My Application Experience

I have recently had a few people ask me about my application process to come here to Aston University. It was over a year ago, so I might miss a few things, but from what I can remember it was a fairly easy and simple process.

To apply for any program at any University in the UK you have to go through this UCAS system (www.ucas.ac.uk). It's basically like a centralized online application that you fill out regardless of the university or program you are applying to. The UCAS application reminded me a lot of the OUAC (Ontario University's Application Center) application that I filled out to apply for my initial undergraduate degree. Basically on the application there is the typical information about yourself, name, age, address, etc. Then they also ask about your education background which is all in drop down menus, so for an international student I found that I was constantly clicking "other" and then typing the information in. If I remember correctly I indicated my high school diploma, my BSc, and my opticianry diploma. For each I also had to click "other" and type in the name of the institution where I received the credential and then put in my overall GPA (as a percentage) that I had at each institution. Initially it seemed odd that they didn't want my transcripts or anything, but a week or two after I submitted my application all of the schools I applied to e-mailed me personally and requested that I e-mail a copy of my transcripts and also send them an original.

I can't remember for sure but I think there was also a tiny section to put in your work and volunteer experiences, but if I remember correctly there was very little room to write your duties (like 100 characters/experience). With the lack of space in this section, I tried to compensate by indicating some of the most important experiences I had gained in my personal statement.

There was also a section where I had to write a little personal statement about myself (I believe I had about 500-1000 words to basically say why I wanted to study optometry, why in the UK and indicate any experience I currently had). Fortunately for me it was fairly easy since I had already written about 10 different personal statements when  I originally applied to the North American Optometry Schools.

I also had to get an academic reference (which again is the same as when applying to any North American optometry school), but the difference here was that the reference was to do it electronically in my on-line application. This could be tricky, but so what I did was I just got my reference to write it and e-mail it to me, but if your reference doesn't want you to see what they wrote then you basically have to have your application complete and then log in and have them copy and paste the reference and then submit the application for you.

The application allows you to apply for up to 5 schools, so I had to choose which five of the 8 in the UK I wanted to apply to. I ended up applying to Aston, Cardiff, Bradford, Ulster (in Northern Ireland) and Glasgow (in Scotland). Out of the out of the schools I applied to I found that they all communicated with me differently (some by post/mail, via e-mail, and even by phone) and all to different extents (I heard from Aston every few weeks while Glasgow I only heard from once). After I applied I checked my e-mails and also the UCAS website (which has a section that keeps you informed of your application status) daily to see if there were any changes to my application, and I ultimately found out that the UCAS website was where I noticed any changes first (but they e-mailed me as soon as they made the status changes to my application). If I remember correctly it ultimately it took about a month or two before I heard back from any of the schools. After about two months I had been given an offer to three of the places I had applied to (two conditional offers and one unconditional offer), Ulster had called to set up a phone interview, and I had not heard anything from Glasgow. I was finishing my last year in Opticianry school when I applied, then two of my offers were on the condition that I complete my Opticianry course (which I ended up doing in April 09, a few months before the UK classes began in September/October 09). I ultimately decided to accept Aston, no matter what Ulster or Glasgow would ultimately decide.

During the whole process I was kind of surprised that Ulster was the only one that had actually wanted to do an interview (over the phone), since in North America, all of the Optometry schools like to do an interview. Another thing that surprised me a bit was that there was no standardized admissions test (like the Optometry Admissions Test - OAT - required in North America). When the schools e-mailed me asking for my transcripts I offered them all my OAT scores, but none of the schools I applied to wanted/needed them (although I think City University in London likes to see your OAT scores).  

