CLOSED FOR VACATIONS

Yes, I know people will be wondering why I was out of here. I have to say that last weeks were full of uni work although you missed my trip to Brighton, the Andalucía´s party, a snow fight, the Cowboy Party and another trip to London (including Heaven and Hell´s party!). All I can say is that I spent great times with my friends but I also worked hard to achieve my Academic goals. Now, I´m writing from Spain to let you know that my blog is still alive and I will be back in January with lots of stories, experiences, trips and anecdotes. I also want to apology for my absence but I´m sure next year (2011) I´ll get my strength back and I’ll be sharing my feelings with all of you. I´d also like to thank everybody who visits my blog because it makes me keep writing! At least I put some pictures of the adventures I couldn´t tell you because of my lack of time! Enjoy them and imagine how great all those experiences were!
Thank you everyone and see u next year!!!! 
xoxo

 

Andalucia´s party (Crislo´s birthay)  

 My friend Miriam and myself in Brighton

 Snow fight with my friends (two days without uni!!) 

 Cowboy party

Heaven and Hell´s party in London

Another London weekend!!!=)

Yes, as you can see, I came back to London!!! I´m in love with this city!! Everytime I go, I enjoy myself a lot!
This time we had an excuse. One of my friends had lost her ID and she didn´t have her passport so she has to go to the Spanish embassy to make it because if not, she couldn´t come back home for Christmas. Therefore, as a good friend, I decided to go with her! We bought a cheap ticket and went there! It was going to be an adventure because we hadn´t buy the return ticket because we expected one friend to gave us in a lift to come back to Southampton on Monday. We caught the train at 5am and arrived there at 7.30am more or less. It was so empty that we could enjoy the typical famous places alone. I has never seen London without almost anybody in the streets, obviously it was really early and Saturday. We went to a cafe to fill time and after that, we met one italian friend to leave our suitcase in her friend´s house so that we could sightsee freely. Before visiting anything, we went to the embassy. It was quite crowded so just my friend went into the building. I took advantage of this time to visit Chelsey (great quartier that my father recommend me to go and I can say it was worth it) and I also went to Harrods where I met my friend again. We decided to make a different tour this time, we knew The London Bridge, The Buckhingham Palace, and the Big Ben by heart (exaggerating) so we wanted to change it and go to other places. Then, we went to Candem town and Oxford Street because we wanted to go shopping. After that we went to the house of the girl and got changed to go to a party in a loft located in The Canary Wharf which is a major business district in East London. We had lot of fun and then we came back to the house because we were recommended to visit Portobello Market and Soho before going back to Southampton. The weekend was great because finally we arrived home by car and thinking about how amazing had those two days in London been!

Hawaian Party!!!

Amazing!!!!!!
Well, yesterday I went to the gym and then to my classes. I handed in my magazine pages and everything was ok so I was really happy not only for that but also for the Hawaian Party! Some friends and I organised this party. It´s being really cold and we thought that making parties inside the residence would be a great idea. We made an event on Facebook and people started to join the party.
The day arrived and we enjoyed so much! we were wearing some Hawaian clothes and we bought a pineapple to take our drinks.
The bad thing in the following day....and that we were making lot of noise as the security told us....=)

Different weekend!

On Friday evening, we had a party in Miriam´s friend´s house. It was one Italian´s birthay and we went there to celebrate it! I didn´t know them because they aren´t in my classes but I met them and they were really nice! Almost everyone was from Italy apart from come guys who were from Ireland. We were partying there eating some cakes (too many birthays...) and then we went to Vodka Revolutions to continue the party! We were dancing and talking to them and I really enoyed until the club closed and we had to go home. This time, Evelin didn´t come because she had to do a presentation so she stayed at home.

On Saturday, I went to the gym when I woke up (and it was late, believe me) and then I called my friends to know if we were going to so something special or just staying at home. They told that there were going to organise a dinner so I went there and we were talking with our German´s friends till late. We made some pictures and chatted the whole night.

Yesterday, my day off, and today, I´ve been finishing my magazine pages for the heavy magazine, yes I know it´s never-ending but i´m quite worried because it´s the first time I design a magazine, well, at least, two pages of a magazine so I spent all my time doing it and going to the gym in my spare time.

