lily_handmaiden | Entries tagged with england

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I originally planned to use this icon when I was still at school and it really fit my mood, but I'm going to go ahead and use it now anyway.

I can't remember which Compendium entries I've linked to for the semester just past-- which, long story short, I survived-- so I'm just going to post an index of them here:

In which I move into my apartment

In which I almost miss my first day of teaching

In which grad school is hard, yo

In which the pros and cons of academia are weighed

In which I partake in debauchery

Now, this meme was on

cleolinda 's journal last month, and I did it way back then and just never posted it, so here it is:

01. Answer each of the questions below the cut using the [Flickr] search engine. (ETA: I've changed the URL so it will automatically search "Most Interesting" for you.)
02. Choose a photo from the first three pages.
03. Copy the URL of your favorite photos [here].
04. Then share with the world.

(If those links don't work and you want to do this, check

cleolinda at the end of November.

1. Name: Erin. I got lots of pictures of Ireland, and this one was my favorite. I love the overgrown house and the colors. It looks like fairyland, and speaks very much to my interests and I think my personality. It has a nice atmosphere of possibilities of enchantment.

2. Favorite food: Strawberries. Sometimes I wonder if I just say they are my favorite because I've been saying it so long, but it's really true. I'll eat anything with strawberries in it, the strawberries are the first fruit I go for in a fruit salad. I like the girl in the picture, too, dressed sort of like a cross between Strawberry Shortcake and Alice in Wonderland. Very whimsical.

3. Hometown: Indianapolis. Say what you will about it, I think Indianapolis has a really pretty downtown. This is the Soldiers and Sailors monument lit up for Christmas-- my familiy drives down to the circle to see it every year.

4: Favorite color: blue. Really I prefer light blues, like sky blue, but I love that this butterfly sort of has all of the shades of blue in its wings. Isn't it gorgeous? Especially set off against the purple flowers, which are probably my second-favorite color.

5. Celebrity Crush: My pretend boyfriend, John Krasinski. Look at that picture! How adorable and hot he can be at the same time!

6. Favorite Drink: I don't like any alcoholic beverage well enough to make one my favorite, but I love me some Dr. Pepper. I remember when I first discovered this-- it was at the free soda fountains at Holiday World and I was like, "Wow! This tastes like candy!"

7. Dream Holiday: Really, it would be all over Europe, but I especially want to go back to the UK. I chose this picture of Tower Bridge because it combines the new and the old-- both of which worlds I love and want to see so much more.

8. Favorite Dessert: Honestly? Ice cream cake. I had to think about that for a while, but that's what it is. It doesn't take a fancy dessert to make me happy. Okay, this picture of of kind of a fancy ice cream cake, while usually I would go for something more traditional, but this looked SO GOOD.

9. What I Want to Be When I Grow Up: A writer. Yes, still. I love how graceful this picture is-- this is the reason I still write my rough drafts longhand.

10. What I Love Most in the World: My family. In the "there's more than one type of family" sense-- which includes my real family and also the handful of really close friends whom I consider to be family. I could not live without you guys. I chose this picture because it's a family, but it's not the traditional parents-and-two-kids picture, and I like how they're doing something together, holding out against the tide and the dusk together. That's what family does with you, right?

11. One Word That Describes Me: I kind of cheated and did searches for "dorky," "geeky," and "nerdy," searchinig for a picture that fit me, because I don't distinguish between the terms. I finally found this picture of a book under "nerdy," and there hadn't been a picture that reflected my love of reading yet. When I saw that the book was Beowulf in Old English, I was sold.

12. My livejournal name: Lily Handmaiden. Apparently there is a brand of yarn called "Handmaiden" with a color scheme called "lily pond," or something. I liked the colors, and sort of warmed to the idea after a while. I finally chose this one because it's the start of something, but it's not complete-- it's not neatly sewn up and the yarn goes off in different directions. If you go with the life-is-a-woven-cloth metaphor, this is about how my life is right now: not complete, not organized, but with the potential of prettiness and definitely going somewhere.

I've loved looking at these and seeing how they really do reflect the people who made them. I think this one is pretty "me."

Here are my photo credits:

A DESERTED IRISH COTTAGE, IRELAND., 2. Strawberry Fields Forever..., 3. Up the skirt, 4. Blue Morpho, 5. John Krasinski, 6. Dublin Dr. Pepper, 7. Tower Bridge - London - United Kingdom, 8. Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Cake, 9. The Writer, 10. Family outing, 11. Photo Friday: Nerdy, 12. Beginning the Tuscany Shawl

Current Music: Just watched Love Actually!

Those were the first words out of my mouth when this episode opened at Oxford. They were also uttered at several points in London (including an establishing shot of Picadilly Circus).

I've decided that I'm going to try to do reaction posts after new episodes of Bones and The Office. Because I can if I want.

( Bones 4.1: Yanks in the UK )

Keep 'em coming, please, and make them just as delightful. But take care of your minor characters.

