Recently British Gas sent out 4 energy saving lightbulbs to all of their customers. Of course, they didn't bother asking whether or not your lights had that particular style of lightbulb, as there are several popular types in the UK. So it ends up that none of them fit my lights. But it did prompt me to buy a couple bulbs that would fit for the bathroom and the hallway lights. I don't use them much so I doubt it will save much energy, but a little is better than none I suppose.

I've also installed two LED bulbs in the kitchen to replace one halogen bulb that burnt out. They are not quite as bright as I might like, but with two of them it is enough. Together they use about 1/8 of the electricity compared to the halogen bulb, but even better I don't have to change them as often - since the halogen ones seem to burn out after 6 months or so. These are supposed to last about 25 times longer than the halogen ones, so I hope to be long gone from the flat by the time they burn out.

This week has been pretty busy in the evenings. On Wednesday I went to Helen's house for a faux-Thanksgiving dinner. We had pumpkin pie (from when I made them from scratch on Tuesday), but the dinner was spaghetti and meatballs (however they were the best meatballs I've ever had I think). Then on Thursday I went to Fired Arts to paint a bowl. Hopefully it will come out as well as the mug I did in July.

Yesterday I went to a Cluedo party (Cluedo is the original name of the game called Clue in the US, it was created in the UK) and I dressed as Reverend Green (called Mr. Green in the US). It was hosted by my new(ish) neighbors downstairs, who are really nice and friendly. It was pretty lucky I was there as I got extra food supplies from upstairs when they ran out of some key things (we were making personal pizzas). All in all a fun week but I am seriously behind on my course readings for this week.

Thursday I went to a pub quiz, and I managed to win two awards. My team got first place, which was pretty much not down to me due to the fact it was entirely about music. I think I knew about 5 answers out of 80, though I did guess the name of one of the songs that no one knew and it turned out to be right.

The other award I won was a little trophy for best mustache. There was a general mustache theme to the quiz, owing to the fact that a group of people involved in the quiz were doing Movember, which is a grow-a-mustache-in-November charity event to support prostate cancer. So at the quiz they were selling mustaches for anyone who didn't have one, but I made my own at home from a pink cereal box and taped it to my face. It won the best mustache competition probably because it was fairly weird looking and bright pink, plus there was a bit of a picture of cereal in the corner.


Photo courtesy of Robin Gissing

I've applied for a promotion at work as well. Just have to wait to see how that goes I guess. There's two big assignments due in the next month for my course as well, so I'm keeping quite busy.

The doctor seemed to think my progress was going ok, though he did acknowledge my joint was fairly stiff with downward movement. He's suggested just walking around with regular shoes now, and doing some toe exercises to try to stretch the range of the toe. Hopefull that will help.

Biggest problem I've had so far is going down steps. I just can't do that same rhythm to go down them, and I've nearly tripped several times. I think it is the fact that my left foot is now much lower to the ground, because my right shoe isn't a platform shoe anymore. I guess it will just take some getting used to again.

Tomorrow I am away at the Sheffield Park Hotel for an LTI 2 day residential. I'll be back Thursday night. Hopefully it will go well.

Well, thankfully the election turned out positive for Obama. I went to bed around 10 with my alarm set for 4:30, but I woke up at 2:15 so I went and watched about 3 hours of election coverage, as the states started to come in then. When there weren't any huge upsets in the northeast and they called Ohio and Pennsylvania, everyone was predicting an Obama victory, but I waited until the speeches to go to bed. I was hoping they would have the NC result before I turned it off. Little did I realize it would be so close, with only 12,000 votes separating the two, and no one getting a majority. Seems like the same thing happened in Missouri, with neither candidate having a majority. I don't know what they'll do. Is it worth having a runoff in a situation like this where it won't matter to the wider presidential election?

Most interesting thing of the election last night was the guests they had on the BBC. David Dimbelby, one of the BBC's most famous newscasters, attempted to interview Gore Vidal with fairly disastrous results until he gave up. John Bolton was also in a right bad mood, sitting on the panel for the first part of the election. Apparently everything was the fault of the liberal media bias.

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, meaning another night getting a feel for what it must be like living in a war zone, with the constant sound of explosions throughout the night.

I wish I could stay up to see the results like those of you in the US. England needs to be west of the US in timezones, not east. Instead I am going to bed now and waking up at 4:30am to see what results are in. Unfortunately, some news stations are already predicting it came down to my lost postal ballot in North Carolina:

I'm thankful today is my last day of no heating. I made a pledge to myself at the beginning of October that I wouldn't start using the heating until November, to save money and not burn gas. Of course, during the last week the temperatures at night have gotten down to freezing, just to make me suffer a bit. Tomorrow being the first day of November the temperature decides to climb 5 degrees celsius. At least that might save me from having to turn on the heat for another week or so.

Well the football game is over. The Saints won 37-32, which shows it was a high scoring game with no defense. Still, it was full of exciting big plays and touchdowns, so I imagine the British fans were pleased. I wonder if they'll do it again next year.

I'm now watching something you never see on TV in England - an NFL game (Saints versus Chargers). It's being played live in London, which is also quite unusual, and it's being shown on one of the main BBC channels. They don't know what to do with all the stopping and starting though, as there are no ads on the BBC. So they seem to have a lot of breaks to the commentary room to see them discussing the plays. I think British people would be more used to that format anyway, because all of the regular football (soccer) games' broadcast rights are owned by private satellite companies. So what they normally do is have a live radio feed with commentary on it by people in a studio, though often this is just highlights or key points. It's also what happens during half-time when some of the international and European games are shown on broadcast channels. It seems to be quite popular, as they have filled Wembley stadium, which I think is the largest in England (80,000 seats), and where the international soccer matches are played.

Today was the end of daylight savings time in the UK. I think it is next week in the US. It's nice to get another hour in the day, especially when you forget as I did this morning. However, it is a little disorienting as well, since your body thinks it is a different hour than the clock does.

My foot is getting a little better. I can now wiggle my toes. It's still a lot of effort to go around town though, so I am keen for it to all get better. I still have about two and a half weeks before the boot and crutches go away. Otherwise not too much to report, mostly quite boring due to mobility issues.

Bill and Strange Panda's blog has been updated again to include Central Europe and Scotland.