To come to the decision to attend Aston over the others was a hard task, especially since I was not able to actually go to any of the campuses or towns and see them for myself. It also didn't help that all the schools syllabus were all essentially the same and all appeared to offer the same services, courses, and experiences, but I still had to make a choice. Ultimately there were several factors I looked at to come up with the decision to come to Aston. For starters I looked at how the school and Optometry/Life Science departments did in the various league tables (such as: www.guardian.co.uk/education/universityguide, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/good_university_guide, www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/single.htm?ipg=8727). I also considered the service I recieved during the whole application process as some communicated with me more (like Aston and Cardiff) unlike others where I heard very little from them (like Glasgow). As well Aston University has a day hospital on campus where they preform day surgeries such as laser and cataract surgeries. I also liked the idea that Birmingham is the 2nd largest city (next to London), and its known as a working class city, so I figured that I would be more likely to see more pathologies here than in any of the other smaller cities (yet I have since found out that during your pre-registration year/internship you don't stay in the city you have studied in, instead you can basically go anywhere in the UK). Another main reason why I ended up choosing Aston, was because I wanted a smaller campus (since it would have more of a family/friendly atmosphere) and it is in the centre of the town, so grocery stores and banks are only a few minutes away (which was important since I didn't want to have to take the bus or a taxi to go grocery shopping). It also helped that Birmingham is centrally located, so it's very easy to travel by train anywhere you want in the UK (less than 2hrs by train to anywhere like London, Manchester, Oxford, Bristol, Liverpool, Cardiff, etc.), and it also has an international airport, so I can get direct flights home or to Europe. All in all there were many factors that I considered before coming to the conclusion that Aston was the best school for me (yet to be honest Cardiff was a close second, but I didn't like it's location, lack of direct flights to Canada, campus size and the conditional offer). I am extremely happy about my choice, as now I am in the UK and have talked to students from all of the other optometry faculties, I have found that Aston is indeed the best fit for me.

After rereading this I realize that it sounds sort of biased to Aston (which I guess makes sense since I am here), but my intention, when going through how I choose which school to attend, was to show some of the factors that I considered when choosing which school to attend.

I hope this helps anyone who is thinking of applying or has already applied and if you have any questions please feel free to leave me a comment.

Jeff

2nd last week of classes!

This past week has been a very surreal week as classes have started up once again, but many of my courses finished this week, so next week is just review for our exams. It seems very odd since I'm still a bit in holiday mode from our long Easter break, and it doesn't help that about half the students at my school are getting an extended holiday break thanks to Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Many of the students either went home or travelling over the break so when the volcano erupted flights were cancelled for about a week due to ash. Some of the students who were stranded in Europe managed to take over priced trains and/or buses back to Birmingham, but many waited to have their flights rebooked. On Sunday I found that many students have started to arrive back at University, but I know many more came on Monday and the rest will likely trickle back over the next few days.

Although many students weren't back we still had to do a group presentation last Thursday on Pointillism for my Optics and Medical Imaging lab. It was just a small 10-15 minute presentation with only 7ppt slides. Our presentation turned out pretty good (i think, we'll find out when we get our marks back), but I was very proud of our powerpoint slides as we had some pretty neat animations and the verbal presentation when fairly smoothly. Also after the presentation there were several questions, which we managed to answer fairly well, so I think we did well. My other labs last week had us just identifying several odd lens types (many of which we will never see again) and the other lab saw us practising our Retinoscopy and Jackson Cross Cylinder (JCC) refraction skill, since this week we will have an assessment on these techniques. The Retinoscopy and JCC went pretty well for me in the lab, so I think I'll do okay on the assessment.    

The weather had been awesome all week long as it had been mid teens and high teens over the weekend, so very much nice summery weather. Since it had been so warm I actually started to wear my shorts occasionally, and unlike some people I don't really like wearing shoes with shorts. My normal sandals are the sporty type with straps and Velcro, but unfortunately I forgot them in Canada, so I had to buy new ones, but since I had perfectly good ones at home I decided to just purchase a nice pair of flip-flops that I had found. The first day I put on the flip-flops I quickly remembered that I had never worn flip-flops before, but figured it should be a big deal. To my surprise it's a lot harder to walk in flip-flops then I had ever thought! I am trying to persevere, and so far I've worn them for about 5-6hrs/day for three days, and I'm starting to get the hang of it, but still no long walks into town with them, yet.

With the nice weather I have found myself spending at least a few hours a day hanging outside. One day earlier last week I had been walking around town and on my way back to campus I saw a sign for a Cadbury Crème Egg McFlurry from McDonalds. I had never seen or heard of anything like that before, but wasn't too surprised since there is Cadbury chocolate everywhere here. After I saw the sign though I knew I had to go try one, especially since it was a limited edition flavour.

Let me tell you that McFlurry was awesome with all the chocolate pieces and creamy caramel! It really hit a spot and I just hope that they have it next year too and keep it around until I head back for the summer.

