a man's house is his castle

August 29 @ 11pm (Harlaxton)

my first full day in harlaxton. it wasn't half bad. breakfast was ok but i think that they cook only the yokes of the eggs here. yesterday afternoon, melanie poucher and dore fomby and i went to the gardens. it was great, very peaceful and nice. there are five Hardin-simmons university students. me, mel, dore, jason king and larry lawson. last night they gave us a tour of the manor. i did not care!i was so freaking tired. today, i went to grantham with dore, mel and larry. i must not forget kevin (this guy again?). i know it will be hard because i am not used to this whole thing but i will try because he means to much to me to loose. i wish he were here. i think he would have had a good time and i know he would have LOVED the gardens. i picked a thistle for him. it's pressing right now. it's not that i'm looking for someone - i'm so used to having male friends and the only friends i have right now are girls. not that that's bad. it's just weird, i guess. everyone i've met is nice i guess, but everybody is nice when you first meet them one the first day of orientation. we spent the morning in grantham. saturday market was there so there were lots of shops and vendors selling things. i found dr pepper so i'll be just fine. i won't sell out kevin!!! this thought is crashing through my mind. i only ever know two guys and they are both from my school. i won't sell out kevin! he deserves better than that. hell, he deserves better than me. his picture is sitting on my nightstand.i just caught a glance of it. i love the smile (ok blah blah blah.... i liked this guy and he was really great... blah blah blah... let's just skip to the good stuff. if i go one about that guy again i'll just surmise or leave it out all together)

well. at the market, i bought at bucket for my bath stuff, a towel, a face cloth and an elbow wrap which i thought was a knee wrap -- so i can't read. i also bought some paper and 2 dr peppers. i also bought my books and switched my class from philosophy (i shouldn't have done that!) to shakespeare. i had to buy 17 books in all, including the modern drama book i brought from home. some of the former hsu/harlaxton students left a couple of boxes of stuff. i ended up with a notebook, more paper, some travel books, some markers and a pillow.

(i go on about kevin for a while)

anyway, i explored on my own today and found a lot of stuff like different ways to get somewhere (i.e. servant and secret passages) dinner tonight was for us to eat with the president of the school. i wore my black pants and silver. everyone met in the great hall, shook the pres's hand, drank some wine and stood around looking at each other. then all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, this man playing bagpipes comes in and leads us to dinner. it was quite a spread! fruit cocktail and bread... then the main course of chicken cordon bleu, potato and broc. followed by tea and pastry. white wine and water was served to drink. at 8:30, a bunch of us went down to the pub in front of the manor. Greg's. i had a pims and lemonade and a two dogs. it's an Australian lemon brew. i also had sips from other peoples drinks like stout and a snake bite. i liked the snake bite! i'm not drunk (yeah right), a little sleepy perhaps but fine otherwise. i think i may get kinda lovey if i were to actually get drunk but since that hasn't happened yet - i wouldn't know. (more yap about that kevin) someone just drove up in a taxi but i can't tell who. i know a lot of, well about half of the group went pub hopping in grantham. you know... half of the shakespeare books i bought, i all ready have. at home! well, that's life. ironic- don't ya think. well i'm going to shower now. it is now midnight!

emo girl rides again

ready for another instalment of tat2kitten's journeys abroad? well... here we go!

August 27 '98 @1:24 (uk time)

i'm listening to "leaving on a jet plane" on my cd. Guess who i'm thinking about? i guess i really haven't stopped thinking of kevin since we said our farewells. sunday. that was truly the hardest good-bye i had to say. i'm just so tired of hurting. kevin says"absence makes the heart grow fonder" i say "or forgetful". i don't want to forget him. he's too charming, romantic, funny beautiful, happy, godly, impish, caring, loving, smart (jeeze kid, get on with it) smart, talented, amusing, silly, bubbaish, comforting and trying.

god--

thank you for giving me such safe travel thus far. the lightening outside the plane is pretty. scary but pretty. thank you for letting it not hit the plane. thank you for kevin. he has added much to my life. Lord, i just pray for his future wife (i don't think that he is married... i looked him up on myspace and it looks like he is single). lord, please let her love him unconditionally and take care of all of his needs. please allow her to grow close to you and be able to be the spiritual woman that you would like her to be as you child and kevin's wife. lord, i also pray for and life up my husband. (that would be Himself the magician) Lord, please love him and hold him in your arms. let him be the spiritual man that i need as i walk in your will. lord, please give me the wisdom to know what that is exactly. lord, i just pray that he loves me and makes me feel safe. god, please be with kevin as he travels with his band. bless his words, voice and songs and lease give him a hug for me. thanks. i love you god. you are too awesome for words. greater than any other thing, person or power. i love you.

