yay for pictures- canada

Rubbish.

Finals are coming up.
I am getting no sleep, I have piles and piles of homework/projects.
It is freezing cold.
Luckily, there is no boy drama......oh wait, to my immense disappointment, there is :-s

Oh, Canada!!

Yes, it is true, I am indeed in Canada!
It is currently 'Thanksgiving break' in the states and therefore we get a rather large break from school!
My roommates are all from different areas and were all so generous in inviting me to their homes for thanksgiving. I decided to go to Canada with Mickenzie and Brittany (practically a roommate), who live in Southern Alberta. We left Rexburg last Friday and 7 hours later, we were in Canada! The man at the border was rather mean and I must admit he slightly scared me :-s But, I got a stamp in my passport...woo!
We stopped for some pictures by the dinosaur and then arrived at Mickenzie's house! I had a quick tour of her house before moving on to Brittany's house; where I am staying. Her parents were extremely welcoming and they have all made me feel very at home :-)
On Saturday, we began the day by attending a football game (Canadian football...basically American football), then I went with Mickenzie to her house; to see her family and for dinner. The next activity was attending a University Basketball game, it was really fun! I met a lot of Mick and Brit's Canadian friends and got to see some interesting cheerleaders!
On Friday it had been Brittany's brother Mason's birthday, therefore on Sunday they were having a big family birthday meal....so yummy!!!
Monday- Calgary day! We woke up early-ish and set off for Calgary (about 2 1/2 hours away). We went to Ikea and picked up quite a few things and then made our way to downtown Calgary for lunch in an Irish pub; Joyce's On Fourth....delicious! After this we went to Chinook Shopping Mall, where we simply shopped until we dropped. We eventually rolled home just before 11pm where we sat down to watch some episodes of 'House'....Brittany is successfully getting me into this.
Tuesday- We had a lazy morning of more 'House' and 'The Ellen Degeneres Show'...love it. We then had Subway for lunch, before Brittany took me on a tour of Raymond (the town they live in). It is similar to Idaho in the way it looks! After having the grand tour we went home where I managed to get a little homework completed. In the evening, Mickenzie, Brittany and I went bowling and dinner in Lethbridge...a lot of fun! I managed to fall flat on my face in bowling...seriously, it was like something out of a cartoon :-D I also ate a delicious white chocolate brownie for dessert....so good! To finish the night we wrapped up in blankets in front of the telly and watched Hairspray....funny! It really was a good night....a lot of fun with great company!! Oh and it snowed last night :-)

Now it is Wednesday....I plan on doing homework, until we go out tonight!!
We have a lot of fun planned for the rest of the week and I am excited to put up photos of everything! Sorry, I can't put photos up yet. I forgot my phone connector; so you will just have to wait a little longer!
Overall Canada seems to be a mix of England and America...I am loving the fact that they have Bounty chocolate bars, proper Smarties, Maltesers and good Cadbury's chocolate!
I am really enjoying being in Canada and having such a relaxing break.....they obviously don't celebrate American Thanksgiving here so there is no crazy thanksgiving stuff going on; to be honest, I keep forgetting it is Thanksgiving week.

I will update again soon!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sLGLum5SyKQ

Soulja Boy.....stupid, but oh so funny.

Mid terms already?

It is already the middle of the semester and it is mid-term time! I can't believe how fast it is going :-s

First of all I will tell you about my roommates.......
they are wonderful :-D one of them- Mickenzie is from Canada so it's cool to have another international student!

My education
In case you didn't know, I have changed my major to Business Management and I am doing a cluster/minor thing in Chinese. Apart from the fact that Chinese is almost killing me I am so glad that I switched :-p
This semester I decided to get involved in a wider range of organisations so I am extremely busy all week. I am Preference manager; I am running the dance where girls ask the guys. I am also an officer for the business organisation known as SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise), where we run projects to help out businesses in the community. I am also a member of the Chinese Association so I get to attend some funky Chinese do's! Oh and I am joining the Republican society on campus, so hopefully I will get to travel a bit with them!