I promise I´ll tell you more interesting things from now on!

xoxo

Time to study

All I can say since last Saturday till yesterday is that I was making my presentation. As usual, I didn´t think about that in advance so I had to get cracking to do my best. I went to the gym both in Monday and Wednesday to clear my head and went to the uni because the attendance is very important.
I was looking for information, I read some books about Swedish Public TV (SVT) and Keynes. The point was answering to the question "How would Keynes respond to the political economy of SVT and why?". I should say that it was quite complicated because I has to do some researches and being well informed about something really unknown for me. I decided to so my Power Point in a schematic way and writing some key point not to loose the information I wanted to say. I became too nervous as the day was approaching but my flatmates tried to keep me calm saying that I would succeed. So basically, I was shut away apart from going to the uni or the gym.

Finally, yesterday was presentation. I had all the day until 4.00PM to prepare it and said it aloud not to exceed the 10 minutes... I was a nervous wreck!! While I was going to the uni, I tried to practise it aloud and people would think that I was crazy! When I arrived, I had to wait a little bit because some of my classmates were still doing theirs. At the end, I entered in the class, the young lecturer was there waiting for me with a wide smile. I put my memory stick in the computer and I started to present my topic. After 13 minutes, I finished my presentation...it´s strange when you devote hours and hours doing something to finish all of that in 13 minutes. I would say that it´s really unpleasant but, anyway, I was free again!!=) Afterwards, I came back to my residence to rest because I had slept only a little during those days. Furthermore, I had classes the following day at 9.00AM. Finally, I slept like a log!!


Now I´m at home because today my classes from 11.00 to 13.00 have been cancelled so I will go to the gym and then I have to come back to do some homework not to be as stressful as those past days.

Busy days

Yes, as you can notice, I´ve been absent again but this time I have uni reasons, so I hope you not to be angry with me=)

On Wednesday, I had Making Magazines classes and it was a little bit stressful because we are supossed to hand in two magazine´s pages for next week and I find it quite complicated. We were waiting for the lecturer because it´s time for graduations and he couldn´t come on time and meanwhile, we we discussing about how to do the music magazine. I was writing the music reviews which needs much more time and then I would design the page.
The lecturer gave us some advice to succeed but I thought that it was going to be a hard work and the worst thing of all was that I was accumulating lots of uni works. When I arrived home I tried to follow writing as I had promised myself but I was really tired so I rested in the dining room talking to my flatmates and the I went to bed.
On Thursday (also known as "my busy day"), I had my Broadcast Journalism´s classes and I was editing the vox pop I have to hand in next week (as well as the magazine and the presentation...=S). Later, I had my classes of Global Media Industries and it was really complicated, as usual. Fortunately, in the afternoon classes I could ask about the doubts and I understood the main points more or less. Afterwards, I went to my residence because I had other of my flatmate´s birthay!! It was awesome but I had to study the following day so I stayed with them a little bit but I didn´t go out.
Yesterday, I went to classes like a normal Friday and then I met my French friend, Maud, because she had to do a photography work and I was going to be her "model". We went to her house to choose the make up and clothes before going to the studio and then she took pictures of me and they were really beautiful! She´s an artist. Afterwards, I went to my residence because it was late and I was talking to my flatmates in the kitchen until I went to bed.
And today, I went to the library because I had to design the pages for Making Magazines and then I went to the gym, finally!! I had abandonned it a little bit because of my homework but I´m ready to restart!=)
Now, I´m in my room finishing the homework and it takes ages so I don´t know when it will be ready...at least I have enough time until Wednesday...I keep studying so let´s talk tomorrow.

xoxo

London & Halloween weekend!

Mmmm I have to tell you that lots of things happened this weekend. Those days were some of the best I spent here! I went to London again and it´s always amazing to go there! I didn´t expect that I was going to like it that much but actually I never get bored=) I had the chance of attending the Changing of the Guard and it was great! There were so many people but we can see it properly, it´s a sight! Another novelty was that, this time, I went shopping apart from sightseeing and how different it is compared with my home town! Oxford Street was crowded until late, when I caught the bus to come back to Southampton.
I put some photos below

