Yo quero la quenta, por favor :)

*Got back from Barcelona early on this morning and can I just say what an incredible time that was :) Most of my pictures are up on Facebook and the rest will be up later on this week. 

Adam and I stayed in the Gothic Quarter, which was right near the major cathedral and about two miles down from the Med. Sea :-D We saw all the major sights, but it didn't feel as though we were rushed around like I have on my past vacations. We spent a good deal of time on the beach, simply walking around the city, drinking copious amounts of coffee/eating 

Testing 1,2,3 can anybody hear me?

So I made it through my second term of my first year of teaching. One more term and I'll have survived my first year of teaching; a scary and impressive thought--if you ask me ;) 

So long, Astoria...

So it's been about a week or so since I last updated this thing. It's been one hell of a busy week so I'll keep it short but informative :) 

*I spent last weekend (again), as most of you saw on facebook, in Nottinghill with Adam. It was so nice, just the two of us (well except for Saturday night where we met up with Bri and Amanda. Was a good time :) ). The weather was spectacular, and much walking/picture taking was done. A big 'thumbs up' to that weekend indeed. What I wouldn't give to be able to afford to live in that area...

*I'm slowly building myself back up from the half marathon. For the past two weeks I've been doing a full 45 minutes on the tredmill. My knee has stopped hurting (thank God. See, I DON'T need drugs, my body heals itself!) which is good. I'm about go for my second run outside since the race (I've been taking my friend to the gym so I haven't had much time for running outside). I'm looking to do a second race in July, right before I head home.

*Which reminds me: 1. If you haven't already figured it out, or I haven't already said anything, I'm staying in England for another year. Everything is going swell as is, and while I'm missing all my friends back at home terribly, I need money to live and America isn't exactly the 'land of opportunity' at the moment. My job pays the bills and then some. But don't worry, you haven't lost me to the Motherland quite yet ;) 2. I'm home from the 20th of July to the 20th of August. I'll let all you lovely people know once I figure out which week I'm spending in which state (NJ/NY, MD, PA, Fla.). 

*I recently had an old friend come back into my life, which I'm happy about. I think the past year or so of not speaking did us both a lot of good. I look forward to meeting up when I get home for lunch and a much needed catch up :) 

*Yes, Adam and I are 'official' Haha I sound like my students, but I have to admit I'm quite giddy about this. Even my department was telling me I was 'floating on Cloud 9' when I came in on Monday morning (I had just gotten back from London--you can imagine how much slack I was getting about that one ;) ). 

*Carolyn comes in two weeks. Need I say more?! Yes, I would be rather excited about this. Paris, get ready. Here we come. ;) 

Off to do a run, shower, vacuum, and then pick Adam up from the train station. We're heading up to Manchester for the weekend and seeing Jackie and Toni tomorrow night. What an awesome weekend!!!! 

Looking back...

Friday was Red Nose Day. The English department dressed up as punks and I found myself pulling out my Flogging Molly t-shirt from high school; my last remaining piece of high school memorabilia that isn't locked up in the attic at my parents' house amongst the cobwebs and A-tracks. Looking at the pictures taken from Friday, it was as though I had jumped some time warp and had been sent back to 2003. 

This weekend, the drama director from my high school died; this will be the second teacher from MHS to die in the past two months. 

The very same day I ran into three couples in Notting Hill, two of whom were from Mahwah; they were in town for the week for a relatives wedding. Not only did they come from Mahwah, but one of the couples lived two streets down from Beverdige Road--our first house in Mahwah before my parents split. Of course, as one would who meets someone from their town 3,000 miles away, there was plenty of name dropping (to be honest the man who was wearing the Yankees hat was more interested in talking about Mahwah than answering my questions about how the Yankees were doing--I'm a bit out of touch with Baseball since it's not exactly 'popular' here), which Adam seemed to find hilarious because 'that's what Americans seem to always do...' according to him.

After all of these reminders of where I've come from, I began thinking about the past and how hard we often try to forget it.

There are very few things I remember about high school, but the one thing that I could never forget was how I felt after graduation. The graduating class was shipped off to the Sheraton Hotel for a night of dancing at Illusions followed by games at the RCC. Walking around that tacky room of lights, mirrors and blaring top chart music, I think for the first time I understood what Jaques truly meant when he said 'All the world's a stage,/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances'. For my 13 years spent in the Mahwah Public School System (though more specifically 7 years--6th grade was the deciding factor of whether or not I'd be miserable for a healthy portion of my adolescent and teenage life) I had been 'playing' a part, and it was finally over; saying I was relieved would be an understatement. For the first time since my mother told me I couldn't become a cheerleader (probably for the best, fitting into one of those uniforms during my final years of high school would have been beyond emotionally scaring. Not to mention I wasn't exactly coordinated...or girly...) I could relax and it felt wonderful. I went up to people, specifically those I didn't normally speak to as they mercilously teased me during school, because I didn't care any more.  I figured it was better to at least attempt to leave off on good terms with people than leave with a grudge, which would require far more energy than I was willing to exhort.  At that point, who cared what people thought of me? In two months I'd be 4 hours south of Mahwah, where all of this would be one hell of a bad dream. 

