If this was a Halloween special on a hokey American sitcom I would title it "Scary Olde England"

Dear Button and Cam /Step-granddad-and-Step-great-granddad-both-of-whom-may-actually-be-the-same-age-or-slightly-younger-than-me-I’ll-facebook-stalk-you-later-and-check-since-you’ve-already-done-me-the-honor-of-a-good-facebook-and-blog-stalking-apparently,

Another well-good week of shenanigans has past, and I have only proper joyous bits and bobs to report about our fair country, mother England, God save the Queen.

(Dear America, with your purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain, the crumpet munchers have infiltrated my blog. Luckily, the inferior English education system does not teach its youth to read parentheses, so we are safe down here… for now. Pay no mind to the nonsense on the surface. God bless America).

I’ve spent the last 48 hours sitting by my computer twittering/tweeting/twitting/there is no verb form of twitter that does not sound foolish. I have not stopped to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom (this last part is actually true because the cleaning ladies have stopped restocking the toilet paper. I’ve been rationing. But don’t worry, America, it’s just another part of my shoe trench warfare) because my sole interest has been the twitter status of the Aye Aye frisbee team so they might achieve some quality glory for mother England, God save the Queen. And with what delight did I shout huzzah through my otherwise stiff upper lip and much did I bev my celebratory tea and Weetobix when I discovered that they had won second place (America would have gotten first, nay zeroeth place).

Last weekend went as fantastically… well-goodly?... as I imagined it would. My American professor wanted us to present on different historical places in England, which as I mentioned before is extremely cool, but statistically less cool at 9AM on a Saturday. Fun fact about the Forum: the website proudly boasts 800 spinklers and 600 fire detection devices (seriously, England is obsessed with fire. Check my other posts. Every single one has a fire prevention fact. One of the cleaning ladies banged on my door very early Wednesday morning, came in, and announced that I need to take my decorations down because they are a fire hazard to which I eloquently responded BLEHHHHRG and rolled over). So after 4 hours of informative fun in the pouring rain, I went home and packed for my trip to Nottingham with the women’s Frisbee team. On the 3 hour train ride up we had a picnic (not the outdoor Yogi Bear type on a checkered napkin that ultimately ends in heart break when your PB&J gets invaded by ants, dear America. Apparently picnic just means loads of junk food), and we mostly talked about how much we admire Button and Cam, ranging from our school girl crushes on them to our aspirations to one day follow in their footsteps. Musical selections were also written and sung very loudly by certain individuals for the strangers on the train. I forgot to bring shoes and I woke everyone up fairly early in the morning when I fell on my face (English floors are harder to navigate than American floors), but the games were as always incredibly fun. My American contribution for the week was the dino indication (dino point. I’m not allowed to say the word point. I don’t know why), in which one team pretends to be velociraptors and the other pterodatyls. It went well. I have also aquired no games and valuable skills such as the ability to use my face muscles to transport a biscuit (cookie) from my forehead to my mouth. Thank you, England.

Why?

One of my flat mates and I share a birthday so we had a fantastic joint flat party before which I received a jar of Nutella, a glorious candy spread disguised as some peanut butter like nut spread, (England’s greatest achievement since their accidental invention of the United States. Fun fact: the post-it note, too, was a serendipitous accident), and then went out. The DJ claimed that he would play literally any song request (except the American National Anthem apparently, since I asked him and he just laughed at me). Anyway, all in all a good night except I forgot to take my contact lenses out before I went to bed so when I woke up the next morning and assumed that God had cured my vision, I was again sorely disappointed.

Not too many exciting tales from Norwich City center this week sadly. I can write a great deal about 11^th century papal reform and the liminal position of white women within an androcentric hegemonic structure (sidenote: I am writing another paper about feminism which means if you are white and male you should probably not talk to me for a few days, or I might yell at you for your personal responsibility for the oppression of millions of people that died before you were born). I found a sandwich shop that makes sandwiches containing all the main dishes in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which is really bizarre because England doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact I actually had a heated debate about the merits of Thanksgiving vs. Boxing Day with a stranger on the street about a month ago (just as the mildly insane strangers of Carlisle love to tell me their life stories, people on the street in England also really enjoy telling me very random things. Life is good.).

Anyway, Halloween has been my most recent area of study, as I continue to observe the natives in their natural habitat. Rather than silly (and somewhat slutty if you are a girl) Halloween costumes, the English like to go scary (and somewhat slutty if you are a girl… sorry, feminist Jesse going back in her box now). As a result I will be having Tim Burton-esque nightmares for the next several years. (Also slutty and funny work together way better than slutty and scary. How hilarious would a slutty Obama costume be? I ask you.)We decorated our flat with trash bags, fake comwebs, and wrote Redrum all over the windows in lipstick. Unfortunately, I left the giant box of costumery repertoire which I’ve been building for years at home because I thought I was only allowed to bring one suitcase, and I thought it more prudent to bring shirts, rather than say my velvet paisley waist coat and giraffe hat. Anyway, this left me an interesting dilemma as I tried to come up with a creative costume on student budget. On Thursday I managed to successfully dress as a bee owing to the fact that every other article of clothing I brought to England is yellow (because I am compensating for the fact that there is no sunshine in this far inferior to America country) because it fills my heart with so much joy that I must manifest it on my clothing. I don’t like cute costumes so I tried pinching strangers, yelling BUZZ! and then running away but apparently this most traditional of American pastimes is not a shared love in England. I was Harry Potter later in the week because I realized I would get to ride around on a broomstick all week and cry about my dead parents, but more disappointment – despite the fact that mother England, God save the Queen, has real Harry Potter magic, their brooms still do not fly. Maybe they just don’t work for foreigners (like the health care system).

Despite my desire to continue proclaiming the various merits of England specifically of it's other greatest achievements besides Nutella, Button and Cam, I’m going to end the post now so I can get back to writing about hegemony… yay… (by writing about hegemony I really mean procrastinating. Today’s best procrastinatory events 1. My dad skyped me at my grandmother’s birthday so I could talk to everyone and pose for a family picture as a computer monitor 2. I have now learned the ukulele chords to Harry Blues, a song from the comical Harry Potter musical performed by the theater department from the University of Michigan in which Ginny Weasley sings about her undying love for Harry Potter. It’s delightful 3. I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show with my flat and had to explain to them that not all Americans are like that.), but expect great things from next week, mother England, God save the Queen (America is better). I am going to Belgium (America is better) this Thursday!

Also, I found a sandwich cutter that will cut my sandwiches into the shape of two brontosaurus. Oh, frabjous day! (Lewis Caroll was English. That counts as an England reference).