August 28 @ 2:22 (central standard)

we got off the plane, went through customs and met the group without a hitch. i went outside and saw my breath. we think that it's about 65 degrees. ha ha!

i'm leaving on a jet plane

so. i realized that have been very diligent in my writing and that i should be more kind to my faithful readers (if there are any). but honestly, there hasn't been too much that i have been passionately moved to write about. since school has been at summer session, i've kinda been stuck at home sitting on my ass, watching the travel channel. due to lack of inspiration, i've decided to type up old journal entries from my first trip to england for school. so hope you enjoy the ravings of a 20 year old college kid with the occasional side note from the blogger.

August 27th 1998 at 11:40

this is it. for the next four months, i will be living in a castle in england. the magnitude of that statement has not sunk in. yet. i'm now air born, listening to the Armageddon soundtrack. aerosmith's "don't wanna miss a thing" is the first song. why did i put that cd in? my eyes are glistening. kevin (kevin was this guy that i was kinda dating at the time. i thought that it was more serious than he did and we casually dated into 1999 but it ended as most relationships do). but, it's only a few months and it's not like i would see him anyway (kevin was in a music group that toured the country singing christian music). i'm not sad, actually i'm excited and ready. after all that has happened this summer (i lived in dallas on the weekends) a semester in another country will be very welcome. the hardest part of getting prepared to to leave was saying goodbye to the people that i love and care about. and family always make things out to be a bigger deal than it is anyway. but this is a big deal! no one else in my family has ever lived overseas. most of my family hasn't even been out of texas

i think that i should have a purpose for this journal. i will be writing in this "hopefully" daily to tell the day's adventure. i will also be using it as a spiritual journal because i've been to long away from god and i must come home. so i plan to write prayers, prayer requests and anything else of that nature (i did make an honest attempt at being religious but it was college and there were too many mornings that i woke up with a hangover.) this book will also serve as a place to store my thoughts as i experience all that i will experience (look out. i'm a totally good writer. not) poetry, snide thoughts drawings, letters i don't intend to send... will all be held within the confines of these covers (until 10 years from now, everything is written online on my blog)

right now i'm hoping that they bring on the grub. i'm awfully tired also. i haven't really just sat and reflected on what has, is and will happen. i love my family and hope that they know that. i hope that my dad is happy (he told me that he was getting divorced that summer). i know that he isn't; no matter how hard he tries to hide it (in hindsight i thing that he was just worried about me and how his divorce would affect me, bless) mama said that he might get married while i am away (my mom the comedian) and i defiantly have some mixed feelings about that. he's an adult so he has to lead his own life so whatever makes him happy...

i will miss kevin (yeah, i moon over this guy a bit) but i'm already accustomed neither seeing nor hearing from him for long periods of time. it's not something i'm necessarily fond of but comfortably ok with. i think he and i both understand the demands of work and school. even if work for hims is traveling and singing. as for how i feel about him. i love him (god bless youth) i gave a hard time about having to drive 2 1/2 hours to see him but i'd have driven 4 times as far to get to see him again before i left. the only think i can do is to pray. if god wans me to love kevin for the rest of my life (god didn't), than i know that that will be His gift. but if god has decided that my life will be perfect with someone else (that is more along the lines of what the plans were), than i will cherish the time that kevin and i have shared and be most happy in god's will. when i think about the latter, i get teary because i want to love only kevin (jeeze, i must have been pms-y) but god's plan is perfect and he will give me all that i need. i just hope that i'm not chasing an empty dream that will only lead to heartbreak. i also hope that i've grownd enough that i've grown enough that the shallowness of heart has deepened and that i wound forget the wonderful man god has placed in my life (nothing like a little foreshadowing right here at the start)

so as much as i moon on about kevin and wax on about god, i was really truly excited to be moving to england. and believe me... the journal gets a lot better the longer i'm there. there's boy kissing, drinking games, clowns, shakespeare, theatre, naked miles and much much more. so stay tuned!