Oh, by the way I haven't put many photos up recently, because I have started putting them on facebook instead. It's much much faster and easier so if you want a link to any from my trips, please let me know and I will email them to you.

I also updated the only website I have done recently to move it to Google Sites. Woodlands Guesthouse in Norfolk. Thankfully the new host doesn't have nearly as intrusive advertisements, so the site is cleaner and it's always easier to edit.

I thought people might like to hear about my surgery, as I haven't written much for the past couple weeks. I have mostly been sitting around my flat a bit bored, watching tv and checking email for the past two weeks, so not much to report. However, yesterday and today I managed to get out into the city for an hour or so and hobble around slowly. I'm not used to being passed by old ladies, but I guess that is just the way it is right now. At least people open doors for me and stuff.

So the day of the surgery I had to go to the hospital at 7am, and I joined a very crowded waiting room of people having surgery that day, regardless of what type of surgery they were having. Then I was called pretty early to B ward, where I was bed number 3. I sat around for about an hour before anyone really talked to me. They had me undress and put on one of those fashionable surgical gowns. Then the nurse hooked me up to an EKG, so they could check my heart rate while I was on the anesthetic. The anesthetic turned out to be local, so I wasn't put under as I was expecting. The anesthetist said it was much safer to do local, so I agreed though I was a bit nervous. I had an emergency IV in my arm which they never used, but had put in ahead of time just in case.

When they put the IV in my arm I got really hot all of a sudden and my heartrate dropped a lot. I broke out in a sweat all over my body and had to lie back and rest. The anesthetist was a bit worried, but he did say it the temperature had risen sharply in my little cubicle - it wasn't just me. Eventually everything returned to normal and I felt ok for the anesthetist to come back.

He put anesthetic in around my right knee, which numbed much of my lower leg. He had to use ultrasound to find the right nerve thing to inject, which appeared like a little round circle on the viewscreen. While that was taking hold, the physiotherapist came by and gave me crutches and had me practice using them on the floor and stairs. Since my leg was a little numb it was a fairly accurate sensation, though without the big shoe I now wear. I had crutches once before, though those were shoulder-length, and these are hip-high ones instead.

After 30 minutes or so they came back and put anesthetic in about 10 places on my foot, which hurt the most of anything that day. I found out at that point I as number three on Dr. Blundell's (my surgeon) day surgery list (out of three people). The first lady came back and she was happy with the results. It turns out she works at the hospital and watched her whole surgery. About 45 minutes later the second guy came back and he had watched his too. I was not so keen on that idea after the getting faint with the IV thing, so I had them put up a screen in front of me.

They put a tourniquet on my leg to prevent too much bleeding and then started the surgery. I could feel a lot of pulling and tugging, plus the obligatory sawing sounds (they were cutting out some extra bone that was blocking the joint of my right big toe and causing pain). Mostly one of the nurses kept me distracted during the procedure and then 45 minutes later it was done (finishing around 11:30). The surgeons (the doc and two intern surgeons) were happy with the procedure and said they had given a lot of the flexibility to my joint again. They also shortened the bone below the joint and put in a staple to hold that together, as I have naturally bad flexibility in that joint and they thought it would help.

Then it was back to my bed for the next three hours or so, finally being able to eat some toast and have some tea once I got back to the ward (I couldn't eat anything all morning). I spent the rest of the time chatting to the other patients and reading. I even had lunch on the ward, and got to leave around 2:30. Helen from work picked my up and dropped me off at my flat. Then I spent the next couple weeks with my foot up. The worst part was when the numbness wore off and I had a lot of pain and swelling for the first couple days. After a week all the swelling was gone, and this week they took out the stitches and I now have a much smaller bandage. I can put weight on my foot by wearing a special shoe that puts all the weight on the heel. It looks quite funny and I mostly hobble around though. Four more weeks or crutches, hobbling, and toe exercises and I should be fine I think.

It's been a pretty busy last couple of weeks.

My parents came to visit in Sheffield before jetting off to Stockholm and France. Then I went up to Scotland last Monday to meet them. We had a couple of days in Edinburgh before renting a car and driving all around the eastern part of Scotland. It was a lot of fun and the weather was surprisingly cooperative for Scotland, with some sunny days and warm weather (though there was a bit of rain too!). The trip was slightly complicated by the fact that my dad broke his arm in Switzerland, and that meant I had to carry his suitcase and the like, but I don't think it had any major effect on our trip besides a morning in the hospital in Edinburgh.

They left yesterday, just in time for an old high school friend, Kristian Finlator, to come visit. I arranged to meet him at the train station, but upon arrival the entire station was pitch black. Apparently the station lost all electricity, so the arrivals board was out too, and they were holding back all trains from entering the station. This meant me waiting for about 30 minutes until they finally allowed some trains in despite the darkness. But the darkness, and the fact that we hadn't seen each other for 12 years, made it difficult to find each other. Eventually we did though and were able to make it to my place.

Today the big excitement was going to the hospital for surgery on my foot. I was quite nervous, but it all went well. They used a local anesthetic so I didn't have to see anything which was a lot better for me. Now I have to stay home for two weeks with my foot propped up, which is a bit boring, and probably means that there will be two weeks of warm sunshine outside! At least the scary part is over and I still have both legs and I'm alive, though I suppose there was little risk of that not being the case.

Photo of me speaking at the Association for Learning Technologists (ALT) Conference. Not the best picture as I am in the middle of saying something. My co-presenters are behind me. The session went pretty well - we had 37 people, despite it being the last session of the day.

My parents were here for the last few days, though they are taking a plane to Birmingham today. I had to work on Thursday and Friday so I didn't get to sightsee with them, which was probably all the same since it poured down rain most of the time. Yesterday we went to Liverpool amid predictions of heavy rain, only to be pleasantly surprised by barely any wet weather at all, and even some sunshine.

In Liverpool we saw the cathedral, which is a massive building and fairly modern compared to most cathedrals (finished in 1978). We also went to the Beatles Story, a museum about the Beatles' career. It was interesting, but a bit crowded. The big attraction of the weekend though was a giant spider that roamed through town and shot out foam (supposed to be webbing I guess). It was very popular and the crowds were pretty awful as a result. Still it was pretty cool to see it moving. I made a little video of it if you want to see how big it was. It takes 12 people to operate it apparently.

