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).