England? Ireland? Great Britain? Scottland? Northern Ireland? Wales? United Kingdom?

Most embarrassingly, before I watched this well informative video I could not correctly tell you the difference between the above places (I would like to point out my English, maybe British, use of the word well which, in this context, means very).  In my defense in the case against myself, I previously could have given some sort of vague explanation in which I would have said that the UK might govern all of the other guys up there in the title but I wouldn't have been sure what the difference between England and Great Britain is.  Also, who knew there were so many British Overseas Territories?  Shamefully, not me.  In case you were looking for more information in regards to my ignorance so you could better gauge how much you should gawk at this lack of knowledge I have just admitted to, I've been in the United Kingdom and more specifically England for about four months now.  Big ups to my new unknowing bestie who made this video.  I owe you big time homie.

Refreshers Week: [noun]- is to freshers week as frost week is to frosh week.

For those of you who aren't sure what any of those are let me break it down for yah.  Freshers week is the first week of university in England.  Frosh week is the same thing, Canada styles.  Frost week is the clever Canadian term for the first week of the winter semester.  Refreshers week is the, again, clever term for the first week of the English winter semester.  The common thread between all of these is alcohol and very little sleep.  Not so refreshing but the name can't be 100 percent perfect.  Refreshers week is also going to serve as my excuse for already abandoning my new years resolution of updating this mabob more often.

My refreshers week started with a trip to Evo aka Evolution with my flat mates and other lovely folks on Saturday night.  Random, perhaps untrue, fact about Evo: it was Britain's first super night club.  It sure was super! Worst. Joke. Ever.

Sunday night involved pizza and an early bed time.  It was awesome.

Monday night involved school work and an early bed time.  It was less awesome.

Tuesday night was Ollie's girlfriend's birthday.  That's right, I just dropped that name as if you should know who Ollie is.  Deal with it.  Ollie's girlfriend, Portia, goes to school in Newcastle but decided to celebrate her birthday in Leeds because Newcastle still had exams going on.  Anywho, I brought back red plastic cups from Canada after Christmas time because they don't sell them here.  They've brought a lot of good times to the flat.  Everyone has their own decorated cup and we played flip cup on Tuesday night for the first time (which was semi-successful).  We went to a club called Space and had VIP which always makes me feel real cool (insert self deprecating joke about my lack of coolness here). It was hilarious.

Wednesday night I obviously went to the movies and to Pizza Express for dinner but it was a special occasion because it was a friends birthday, Theress, so a bunch of us foreign girls went to orange Wednesday together. 

Thursday night I went to a charity event organized by my brother's girlfriend's dad's cousin's wife OR my friend's dad's cousin's wife.  Both of those equal to the same person: Aude.  She invited me to come along to this VERY well organized and fun event that was raising money for cancer.  It was called Ladies Night and the main event was two waiters who wore nothing but aprons and  a bow tie (sorry Dad).  If the safety violations of that situation are boggling your mind, I have an explanation for you: they didn't actually serve food, they sold raffle tickets.  Let me tell you, two man bums in a room of 120 women causes quite the frenzy.

And finally we come to tonight.  I just got back from a delayed Christmas dinner and it was the best.  I love extending Christmas into two (maybe even three) months.  Luckily for me I've made myself some very thoughtful friends, Andy and Hannah (aka Handy) so not only do I have good friends, I also have good Christmas presents.   Hannah and Andy know my deep love for some certain artists, not restricted to artists who work(ed) in the visual sense of the word. They got me some awesome presents to do with said artists.  Here's a pic of me just chillin' with my homies Bruce and Remmy.

Rembrandt is always playing zanny practical jokes like stabbing me in the head with his paint brush.

On the right is part (best belated Christmas!) of Hannah's present to me: a copy of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark on vinyl and on the right is part (January 28th Christmas is great) of Andy's present to me which is is a Rembrandt Quotable Notables.  Say Quotable Notables out loud, it's fun.  You won't regret it.

Thank you so much Andy and Hannah!

What this week has taught me is that the magical fairy land that is refreshers week is sooo much better then real life.  Blarg (shout out to my girl, Liz Lemon).

This has nothing to do with my trip at all

Continuing with me admitting how crazy I am, I am the grammar police of my family (I contain it for most of the rest of the world).  Thus the following video, which is a dramatic reading of someone's grammar-dysfunctional review of an internet game, is the funniest thing I've seen in a while and I would like to share it.  Also nothing too noteworthy has been going on for the past few days.  Except for this video, that is.

  

Invigilator: [noun]- the U.K. version of a proctor.

The head invigilator for my exam today was kind of funny in an I'm-an-old-man-and-I-can-say-whatever-I-want sort of way.