R-town weather
As I mentioned before, it was pretty hot at the beginning of the semester which was extremely nice! Unfortunately at the end of September it snowed :-( and more recently; over conference weekend there was a snow blizzard here with 5inches of snow and then it was back to 75 degree weather again...weird. It has snowed again since and it is definitely beginning to get a lot colder....it is about 2 or 3 degrees right now. I am looking forward to the snow so that we can go skiing and snowboarding, but other than that....I'm not looking forward to the cold :-s

The past month
About a month ago we went to the sand dunes for a bonfire party with a big group of people...it was fun driving around in the guys' huge trucks around the dunes....and especially funny when one guy got stuck :-p
There was also a huge park party a few weeks ago, put on by a security company...Weeman and Preston from Jackass were there. It's basically just music, $1000's worth of prizes and stupid games, oh and free food and drink...so definitely worth going! At the party there was a competition running, called 'fear factor', and part of it was where people had to eat cockroaches....they then offered $500 cash to any girl that would eat 3 cockroaches....I so would have done it but I wasn't quick enough...oh well!
The other week there was the biggest concert on campus called 'Guitars Unplugged', I think I may have mentioned it last semester?! Anyway my roommates and I managed to get tickets and so we went...one of my good friends, JC, was playing in one of the bands so it was great to watch and then there was a big dance afterwards...it was funny! We then had a party at our apartment.
Recently pretty much everybody has been going crazy for this song by Souljia Boy- "Tell 'em Crank that"....it is really big here in the states and everybody is learning the dance for it...it is hilarious! Mickenzie and Brittany had a dance session in the car park with this blasting out :-p Anyway, it is funny.
Last week was one crazily busy week but a great week at the same time. On friday we went to a Halloween party at Pinnacle which was fun...my costume this year is the Greek Goddess, Aphrodite. The party actually wasn't as good as we had hoped but oh well, there was still fun to be had :-D
On Saturday, I played Mah Jong with some Chinese and Taiwanese friends.
Later on a group of us went to Applebee's for dinner and then watched the baseball....the Red Sox are in the World Series!!!! Woohoo!!!! Once the baseball finished, we had a pyjama party at our apartment and watched Disturbia! It was great. The film wasn't that scary but I managed to freak myself out pretty well.























Dates
For my first date of the semester I got taken absailing in the dark and then we were meant to go hot tubbing but they were being cleaned! It was a really fun date but he is a lot older and so we both knew that there was nothing there. My classes and associations have been keeping me so busy...I have had to turn down 2 dates!! One general rule is to never turn down dates but I have had to as I was so busy :-s
Anyway....
I also went on a date with a guy called Tim...it was a lot of fun! It was a double date with my roommate Mary and a guy called Cade. They took us to this skating place where there were loads of people dressed in 70's stuff :-p too funny. So we were roller blading there....so American but absolutely hilarious. I then had my first EVER Arctic Circle experience...it was good! The next stop was Cade's house where we hung out for a bit before going to Tim's where we played the best game! We were in hysterics for most of it.
I have also been on a date with a guy called JC. We have become quite good friends as he was in SIFE with me and we found out we knew a few of the same people in Beijing (he lived there for 6 months and knew them through Jes). Well he picked me up and we went out for a Chinese meal...American Chinese food is not good but it was an enjoyable experience all the same. He then took me to his parents house in IF where we watched the American version of 'The Office'...funny but not as good as the original English version! JC then gave me a tour of his house....wow! Just to give you an idea, they have a huge grand piano and a huge indoor swimming pool with a slide and diving board! Crazy! After being impressed by his house we went to Wendy's for a frosty....yummy. Oh and he has a very cool car.
As you can tell, my dates so far have been extremely enjoyable!

Jes and Jordon
I got to see Jessamyn and Jordon recently which was fantastic!!!! It was funny, as soon as I saw Jordon it was as if he had never been away...I loved it!! He has matured a bit more but he is so much cooler! Jes and I also got to a see a few friends from California and Boston which was incredibly fun. Oh and I saw Naomi! It was great to see her as she is doing so well.


Classes
My business class is the funnest class ever....it dominates! We were put into groups at the beginning of the semester as we have to do a lot of group projects. One of recent projects was to educate the class on the WTO (World Trade Organisation) so we chose to perform a rap...it was hilarious and it definitely had the wow factor :-p
Vanessa makes one intense gangster.
Our next project is a super hero project....should be good!



Well, I believe that is everything. If you think I have missed anything out then please let me know.
I have yet another jam packed week this week with even more stress!! Yay.
Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog....I really am way too busy most of the time :-s And I am sorry about the pictures....I always forget to take pictures so I never have pictures of everything I am up to and all the people I am talking about!

Who isn't having fun in the Burg??!!!

