Home for the Holidays

And when I mean holidays, I really mean Christmas and New Years.

I had one day trip to London with Michael before finishing up my papers and flying home the 12th. We breezed past a lot of London must-sees (most of them I had already experienced during a family trip way back when), got lost in the shadier parts of London and had a blast in Harrods. The day ended with fish and chips and a sleepy bus ride back to UEA.

Kelly, Philly and Beth sent me off with a bunny friend with a UEA t-shirt (his name is Achilles), Tom sent me off with a wooden cat from Bali and the rest of STC01 made my last night at UEA memorable with water fights and shower parties.

I was surprised by how huge Fortinbras has gotten since we first brought him home last summer and I surprised Dan that Saturday night by having him come back from Subway to find me on his bed playing with his dog, Bruiser.

Highlights since I've been home include going to NYC with Anne and meeting up with Dylan and Cody. We had lunch at Lillie's, got lost on the subway that headed to Brooklyn, not Times Square and got an exclusive visit to one of the floors at Condenast. I won't go into details but it was so cool for me.

Hanging out in Farmington has been slightly surreal after being in England for three months. It was as if I had just gotten used to going to classes twice a week, travelling wherever, whenever and spending most of my time in lesiure clothes. Now back home, it's back to dressing up for the latest dinner party, waiting for friends to pick me up at my house since I have no car nor public transportation at my convenience, and no longer having to cook for myself - a trend that will continue when I go back to Roanoke and its dining hall. I have collected my souveniers from England in a box to scrapbook/document later.

Speaking of, a night at Betsy's with Kelly was a blast from the past when Betsy uncovered a bunch of my short stories that I wrote in high school, that being read after years proved a) even though I've never done any drugs, I was on the biggest acid trip during junior year and b) apparently I had a secret hatred for Kelly because I inadvertantly had her brutally harmed, killed or ignored altogether in nearly every story. My personal favorite is the Legends of the Hidden Temple adventure.

Okay, on to other things.

So apparently the new sexy thing is to be androgynous and wear nothing but black. As much as I love New York and love black get ups as much as the next person, I don't believe this is look is as "sexy" as the NYTimes have it cracked up to be. For the record, the hour-glass figure will always be sexy and in style. Maybe it's just me, the low-brow fashionista, but how is this sexy? I actually screamed a little when that slide came up. I feel this trend is more for the models with the bodies of tall lanky eleven year olds. Sometimes sexy in the fashion industry greatly differs from sexy in real life.

Again, maybe it is just me -- my personality and overral presence can be overwhelming and severe so if I dressed in severe clothing and all black all the time, it would make me even less approachable. I'll hang on to my colorful, flowy summer dresses for now, kthanks.

For other clothing, they're not so lucky. I have two full Lord and Taylor bags of clothes I'm getting rid of. First come first serve, then it's off to Goodwill!

I've been toying for the font size for fifteen minutes.

So of course instead of finishing up my 500 word essay about my poetic skills (answer: zero), or finishing the first draft of my Gothic short stories (werewolves -- except they wear their shirts when human) OR starting my Chaucer essay at 1:00am, I chose to play online Scrabble and look at pretty clothes.

So I stumbled across this pretty thing, shat myself (pardon my language) and needed to write about it, even though I could've written about Bath and Essex weeks ago. No matter, here I am.

Divine.

For those who don't know (or care -- losers), this is a Lela Rose bow dress that I want to own, to possess in every sense of the word. This isn't your F21 or H+M, guys, this dress is for the high rollers. Seeing as I am not completely fluent in the world of higher fashion, I'm still waiting around for Forever 21 to make a knock-off of it. Even then, it won't be 100% silk and I doubt there will be a built-in bodice. I sigh dreamily. If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it.

Speaking of clothing, whoever has been dressing Serena van der Woodsen needs to be reconsidered. Lively's stylist has been peeving me recently and I highly suggest (s)he be replaced by whoever did the past seasons. In case you haven't noticed, Serena has been wearing SHORTS to show off her lucious legs outdoors in November. Watch a few past season 3 episodes and ask: "Isn't she cold?" Also -- that ratty pony tail from 3X09 with the horrifically large-shouldered dress in Tripp's office? Bleh. Go look for it and say I'm wrong. Was anyone else freaking out Deroda being preggers?

Parenting tip for Ms. Waldorf: give your child an earlier heads up when you up and move to Paris. Just a suggestion.

Oh right, so I've been travelling!

Fail.

My adventure to Bath was unusual because this time I had a friend with me this time. That's right -- just to remind you, I travelled alone (much to the horror of my mother) to Great Yarmouth, Cambridge and Oxford. This made my experience in Bath that much more interesting because I was with my friend Corey (fondly referred to as "Philly"), regardless of the windy, rainy weather. So yes, it was good weather for us.

What I'm wearing while being Had by the weather of England: Michael Kors sneakers, Seven for All Mankind jeans, leopard trench from Lord and Taylor, green scarf from Old Navy (from Amandalee!), and Poundland umbrella. I do this to make myself feel special (I mean, why does anyone start a blog? Exactly.)

Bath included various trips to thrift stores that were stuffed to the GILLS of vintage clothing, but I was good and all I got was a silver chain necklace. Philly and I poked our heads into the Jane Austen museum, passed an Eastern Asian art museum, and visited the Fashion Museum as well as the Roman Baths all in one day. The day we arrived was mostly dedicated to finding our hostel and feeling our way around the streets of Bath, seeing the street performers and window shopping. Philly took many magnificent pictures that I will pirate from her so I can show them to my family and friends. That's a heads up, Phil.

Why do I keep posting pictures of me with my mouth wide open?

We had some fun trying on corsets and the skirts at the Fashion Museum. In this picture I'm wearing a gigantic skirt, a hand-me-down brown sweater from Anne and Dan's button down. My jeans are still on.

So...Essex. That was last weekend.

How can I describe Essex? I guess the first step would be to show you the kind of people who live in Essex.

Essentially Jersey girls. With British accents.

In this picture I'm wearing my Topshop romper that my sister doesn't approve of, her hand-me-down hot pink tights, and the silver chain necklace from Bath. By the way the Americans won. You don't beat us at a game we brought to you. It's just not done.

So Beth was kind enough to let Philly and me visit her quaint (and awesome!!) country home in Essex. The English countryside is much prettier during the day with the November sun shining amongst large, cumulus clouds that artists often depict in oil paintings, than, say, at night when it was a deluge of freezing rain. Why yes, we went clubbing in that weather. That would explain my CANCEROUS SOUNDING COUGH but anyway, the residential area of Essex was beautiful even though it was a natural habitat for "chavvy" folk .(Philly and I translated this term as "Jersey girls", "Chongas", and "Guidos".)

And now that I'm done with this post and it's 2:37am, I'll leave you with this new website I've become addicted to: www.cracked.com. It's a "humor" site, and yes, some of the articles/posts are kind of MAD magazine-ish (aimed towards an immature male audience) but most of them are hilarious and even interesting. I've LEARNED things from this website. I read all about the Twilight series without having to actually read the books (another summary, for those who don't have the patience to read witty sarcastic summaries), why a zombie invasion can happen in real life, how badly scarred I was as child, an article even my boyfriend can enjoy. The terrible thing is that when you're done learning something funny/interesting, there are links at the end of each article that will entice you to read with its attention-grabbing headline: Why yes, I'd love to know what six mental illness beliefs Hollywood wants me to believe, or no, I don't know the seven chick flicks that secretly hate women. It just keeps going!

In other words, I'm punishing you by making you stay up as late as I do trying to do work but end up goofing off on the internet. Ha-ha.