December 20-21

       Yesterday was a blur. My knee was really bothering me when I woke up, so I decided to stay in for most of the day. I'm pretty sure I ended up taking a nap after breakfast (lame) and doing a lot of nothing for awhile. I looked through a bunch of fine print on easyjet's website in hopes of getting a refund on my Edinburgh booking, but that got discouraging fast (hence the nap). I tried to call them, but I couldn't get through and my phone was really low on minutes. Eventually I got around to working on some homework and actually did make some progress. Pretty quickly, I became distracted by the sunshine outside my window. Everything's still covered with snow, but suddenly I wanted to be outside enjoying a rare spell of sunshine. I needed to go to Tesco to top up (reload) my phone, but I took a little detour which you might appreciate when I get home. With my camera in hand, I recorded a video tour of the campus so you all will have an idea of these grounds I stomp from day to day. The file is too big to put on facebook (I think), so you'll just have to watch it on my computer when I get home. Be forewarned, it kind of feels like you're on a rollercoaster because I was walking most of the time and the video is jerky. It's will probably be one of the most exhilirating/dizzying video tours you will ever take! After the tour, I actually enjoyed my walk up and down Snakes Lane because I had been huddled up in my room all morning. Thankfully, my knee didn't bother me. The snow and the sunshine made everything look unusually beautiful, and I was happy for the pleasant break from being a hermit.
       I had leftover pizza for dinner last night and watched Jim Gaffigan videos to cheer myself up. I'm not gonna lie - I was lonely. Thank Jesus for Youtube! I found a few Kristen Wiig SNL skits too and had some good laughs. It was just one of those days when you don't want to do anything but eat and relax, so that's what I did for the rest of the night. My friend Marta hooked me up with a few movies before she left, and I decided to watch one. Here's a blast from the past - SPICE WORLD! I loved that movie in 3rd grade, but I'm not exactly sure why now that I've watched it again. It's sooo cheesy! But then again, I loved Mary-Kate and Ashley movies too and those are no better. Whatever. Good times. After my healthy dose of cheesy chick flick, I still wasn't feeling like being productive. What to do . . . ? Make it a double feature and fall asleep to White Christmas. It was very pleasant, except the part where I wake up to someone screaming in or near the halls. I don't understand what the deal is over here, but I feel like that has happened a lot. The other night I woke up with my heart absolutely pounding out of my chest because of these blood-chilling screams I heard outside. I have never heard anything like that before, and I didn't know what to do. I'm talking slasher flick creepy. After I heard the screaming last night, I went down to the security office to see if anything was up. The security guard didn't hear anything, but I told him about the screaming the other night and he said it was probably the foxes. That made sense because I've never heard humans make those sounds. Let me just say that I'm glad we don't have wild foxes in Sacramento. So far, I haven't heard any news of people actually getting hurt or attacked at night, so maybe English people (and foxes) simply find it liberating to scream in the middle of the night just for good measure. Interesting fetish.
       Determined to spend way less time on my butt today, I made plans to hit the city. Before I did, I found myself praying for quite awhile. Do you ever have those days when prayers just start pouring out of you and you wonder, "why can't I pray like this everyday?" Well, I had one of those days today, so I just went with it. God and I had a very good conversation, and I felt way better all around afterwards. My plan for the day included any or all of the following: the British Library, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and Kensington Gardens, but I only made it to the British Library and the British Museum. I saw some incredible stuff like tons of manuscripts of the Bible in Latin and Greek, Jane Austen's writing desk and notebooks, a number of Shakespeare's works, Leonardo di Vinci's notebooks that are written in "mirror writing" (from right to left and backwards - darn lefties), the original manuscript of Handel's Messiah (why does this piece keep haunting me? Handel wasn't even English), original scores by Purcell, Mendelssohn, and Beathoven, Beethoven's tuning fork, handwritten Beatles songs, stuff by Coleridge and Wordsworth, the Rosetta Stone, the Magna Carta, tons of Egyptian mummies, and a bunch of crap, ehem, I mean (trivial) artifacts from ancient Rome and Greece and wherever else people dig up stuff in the dirt (I don't get the point of a lot of the displays like that. Honestly, I could probably find stuff like that in a thrift store somewhere. Was that too harsh . . .?). The British Library had a really neat exhibit going about the evolution of the English language. I was surprised at how interesting it was.
       The British Museum was so overwhelming that I ended up missing a lot and just glossing over a lot of what I saw. Museums have their place, but there's a point when I just want to enjoy my own life with its interesting "artifacts" instead of trying to appreciate those of cultures gone by. Those people are dead, and I am alive. I win.
      I felt a similar disillusionment when I was in Athens. Ruins are cool when you read about them, but after a day of climbing the Acropolis, walking through the Ancient Agora and seeing whatever other ruins you come across, you realize they are overrated, and you just want to get to living your own life and forget the ancient past. Who knows, maybe the Ancient Agora was the equivalent of Walmart to certain Greeks. I don't know about you, but I think that a Walmart exhibit in some museum in the future would be dumb. People glorify things too much. Let's glorify God instead.

NOTE: I'm pretty sure most of my professors would want to slap me if they read this post, so I'll just hope they don't read it.

       Moving on. My feet were hurting by the time I made it out of the British Library, so I found a cafe and chilled for awhile. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised when I ordered a "large" latte and actually got a large (defined by Starbucks standards) portion. "Large" on most espresso/coffee menus over here usually translates to "Oh, I ordered a large. What? This is a large? Are we rationing coffee now? Where's the rest of it?" Just kidding, I've never said that, but generally "large" is small by American standards. With my latte, I grabbed a seat in the coffee shop and read through some of C.S. Lewis' "The Four Loves." That man was intelligent. I have trouble following him sometimes.
       It was dark when I left the cafe so I decided to call it a night and head back to campus. It should be noted that the shuttle bus didn't give me any grief today. I probably waited only 10 minutes for it, total. Thanks, God. When I got back, I chatted with Natalie on facebook and we empathized over our situation. Meanwhile, I managed to get a full refund for the hotel in Edinburgh that I had booked for this week. All in all, I got back about half of what I paid for the whole Edinburgh trip. We still had to pay for the flight, but it could have been worse. For dinner, I had pasta, and I watched some more Jim Gaffigan as I ate. Wow, that man is funny! After talking to my friend Sarah about her trip to Edinburgh and doing some homework, I am just about ready to crash for the night.

       Aaaaaannnnddd, the musicians are still going at it downstairs. It's midnight, and they have a drum set this time. The drummer is stuck on the same rhythm, and clearly he hasn't had much experience with a kick drum because he's all over the place with it. The snare sounds horrible too - like a garbage can or "rubbish bin" as they say over here. Maybe if I stomp hard enough, they'll get the message. Hmmmm...

Prayer Request of the Day: That my knee would heal.