My evenings have been a bit busy, as I have been able to watch all of the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens first round games. Aside from hockey, on Friday I went out to a little dinner party that one of my friends was throwing. It turned out to be a really fun evening and we ended up having a fantastic feast of Iranian food which was all so incredibly tasty. On Saturday they had a 24hr walk for cancer starting at noon where they walked around the lake/pond in the middle of campus to raise money for campus research. During this walk there were several musical acts performing, so I ended up spending most of my afternoon just listening to the music.

In the evening they ended up lighting a bunch of candles and putting them all around the walking trail, and many of us just sat out and supported those taking part. I was really surprised to see how many people were actually there watching at 11pm, but i think it was likely because the weather was so great.

Well now my fairly standard week which seems kind of boring when I actually write out down what I have done like this, but so hopefully next week will be a bit more entertaining. 

All for now, 

Jeff

*Word of the Week: What we call "pants" in North America, they call them "trousers" in the UK.

The Rest of My Easter Break/Holiday

After the road trip, the rest of my Easter break had been fairly relaxing and quiet since most people went home, so the campus had been fairly dead. 


During the break I didn't do too much. I watched a lot of movies, did a little studying and made sure that I just spent some time enjoying the beautiful weather by making sure I spent at least an hour a day outside. I did this by going for walks into town and by going out and throwing the lacrosse ball around a bit. 


Aside from the boring routine of my holiday, I did have some excitement that happened to me one Sunday night. I was watching a movie and was startled (a bit) when I heard some noise coming from over by the window & heater. I took a look just in time to see a mouse run behind the heater. I went over and took a close look to see if I could see where it went but it disappeared. I waited and watched for a bit to see if it would show itself again but it didn't, so I went back to my movie. About 30 minutes later I heard the noises again and just like before I was too slow to catch or see where it went, but I did notice what it was going after which was a large piece of the carpet that was about 5x bigger than the mouse (which was really odd since it passed some good cardboard and didn't even take a small bite of it as it made its way to the carpet!). I then searched even harder to find it, but no luck and so I sat and waited even longer to catch it ... but since then I have yet to see it again. To make it more interesting as I was sitting and waiting a wasp flew in through my window (since none of the windows hear have screens). I waited for a chance to get the wasp but it seemed to stay on my light bulb (which I was afraid of breaking if I tried to hit the wasp and if I missed the wasp might fall on my bed where I would likely loose sight of it). In the long run the chance to get the wasp never arose, as instead the wasp managed to find a hole behind the light fixture which it flew into and went somewhere in the wall (or at least that's were I assume it went and died, since I never heard from it since).  Since that night I found that I have had to keep my window closed, as I have had to kill one every time I open my window. Needless to say I've been keeping the window closed until I absolutely need it open, since I have learned (the hard way) that I can't even open the window a crack without a wasp coming in!


Over the break I also received a big care package that my work had sent me. The package had a (pre-)birthday card inside along with a tone of Canadian foods such as some Tim Horton's coffee, kraft dinner, peanut butter, maple syrup, pancake mix, soda crackers, froot loops, alphagetti, and all of the other foods that I have been missing. I was so happy when I got the package that I managed to spend an hour or so going through it all. The next morning I had an awesome breakfast filled with pancakes and Tims! I think that I'll be able to ration it all out (a bit) since there is still a bit left! I think it should be enough to hold me over until I get back to Canada...at least it better be enough :P  

The last week of the break the campus started getting a bit busier, but even now that school is back it's still fairly quiet. I can only assume that it is because of all of the flight cancellations, causing many international students from making it back to campus. It's weird though because I always thought that the noisy people on campus were local UK students, but I guess that's not the case.


Even with a lot of the students missing, classes have now resumed and so its class as usual...well for the next two weeks ;)


All for now, 
Jeff

*Word of the Week: In Canada we have "band-aids" but in the UK they are known as "plaster", which just doesn't make any sense to me :P

Road trip

During the Easter break my friends and I decided to go on a road trip!

We left Monday and took the bus to Manchester where we met up and stayed with one of our friends. Once we had put our luggage away we went the Trafford Centre for lunch. The Trafford Centre is this fancy mall, that reminded me of the West Edmonton Mall, where different sections of the mall were themed - they had even made the food court look like you were on the titanic.