And that's exactly what I did--five years later I'm now sat on my bedroom floor 3,000 miles from that small town with nothing but distant memories from days when I would have done anything to get out; as far as I'm concerned it's a chapter of my life that's put to rest. 

Yet, during my years in college, and even now that I have a full time job, a pension, traveling the world, and an optimistic outlook about the future, I still came/come back and visit (though mainly because of my family and select few close friends). And no matter how many years have passed, I still find that there are certain people who are still residing in the same place they were 5 years ago. There are those who will never get out, and those who generally don't want to. Had you asked me 5 years ago my opinion of this I would have turned my nose up at the very idea, but if traveling has taught me one thing, it's that you must be tolerant of those who have different views than you. Originally, my view was 'what? don't like traveling? you must be out of your narrow mind!' But now, I've come to realize that there are those who don't mind that life and residing in Mahwah is enough for them to be happy. After all, don't we all deserve to be happy, regardless of how or where? 

So to wrap up this post because it's clear I've begun rambling, is this: what this past weekend has taught me is that instead of trying to escape where you come from, perhaps you should just accept it, regardless of how much you may have hated it at the time. It's clear you simply cannot escape it, no matter how hard you might try. Besides, even if we did, and managed to simply forgot everything, the small quirky events in life wouldn't exist. We wouldn't have those embarrassing memorabilia pieces still stored in our dresser drawers itching to be taken out and used to your delightful embarrassment, news would never float over an ocean regardless of how serious or trivial it might be, and random occurrences, such as meeting Yankees fans from your home town, who live three streets down from your old house, in the middle of a city located 3,000 miles away from all that, would never happen.

I did it...

Okay so I have to admit that I'm listening to The Ataris at the moment...I don't know what I'm trying to bring myself back to early college, but I'm just in that sort of mood--you can make of me as much as you like (it's totally understand able ;) ).

Right so the main point of my post: I did it. After putting this off for about 2.5 years, I finally gathered up enough courage to run my first half marathon; not to mention in quite a respectable time (for a first run--2 hours 20 minutes). 

6 month mark...

So I realized the other day that I've been officially living in England for exactly half of a year! Time certainly flies when you're country hopping, meeting new people, and learning the ropes to a completely different education system. There are, and always will be (until I return home) certain things I miss about the US and particular things I most definitely do not. Lets see what I can come up with:

What I Miss:

*Target

*Panera

*Having a car

*Driving on the CORRECT side of the road/having the Drivers Seat on the left side of the car

*Starbucks that stay open until 11pm

*Patriotism (surprising huh?)

*The sun being out for more than an hour at a time (and for more than just one day a week at that!)

*695 on a really clear, sunny, and warm day with some incredible CD blaring out of my stereo, windows down, and no traffic (the last part is very rare, though I've experienced it twice!)

*Not needing to explain what a 'Jewish person is' more times than I'd like to count...believe it or not the British put some Americans to shame in the ignorance department.

*Kashi Cereal

*A good Ultimate scene *sigh*

*Any sort of outdoor/indoor sports club

13.1 in 12

So for those of you who don't already know, I'm running my first half marathon on the 8th of March. Preparing for this beast has been less than easy, especially with the massive amounts of snow we received about two weeks ago--it put a HUGE damper on my training since England goes just a bit loopy when even the slightest bit of white stuff hits the ground. 

I ran 6 miles  this morning for the first time in a while and I'm a bit tired; not good. I'm hoping that the running 'gods' will help me through the 8th and I don't fail miserable in front of my friends. At this point I'm simply going for finishing, proving to myself that I CAN do this! 

I had my first parents evening last night and I succeeded with flying colors! One of the parents told me that their child didn't mention anything about any other teacher, but said that she really liked me :) It was reassuring knowing that I'm not a complete failure at this job of mine.  This week is going to be a bit stressful since I have a heap of marking to get done before Friday/Monday. On top of trying to train...well it'll just have to get done. 

Dublin was incredible. I didn't get to Cork for certain reasons (which was fine), but went to Co. Mead instead. Tara Hill--not just a golf course (though it looks like that from the road)--I'll leave it at that. I got to see Joyce's house, Wilde's House, The National Gallery, The Temple Bar, Siffy on the Liffy (as they call it--basically this giant needle-like structure in the middle of the River Liffy), an Old Abbey (out in Co. Mead), and a huge protest against the government and their issue with taxing the working class (nothing new there). It was great to see Jay again and I'm hoping he'll make his way to England at some point (as I told him, he'll have the opportunity to see MK and all it's glory...haha). All pictures are up on Facebook.

Time for yet another day at work! Hoping that my lessons go as well as they did yesterday...