Novcember

Welcome to Novcember: a cross-breed lovechild mashup where November meets December midweek. Typically at this juncture I would say something like "Wow, bye-bye [month]!" or, "Welcome to [month]!" As it happens, that's just not so cut-and-dry this week. Blog day falls just on the cusp of the -ember's; a hybrid of two months. Like a liger.

This monthful blend does, however, create a neat little structure for this post. As you may recall, if your food coma didn't obliterate your memory from last Tuesday to this, I was pretty bummed about the idea of missing Thanksgiving. To make myself a little less sad about not being home for the epic food-centered smorgasbord that holiday is, I decided to host a little Thanksgiving of my own. As you might also recall, I promised a full report for this week (that's this right here, if you haven't caught on).

Because this was to be my replacement Thanksgiving as well as a first experience with Thanksgiving for my multi-national friends, I was determined to have all the fixings. But here's the problem: I live in a dorm, with a crappy kitchen, a teeny tiny oven, and little to no cooking implements. Not to worry. Being a college student and all, I am very resourceful and, erm, creative when it comes to dealing with inconvenient situations of things like space (or lack thereof). So I begged and borrowed and wound up with a marginally better collection of pots and dishes, though decidedly not the best possible set-up. Case in point: cooking potatoes for 15 people, spread across 3 medium sized saucepans all simultaneously boiling over. I like to call this 'the misadventures of postgrads in a kitchen.'

All in all it went pretty well, thanks to some much appreciated assistance from Ad (excellent potato peeler/chopper), Raphie (esteemed pot boil-over-watcher), Diego (chief turkey maker) and from everyone who carried. When I say carried, I am referring to the fact that we had to transport all of the food and anything else we needed for dinner across a parking lot, down around a path, and over to the common room. Why? Well because we were having dinner for 15 people and our kitchens comfortably suit maybe 6. Once we got everything there and everyone arrived, we had a lovely dinner of turkey (breasts not full bird, due to the aforementioned teeny tiny oven), stuffing, mashed potatoes, string beans, glazed carrots, cranberry sauce, and gravy. Props to Dan, too, for making a nice pot of mulled wine.

Now, I was going to continue the Novcember motif here by moving on to talk of Decembery things, but this post is already super long. With that in mind, I'll try to keep this brief. Lately (since the end of last week) we've been seeing some snow flurries here and there. For me, this is great. I'm not afraid of a little chilly weather. Actually, I really like it. And a few snowflakes are icing on the cake (ooh such metaphoric imagery!). However, just as I found in Delaware, people here in Wales are not so good with it. In fact, they tend to panic. A few of us tried to go out Friday night, but the night overall was a bit of a bust because very few people were out and about. Pubs were empty... in a college town... in Wales. I didn't think that could happen. My friend Cat is a perfect example of the snow-panic. Friday, there were some good flurries going, and a dusting of white was sticking to the ground. Talking online, suddenly Cat says "Oh! Be right back. I'm going down to the car to get my wellies in case it gets really bad." ......... It's November. The ground isn't even frozen. Also, it's Wales. It's not going to be a blizzard. The first mention of snow and the Brits think the world is shutting down. Cat's reasoning is that she "doesn't trust the weather" and so when the BBC weatherman says there might be snow, she goes, and I quote, "HOLY SHIT IM GOING TO DIE". And that is winter in Wales.

An early welcome to December to you all, and watch out for those killer flurries.

Turkey Week

Let me start by saying that this week is the beginning of some of the best and worst times of any year. We begin with Thanksgiving, one of the best holidays ever invented. From there we quickly move on to December, a month consistently packed with academic stress of a thousand papers and projects all due before winter break. However, December is also Christmastime. Christmastime means vacation. And then New Year's: still vacation. Then it's time to go back to reality, or school, as the case may be.

So here we are with Thanksgiving. A holiday earmarked for food and food alone. Okay, and maybe some football. What's not to love? Because this holiday is amazing and I am very fond of it, I decided to have my very own here in Wales. Diego is also a big fan, so the two of us are whipping up a Thanksgiving feast for all of our friends. This should be interesting given the, shall we say, limited capability of the dorm kitchens. Expect a full report next week.

Since this holiday does not exist here in the UK, we have the additional issue of Christmas encroachment. Aside from the feast of delicious-osity, Thanksgiving also marks the time when it becomes acceptable to start listening to Christmas music and do Christmasy things. This does not occur where Thanksgiving doesn't exist, and therefore carols have been playing in stores for weeks now. Because of this and the contagious nature of all things Christmas-y, I went out to Conwy to do a little shopping. It was a nice little afternoon with lots of shops full of ornaments, decorations and other festive paraphernalia. A little premature for my taste, but hey, who am I to talk if I was out Christmas shopping?

On the bus ride out to Conwy, something was particularly striking: there seems to be a sudden burst of vibrant burnt orange and red hues everywhere. The hills and mountains are just blanketed in an orange similar to that of fallen pine needles, but brighter. And there are berry-bearing bushes all over with their fruit ranging in color from a light, delicate orange to a fiery red. It's absolutely breathtaking. I snapped a couple of pictures while I took a walk around the outer walls of the castle, but they do no justice to the whole scene.