 On Sunday, I was resting in the morning because I was so tired. I had been walking all around London and I had to get over to the Halloween night! The night was really entertaining! We went to our friend´s house because there was a party and when we went there it was really good decorated! They have bought some spider´s webs and skulls and they gave the flat some atmosphere. I didn´t buy any custom so I wore a pair of jeans, a white torn painted t-shirt and some make up. We were all very creepy and we has a great time! When we gout out, everybody was on their fancy dresses and it was funny to see the others like that. There were so many people, something that it´s strange for me because in Spain we don´t celebrate Halloween that much. Here you have some photos of the scary night

Yesterday, I went for a walk to the docks and then I was studying and reading some chapters for the presentation I have next week. Today, I wet to classes and I´ve been also watching some videos explaining the Keynesianism, the topic I have to base my presentation on. Tomorrow I´ll restart my gym sessions and I will tell you.

xoxo

Asda, Theatre and Magazine´s work

Hey guys! I´m here again! Let´s recap!

On Monday, I woke up late and I had breakfast reading some Spanish news. Afterwards, I talked to some of my flatmates to go shopping. We need some food and the cheapest supermarket, Asda, is quite far so we decided to go together to take a taxi because we usually buy food for the whole week and it´s too heavy to carry it on our own. We bought lots of things and the supermarket was plenty of people because we were at 4 and it´s a rush hour here, in England. We took a taxi which cost really cheap and we went back to the residence to put all our stuff in order. Afterwards, of course, I went to the gym with some of my friends, it was Body Combat´s time! It was really good as usual and we could loose touch with the routine! Then, we were so tired (although we are already used to practise it) so we went to sleep very early.

On Tuesday, I had a very intensive day because I has to be at the uni at 10 and the Journalistic marathon finished at 3! We should ask people what they think about some questions that we had written the week before, edit the vox pop and write an opinion article about the topic we have chosen. My qestion was: Southampton has a very high level of school truancy, how can you think it can be stopped?. I went with some classmates with our recorders to the nearest park and many people answered our qestions. There were not tricky ones so people didn´t care about being honest. After finishing all those things, we went to the theatre (activity organised by the uni) and we saw The Big Fellah. It was quite difficult to understand because the actors were Irish talking in American accent but I could guess lots of things because I has studied the plot before. I put here one review so that you can see how the play was: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/sep/27/the-big-fellah-review.

On Wednesday, I went to visit the Southampton docks. We usually go through the centre and forget that we live in a maritim city! The weather was sunny so it was very beautiful. Then I went to my classes og Making Magazines and they were great!! We started to plan the new magazine we are gonna write. The first two weeks it will be a music magazine. Let´s me explain you the idea. We are separated in two teams, one member of each team choose one topic of those which the lecturer gave us and that person will be the editor of his magazine. Therefore, we will be doing eight magazines (as many as memebers in each group are) and we are going to start with music. I chose Health and Fitness but I won´t be the editor of the magazine until February so I have time enough to think about my strategies. Being the editor means that your are the boss of your magazine and you have to tell the journalists who work in your company what they should write about. In my case, my magazine will be a  Health and Fitness Magazines and I will be able to tell each member of the group what I want them to write.
I hope it´s clear for you!! When I came back to my residence I was so excited and I was looking for information about Music, which is the topic of the next Magazine! Afterwards, I went to sleep!

And now I´m writing because I don´t have classes from 10:00 to 12:00 because we already did everything for today in the Journalistic marathon on Tuesday. Anyway, I keep my classes from 12:00 to 14:00.
I will tell you then!

xoxo

Searching the perfect coat and Homework day

On Saturday, I went to the gym to the Street Dance class with one of my friends and we enjoyed ourselves very much although at first we thought that we were wrong. When we went into the class, there were some children ad we didn´t know that it was going to be the average of the class. Anyway, they could follow the beat perfectly and the choreography was nice.

Afterwards, we went shopping to the shopping centre, the West Quay and surroundings because my friend wanted to buy a good coat (something normal taking into acoount the cold weather...). We spent almost the whole afternoon going from pillar to post trying to findthe best coat. Eventually, she found the one that she wanted and we could come back home. I take advantage of the free time I had to do some homework. Then, I got prepared to go out with some friends to the pub Vodka Revolution. And in spite of the fact that we thought that the night was not going to be anything special, we had lots of fun and we danced like crazy people until late.

