Lovely Weather

Hi All,

Me on the Thames in Richmond

Hope everyone had a good weekend! The weather here has been AMAZING for the last three days, a real Indian summer! This weekend was a good one, I was going to go into london for the day and explore the markets with a friend - but typical to my life the train was pulling away as we bought our tickets. SO we ended up going up to richmond and walking on the Thames / shopping for the day. It was so nice to just relax and hang out for the day!! Other then that I had a nice 3 day weekend because I am no longer going to Godalming College on Mondays so I sat outside for a few hours and read a book. Which I miss doing since I have no read much since camp ended.

Richmond Green

                                                                                    

Excited for the next couple of weeks. The last week in October I am headed to Spain with a friend I met over here and we are staying with Miss Megan. Halloween weekend a couple of people are staying at my house to celebrate my birthday. We are having a Mexican/ Margarita themed evening and then the next night we are headed out for Halloween festivities. I am making practice Halloween weekend Fancy Dress and I will obviously be going all out. Ill take lots of pictures! Then Miss Nell and Miss Meg will be here in the beginning of November! :)


This week is not very exciting - had 2 sessions today. I LOVE the kids I coach from this one school Hurst Park.  So we are not suppose to hug/touch the kids - like nothing because parents are crazy and its just for our safety and all the kids were hugging me today and I was so awkward and didnt know what to do. just stood there like uhhhhh you cant touch me haha. and they thought it was REALLY funny so they all kept coming up and hugging me. oh man.  But they were really cute, we only have one more class period and then it moves to after school club and they were literally down on their hands and knees begging me not to leave after next week. sooo cute.

Thats it for now! miss you all xx

HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY TO DOUG AND LINDSAY!!!! love you both lots and lots and I am so sad that I cant be there to celebrate with you! We are going to have to celebrate all of our birthdays when I get home in December!!

xoxox

Throwing my brother off and posting ANOTHER blog!

So today I went to coach at a primary school and saw this one kid beating the crap out of another kid after school let out. This 9 year old was beating up this 12 year old and his friend was trying to get the 9 year old off. At first I was watching it wondering where a teacher/ authority figure was and then realized I WAS ONE. ( this was one of those I feel really old/ empowered moments hahah) So I broke up my first fight today! Its sad how mean kids can be. Oh AND I am holding an assembly at that school. haha oh lord all the things I never thought I would do in my life.

welll a little update-

Heading to Spain for October break instead of Scotland/Ireland .. funny how plans change in like 12  hours. SOO excited! I am staying with Miss Megan and plan on eating plenty of tapas, drinking lots of local alcohol and taking tons of pics. One of the girls I met over here is coming with me too- so I will have a traveling buddy!

Also had year 5 kids ask for my autograph today .. which is really funny. of course I signed there notebooks for them hahahah :) taught them all a bunch of stick tricks and I think I officially have them all hooked on lax big time!

Hi all,

I cant believe its already October!! my favorite month of the year :) ( and not just because it is my birthday month .. although that is a plus! ) It is starting to get very chilly over here and I have been informed that I will not see the sun again until later spring- AHHHHH haha. It is starting to get dark earlier and I am getting a little nervous for the point when it is dark at about 430 ...

Sad day on the lacrosse front- I had to stop going to Godalming college because only 4 girls show up every week despite LOTS of persuasion to all of the girls who have previously played. They "dont have time" ... UGH whatever .. there loss not mine. However the club went really well on saturday and we are at full capacity with a 20+ waiting list! very exciting... and I guess they are really enjoying it!

Besides that - not to much going on here. Went out in Leicester square in London on saturday night which was a lot of fun - really cool to be in the center of london at night ... and I only spent 10 pounds the entire night! I was very proud of myself.

Right now I am planning a trip for half term in october ... I think to Scotland ( to see some Onas!) and then on to Ireland! very exciting .. kinda bummed that spain isnt working out but not to worried as I will be here a while.

Thats it for now!

A Month in

Soooo I have been pretty bad about updating this- but I am really going to try and do it more often! Lots of things have gone on since my last update...