So....I am back at uni!!! woohoo!!!!!!
All my friends are here, the weather was very hot for a while, there is fun to be had everywhere and I have met tons of amazing new friends!
Well, I will just tell you about a few things I have been up to recently.
Monday- first dance of the semester....it was held at the upper fields...it was older music as there is always a Top 40 dance a few days later. Anyway....it was a lot of fun!! I have a good few bruises :-D
Wednesday- the top 40 dance. So this is one of the biggest dances of the semester. This was also held outside on the upper fields....there's tons of free ice cream and prizes to be won....I didn't win anything though :-( I went there with some of my roommates and then later on I met up with different friends at the dance (Alyssa, Rachael, Brett, Kyle, Nick, Chris, Seth and Seth) and then LC (Laura Christian) and a friends of ours called Kelly came and joined us for a bit. Well, this dance was crazier than the other one and the music was good! Americans seem to like to mosh, crowd surf and basically just get crushed to any type of music....I was wearing flip flops, so my feet got intensely trampled on....but did it stop me?? Of course not. Alyssa and Chris also had crazy injuries from bridge jumping the day before...but did they let that stop them?? don't be silly! It really was such a good night!! Our group was just too fun....we just dance and dance and go crazy :-) It's the way we roll.
Oh, a few weeks ago a group of us went bridge jumping...it is such a laugh. We first went to this place called 'Monkey Bridge' It is quite a tall bridge and after some of the guys showing off and after everyone else plucked up the courage to jump we moved on to see a waterfall and then finally to 'Twin Bridges'. These bridges were a about 20 feet from the water, so it was a lot easier jumping off these! Twin Bridges are in such a beautiful setting...it was warm, the sun was low and we were going crazy on the bridges! Some of the guys were daring enough to do multiple flips or funky dives....I just jumped! It was a really good night...perfectly ended with dinner at good old Craigo's :-D yummy pizza! We then took another bridge jumping trip the following week!
So basically I have had a lot of fun this with a lot of friends and it's not even the weekend!!

Vanessa Admits: "I was wrong about Delta"

Haha. It is true, I was wrong about Delta. Or perhaps I have come to more of an understanding of the way in which Delta works. Their domestic flights, from experience, are crap. Although their long haul flights are rather pleasant indeed. Ten minutes after boarding the airplane, I was presented with earphones and a menu. They are extremely good when it comes down to providing food. The airplane was also only a 737 I believe, or something smaller than a 747 anyway. This was advantageous (is this a word) to myself as it meant there were only two seats by the windows...therefore I didn't have to clamber all over people to get out. I was also very happy to learn that the personal TV's in front of us were truly amazing. You could pick whatever you wanted to watch, whenever. There were about 20 films, a bunch of tv shows and games etc. Oh, and they were touch screen. I definitely did not have this good a flight 3 months prior to this with United. Plus....yes there is more...the seats themselves were rather roomy and they were leather! I think I managed to sleep for about 3 1/2 hours which was nice.
I then had a 5 hour wait in Atlanta airport....it actually went quite quickly but all the same..it was boring. I was then on my way to SLC, this was the point at which I realised the truth behind Delta.
I now have to go to my Micro Application class, I will come back soon with a 'one week into the semester' update!

the joys of Chelmsford

On the 22nd of June, some friends and I ventured out to the sights of Chelmsford's night life. Interesting. Dukes is officially crap. Some of the bars are ok but there is nothing special. Fortunately we know how to have a good time...wherever and whenever! We began our night at Nicola's house, getting ourselves pumped up with good old 'Singstar'...we love it. We finally left the house at about 10:50pm to have our first night out since all being back from uni :-D
The guests of honour on this night out were: Georgina Edwards, Lucy Wicks, Becky Layton, Victoria Poulteney, Nicola De Rienzo and myself; Vanessa Lau.
It wasn't the best night out but we had some fun, as always!
We saw some old Moulsham crew in the Peg who you will notice in some of the photos.

Gloucester time!

Well.....I arrived back in London on the 22nd of May. It is nice to be back and seeing people again...although I as my friends are all still at uni and I have absolutely nothing to do all day...I am getting a little bored....but not for long I'm sure.
We did have mum's birthday party and of course it was my 19th birthday, which was all very fun...but that was over quickly and I was back to Chelmsford life. Hmmm.
So, less than a week after being back, I decided to get away again. I went with Lucy and Nicola back to Gloucester where they are both at uni. I stayed for about 4 days and had a lot of fun!!
I am back in chelmsford again though and am about to start working which will make things a little more interesting. I do look forward to a relaxing summer though and spending time with friends and family :-)
The pictures are from a night out in Gloucester......

Vanessa is in Boston!

Ok, so on the 8th of May I went to Boston. I had a great time here and met some really cool people. I did the tourist stuff, like exploring Boston Common, the Freedom Trail, the Cheers bars and of course shopping! Unfortunately it did rain during the second half of my stay here..but oh well! I also had gym membership whilst I was in Boston, to an extremely good gym....Healthworks. This is Jessamyn's old gym and she loves it, so I thought I had better check it out a little :-D
Basically the pictures are of: Boston Common, Boston city centre, a 60s/70s dance, the Cheers Bars, New Hampshire and this huge ice cream I had (I have already eaten a lot of it in this picture!!!)