Probable future recap tite: Booth/Brennan Field Trip 4: London Calling

Our weekly lesson from Dr. Temperance Brennan (on the workings of the voicemail): "Technically, you have not reached Temperance Brennan. But if you leave a message, it will reach her. Me. Temperance Brennan."

Which, even where it fell in the episode, made me laugh out loud. But then, Angela's message to her just about broke my heart. She needed her best friend. It made me miss my friends.

Speaking of, shout out to Bethany, who helped me organize my thoughts.

Current Mood: okay

It's taken me a long time to get to this, and I don't really have much of an excuse. I graduated, and it was wonderful. Other minor things have happened. Most of the time I've been cleaning my room-- it is SO CLEAN!-- working, and recapping. I'm also moving all my icons to a new photobucket in a project I'm calling The Great Icon Migration of '08.

But now, at last, the very last one of these for my undergrad experience...

Quotes of the Semester, Winter-Spring 2008

( Early Lit )

( Divas of Poetry )

( Star-Crossed Lovers )

( Theatre )

( Misc. )

Unfortunately, I couldn't write down all the funny things that were said this semester, so don't feel left out. I'm sure that you said all kinds of hilarious things, but I had stupidly forgotten my notebook or was feeling lazy.

And finally, as a tribute to my wonderful friends at Hanover, I have made some icons just for you guys:

Current Mood: sleepy

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This is the concluding chapter of my account of my trip to England.

For my last stop, I went to the city of Bath with Whitney, Tiffany, and Jenaba (

celtic_songster). We took the train from Stratford, which was... adventurous. Let's just say, it's not easy getting four people and all of their luggage through three train stops to a final destination. And then once we got to that destination, we lugged our luggage all the way across central Bath, lost a good deal of the way. At one point I had to stop and exclaim to the heavens, "WHY ARE THERE NO F***ING STREET SIGNS IN THIS F***ING COUNTRY?" But we did at last figure out where we were, and shortly after that figured out how to get to our B&B.

After we had stowed our luggage and laid on our beds drenched in sweat for a while, burning off the exhaustion, we were able to go out and actually appreciate the beaty of the city, and Bath is beautiful. It was about 8:30 or 9 by this time, so we cast about for someplace to stop and eat that was not too smoky and not too expensive and close by. We finally settled on a groovy European Pizza Hut, where we had pizza topped with grilled chicken and goat cheese, had quesadilla apetizers that were stuffed with pepperoni, and had delicious ice cream cake for dessert. It was pretty awesome. As in the old days, the entire population of Bath seemed that night to be entirely made up of old people and teenagers. The teenagers loved hanging out at the Groovy Pizza Hut.

The next day we boarded a double-decker bus and rode on the top in the rain, for which we blame Jenaba. We went to the Jane Austen Centre, which was really cool, at least for me-- they had costumes from the new ITV Persuasion and the '99 Mansfield Park, and they had cool Regency and Georgian Stuff, and they had one of Jane Austen's letters to Cassandra... yeah, I'm a dork. I could have bought that whole gift shop. By the time we came out of the Centre, it had cleared up and turned into a lovely day. We next went to the Roman Baths, which were so cool. It was just unbelievable how long they had been there-- that that place had been sacred since before the Romans came to Britain. If there was a real basis for King Arthur, he probably came there-- the Battle of Badon Hill was probably in the surrounding area. And right next door was Bath Abbey, which was very pretty from the outside-- we didn't go in because we didn't have that much money left and we decided we didn't want to pay. Then we went to the Assembly Rooms and Museum of Costume. The Assembly Room itself-- the Ball Room, anyway, was closed for renovations, but the Octagon Room and the Tea Room were open, and I was in heaven. Because Jane Austen hung out there. Her fictional characters did, too. And it was gorgeous, of course. The Costume Museum was also really cool, and I we got to try on corsets and hoop skirts again-- I found a corset that would make my waist go as small as it could actually go, so that was fun.

After that we just walked around Bath. We went to the Royal Crescent, and we walked on the Gravel Walk, and down Milsom Street, and Union Street, and the Circus. I will say again, though I can't say enough, that Bath is so beautiful, especially places like the Circus and the Crescent. And these were places I've read about a lot, and matters of fictional import took place on them, so that was just such fun. In the words of Rudyard Kipling in his story "The Janeites," "If you’d been initiated then,” he says, “you’d ha’ felt your flat feet tingle every time you walked over those sacred pavin’-stones."

We also went to Victoria Park, which has one of the coolest playgrounds I've ever seen. The next day we did more walking around and shopping. We rode around on the double-decker bus-- actually we rode around in circles a couple of time because the bus wouldn't stop where we wanted, even though Tiffany kept pressing the button, and we were pretty sure we were going to have to ride it for eternity. Actually, the audio tour on the bus is pretty amusing. From the lady on the recording, we learned about Prince Frederick of Wales, who got dead from tennis ball, and about how the most dangerous place in town is the beginners' golf course, and about how "Jane Austen came to bath in 1801, and has been good for tourism ever since." We laughed really hard right there and nobody else did... oh, well. We got it. We also saw Laura Place and Pulteney Bridge that day, plus lots of great shops.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that our B&B room was haunted, because when I was half-awake the night before we left, I kept hearing the floor creak over and over in the same place like somebody was pacing over it, but we were all in bed. That would also maybe explain why our bathroom kept smelling like smoke. I told Jenaba this in the morning, and she was very glad I had not told her beforehand.

