My first first!

I got my Early American Literature paper back today and the mark said  70. I'm not very familiar with the grading system here but anything over 70% is a first, which is the highest grade! Yayyyy!

I copied this from some forum for those of you who are interested in how it works:

A first equates to the student having an average of over 70%
An upper second (2:1) is between 60% and 69%
A lower second (2:2) is between 50% and 59%
A third is between 40% and 49%

So I would've thought comparing it to the Bologna system (which we have in Sweden) would mean:

First=A
2.1=B
2.2=C
Third=D
Pass=E

But after talking to some english students during the break today I realized it doesn't really work like that. They said that basically anything under a 2.1 was not considered good. I think in Sweden being a C student is still pretty good so maybe I can't compare the grades as I have done.
Will have to investigate some more....

But right now I've still got 150 pages of A Picture of Dorian Gray left to read until tomorrow...

Last week

Ok, so last week passed in a blur. I had so much to do and so little time.
I have a serious problem when it comes to busy periods in my life: I cannot handle stress! At.all. I had so much to do last week that I pretty much had to write most of my short essay on the day of the deadline and I just can't function when it's like that. I just panic and think about how impossible it is and turn into a complete and utter psycho. 
I had planned that I would get up early on Friday and just stay at home and do the writing but then Andy informed me that the plumber was coming on Friday to install a new boiler. Ok...we both thought it would be a quick job so I stayed at home. Ummm it really wasn't a quick job. They came in here and pretty much took over the whole apartment.
I then decided to go to the library, which turned out to be closed. So at 10 am I had no choice but to head out and take the train  to uni. Now it takes me 1 & 1/2 hours to get there so I was not happy about this. I may have acted a little bit irrational and cried my eyes out when I realized how little time I had. Anyway, I started working around noon and could in fact leave uni at 5 and submit my paper...
The lesson here? CALM DOWN! It can be done.

After that stressful week of hell I did manage to have a lovely weekend. We went up north to Andy's parents and spent the weekend there. On Saturday we went for a walk in this huge park and then went out for indian food in the evening. On Sunday morning we had a full English breakfast. Now, I used to be a vegetarian so this is not really a favourite of mine. But I must say I'm getting used to it, I can even manage to squeeze down a sausage and a tiny piece of bacon these days *proud*!

In the car

Almost looks like summer!

Marbury park

Budworth mere

Autumn 

Andy with his parents

Studying

Yes I know, boring photo! But, unfortunately this has to be my life for a while. I've realized I haven't been spending enough time doing uni work. At first I thought: reading novels? Piece of cake! But...reading novels takes time and there are no shortcuts.
So I will try to work 5 days a week and full days! And also some weekends will be necessary since I'm a little behind.

I've done good today! I was at uni at 9 and had a class 10-13. I'm leaving soon but with the commute I won't be home until 8.30. At least I can get some reading done on the train! :)



- Posted from my iPhone

Lunch

You can really live cheap here if you love soup! 50p (about 5 sek) for Heinz tomato soup with a twist of chili...amazing!!




- Posted from my iPhone

Pink

I got new running clothes yesterday! I'm hoping this will make me go out running more. I had a cold a few weeks back and after that I've struggled to get back out there.

BUT, today is Monday. And we all know what that means: fresh starts!




- Posted from my iPhone

Sunshine

I kept waking up by sounds of the rain during the night. I already had plans to wear wellies to uni today. Glad I didn't, it's such a beautiful day at Roehampton today!



- Posted from my iPhone

Frustration

I've always thought that my English is pretty awesome. As long as I can remember I've had an interest for languages and especially English. When I was a about 12 years old I used to read a Swedish-English dictionary before I went to sleep just to try to learn as many words as possible....yes I know, I'm a nerd.

I've never had any problems communicating in English. There is one thing that has started to frustrate me though. At certain times when I'm speaking to Andy I really want to use a Swedish word because I can't think of the English one, or because it describes the situation better. But obviously I can't. This frustrates me a lot as I feel it's unfair that I will always have a disadvantage when it somes to the English language. I was trying to explain something the other day and I coudn't think of the word I needed to use and I ended up having a fit about how unfair it is and how I wished he could speak Swedish so I could have the upper hand for once...yeah I did that :S

Anyway, it's annoying sometimes and it's got me thinking about people that move to (and settle into) countries where the language is completely new for them. It must be so hard and so frustrating not be able to get your point across when needed. I've got nothing but respect for those people!