Now, you will understand why i´m so tired today. In fact, I don´t think I´m going to do anything important apart from resting and doing homework which is never worthless. And tomorrow, another week is going to start, luckily Mondays are my day of, every cloud has a silver lining...

xoxo

Friends´day

Today I had 3 hours of classes. The first one was at 9.00 and it´s the hardest one because I have to wake up early and I´m not used to, actually, most of my classes are in the afternoon. We were analysing online local newspapers and it´s interesting to know the differences between online and conventional newspapers. Afterwards, I has Aplied and Academic English and we were trying to summarize some text the professor gave us. It´s a very useful activity because in all our assignments we should add a summary in the end. Athough I thought that it was going to be easy, it wasn´t so. The professor told us that the key is to practice continuosly.

My classes finished at 13.00 and I went to my residence to have lunch, talk to my flatmates and study a little bit. I went to the gym to do Step and it was OK but not as hard as other activities. Now, one of friends has came to my residence and we are chatting with some friends who are going to go out. It seems to be a relaxing day.

xoxo

Happy Birthday and tiring following days

Yes! As you can guess thanks to the title, my birthday was on Tuesday (19/10/10). Now I can say that I´m not a teenager anymore. The day was really exciting. I received a parcel from my family and I was too sensitive because I missed them so much. However, the sadness become into happiness and it was one of the best birthdays of my life! When I woke up I was planning everything for the party that I was going to organise in my residence. I invited all my friends and then I went to my lectures as usual. When I finished, I felt really nervous. I arrived to my residence and my flatmates had decorated the dining room! We started to have dinner and at 8.30 everybody began coming to the party. The night was awesome! Everybody I had invited arrived to the residence and I enjoyed myself very much. After partying in "my house" and listening songs like "Billonaire"(Travis McCoy ft Bruno Mars ) or "Deja vu"(Inna ft. Bob Taylor) we went to La Margherita and we were dancing Spanish and Latin music until it closed.  I put below some photos of one of the best birthdays I´ve ever had.

You can imagine that Wednesday was a tiring day. I was sleeping until late and then I went to classes. Fortunately I could understand everything about the lecture (I don´t know if you remember that I has some problems with Making Magazines, well, finally I´m really happy with the unit). Afterwards I went to my friends´house to watch The Office, a popular British comedy series that our English friends lent us (we didn´t really like...English sense of humour...lol). In spite of the fact that we didn´t find it funny, we will keep trying to watch it...I will tell if we change our minds...Eventually, I went to my residence because today was very hard.

 Actually, I had classes from 10.00 to 18.00 with two free hours to have lunch. My first classes were interesting. We went to Unity 101 Community Radio, which is a local radio, because they offered us to make a vox pop which could be selectioned to be broadcast on the air, a great opportunity that I won´t pass up. Then, I has Global Media Industries. We were studying the difference between HBO and Networks. It sounds difficult but actually it´s not that complicated. And now I´m going to Body Combat with my friends again. Tomorrow I will try Step in the gym. Some exercise never hurts.

xoxo

Missing & Bournemouth

Oh! I think I leave you on Wednesday...Sorry about that! Laziness and Internet's problems is not a good combination at all. Now I'm at the library because I had to meet one of my classmates to organize the presentation that we have to make together in mid-November. We are going to talk about the Swedish Public television and radio (SVT) in relation to one of the political economies we are studying in Global Media Industries. It sounds a little bit difficult but I hope we will succeed! Besides, I decided to stay here because there was no Internet in the residence (at least, until I'm gone) and I realise how much we need it (interesting discoveries...lol). Well, without further delay, I begin to recap on what I was doing last week.

On Wednesday, after going to LBT which was hard but not as much as Body Pump, I came to the residence to have lunch quickly because I had classes at 4.00. The classes were not as great as I expected. Actually, I don´t really like Making Magazines because I don´t know lots of things about Mac computers which are required. Anyway, I will try to do my best and understand what I should do. When I came back, I called my friends to go out and so we do. We went again to The White House but that night was not as good as others because there were not lots of people there. Eventually, I return to my residence with my friend and we just wanted to sleep.

On Thursday, I had many classes and I was a little bit tired but everything was OK and I enjoyed my lectures so much although Global Media Industries is still very difficult. Anyway, I really like it so I will try to manage reading some articles and

Despite that I was going to go to Body Combat´s class, I didn´t go because I stayed here talking to my family on Skype until night.