For lunch we ended up going to Nando's which is this chicken restaurant that seems to be very popular over here. I ended up getting some chicken wings which were good, but they didn't have honey garlic, so I ordered lemon herb which according to the menu "barely registers on the heat scale" but turned out to be a tad bit too spicy, so apparently the only ones that wouldn't have been too spicy for me was the plain wings - which that just isn't any fun - so needless to say next time I'll probably stay away from the wings and just go with a half/quarter chicken. After lunch to the Imperial War Museum which was an interactive look at war, as every 30min or so the lights were dimmed in the whole place and on all the walls above and around the exhibits they would show these videos filled with images and pictures from the war.

After the museum we then went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant called Akbar's. I had no idea what to order, so my friend who had been there before ordered the food which was amazing. We ended up getting a variety of appetizers which included seekh kebabs, keema semosas and chicken tikka, all of which were amazing, even though the kebabs were spicy, but still oh so good.

Then our main dishes included chicken korma, lamb and potato balti and a traditional curry - all of which were were fantastic and it was neat the great variety of tastes we had (from the sweet korma to the spicy curry).

They even brought us this huge family garlic naan!

After the great dinner we were stuffed so we just drove around Manchester and checked out some of the sights.

The next morning our friend made us a wonderful full traditional English breakfast!

After the feast we decided to go walk it off, so we went and walked around the downtown area.

Afterwards we decided to go watch Alice in Wonderland at the IMAX in 3-D. The movie was good and it had some really good 3-D effects. After the film we went back to our friend's place and had a big Indian feast with her parents. The food was amazing and fortunately they knew ahead of time that some of us can't stand too much spice, so it wasn't too spicy :)


On Wednesday we left Manchester and drove to Wales. We drove along the water a bit at the north end of Wales before we headed south through Snowdonia National Park.

It had been a nice day for driving, over cast and a bit rainy, but shortly after we entered a national park called Snowdonia it actually started hailing a bit and then next thing we knew it was snowing!

As we drove further into the park the snow started tappering off as we drove through the mountains and fortunately it didn't accumulate too much on the roads (although we found out that later in the afternoon they actually closed the road, so I guess we lucked out). We ended up deciding to stop for lunch in a little village called Portmeirion, which one of my friends had heard about. When we arrived we found that it was very much a tourist attraction and that this was one of the few attractions in the UK which had a gate fee. We debated paying it since it was still overcast and a bit rainy, but we were hungry so we paid and went in and checked out the city. The city is quite unusual as it isn't what you would expect of a Welsh (or even UK) village as Portmeirion was built to look like an Italian villa.

We definitely got the Mediterranean feel as soon as we walked in with all the buildings were stuccoed in bright pastel colours.

It was still drizzling a bit as we wondered around the village, so we found a place to sit and have some lunch. After lunch the rain had basically stopped so we explored the city even more. After spending about an hour or so checking out the village we were having such a good time and the sun was actually starting to come out so we went for a little walk on one of the hiking trails they have.

We made it out towards a little light house and then headed back.

As we walked the weather started to act up as it was nice and sunny then when we made it to the light house it was super windy but still sunny, but a few minutes later it started hailing! The hail didn't last too long, but for the rest of the time at Portmeirion it was sunny for about 10-15min and then would hail for 5min and then was sunny again...it was really quite strange. After spending our whole afternoon in Portmeirion we got back on the road and made it to Machynlleth where we had booked a hotel. Machynlleth was what I expected a traditional Welsh village to look like.

After we checked into the White Lion Hotel we went downstairs and checked out the Pub for dinner but we weren't too crazy about the cost and selection, so we went and wandered around town looking for somewhere to get some dinner.

After asking at a few places someone told us that we should go to Skinner's Arms which was the pub that all the locals go to for dinner. We headed over and could tell that they must have some decent food since more than half the tables were already reserved and most of the other tables were full, but we managed to find a table and had a good meal.

There wasn't much going on in the town so after dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched some videos that we had brought with us.


The next morning we got up and had our complementary breakfast, which was way way better than any complementary breakfast I had had before. They had a tone of cereals, juice, milk and coffee laid out and then came over and took our order. I ended up going of course with a full English breakfast, which was again amazing.