We caught an exceptionally early train out of Bath, dealt with all of the horrible luggage transfers again, and made it to Heathrow before anyone in our group, so HA! Well done us. I would like to take this opportunity to say to my travel companions that I love you guys and thank you for roaming England with me. It was wonderful.

Can I go back now?

Current Mood: hungry

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Here is my second part of my account of my trip to England.

After we left London we went to Hampton Court Palace, which was where Henry VIII (who LOVES himself) lived with Anne Boleyn. This place was amazing, because most of it is displayed as it would have been at the time, which is beautiful. It was so amazing to think that I was walking through the apartments of generations of kings and queens. And I have found my true calling, because there are re-enactors there, and I so much want that to be my job.

We spent a few hours there, then went on to Stratford-upon-Avon. This town is a gorgeous little place. It's very homey and just a lovely place to stay. I stayed in the Quilts and Croissants Bed and Breakfast, which is run by Richard and Sue, just about the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. It was a lovely place to stay, incredibly comfortable beds, really good food, and wonderful people. Of course we visited Shakespeare's Birthplace, Anne Hathaway's house, and Mary Arden's house during our stay. These places are all uniquely cool, and it's fun to imagine Shakespeare living in there, walking around, doing his Shakespeare thing. We also went on a couple of hikes through the countryside which was SO BEAUTIFUL. Nothing is as beautiful as English countryside. At the end of the hikes, my feet hurt like whoa and my poor shoes were covered in mud (good English mud!), but oh! We saw these little villages all set up in the sort of manor systerm-- one of them was just like I would imagine Highbury, from Emma. And we saw the site (through the mist, no less!) of an iron-age hill fort! I just about squee'd my little head off. My brain was rocketing so fast between Jane Austen love and King Arthur love that even my mind was exhausted when we came back.

We had classes at the Shakespeare Centre. We had lectures and discussions with the foremost Shakespeare experts in the world: Stanley Wells, Paul Edmondson, Robert Smallwood... And Robert Smallwood, let me tell you now, is magical. He's a born storyteller, he loves what he does and wants everyone else to love it too, his eyes twinkle, and his voice just draws you in. We also had a master-class with Jane Lapotaire, a BBC actress, which was both instructive and terrifying. When she demanded lines of Shakespeare, the entire class simultaneously forgot we'd been doing monologues and went, "...". We had discussions with people from the plays we'd seen-- the awesome William Gaunt, who was Gloucester in Lear and Sorin in The Seagull, the Fool from Lear, and the very cool Monica Dolan, who was Regan in Lear and Mascha in The Seagull (and, by the way, was fresh out of the lead in Polly Teale's Jane Eyre).

While we were staying in Stratford, we took day trips to Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle, and to Oxford. Warkwick was great, if over-commercialized, because it was my first castle. And the parts of it that hadn't been messed with were terrifically atmospheric. Kenilworth, which is a ruin, but which used to belong to Robert Dudley, is simply gorgeously beautiful. It just feels... so melancholy, almost eerie, when you're there. At Oxford we toured Christ Church, which was also beautiful. I almost can't imagine going to school in someplace so old and beautiful. We saw the dining hall, which is where they shoot Harry Potter's Great Hall. And the cathedral, where they have relics of St. Frideswide.

Finally, here is a brief summary of the plays we saw. The Seagull was... eh. It was okay. The leads weren't very good. King Lear had Ian McKellan in it (naked, at once point, which... I could have done without seeing), and some very talented actors giving great performances. Cordelia was not good at... anything really, including being dead. The Taming of the Shrew was disturbing. Twelfth Night was surprisingly good, even with an all-male cast. A Midsummer Night's Dream was the most amazing piece of theatre I have ever seen. Check out its website. If you ever, ever get a chance to see it, GO. It makes you believe in all kinds of magic. The best way I can think of to describe it is Shakespeare meets Cirque do Soleil meets Bollywood. The actors peform all kinds of amazing acrobatics (while singing and dancing, no less!); the set is pretty much vertical. It is also performed in English plus six Indian dialects with no translation needed, because the message of the words still gets across. I have made may icons from pictures I found online. Here they are.

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Current Mood: nostalgic

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I am back from England! Where I had probably the most amazing time of my life, ever!

I have been back for about a week, and I have so many things to cover!
*the trip itself
*the awesomeness of the last three Office episodes (sqeeeee!)
*the awesomeness of PotC: AWE (whooooo!)
*the suckiness of my job hunt, which I suppose you can go ahead and read about over here.

Other than that, I have decided on the order of addressing these things: first the trip, in three entries spaced closely together, then The Office, then Pirates-- or possibly both in one entry.

Normally I don't talk about my real life on my lj, but I have a feeling I'm going to wax a bit long for my blog community, so this is where this is going.

( What I Did on My Holidays )