So things are looking quite fall-y around here, perfect just in time for Thanksgiving. The epitome of fall. And you can't beat the colors: all the burnt oranges of New England, but greener. I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving taking advantage of the food and family. I'll report back on mine next week, provided I don't burn the place down :)

Busy Bee Keeping it Simple

This week, in particular tonight, I am very very busy with papers to write, research to do, and lots of reading to see to. So unfortunately, I do not have the time (or, coincidentally, the material) to write a lengthy post about every moment of the past week. It is Tuesday though, and I didn't want to leave you all high and dry, so instead I am going to show you some of what I do here- the fun stuff, anyway.

Given that this is Consumer Psychology and we spend much of our time discussing marketing and advertising, we also spend time looking at specific ads and considering who is it for? what was the goal? is it successful in achieving it's objectives? Here are some of my favorites that I have stumbled upon on my own time in doing research. Heads up: they might not be entirely appropriate ;)

This one has been out for quite a while, and I think most people have seen it, but it's just so perfect in so many ways in terms of psych-y advertising:


Now this one I found and thought was pretty funny, and definitely catches your attention as a viewer. I'm not sure where this was located (clearly not the states), but I think it's pretty effective for a familiar brand

 

This last ad I personally find hilarious. It's mildly inappropriate and again, not aired in the US, but even beyond the entertainment factor, it's actually a really good ad from technical perspectives.


That's it for me this week. Schoolwork calls, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll have time and plenty to say next week!

Reading Week/s

Last week and this week are the psychology and business departments' reading weeks, respectively. So last week I had no lectures on Tuesday or Wednesday, and this week no lectures on Monday or Thursday. Most people are in one department and therefore get a whole uninterrupted reading week off from lectures, but since our little mashup of a program is the lovechild of the Psychology AND Business departments, we mix and match.

Wednesday last week, Cat and I took a baby road trip out to a town called Llandudno (us non-phlegmy English speakers pronounce it lan-dud-no). It's maybe a 20 minute drive east. It's a pretty little town with lots of Victorian-era looking buildings and pretty sea-front hotels, as well as tons of cute cafes, restaurants, and shops. But don't let the charming sea-front walk and palm trees fool you. It's still Wales. (ie. still mildly gloomy and possibly rainy). All in all it was a refreshing day out of Bangor with proper food and good company :)

The weekend overall was mostly uneventful, despite friday being Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night. I saw plenty of fireworks from my window that night, and then Dan and I attempted to go see some fireworks in person Saturday night, but due to the fact that it was pouring buckets, we went for a nice soggy walk for nothing. Even in Wales they cancel things for rain... go figure.

Monday, however, Dan and I went to Holyhead and Holy Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyhead) which is a smaller island off the side of the Isle of Anglesey, across the Menai Strait from Bangor. I had read that there were a number of historical/cool things to see in the city of Holyhead and around the island, so we went to check it out. Though the brochures and pamphlets were all a little over-zealous describing the "multitude" of things to see and do, we had a nice afternoon of wandering. We started right in Holyhead, walking the high street to St. Cybi's church (closed to the public, unfortunately, so we couldn't go inside), which is located on the site of an old roman fort, and thus within a stone wall. From there we wandered a bit more in town, then made our way out to Holyhead Mountain. Not so much a mountain as a really big hill, it's got some spectacular views. On our way up one of the mounds that constitute the mountain, we saw a double rainbow, including the second end of one of them!!! It was pretty cool. After we made it up to the top, we sat and looked around for a bit, then made our way back down the other side and off towards the town. All in all a beautiful sunny-ish day.

Now that we're heading into the second half of the semester, it looks like things are going to be picking up academically. I turned in my first official grad school assignment on Friday, the working title of my thesis is due this Friday, I have another paper due next week, and the list goes on...

Superstudent mode, Engage!

Half (past) a Semester

We are officially in week 6 of classes out of a 12 week semester. I have been in Wales for 7 weeks. Where has it gone already?? It's crazy to think how fast and yet how slow that time seems to have gone. It has flown by, for sure, between classes and friends and rainy days. But at the same time it feels like we've been here for far longer than just shy of 2 months. Somehow, I came to a seemingly random country, of which so many people ask "is it a country??", and found best friends.

That is what I am dedicating this week to. Because without these people, whom I have known only a very short time, I would be lost.

This weekend was again castle free, but it was not fun-free. Friday night Cat and I made the executive decision to put away the sweatpants and go out, and out we went. We recruited Diego and Ad, and Ad recruited a couple of her friends, and we were on a roll. All in all a fun night of good people and good drinks, but no dancing :( stupid bar.

Saturday was costume mission day. We were having a party that night and neither Cat nor I had a costume of any kind figured out. After a long and wet afternoon, we ultimately bought nothing and scraped some things together from Cat's closet. Hooray for overpacking. So then we had our party, crashed an undergrad house party (we are bad-ass postgrads), and moved on to a couple of pubs. We had a tragedy later in the night which I will not go into, but be assured that in the end everyone is okay. That event has made all of us think, but for me mostly I have thought about the friendships I have made that are so secure already. These people are new family, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Summary:    holy sheets we're halfway through the semester already, and I <3 my friends. Oh, and Happy November!