Apparently this is the week that I put all my crazy out on the (internet) table for everyone to judge.  I love the sky.  It's my absolute favorite thing.  I basically comment on it five times a day, especially in the summer.  Even if I'm by myself and the sky is really cool looking I will actually speak the words "Wow, the sky is really cool looking" to myself.  I enjoyed my drive to work this summer because I got to glance at the sky every once and a while. I was walking home from my last exam today (yay!) and this is what the sky looked like:

Wow that picture does not do it justice and the picture looks way nicer on my camera.  Sorry about that.  Anyways, it was more neon orange and pink and purple.  I know its not necessarily a good thing when the sky is bright orange and pink due to pollution and stuff (thank you Berenstain Bears) but whatevs.  Its a nice side effect.  I didn't speak out loud about how nice the sky was because there were other people around but I was smiling like an idiot, by myself, just walkin' down the street.  It makes sense that the sky is orange because its ORANGE WEDNESDAY!

Chuffed: [adjective]- to be pleased or happy.

I'm well (a.k.a. very) chuffed about the way the University of Leeds does exams.  I'm assuming it's the way a lot of universities outside of Carleton deal with things because other exchange students that I know don't seem surprised about it at all but that's neither here nor there.  What they do is assign you a seat for your exam and it's posted along with the time, date and location of the exam.  The reason I like this so much is because, my last name being Wallman, my seat is always in the very back row.  And for those of you who know how truly and utterly insane I am, you know that I don't like when people hover behind me especially when I'm stressed or tired (always?) so I usually try to sit in the very back rows of exams anyways.  It just takes one less (psychotic) stress away during the exams, which I'm really grateful for.  My last exam is tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited, especially since I have the peace of mind knowing I'll be sitting int he back row.  

To distract you from my crazy, here are pictures of a pretty park near my place of residence. 

Chunder: [verb]- to puke.

I've studied since I woke up this morning and I don't think you want to hear about how Queen Elizabeth I used a cannon of symbols based on Minerva to perpetuate her power.  So instead, enjoy this video.  The title of this post is so you can understand the hilarity of this video.  I myself have been doing zero chundering.

Orange Wednesdays: [noun]- the best thing that has ever happened to my food-and-movie-loving self.

Every Wednesday the phone company that I'm with here in England, Orange, has this amazing deal on Wednesdays.  What you do is you text the word film to the number 241 and then they text you back with a code.  This code gets you two for one movies AND dinner at this sweet restaurant called Pizza Express.  So tonight I'm going to be watching Love and Other Drugs and eating lots of pizza with my friends!

To make Wednesdays even better it is SO WARM HERE.  It's January and its plus ten.  I basically skipped home from the library today it was so lovely outside. 

This is a picture from when I was taking the train from London to Leeds on my way back from Canada, when I managed to keep my eyes open for two minutes.

Kirkgate: [noun]- a street in Leeds that runs between the City Market and the Corn Exchange.

It's a nice little part of town with a wide variety of stores and restaurants. I walked over there today for two reasons.  The first being it wasn't revising.  The second being that I needed something to write about on here besides revising.

The Corn Exchange is this painfully beautiful building that has little clothing stores and a restaurant and other cute things.  The City Market is an indoor market with grocery stores, butchers, flower shops, candy stores, breakfast places, cafes, clothing huts, you name it. 

Revise: [verb]- to study

I think I prefer saying revision instead of studying because revising suggests that you have already done loads of work and now all you have to do is just casually revise it.  Studying, however, means that you still have a tonne of work ahead of you.  I feel as though revision is much more optimistic although once I actually start revising I may change my mind.

Revising is what I'm going to be up to for the next couple of weeks starting today so my resolve to post more frequently may become upsetting and in all honesty quite boring for you reading my posts but I WILL PREVAIL.

My flatmates are all back and our little family has reunited which was a nice start to my week.  Only four out of five of us were back yesterday but we went out for Sunday roast.  Our Sunday roast actually consisted of no roast or any of the things that come with Sunday roast because we either ordered fish and chips or burgers.  Keepin' it authentic.

Aubergines are actually eggplant. Curse you, youtube boy!

Today I got gifts from Santy Clause.  He gave me two things: one being the gift of shopping and the other being SHOEEEEEESSSSS.  Thanks for the best treasure hunt ever Santa.

Don't we look like a happy family?  Keep your orphan Annie comments to yourself Andrew. I will, however, accept comments from everyone on how well I'm keeping up my resolution of more frequent posts.

Aubergine: [noun]- zucchini

Somewhere in its transition across the ocean, aubergines gained a 'z' and then a few other letters got changed around and then zucchinis happened.  Logical transition.

I just had a lovely three week vacation back in Canada where I got to say 'eh' without judgment and eat lots of Kraft Peanut Butter.  I had a wonderful Christmas with my family which was also intensely Canadian with a lot of tobogganing, snow-shoeing and Rummoli.  Wow, I didn't realize how Canadian my Christmas was until I wrote that sentence.

My journey back to Leeds was entirely uneventful.  I fell asleep on the plane, the tube and the train so if something exciting did happen I probably missed it.    

I'm back in Leeds, I just finished my last essay of the fall semester today and I have food in my fridge.  Life is good.  Plus my friend sent me this video which is both educational and funny. 

Hence the title of this post. 

This semester prepare yourself for way more Dodgy updates.  It's somewhat of a new years resolution for myself.  So, see yah reeeal soon (in blog land, that is)!