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)!

Mince Pies: [noun]- a small British sweet pie traditionally served during the Christmas season.

 I thought I would make my title word festive as I have been included in a Chritmas Holiday feature on Shannon Fitzpatrick's amazing blog, What's Up Whimsy! She has a feature running right now where she has asked a bunch of bloggers to tell her what's at the top of their Christmas Wish List.  She's calling it 12 Days of Holidays: A Blogger Wish List and today she has posted my wish. Thanks for making me a part of the blogger community Shambo!

After so much time here, the library is starting to make me sad.  A man sternly told me to stop eating today as I was "in a library".  REALLY!? I didn't notice.  Who does he think he is, telling me not to eat.  He's made himself a serious enemy and should probably start sleeping with one eye open.

UPDATE ON THE CHILBLAINS: I was, in fact, right about me having a chilblain on my toe.  I'm probably going to start practicing medicine right now by only consulting wikipedia.  If anyone's looking for a new doctor, give me a call.

On a lighter note, I'm almost done all of my work (before I have to start studying for exams and writing essays) and that means that it's almost time for me to go home for three whole weeks!  I will be on Canadian soil at 12:30 this Friday and I couldn't be more excited.

Wellingtons: [noun]- more commonly known as Wellies, water-proof boots made out of rubber. Bagels: [noun]- no one can beat Tim Horton's

It should come as no surprise that I miss Tim Horton's.  It's definitely not their coffee that I miss but those delicious bagels.  They sell Tim Horton's-ish bagels at the grocery store but at places equivalent to Tim Horton's they are more like round pieces of bread.

Last Friday (November 26) I went to London where I didn't eat any fake bagels.  My whining stops now, I swear.  My friend Caleb (I thought I would reciprocate the gesture) celebrated his 21st birthday last Saturday and he wanted to go to London as his birthday present to himself.  I joined him on this 24 hour adventure that started at 4 am on Friday morning and ended at 4 am on Saturday.  We took the coach, aka the bus, to London where we saw a whole lot of super awesome stuff. 

London is too cool.  There was this awesome skate park where a bunch of kids were, surprise, surprise, skateboarding but there was also a DJ playing, people (legally) spray-painting the walls and it seemed like there was some sort of photo shoot going on as well.

Brace yourself for the best segue ever: Speaking of cool, there was no heating on the bus on the way home.  At the time, I really wasn't that bothered by it.  I mean, yes it was 3 in the morning and it was snowing for the first time since I've been here and heat would have been lovely but I think I was too tired to care.  Apparently I should have cared though as I have frostbite or one of its close cousins on one of my toes! I can't believe that I have frostbite especially because I have never even come close to getting frostbite in those bitterly cold Ottawa winters.  I'm actually pretty proud of it, it makes me feel tough which I can't imagine is a characteristic frequently used to describe me. Update: after extensive research, Dr. Wikipedia has informed me that I have Chilblains. 

THE SNOW! So since that fateful, frostbiting Saturday morning, it snowed for about three days.  The havoc that has been reeked is hilarious.  Schools closed, classes canceled, buses stopped, taxis stopped, pizza deliveries (a particularly devastating one for me) stopped all because of 5 inches of snow.  This is a pretty substantial amount of snow but schools were canceled for three days.  I don't think 5 inches of snow would render one day of bus cancellations for B.A..

Walking to school is now a hilarious adventure where I get to laugh at all the people slipping around on the unplowed sidewalks because they don't have sidewalk plows, or even regular plows as far as I've seen.  The other reason why there is so much slipping going on is because most people wear Wellies, the basic equivalent of rain boots, as their choice snow walking shoe.  I do have to admit that I have been wearing my rain boots to walk in the snow.  However, I have an excuse.  Me wearing rain boots as snow boots is happening only because when I was packing I figured winter boots wouldn't be entirely necessary and they take up a lot of room when you can only bring two suitcases for a year long trip.  Sure, Wellies do the trick in terms of keeping your feet dry but, lucky for me, flat bottomed rubber shoes + ice = minimal friction.

I was suppose to go to Edinburgh this weekend but my trip has been canceled due to the snow. My last weekend in the UK in 2010 was spent in Leeds, with a lot of time devoted to the library.