too excited.

That's right. A Harry Potter toilet seat.

So while eating we had a trivia contest of Harry Potter random facts. Then we walked down the royal mile, did some shopping and ended up in Chocolate Soup, another well known Cafe where we got hot chocolate. After this we walked some more, took pictures near this random Colosseum type thing, and then I went back to the university with my friend Brendan while everyone else went on a ghost walk. I went to bed super early and it was definitely the right choice because, as you can imagine, I was very tired!

The next day I said goodbye to Scotland and hopped on the coach back to England. On the way back we stopped at Fountain's Abby which was honestly one of the most amazing places I've ever been. It is a very well preserved ruin from the 12th century. It is absolutely huge. At first the kids playing and shouting everywhere kind of annoyed me but then I realized that this was the best playground I could ever imagine and then I was a little jealous of them. After visiting the abby I can definitely understand why this is the country that gave birth to Lord of the Rings. 

The Abby

Absolutely amazing. Can you believe this entire hall  has lasted about 900 years?

Anyway, we finally got home at around seven and settled back into Cambridge and, while Scotland was amazing it was a bit of a relief to enter a warmer climate. There are lots more cool pictures we took but as they are on other people's camera's I will have to wait until they put them on facebook before I can share them here.

Basically to sum it all up, Scotland was awesome. Very very very awesome.