Well I am back from my trip now if you haven't guessed. It's been a busy week with Victoria packing her things. Today was the day she moved in to her new apartment, so she organised some friends, including one with a car, to help move everything. It only took a little over an hour and one carload, so it wasn't too painful. She took those of us who helped out to lunch afterwards. There's still a lot of papers and schoolwork here in the flat, but she's promised to move it out in the next week before my parents arrive so the flat is nice and tidy. It's a little weird having the whole place to myself, and I think it will seem a bit empty when all the loose papers and the like are gone. Already I've discovered a lot of dust hiding all over the place.

Been a bit busy this morning. I saw the state rooms at the castle, which were a disappointment. They were mostly filled with Italian and Belgian paintings - hardly anything was from Poland. The best part was a group of three musicians performing traditional songs in traditional dress. It sounded really good in the castle rooms. The good news was that they honored my student card this time, as most places like the salt mine require you to be under 26 to get a student discount.

Then I went to St Mary's Church, which is in the town square, and climbed its watch tower to see the bugler play the hourly song. It was about 300 steps I think, and a tight little space, though not as tight as a tower I climbed in Split. It's not too bad a climb unless someone is coming the other way.

Finally I went to see the new Batman movie, which was really good I thought. Next it's some supper then a hike to the rental office to get my bag and head to the train station. It's off to Berlin on an 11 hour night train. I should have the compartment to myself though, so will be peaceful.

I went to the Wieliczka salt mine today. It's a massive salt mine which some of the miners made really artistic, with loads of chapels with stone carvings of religious figures, and some other things like the 7 dwarfs. It was the most expensive thing I have done in Krakow, costing about 16 pounds. However, it was worth it as it is a really unique experience. We ended up with a tour guide with a thick accent (sounded a bit like Count Dracula) and a really dry sense of humor. The tour lasted about 2 hours, and included about 500 steps (400 just to get down into the mine).

I also visited Wawel Castle, which is a massive castle overlooking Krakow. I didn't go in the royal apartments (maybe tomorrow), but I did visit the cathedral, which includes a trip to the cathedral museum and up a large bell tower. The neatest thing was at the museum though, and was a ceremonial robe of an archbishop that was covered with what looked like cloth sculptures. There were basically little 3D scenes on the back of the robe showing Jesus's life, just like you often see inside churches. I had never seen one done on the back of a robe though. Most of Poland's kings are buried in the tombs under the cathedral, so I got to see them too but I'm not really familiar with their names.

Last night I went out with another traveller I met from France, named Helene. We went to a bar in the old Jewish district, Kazimierz. I met her in Auschwitz along with another guy named Karl from Singapore. Helene ended up staying on the spare sofa bed in my apartment so she didn't have to pay for another night in her hostel (Karl left yesterday). She went to Wroclaw today, but I may see her again in Berlin, as she lives there and has invited me to stay with her if I want. I may do that on my last night in Berlin, but I don't want to impose too much (plus it is probably a lot more comfortable to sleep on a bed than the floor, even if it is a bunk bed).

Not long left in my trip now. Thankfully the apartment place is keeping my bag tomorrow so I will be free to explore the city tomorrow. I may go see a movie in the afternoon, depending on the weather. They say it could rain tomorrow, but who knows. My night train to Berlin leaves around 8, so I have a lot of time until then.

I am just relaxing, exploring the old Jewish area of Krakow. Tomorrow I may be more adventurous and go to the salt mines. It's supposed to rain sometime either tomorrow or the next day, so I will plan around that. Auschwitz was different than I had pictured it, but quite an emotional experience still.

I've made it safely to Krakow now, after a fairly long train trip of over 7 hours. I was supposed to have 45 minutes to change trains in a place called Katowice in Poland, but the train from Vienna only arrived with 5 minutes to spare. It doesn't help that Katowice doesn't have any TV screens telling you what train departs from what platform. So I ended up running over to the main entrance of the station but not figuring out what platform it was, so I went to the first platform and there was a train leaving at the same time, but it turned out it was the wrong train (a nice Polish lady helped me figure out where to go), and the train was actually departing from the same platform that I had arrived back. A bit more running and I made the train before it left. The Katowice-Krakow train was the slowest I've been on, going about 15-20 mph most of the trip, and stopping frequently. The cities are not that far away, but it took 2 hours by train. At least that was the scheduled trip duration, as all of my other intercity trains or buses have arrived late.

The only annoying thing about Krakow was that the place I am renting a self-catering apartment from originally said they could meet me in the center of town, but recently said that I would have to go to the office to pick up the keys as they are short-staffed on Sundays. Unfortunately their office is about 15 minutes walk outside of the city center, so it was annoying with my backpack. It wasn't too bad in the end, and was through a decent neighborhood. After the long train ride, it was good to stretch my legs anyway. I originally requested a studio apartment, but they upgraded me for free to a 1 bedroom place. I even have a pull out sofabed, which doesn't help much since it is just me there. I'm gonna tell one of the guys I met in Vienna about it so he can come if he wants, as he is in Poland too, though visiting his family. I was slightly worried about security in Poland as I've heard some stories, but it seems just like everywhere else I've gone so far, so I am not worried. There are lots of policemen who drive around the tourist areas on golf carts, but I am not sure how effective those really are.

Krakow city center has a massive square, that just goes on forever. It's filled with cafes and restaurants (and many, many other tourists). It's very neat but also a bit too much. Some of the side streets seem to be a bit more favored by the locals. I had borscht soup and pierogis (little dumplings) and rice this evening. It cost about 5 pounds, which isn't dirt cheap, but seemed quite reasonable, especially as it included a glass of wine.

Yesterday I went to Schronbrunner Schloss (maybe the name is a little different) - and I explored the gardens. There is a massive zoo in it, with a baby panda. I felt sorry for the three pandas though as they were cooped up inside, despite it being nice cool weather, perfect for pandas. Most of the animals were outside, including the five polar bears, who were eating apples (a natural food for polar bears?) and playing with a ball. I got a bit annoyed at all the people though as there were tons of people and they just ignored the signs saying not to take flash photos nor bang on the windows. Luckily it started pouring it down for about 10 minutes every 20 minutes or so, which meant everyone ran away and I was able to see some of the exhibits in peace (I had an umbrella). Though when the rain stopped, everyone came out again of course. I also went to the maze and labyrinth area of the gardens, which was pretty good. The only thing I would've liked more was a bit better weather as it was cool and windy, a bit too much so for what I was wearing.