The breakfast was very much like the one that I had in Manchester, except here they actually deep fried the bread, which I know sounds kinda gross, but I found that the fried bread was amazing with the egg as it seemed to taste better than just regular toast and eggs (and probably does an even better job at clogging the arteries). After breakfast we checked out and headed for a leisurly drive towars Birmingham. It was another good day for driving as it was again overcast and drizzly. Just outside of Machynlleth we encountered some construction, which made us a bit worried since we didn't want to have to turn around and find a different route. But as we approached we noticed that the construction was on the cattle grate and that they had put a detour sign up pointing us to go through a gate. The gate also had a sign on it telling us to close it behind us, so I jumped out of the car and went through the mud and opened the gate for us to pass, and then held it for another car (going the other way) before closing and getting back into the car.

I dunno why but I was pretty excited, I think it's probably because it's something that  I have only seen done and happen in movies, so it was pretty cool. Anyways after that excitment we were back on the road and as we drove up the mountains we started to notice a bit of hail .. and then some snow...yes it was snowing again, even though we were taking a completely different road and weren't even in Snowdonia!

This time it was snowing more than the other day and the snow was actually accumulating on the roads and there were a few times when I wondered it the car was going to make it up the snowy hills...but it did.

As we drove there were sheep all over the place and I found out that unlike in the movies when you drive up to the sheep who are standing in the road they actually quickly run off the road!

We drove around and ended up going to the Clywedog reservoir and dam, which is apparently the largest solid concrete dam in the UK.

Along the way home we made another stop, but this time at a rest stop where our friend who was doing all the driving let me and another one of my friends drive (around the parking lot).  My other friend has driven manual cars in Europe, but wanted to see what it was like being on the other side of the car, and seemed to adapt very well, as expected. Then it was my turn. I not only had to deal with being on the other side of the car, but I have only tried to drive a manual car once in my lifetime (about 8 or 9 years ago) ... and that initial experience didn't go too well. So I got in and started up in neutral and then shifted to first and started going. It seemed to be no problem as I managed drove around the parking lot (where I even got it up to second gear!). The only time I stalled it was when I was done and idling, so it went well (in my opinion any ways :P) and so I was all ready to jump on the motorway and get us back to Birmingham...but I didn't.

We ended up making great time and got back just before rush hour. After I got home I went through all of our pictures (mine and my friends) as we had almost 400 (over 250 at Portmeirion alone!) and very few duplicates, actually a lot of them are pretty good and some are even fairly artistic.

Anyways that's all for now,

Jeff

*Word of the Week: "dual carriageway" is apparently what the English call a "divided highway". 

March

Hey all! It's becoming a bit busier these days (in school and with social outings), which means that I actually have stuff to write; when I have a chance to write. Here's a brief summary of the main things that I did since my last post.


On the Feb 20th it was one of my friend's birthday, so we ended up going out on Monday (Feb 22nd) to celebrate. How we've been doing it is that the Birthday boy always gets to pick the restaurant, and so this time we went to a Japanese restaurant in the Bull Ring called Mount Fuji. I ended up ordering the Teriyaki Chicken & Tempura Bento with Chef's Selection Sushi, and to drink I just asked the server what she thought would go best with my meal. They brought me my drink which looked like a small shot glass (50ml) filled with choya plum wine, but found that it was amazing as it just tasted like fruit juice (but apparently it was at least 10% alcohol content), so good thing they didn't bring a bottle. They then brought the Chef's selection of sushi, which were all really good, but all that I remember is that there were three different ones and only one looked like a typically fish sushi roll (with the seaweed wrapping) while one of the others was something like a prawn with rice and then the other might have been a scallop or squid (i don't think i would have known the difference). The only part of the sushi I wasn't crazy about the ginger that i ate (since apparently culturally your suppose to have after each type of sushi), but i think my friends just wanted to see me eat the raw ginger. I then got my bento and for those who don't know (which was me prior to getting it) Bento basically means individually packaged or severed dishes in a box. Thus my meal consisted of this fancy box (unfortunately you don't get to keep - looks like they cost about £25-30 just for the box) where inside each part of my dinner was in it's own separate container.

There was so much too it that i frequently got so confused since it was all so delicious, but the tempura was my least favourite part, while the Teriyaki chicken was the best Teriyaki chicken i have ever had (needless to say, i'll likely go back in the near future to have more Teriyaki chicken)! It was a great experience (although my hand did start to cramp by the end of the meal, since I forgot to stretch my hand prior to eating with chopsticks), but ultimately everyone really enjoyed the food and atmosphere, even though the restaurant is very small, it was well designed to maximize the seating.


