England update...

You know, it's funny.  I went from having absolutely no time to blog, to having ample time!  Wonder why?

I'M IN ENGLAND!

Preface:  Two years ago, I spent six weeks here as part of a Horticulture Study Abroad.  It was my first trip overseas, and I was homesick most of the time :(.  Since being here then though, I've really come to realize that I did myself a huge disservice.  While I enjoyed visiting the gardens and seeing the countryside then, I didn't take the time to really "take it all in."  I didn't take the time to just sit back and enjoy things, but was rather preoccupied with just getting home!

Now: I never thought I would actually have the chance to see all of these sights again, but I have.  Dr. Jeff Sibley, an alumni professor in horticulture (and a scholarship GURU) puts this trip together every other year.  This year, the chaperone that was going to be here the first two weeks was having to fly in from Rome, and there was no one to fly with the students to Manchester.  So....I was chosen!  I couldn't believe it! My job was to fly with them (only two had flown overseas before, and one had never flown at all), get them through customs (which was interesting, considering we were told we didn't have the correct paperwork), and then get then orientated here at the college (Myerscough College) this week.  While I know that I didn't enjoy this place as much as I could have last time, I was determined that this time would be different, and it would be good, because I would be able to catch up with old tutors and such.

While the visiting and the sightseeing has been good this week, we've had several issues that have been hard to deal with.  One of our students got sick on the first day, and Brian (the other chaperone) and I both had to get up around 4:30 Tuesday morning to get her seen about (don't even get me started on our experience with socialized medicine!).  Also, the whole time we've been here, the resident students at this college have played their dance/techno music as loud as they can get it.  I've gone to bed every night with the base shaking my walls.  Then, the final straw...there was a fight outside my room night before last.  I was woken up to the sound of yelling outside my door and outside the building.  It was definitely angry yelling, and everyone was yelling at one boy.  That's when I heard the fight start out on my hall.  They beat up that boy right outside.  It was traumatizing.  When I got up yesterday morning, there was blood all over the walls and hall door.  The general trend for students here is to have no respect for authority...at all.  I wasn't able to call anyone because I didn't have a phone that would work, but I honestly don't know if it would've helped anyway.

I've got a couple of more days to go, but hopefully nothing else scary will happen.  While I'm not homesick, I'm definitely ready to be home.  There's just so much to do, and you know my mind is always thinking about lists of things that need to be done.  At least I've got time to think about it, and write it down!