In the afternoon I was going to see a movie at the theater with an Australian guy I met, Will. However, the movie choice was pretty bad (we wanted to see the new Batman one but it doesn't come out for another two weeks in Austria apparently, though it is in Slovenia), so we just had ice cream sundaes and then went back to the hostel. At night two English women (Ali and Haley) in our room came back from their trip to Salzburg, which was a long day trip at 2.5 hours on the train, and we all hung out at the hostel bar until after it closed. It did mean I only ended up with about 5 hours of sleep last night, so I'm pretty tired.

I don't think I'll be exploring too much more of Krakow tonight given it's gotten pretty dark, so I think it's back to the flat to watch Olympic highlights then bed time. Tomorrow I am either going to Auschwitz or to explore the castle and rest of Krakow. It may be good to get Auschwitz/Birkenau over with early, given it's likely to be quite somber. The other thing I want to do one day is go to Wieliczka salt mine, a giant salt mine where the miners carved out statues and a cathedral. I've seen pictures of it on a travel documentary and it looks really neat. I think it is an UNESCO heritage site too.

I got bored of Vienna and headed to Bratislava, which was smaller, cuter, and more manageable. Went with a Canadian named Zach I met and we had a good time. Hard to type on this keyboard though. Tomorrow off to Vienna zoo to visit a panda and maybe see a movie in the afternoon.

For my last day in Ljubljana, Slovenia I was extremely busy. I went to a massive underground cave this morning called Postojna. You take a train into the inside of the cave for about 8 minutes then you walk around for an hour with a tour guide (who doesn't talk that much actually). It was very impressive, about 3km inside the earth, though only 120 meters underground. There were tons of stalagtites and stalagmites to be seen everywhere. I got the bus back to Ljubljana and met a Korean couple who were headed to Croatia to the places I just came from, so I told them some tips about the areas.

Once I got back to town I was unsure if I should take another hour-long bus ride to Bled, a lake town in the middle of the mountains. So I said if the 1:00 bus was still there (they were hourly on the hour) I would take it or if not I would probably just stay in Ljubljana. As it turns out the bus from the caves arrived early and I just made the Bled bus by 3 minutes. On the bus I met Andy, Josh, and Tracy, three New Zealanders travelling around Europe for two months. They were spending the night in Bled, but invited me to hang out with them. So we rented a rowboat in Bled and rowed out to a church on an island in the middle of the lake. It was lovely there and we went swimming in the water, which was about 24 degrees. It was really clear water - you could see fish swimming in it from far away. Some of the fish were a foot and half long, and impressive to watch. Anyway, they were really nice to me and invited me to continue travelling with them, but I have already purchased many of my train tickets to save money, so that wasn't really possible. I may see them again sometime though as I think we are going to some of the same places at similar times. I didn't get back to Ljubljana until 10:00 at night, but it was worth it as I had a blast today.

A few more videos from the Bellagio Hotel:

There were several model trains running near the lobby of the Bellagio.

This video shows the water spout fountain things in the lobby.

Here's a video I made at the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas. I watched them about three times they were so cool.

I'm halfway to Las Vegas. Turns out Philadelphia has free wireless on the weekends, so I'm webcamming with Victoria before boarding. First flight was fine, though a little cramped on the legs. Had pasta for lunch, though it came with pasta salad. I'm a bit overpastaed currently.

Next week I'll be headed out to Las Vegas for the Blackboard User's Conference. I'm doing a presentation there, which should be interesting, as it's the longest presentation I've done - 50 minutes. Hopefully it will all go well.

Recently a sushi restaurant opened up near our flat, Sakushi. We've been there twice already, and it's only been open for a little over two weeks. The chef is from Japan, and the food is quite authentic. However, it's not that cheap, as is the case with most Japanese food (outside of Japan that is). The restaurant was opened by a Sheffield Hallam business student on his placement year, which is quite an achievement. I think he's trying to negotiate how to finish his degree next year, with them offering some credit for the learning he's gained setting up the restaurant. Victoria has suggested we use my paycheck to pay for the bills, and hers to constantly eat at the restaurant.

Things seem mostly set for the big vacation around Europe, so we are both looking forward to it.

Each year at work there is a couple of weeks to promote employee health and well-being in our department. You get things like free fruit, and you can sign up for workshops to do relaxing activities or get a massage. For this year I chose a new activity, mug-decorating.


I chose to do a commemorative Nanimal mug, with Bill and Strange Panda and the rest of the boys appearing on it. You can see the pencil sketch for Bill on the mug as I am painting the grass and sky first. I think my mug came out pretty well (you can see the pictures of it on their blog). While I enjoyed making the mug and doing something different, it was kind of stressful at times, since I had to concentrate a lot to get the details right and I had never done it before.

They are paving the road outside now, but at least they are doing the part in front of our house before it gets to be too late at night. It's quite interesting to watch, as they have to dig out the manhole covers quickly once the big machine puts it out. I also opened the window and I can feel the heat rising from the road, despite being two stories up!

A not so exciting video showing the paving truck at work outside our house.

Well, for whatever reason they didn't end up paving the road last night, just drilling to raise up the mainhole covers. Currently they seem to be ripping up the road, which has been interesting to watch. They've got a machine that seems to melt the asphalt and then suck it up like a vacuum, depositing it in large trucks. Whether those trucks are able to reuse it or not I'm not clear about yet, but watching that machine from above on the third story has been pretty neat. I wish I had my camera, I could've filmed it.

There seems to be a small group of people gathered outside watching the process, road groupies I would guess.

Soon I think they will be done tearing up the road and spend the rest of the night paving it.

Looks like it will be another fun evening of construction tonight. They have been tearing up the road over and over again to put in various pipes and wires. Tonight they are repaving the street as a result, which will at least mean no more random construction. However, it is annoying as it could be quite loud during the night.