Mar 1st it was another one of my friend's Birthday's so we decided to go to a different restaurant and ended up going to a French one right beside campus called La Bastille. Its a really neat restaurant with a bar in the front and fancy dinning at the back. We ended up ordering some frogs legs and I had Confit de canard with duck liver, sultana salsa and sweet red cabbage.

All the food I had was amazing and it seemed like a high end restaurant but with out the price. Near the end of the evening we started to hear some Jazz music, which we found out later that they have live Jazz music by a group called "Playing Django" every Monday night. We started to go every Monday night to hang out and listen to the music, and although its suppose to start at 7 we found that it's really about 9. We also recently found out that La Bastille carries lots of different Belgian beers, so we have now devised a plan to sample each of the beers on their list, but hopefully they don't change the beer menu or add any more to the list.


There was a day long optometry student festival, on Mar 6th, called Optfest in Cardiff. Several of the schools in the UK were represented, even Glasgow (which took over 12hrs on a bus). The day was filled with several sporting activities such as tug of war, football, rugby, dodgeball and netball. Overall in the events Bradford ended up winning, but Aston did quite well as we were 1st in netball (although its a girls only sport and our team consisted of one female), 3rd in dodgeball, 3rd in football and undefeated in rugby! Not bad all things considered and it was tones of fun! 

At the end of the day we all had a big dinner and went to the student union where we tried a bit of Ceilidh dancing (which is sort of a Celtic line dance). It was a great day and the optic society at Cardiff did an awesome job organizing the whole event and hopefully there will be a 2nd annual Optfest next year!

On Mar 13th my aunt and uncle were in town so we ended up going out for dinner that night. They hadn't been to Birmingham before we met down town, so they could see the city a bit and we ended up going to an Indian restaurant called Festival Balti. It was my first time going to an Indian restaurant and it wasn't too bad and the food definitely wasn't too spicy at all! It was really nice to see some friendly faces and it turned out to be a great evening.


Mar 14th I went back down town with one of my friends and we watched the world's 3rd largest St. Patty's Day Parade! I know it wasn't St. Patty's Day, but it sounds like they do the Parade the closest weekend to the actual day. The parade was held in an area of town that I had only recently discovered was called Digbeth (with is the Irish quarter). They festivities down there for about a week leading up St. Patrick's Day, but we didn't end up going to any of the pubs or any of the events this year, but next year we'll probably try to go to more of the events.

On the actual St. Patrick's Day (Mar 17th) I just went with some friends to an on campus bar called Einstien's since it wasn't nearly as busy as any of the off campus bars would be. Unfortunately they didn't have any green beer, but they did have a bunch of Irish beers at decent prices, so I had a cider followed by a traditional pint of Guinness. We had a good night, especially since we all had to be up for a 9am class the next day.

I had two assignments/essays that I had been working on all month and on the 19th I finally handed them all in. Typically you would think that after all the work that we would go out drinking that night, but instead we had a drink or two at the pub for lunch. That night went to the REP theatre and saw Arthur and George.

Unfortunately I was bit tiered from doing the essays, so missed a few minutes of the first half of the show, but found the second half of the show was captivating as I managed to pick it all up and all the pieces of the mystery seemed so slowly come together. I thought it was kind of odd that during the intermission they actually sell ice cream right in the theatre so you can actually eat it in your seats. I noticed it last time, but too late to do anything about it, but so this time we made sure to get some, so I grabbed some Cadbury's chocolate ice cream, which definitely hit the spot.


On Mar 24th after class at 1pm there was a school run eXperience trip to London. I ended up going with one of my friends and we took the bus and got to Covent Garden in London around 4. This was my first time ever in London so we wandered around and I saw a few of the main sights (Big Ben, Trafalgar square and the London eye).

We also saw some non typical sights, such as the covent garden market.

We then got hungry so we went to a pub called the Coal Hole for dinner.

I had a pint from Stonehenge Ales called Signs of Spring which was actually a green beer (a week late, but still works) and also finally some fish and chips that lived up to my expectations of UK fish and chips!

We then headed to the Lyceum Theatre where we watched the Lion King.

It was a great trip and I'm glad we went even though it was just an afternoon trip.


Classes then ended on the 26th for a three week Easter break!


That's all for now, but I'm not caught up yet! I still have some of my Easter break adventures to go (which I should hopefully have up shortly).


- Jeff -



*word of the week: "ATMs" in Canada are called "cash points" in the UK.