Driving: Haha oh lord where to begin.. driving over here may or may not be the scariest experience I have ever encountered. When I finally got my car back- my host brother offered to take me out and teach me how to drive the car and it was like a scene out of a movie. I probably stalled the car every 5 seconds- and THEN he took me up a hill and I couldn't get the car to move and it was starting to roll backwards and it was terrible. not to mention I almost took out about 10 mailboxes and was up on the curb for a majority of the time. SOO they booked me driving lessons and it was 2 - 2 hour sessions with this nice british man with a heavy smokers cough named Ira who probably thought I was on drugs. I was literally having nightmares about having to drive. The signs over here make NO sense .. for example there is a circle with a cross through it that means 2 different speed limits when you are in different places- WHAT?!? why would you make the sign mean 2 different things?! people like ME have no idea what to do- and therefore are always going slower then need be. They also have signs like: kill your speed, not a child.. elderly people with canes at crosswalks and my favorite the frog signs that are everywhere. So after one of my driving lessons my boss had me drive to one of the clubs and he was in the car and I stalled not before, not after but IN THE MIDDLE of a roundabout. how that is even possible people I do not know- but I thought half of the UK was going to shoot me. However not to worry - I am a driving machine now. I still stall sometimes but I am really getting the hang of it . Did I mention my car has my NAME on it and a nice american flag on both sides?! slightly embarrassing when you look extremely special driving ... oh wellll. glad I am representing the country well on the roads.

Lacrosse:  Lacrosse has actually been AMAZING. I love coaching so much and the kids are great. During the week I travel to different schools and either run their PE classes or run a lacrosse after school club. I am also working with a college team (which is equivalent to 11th and 12th grade in the states) and then a women's club team. I am teaching a bunch of different age groups - I have Year 5 and 6 which are the young kids and they learn POP lacrosse. which is totally different then anything we have in the states- its basically the plastic sticks we use to play with in gym class, no goalies and you can only hold on to the ball for 4 seconds. They are  good for the kids to learn with and they all seem to really love the game. so I have  about 90 ish of them and then probably 90 of year 7- upper sixers (which is a senior in high school in the US or their last year of college before university ) It can get totally chambolic at times but there is nothing else I would honestly rather be doing. I am sooo happy that there is so much interest in Lacrosse over here. The Club team I am working with - Putney-  is realllllly good. They have a definite mix of talent but they have a lot of girls that play on the England squad. I am really excited in October I am going to play in a Tournament in Prague with them!!! Then on Saturdays I run both POP and field lacrosse at the club for about 80 girls - and the great thing is we have SOO many more girls that want to come and play with us - we just need to figure out space and find more coaches. It can be stressful at times - however at the end of the day I would so much rather have way to many girls then no one wanting to show up.

Me in one of the Phone Booth's 

Everything else is great- yesterday I went into London and explored. It is such an amazing and beautiful place. I also love how much diversity is everywhere- everywhere I walked there was a different language being spoken. I definitely want to get into London A LOT more.. especially because all of the museums are FREEE!! Not to mention its only about a 30 minute train ride for me from Oxshott to Waterloo. We went to Big Ben, Parliament, Saw the Eye of London ( the really big ferris wheel that gives you views of the entire city and more), Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace but I was a little upset that I could not find Prince Harry... however I will not give up my search. I have a good amount of traveling planned - In October I am going to Prague to play in that tournament and then I am Going to Spain and maybe Italy - but I will get to see Miss Megan from Onaway so I am very excited about that!! and then hopefully I will be making a trip up to Scotland soon to see Miss Meg and Miss Nell.  There are  SO many Onaway people in Europe this year- Including Miss Laura who is moving to LONDON! yayy!

Big Ben!

Buckingham Palace

Well that is pretty much it for right now- I am going to attempt to get back into working out today- hoping my legs are OK to handle it- who would have known I would miss running this much? I was really happy that they didnt hurt at all walking around London all day- so we will see what happens.

Happy Monday Everyone!   xx

ahhh so I have been here for two weeks and I am obsessed with this place. The people are so nice and everywhere I go everything is SOO beautiful. Last week I had my induction course with English Lacrosse and got to meet all of the other americans that are here working in the south of england. It was alot of fun - were played A LOT of pop lacrosse which is the lacrosse that is played with the younger kids and you use the plastic sticks like the ones we have in gym class back home. Thursday night everyone stayed with some of the LDO's that are in Reading and we went out which was a really fun time. FINALLY learned everyones names haha which was seriously difficult at first- so many new people and not enough space in my brian to remember any of their names! after we finished the course on friday we headed to Bath - which is by far the most beautiful place I have been so far in my life. everything is made out of stone from the same quarry and I was just in awe. We went to Bath Abbey and wandered around the streets. But we were  there for a lacrosse tourney which was so awesome - its not like our tournaments back home - they are WILD here .... wayyyyy to much alcohol haha. we got to go out in Bath on friday and saturday night which was a blast - maybe a little too  much fun??? haha needless to say sambuca and I will never cross paths again.

Im back in Oxshott now- just hanging out and getting ready to start a lot of coaching. Lots of lesson plans to do!! I have a couple meetings with teachers and then I am going down to play/help coach a club team in Putney which will be fun as they are my age. STILL NO CAR  hahaha my lifeee... lets hope I learn how to drive before hmm monday when I have to start? haha ill keep you updated!

If you have a skype account- let me know so we can talk and catch up!

Miss and Love you all
xx