I got back the results of my information literacy course today. I got a 65 on my second assignment, which is worse than I hoped to get, as I did well on my first assignment and got a 75. So my final grade is a 70, which is a good grade, but I had hoped to get above 70 to help pull up my overall average in courses I've taken, especially since my first assignment grade was so high. Oh well, I guess that's just how it is. I will hopefully do better next semester as I'll only be taking one course.

Yay, it's a long weekend this weekend, and Victoria has the whole week off. So I get two days off and she gets five, plus weekends. We hope to spend it relaxing, maybe go plane spotting and have some Japanese food.

I noticed tonight that the sky seemed partially lit still around 10pm, which was interesting, as I don't think it would be further south in North Carolina. Reminds me of how far north we are.

The weather has turned a little bit colder again, but hopefully it will get warm and stay warm soon.

Things have been busy at work recently, so I haven't been able to get many of the projects I am working on moving. Last Wednesday we did a big event around Digital Fluency, one of the big university goals around preparing staff and students to live and work in today's digital world. It covers four main areas: IT skills, information literacy, critical thinking, and online interactions. I'm one of the main people for the online interactions side of things, so I helped create two of the stands for the event. We ran the event in the student union in the morning, with a repeat in the afternoon. It lasted almost 3 hours each time.

Then on Friday I helped out at with an LTA (learning, teaching and assessment) induction planning day, which was at Westin Park Museum. We are hoping to formalize induction around LTA so that everyone can take advantage of it when they join the university.

Yesterday I spent almost all day helping induct two new e-learning student assistants. One of them won't work for me, but will be working with the Blackboard system administrator. However, she is on vacation for the next three weeks (in Canada) so I am doing a lot of their induction in her place. It's good having new employees as we have a lot of work to do over the summer. The bad part is it will take a fair amount of my time to get them up to speed. They aren't coming in again until next week though so I have some more time to be prepared.

Next Monday is a national holiday and we get the Tuesday off as well, so it will be nice to have a long weekend. It coincides with Victoria's half-term school break, which is a week long. So we should have a nice time this weekend, though she has been given some end of year tests to mark (boo!). The standardized tests in England are all non-multiple choice, so they must be hand marked by all of the teachers. Central exam authorities sample work for consistency between teachers and uphold standards. It seems very robust, but also a lot of work. Imagine if the SAT was all hand-marked and free response like the writing section and you can start to see the scale of what they have to do (plus imagine doing that for about five different times during your school career). It doesn't help that the government has been introducing more and more tests for students, including some of the younger students. Recent news reports have been talking about students being over-tested without many benefits really being achieved.

I got back my first result from my second semester courses I have been taking. I got a 70 on my discourse analysis paper, which is like a low A. I am happy with this result, as it is my best final grade so far, and I had to work really hard in this course since I was not familiar with the materials. I think it will take another couple weeks to get the result from the information literacy course though. In June I've set aside some time to look at converting this assignment into a paper submission for a journal.

Well our really nice weather has been continuing, with warm temperatures and plenty of sun. I've even broken out the shorts today for the first time in awhile. It's prompted us to do a bit of a spring clean as there seems to be lots more dust when the windows are open. I think maybe the dust is increased because of the incinerator which is about a miile away.

Victoria has a lighter class load next week, as all of the year ten students will be doing a work placement for a week at local businesses. We sometimes get some at the library where I work, and they are generally nice. Victoria said the lighter class load has made this weekend feel like a holiday, so that is great.

What a difference a week makes! We've gone from about 8 degrees celsius last week to 20-25 degrees this week (that's from the 40s to the 70s in fahrenheit). And it was nice and sunny today. This meant that the light from the sky lasted until almost 9:30 tonight, though the sun set earlier. It's the sort of weather you can only dream of in Britain, and it's finally arrived this year. I just hope it keeps up for the weekend and, if we are really lucky, is still around during Victoria's last school break before the summer, which is the last week of May.

Bill and Strange Panda seem to have been busy updating their blog if you are interested.

This weekend I had the best hamburger I have had in England. Actually, I've had some pretty horrible hamburgers here, as they tend to use really low quality meat full of gristle and fat. Often it is cooked until it is too dry as well.

Thankfully the Old House pub, which we tried for the first time this weekend, had a decent hamburger. It included an onion ring inside the hamburger too, which was a good crunchy substitute for bacon (as bacon here is back bacon, a bit more like Canadian bacon and not crispy but chewy). Anyway, it was great and not too expensive. Just thought I'd share my happiness!

Well my assignments are all finished for my courses, so I have a bit more time at my disposal. I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk about New York a bit. Rather than give you a daily blow-by-blow, I thought it might be easier and more interesting to do some trip highlights (and the occasional lowlight).

We had a few problems just getting to New York. We got minorly lost on the way to the airport, then ran into a line of barely moving traffic which delayed us an extra 20 minutes or so. We had lots of time though, so it wasn't a problem in the end. The flight ended up being extremely bumpy, which was a real negative. It was so bad the lady behind us fainted and many people ahead of us were airsick. Victoria was quite drained after the flight because of all the adrenaline she used during it. Sarah had her tooth fall out during the flight too (she had chipped one a year ago and this was a false rest of the tooth), which was annoying for the start of the trip especially. The only good thing about the flight was that we had personal video units we could use to get movies and shows on demand. It was the first time I've flown in a plane with that, and it was nice being able to pause the movie when you went to the toilet, etc.

The problems didn't stop when we arrived at JFK, as immigration took forever. Victoria and Sarah ended up waiting in line over an hour to get through immigration, despite the line not being that long. On top of it all, the immigration officer was really rude to Sarah, commenting that people shouldn't come to this country if they don't want to wait in line for hours. It seems to me that we manage to have some of the rudest immigration officers in the world, which is really disappointing given that Americans are known for good customer service. Obviously they have to be serious and professional in their jobs as they have a security role, but you can be polite as well. An apology for having to wait so long would've been a more appropriate greeting to Sarah. It's not just New York either, as I've noticed it at other entry points (though maybe the New York "friendliness" didn't help). Given that now America is a really cheap place to visit since the currency is down, and we could use the help with the economy in a poor state, it seems like we are squandering the good will of our visitors for no reason.

