A Bit Morbid

So this post's a little different.  I'm taking a module (as they call it here, course/class as we call it back home) about the history of Leeds.  It's actually called Leeds: Voices of the Past, which may be important later.  So anyway, this modulecourseclass tries to explain how this area was shaped, from Prehistoric times to the present, by the various peoples who called it home.  We've talked about Romans and Celts and Saxons and Normans, discussed how places get their names, and handled animal bones from 8,000 years ago.  Wednesday, we took a field trip.  To a cemetery.

Now, I know how that sounds.  A cemetery?  Walking around a graveyard in the rain and mud (because it's England, so of course it was raining) for 2 hours counts as a field trip?  Well it turns out yes.  I've always kind of like cemeteries (I'm weird) because they make me feel peaceful (weird) and contemplative (weird).  But my teacher for this class really encouraged us to pay attention to the headstones and to figure out the stories of the people buried there.

We went to a place called the Beckett Street Cemetery, which as far as British cemeteries go, is a fairly important one.  It's the first (probably) municipal burial place in all of England, which basically means you didn't have to be Anglican and rich to get buried there, and more than 180,000 people took advantage.  Even in the warm-and-fuzzy public burial though, there's a nice segregation between the Anglican dead and the dissenters (they went with a strict "with us or against us" type of policy), complete with separate chapels and staff.  No cross-religion-contamination here.  Kind of sad that even in death we can't forgive our differences.

Side note: the cemetery is also pretty much across the street from a giant hospital.  That must be a cheery reminder for patients.

Anyway, not the point. 

Hey MTV, Welcome to My Crib

Too bad I don't have any pools, cars, or solid-gold refrigerators to show off.

It's been a while since I gave you all an update, and though I did go on another short trip since then, I'm going to put that story on hold (you'll have to live in suspense for a bit) and instead tell you a bit about my life in Leeds.

It's hard to believe I've been here for a month.  I feel simultaneously like I've done so much already and that I've barely done anything.  Hopefully I still have a lot of adventures to come in the next four months.  In the meantime, how 'bout I show you round my new living space? 

My desk.  Note the desktop background--still awesome.

Ze wardrobe and little table thingy (which would be handier if it were anywhere near the bed, no?).

To Be...atles or not to Beatles

I apologize for the title.  If I could refund those couple seconds of your life that it took you to read it, I would.  The rest of this will be better.  Or at least it will have 100% fewer puns.

Last Saturday (And, shut up.  I can hear your judgment.  I know it's taken me days to write a post about this.  Jeez.), I went on a trip to Liverpool through the International Student Office here.  It was all for us international students, and we each paid a small sum of money to be loaded onto buses early in the morning.  They pretty much just organized transport, so they basically took 6 coach buses full of foreigners and set them loose on the city.  I'm sure the Liverpudlians (or Scousers, as they're apparently actually referred to) appreciated that.

I mentioned The Beatles in the embarrassingly bad pun of a title of this post because, as you may know, it's the birthplace of each of the Fab Four, and also the city where the band formed.  This gave me another thought.  I would bet that people who grew up in Liverpool are utterly sick of the Beatles.  I mean, they think I make annoying puns?  There's a "Hard Day's Night Hotel" in Liverpool.  An "Ate Days a Week Cafe."  Seriously--I bet it makes people want to cry.  All the tourists (including me) walking around singing Beatles songs, having people stop you to ask where Penny Lane and Strawberry Field are...  Besides the fact that it's all anyone knows about Liverpool, the Beatles overload must be a bit much.