the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

21 to 23 November 2008. After a horrendous week of coursework deadlines (gave a presentation on the 19th itself, stayed at the library till 5 a.m. that night to finish my chemistry paper due at noon the next day, woke up early on the 20th to proofread my paper, reprint and submit, then practice for another presentation at 1 pm), I finally got to properly celebrate the last year of my 20's on a tour of different villages along the English Jurassic coast (a UNESCO World Heritage site) in the county of Dorset. This year, though, I had the improbable (and ironic) surprise of actually having a classmate who's exactly my age. We found out we had the same birthday because we were groupmates for that presentation we had on our birthday :P So what's the probability of celebrating your birthday with someone exactly your age? Very small, I'm sure, and probably never again, so this was a rare gift. Because we both had all our November deadlines over last Thursday, we decided to do...

Start:      Nov 5, '08 6:30p Location:      Plymouth For Guy Fawkes Day--remember, remember the fifth of November....

01 November 2008. The magnificent church right beside the Roman baths--with live music from a choir that happened to be practicing when we were there :)

01 November 2008. It was a typical cold, gloomy day, but we were all set to see the lovely city of Bath with its 2,000-year old Roman baths. What I didn't expect was that Bath also had a Fashion Museum, which we got discounted tickets to with our tickets to the baths. I was with my Russian classmate Vera, and Polish friend Dorota, who readily transformed into models once we were inside. Though I wasn't too interested in the displays (it wasn't as comprehensive as I was expecting with such a grand name), at least I got some pretty good pictures of the two. Afterwards, we dropped by the Jane Austen Centre (but didn't go inside), because most of Jane Austen's novels mention Bath.

15 October 2008. Skipped a seminar to dive in 15-degrees water with my classmate Akilah, from Trinidad and Tobago. Everyone else was weraing dry suits, but we were wearing wetsuits and NO gloves. Couldn't feel my hands (or legs) when I climbed up the ladder. The very important thing we learned here is that unlike in tropical waters, you are not allowed to take off any of your gear (or your regulator from your mouth) while you are getting on the boat after the dive. With two tanks on my back and 9 kg of weights around my waist, it was only by the grace of God I made it back up :P

Start:      Oct 15, '08 1:00p End:      Oct 15, '08 5:00p Location:      Plymouth, UK first time to dive in the English Channel in English weather :D ...or in a freshwater quarry if the weather's really bad. either way, it will be a totally different experience from all the other dives i've had anywhere else, because i'll be wearing either a semi-dry or dry suit :P hope i don't shiver too much.

after i got some free pots and pans and plates from chaplaincy's second hand goods stall during international students week, and after i finally got a duvet cover (didn't even know they existed!), i was ready to settle in completely. it's actually quite bright during the day. i have a view of old houses and seagulls on their rooftops, but mostly the parking lot where they collect the garbage :P as you can see, it's not a villa at all :P but this will be home till the end of January. WARNING: spaces in pictures are smaller than they appear

7 to 16 September 2008 - Plymouth, UK. The European adventure begins.... photos to complement the saga :)

(if you were wondering whatever happened to the second part of that update i promised to write, well, i accidentally deleted it when i reformatted my computer one frantic week in June before i left the Philippines, in the middle of doing my poster for Florida. in the meantime, life’s been rolling along without waiting for me to catch up, as always.   so i think it’s best if i go straight to what’s been happening lately, before i get overtaken by events again. my apologies to the people i was supposed to meet up with in florida , california and new york :( i was just too busy being with my family to schedule anything else. next time….)   tonight, i skipped the free pizza and traditional british games at the chaplaincy (when i dropped in earlier, it was actually boggle, twister and lottery bingo :P) and quiz night at the student union because finally, all the socializing has worn me down, and i just wanted to be alone and catch up with everyone i’ve left behind. that ...