We took a taxi to the hotel, the Waldorf Astoria. A taxi ended up being the most reasonable method for three people as it is set at $45 plus tolls. The airport bus was about $15 each and we would need to walk many blocks afterwards. The hotel room was really nice, though we kept having to tip people to get our bags to the room. That night I think I just went out and got some takeout burgers as Victoria and Sarah were exhausted. When I was walking around you could see a lot of people wearing green, and a lot of police cars everywhere as the St. Patrick's Day parade had been earlier that day (unfortunately we missed it).

We had bought hop-on hop-off bus passes for the first two whole days in New York, so we went to pick them up. There were tons of people waiting for them though and it took about an hour before we could do the uptown loop. In general I would not recommend it to anyone, as the tour guides were pretty hit and miss (we liked two, hated two). The traffic means that the bus is almost useless as a mode of transportation. It's really cheap and fast to take the subway if you need to go anywhere. Still, the tour did help us see the different parts of the city, and I doubt we would've gone to Harlem otherwise.

It only rained one day when we were in New York, which was pretty good weather we thought. There was a bit of a stinging wind at times though so it was hardly warm (except on Easter Sunday).

On Wednesday we went to Macy's and Old Navy to do a bit of shopping (all we got were pyjamas). The girls went back to the hotel for a rest and I volunteered to wait in line for TKTS discount Broadway show tickets. We made a list of all the shows we would consider going to, so I had some choice as I didn't know what would be available. Around 2 I got in line, with the tickets going on sale at 3. I was about 100th or so in line, with maybe another 400 people behind me when the tickets went on sale. I talked to a girl next to me in line for awhile (she wanted to see Stomp). When you get the front of the line it becomes pandemonium and you have to practically push up to get the tickets. We ended up with half price tickets (around $60) to Curtains, a musical comedy murder mystery (talk about genre overload!). I got a rush of adrenaline after getting the tickets (we had pretty good seats in the middle too). I even found a Latin American restaurant on the way back that we had dinner at. Turns out they had half-price margaritas that night too. The show was good and funny, but I doubt it will end up a classic as I can't remember any of the songs now. The main star was David Hyde Pierce, Niles from Frazier.

One thing I remember from New York was going around to lots of little cafes around the hotel each morning. I tended to do a breakfast run and bring back food for the lazy sleeping women. :) It was fun exploring the area and trying to find the new places. There were lots of little places with breakfast specials, and you could find some great deals despite it being New York. The best we found was pancake, sausage, tea and orange juice for about five dollars.

We went on the Sex and the City tour on Thursday. It was alright, but I didn't get as much from it as some of the bigger fans seem to. For instance, we saw many of the locations along with video clips from the show that was in that location. I've seen most of the episodes, but not all, and never more than once. So seeing a random clip that I didn't remember wasn't the most interesting thing for me. It was nice to see different parts of New York that the main tour buses wouldn't have gone to though. Once we had a break next to a tiny Japanese restaurant, which had good food at great prices, so we picked some up for the bus. We also stopped at a bakery to have cupcakes. We also played around in FAO Schwartz some that morning and it was a really interesting toy store with things like a giant Lego Darth Vader. I thought they could've done a better job of actually selling Legos though, as there were hardly any on the shelves.

Friday morning Carmen picked me up and we drove out to her house (over an hour away) which is in New Jersey. It was a cute little house and she was fixing it up in her spare time as it needed some work when she bought it. We also walked across a bridge to Pennsylvania to a town where they have the world's largest crayon. We met up with Victoria and Sarah around 5:30 and went out to dinner as a group. It was good catching up with Carmen, and she seems to be doing well.

me and the giant crayon

Saturday we took the Staten Island ferry so we could see the Statue of Liberty, as it is a free ferry which goes right past it. It has good views of the city skyline too. The line for the Statue of Liberty ferry was about a half-mile long when we walked past it, so I am glad we did not wait for that. I would've liked to go to Ellis Island again though. We also walked to the World Trade Center site, which is a massive construction zone now. There is a small church nearby which we went to that served as the volunteer center for those involved in the rescue operations after the collapse. It is also where George Washington prayed after his inauguration in New York. We also got to go to the courthouse steps where the Law and Order opening sequence is shot. We also went up to the top of the Rockefeller Center. It's not the tallest building in the city but it is one of the tallest, and has great views of Central Park and the Empire State Building. Plus you don't have to wait in line for nearly as long as the Empire State Building. I think we were in line about 20 minutes total, while some people we met on the tour bus said they waited three hours for the Empire State Building (with young kids!). Victoria and I brought some mini-Cadbury creme eggs from England and hid them around the room while Sarah was in the bathroom. So Sarah had a surprise mini-Easter egg hunt. Victoria wasn't quite so happy when Sarah and I hid them in really difficult places and she had to try to find them. I think she got all but a few in the end.

That evening we went to Smith and Wollensky's, a famous steak house that is right next to the hotel. It was not a cheap meal by any measure, but it was really good steak. It was a nice way to end our last full day in New York too. It was a bit of a belated birthday present from Victoria to Sarah.

On our last morning we walked through some of Central Park, which was perfect given the great weather. We had lunch at a New York deli with giant sandwiches, and then we went to Columbus Circle to walk around and later bask in the sun. Our flight wasn't until 9, so we took a taxi to the airport and then ate dinner there. Thankfully the flight home was fairly uneventful, though I only managed a small amount of sleep. Sarah was a trooper and drove us home despite not sleeping that much either. All in all it was a great trip and I don't think any of us were ready to come back at the end. Oh yeah, and the beds of the Waldorf Astoria are really amazing. They made us not want to leave the room.

My final paper is nearing completion. I have a draft I've been showing to other people and have gotten some good feedback on it from three people. So tomorrow I am hoping to revise and proofread it (along with cutting out a few hundred words). It's due Monday and I am hoping to get it over with soon so I can have a break. I haven't gotten as much sleep as I needed this week as a result of working on it.

In some good news this week, my paper was accepted for a conference in Las Vegas in mid-July. I will be there July 12-18, and probably either attend some pre-conference workshops or visit another university on the Monday, as the conference starts Tuesday afternoon. I'm going early to give me a chance to get used to the 7 hour time difference and maybe do a little sightseeing. The university will pay for my accomodation despite it being early as it is over half the cost for the flight with a Saturday stopover.

April has seen the arrival of two things to Sheffield: Japanese food and winter. Our supermarket has started carrying udon noodles and miso paste, which has allowed us to cook more Japanese food. Also in the center of town not far from our house, they are opening a new Japanese restaurant, a noodle bar. It is part of a chain of restaurants, so I hope the food is good.

Winter seems to have started in April this year, with sleet three times so far, and a major snow storm last night. It's not cold enough for anything to stick, but at night it is close to freezing. I can't wait for sunnier days to arrive.

I've added New York pictures to my facebook account this time as it is much easier and faster than adding through here. You can get to them at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46793&l=38e94&id=544746006. I might experiment with flickr next time too.

Winter has come back again, and it's been snowing a lot of today. Yesterday we had small hail too. Given that last week was really nice weather, it has come as a bit of a shock.

Thought you might want to see what the snow looks like through our window.

We had a few Peeps that made the trip back from New York, but they ended up a bit stale unfortunately.

I forgot to mention that I got my primary ballot in the mail a week ago, so I have filled it out and voted. Gives me a say before the rest of North Carolina, though I suppose I can't wait until the results of some of the other primaries come out to decide. The one thing I couldn't figure out is why there is a primary for the non-partisan judge races. It seems like they could just wait until the general election since the party does not have to choose a candidate. I don't know if it is to avoid a runoff later or what.

Giant Sheep Attack (a news story I wrote for one of Victoria's classes)

In tonight's top story, giant sheep have overrun Worksop causing panic and terror among residents. Sheep, some as high as twenty feet tall and thirty feet long, have been sighted stampeding down Gateway and Valley Roads, crushing any cars and pedestrians in their path. Witnesses said the sheep were ravenous, eating anything green they could find. One despondent resident said, “One sheep swallowed the tree in my front garden in one bite. Then it turned to my sister and gobbled her up too, just because she was wearing a green jumper. Our whole family is devastated.”

To find answers as to why these sheep may be attacking, we've consulted an expert in giant sheep, Professor Jane Gibbons from Sheffield Hallam University. She said that sheep this size have not been seen in over twenty years, since a similar attack in 1984 in Stoke. She theorized that the giant sheep may have been hiding in the Peak District for the last two decades, living off the vegetation.

Professor Gibbons told us that “Sheep, much like sharks, are only known to attack humans when food is scarce. It seems likely that these sheep have eaten all the grass in the Peak District and are in search of better pastures, quite literally.”

For these sheep, it does seem the grass is greener on the other side. Listeners should be aware that police are asking everyone to stay inside their houses and avoid wearing green if possible. In addition, Worksop Football Club has issued a notice that future matches may have to be postponed due to a large “present” left at Sandy Lane by one of the sheep.

We came back from New York on Monday morning. Luckily I had all day Tuesday to try to get back on schedule. I'll write more about our trip later.

I went back to work on Wednesday, but Victoria was lucky enough to have the whole week off school. Work was fairly relaxing as there weren't many people around due to the short week. I had some time to think through some of the projects I am involved in.

Today I went to a football game (soccer for my fellow Americans) for the first time in England. I won some free tickets last summer in a charity raffle at work. Victoria wasn't keen on going with me, so I invited anyone from the office who wanted to go. The only interested party was Ellie, one of the students who works for me. She had never been to a game either and was a bit curious what it would really be like, as she doesn't like watching it on the TV. We went to see Sheffield Wednesday, which is the worse of the two Sheffield teams (at least this year). They are third from the bottom of their league, and the team they were playing was Stoke City, the best team in the league, so I was a bit worried they would get creamed.

I took the tram to the game, and it ended up being packed full of fans by the time we got there. We even had a police car and a police van escort the tram from the city center down to the stadium. There were police everywhere to avoid any fighting between rival fans. The opposing teams' fans mostly came on a few buses, which were escorted by police motorcycles just like dignitaries in the movies. Eventually I found Ellie near the gates, and we went to find our seats. It turns out the seats were really good. We were on the 17th row from the bottom, and right near the middle of the field, so we could see all the action on both sides. It was raining pretty heavily and the field quickly turned into mud, which made for some sloppy playing on both sides. I think we may have come out the better for it though.

The other team had two yellow cards in the first half, because they were playing a bit rough. I thought one guy was going to get thrown out of the game, as he already had a yellow card, but the ref just gave him a warning in the end. In the second half there were fewer penalties in general. Stoke scored after about 30 minutes, which was not good. There was a penalty kick just inside midfield and they took it quite quickly, which left the defense struggling to get back. I think some of the Sheffield players were still trying arguing the call. A Stoke player shot the ball towards the goal but wide, and one of their other players just nipped it with the back of his foot, which caused it to go right in the far corner. It happened quite quickly and wasn't your typical sort of shot. In the second half, the game turned into the equivalent of fast breaks in basketball. There was little play at the midfield, with each team rushing the ball down to the other goal. Sheffield seemed to get down to the other goal and then not know what to do, just kick the ball around until the other team got it. Eventually we got a lucky break, and the ball got deflected to one of our guys who was wide open on the left side (near where we were sitting). He drove down, crossed to the middle and shot it right in the goal. It was a pretty impressive goal, and the place went wild. The rest of the game was pretty nerve wracking, as they really needed at least a tie to try to keep their hopes alive. The last three teams in the league get sent down to an even lower league. They really don't want to be one of those three teams, but are currently in that group. A tie helps a little at least, though a win is best obviously.

I think it was a pretty good result, given the other team is supposed to be much better. Also, their players generally seemed faster and taller than ours, so we got beaten running for the ball and heading a lot. Sheffield has a pretty short team except for the defenders who are all decently tall.

We're off to New York on Monday for a week, so we are both enjoying not having to do lots of work right now. Victoria gets a two week holiday for Easter, and my classes are pretty much done as far as readings and discussion. I still have to do the two final assignments for my courses, but the day-to-day side of things has eased up some. I'm allocated some time to write papers and do independent research as part of my job. I'm using a large chunk of this time between when we come back from New York and when the final two papers are due (mid-April), so that should allow me to do the final assignments without going completely crazy. It will be nice when they have both finished completely. For my info lit course, I got back the assignment I did over my birthday. I was very happy to get a 75, which on the UK scale is pretty much out of 80. I need at least a 25 to pass my final assignment in that course, which I am sure to be able to do. Of course, I'm not shooting for the minimum.

Today we have done a big spring clean of the house, which has lasted about 4 hours actually. There is still a bit more to do tomorrow too. It coincides with Victoria's friend Sarah coming over tomorrow night, as she is going to New York with us. It's always good to clean when someone comes to stay, and to have it clean before we go away (plus when we have a bit of a break).

Last weekend we went to a tiny town near Oxford for Tom's christening. Tom is Victoria's second oldest sister's (Gillian's) baby. He is about a year old now, and very cute. At Christmas he wasn't that interested in me, but he really stared at me a lot this time. He even called me 'da da' at one point, though he did seem to call a lot of things 'da da'. The service was in a tiny church which was really cute, and full of tiny children running around during the service. The minister seemed quite nice and seemed to like the children running around the aisles. There was a reception across the street at the school that Gillian is headmistress of. We had tons of food and had a great time playing with all the children. There was a particularly long game of keep away between me, Victoria, and Richard (Victoria's brother) and Victoria's nieces. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in an old farmhouse, along with Victoria's parents and Robin and Enid (who are long time friends of Victoria's parents). I got along really well with Enid: she was really funny.

I went to the hospital for a specialist appointment on Monday. On my right foot is a lump of bone near one of the joints which is causing me pain when I walk. I've had it since I was in high school, but it is starting to hurt more, so I thought surgery might be a good option. The hospital was a bit confusing, as I got sent to about four different departments during my visit (X-ray, Orthopedist, Nursing, and Orthotist (the one who makes footwear)). Everyone was very friendly and nice, but it did take about 2.5 hours, which I was not expecting. The hospital is in desperate need of renovation too, as the chair covers are falling apart and the paint was cracking on the walls. It seems like a lot of NHS buildings are like that in Sheffield. I think more money probably needs to be put into renovating the facilities.

Unfortunately immigrants like myself are apparently putting the strain on the hospitals, according to the media. In fact, a nurse told me that while I was there. I did point out that many immigrants like myself do pay NHS taxes, but I don't think she was thinking of me as an immigrant, which is quite interesting. I've been in other situations like that where people forget that I am an immigrant. I think because I speak English and am able to integrate a bit more into the culture, I am not seen as an immigrant to some people. There's a lot of demonization of immigrants in the media as many people from Eastern Europe have moved to Britain to work. However, it seems like many of them take the undesirable jobs in the same way that Latino immigrants do in the US, so it seems mostly like rhetoric to me.

We had a very unusual occurrence last night around 1am: a somewhat large earthquake (5.3 on the Richter scale) hit England not that far from Sheffield. The result was a massive shaking of our building for about 10 seconds. We didn't know what we going on, so we went outside where we were joined by our neighbors. No one knew if it was an earthquake or just our building so Victoria and I went to the hotel and asked. They said they had felt it too, so it must have been an earthquake. It's on the news today as it is the largest one in 25 years. Apparently they get about 10 small ones each year in England though.

Read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

It is the first earthquake I can remember being in. I didn't feel any in Japan, though there were some in other parts of the country while I was there. Toyama is known for having a small amount of earthquakes compared to the rest of Japan. It was kind of exciting but a bit scary as well.

Earlier last evening the police sealed off the parking lot across the street from our building too. Apparently a man was at the top who said he was going to jump. However, I didn't find this out until today, so I was a bit worried there was a potential bomb or something. So when everything shook during the earthquake, I was concerned something else might have happened. It didn't take long to look at the window and see the parking lot was there though, plus there was no explosion sound.

Been too busy to write recently, as my two courses I am taking are eating up most of my free time. I had an assignment due on Monday, so I got to spend some of my birthday working on that. I still had a good time though, and didn't work the whole day.

Recently it has gotten really cold, with temperatures of -7 and -8 (C) at night. Today there has been frost on the ground the whole day with a lot of fog. It even snowed a little. Hopefully it will start to get warm again soon.

I'm off to Bristol tomorrow. The university has been participating in a benchmarking exercise for e-learning (I went to Warwick last year for part of it). To mark the end of the benchmarking exercises, there is a celebration event at Bristol tomorrow. Originally Louise was going to go too, but she has fallen ill today so she can't go. Even if she is better tomorrow, she is going to the states on Friday for a conference and said she had some work to get done before then. I don't think this thing tomorrow is a big deal, but it is unfortunately almost 3 hours away by train, so I will be travelling a lot of the time.

Recently I've been busy with my two courses, which started two and a half weeks ago. I am taking the courses Information Literacies for e-learning and Communication and Discourse Analysis. So far the communication one has been a lot of work (10 readings in the first 2 weeks), but they are easing it up some now. It is also a lot of terminology and theory that is completely new to me, unlike the ones last semester. Hopefully afterwards it will help some with research I want to do though, so it is a good opportunity for me.

Christmas in England did not result in too many surprises (like the pantomime in Jersey), but did mark one unique occasion: my first time driving in the UK as a licensed driver. It was successful in that I didn't hit anyone or anything with the car. Didn't really have to do anything fancy though. I drove on three different trips, one of which was quite long on a really narrow coastal road. It was challenging in that the lane was extremely narrow with a dirt bank on the side, and the speed limit regularly changed from 20mph to 60mph as you encountered random tiny villages during the drive. Was generally quite fun though, and filled with lots of bird-watching stations, so no doubt my parents will want to go there if they ever make it to Norfolk.

First half-week of work was pretty uneventful, though it was hard to get myself motivated at times. Not many other people in the office or at the university for that matter, so communicating with people generally had to be ruled out! Still, managed to get some stuff done, and this week should be more normal.

The strange thing that happens this week is that I am starting working for one of the four faculties two days a week for the whole semester. They had someone hired last summer to do e-learning but she left in December because the boss is a bit insane. So I am taking over some of the work she did until they can get a replacement. I'm also tasked a bit with sorting out this boss, though he is quite crazy. Should be a challenging but interesting time. Will be different getting heavily involved with one faculty rather than looking at the university as a whole.