On Friday, I went to my classes, including my English lecture which was not as interesting as before but still entertaining. After that I went to the gym and I came back to my residence because I had to be ready at 6.30! I had a barbecue in Evelin friend´s house! All I can say is that it was great! We enjoyed a lot and I really liked their friends that I didn´t know.

On Saturday, we went to visit Bournemouth ( in my case, again) and Poole, a British tourist seaside town! Evelin´s friend drove us to wonderful places and we could see a beautiful part of England that made us even more proud of where we're going to spend a year. We were having lunch in an Irish restaurant and then we went back home. I stayed in my friend´s house because we has many thing to talk about.

On Sunday, we woke up late and I went to the gym with Evelin. We were working out until late and afterwards I went to the residence to so my homework, rest and share my time with my flatmates.

Sorry about the delay. I consider that it would be great to write the entries more often and shorter. I hope you will agree.

We will continue talking tomorrow, an important day for me.

xoxo

Gym Days and Spanish Dinner

I´m here again to tell you everything about my last two days. I don´t know why but this week is being longer than others.

On Monday (which is my day off, as you´ll probably know) I went to the gym with Evelin. After having gone around every gym in Southampton, we decided to sign in The Quays which we think is the best one because of its facilities and price (£25 if you go there before 4pm).
Believe me when I say that I know what I´m talking about because we went to every gym during 2 weeks until we made the decision.
Once we signed in, we went directly to the G-cycle class (what we called as "Spinning" in Spain). It was the first time that I went to this class and it was really hard but worth it! The professor was quite strict but nice and very understanding when she realised that I was a beginner.
In the evening, we attend to the gym again. This time we were working out (cycle, weights, sit-ups...) so as you can imagine, we ended up very tired. Eventually, we went home because the only thing left to do was rest.


Yesterday, I went again to the gym (don´t think that I´m obsessed with working out, it´s simply the novelty) and I practised Body Pump: "a class using barbells and adjustable weights to tone and condition muscles while raising metabolic rate for rapid fat-burning" (activenation.org.uk). The trainer was the same as in G-cycle and I like her way to do sports because she takes it seriously and she made us work out hard. After that, I came back to my residence and I had lunch quickly because I had classes at 3.00. The classes were OK, anything really special. The only thing is that I find Making Magazines a little bit complicated for me because I had never used designing tools in my computer.
The most interesting thing yesterday was the Spanish dinner or "cena del día de la Hispanidad" (here, any excuse is good enough to organize an event). We were about 30 people and we cooked typical Spanish food (Mediterranean salad, Spanish Omelette, Tomato soup or "gazpacho", typical Canary dessert...). Everything was delicious and we enjoyed very much!

Now, I´m going to the gym, as usual, to so LBT ("GAP" in Spain): "toning class focusing on those
problem areas from the waist down" (activenation.org.uk). I will tell you when I came back.

xoxo

Quiet weekend, fashion Sunday

Hello again!
I am here to tell you how my weekend was!

On Friday, I had classes from 9.00 till 13.00. I really like those classes so it was not such a big effort to wake up so early. Then, I went home to have lunch and do my homework quickly because I was going to meet my friends at 5.00. We were shopping (as usual) although we didn´t bought lot of things and the we went to their house. Chatting, eating, watching TV...thinking about going out...that´s all we did and finally we decided to be at home and rest, anything special. At about 12, I came back to my residence, I watched one Gossip Girl´s chapter and I went to bed. Nothing really interesting. Lastly, we are too lazy to go out...money has some blame...

On Saturday, I woke up really late, I think it was because the night before I has been watching the series I told you. I stayed here practising some English on my computer. I ate here, in the residence, with one of my flatmates and then I went shopping (not clothes this time! but I needed some stuff for the kitchen and a bowl because I broke one of my flatmates´...) When I came back I called some of my Spanish friends to watch a film. We didn´t feel like to go out again...so we were watching "Atrapado por su pasado" ("Carlito´s Way").
I highly recommend this film! It´s quite interesting and really good. I mean, you just have to see who the actors are: Al Pacino, Viggo Mortensen or Sean Penn. The film is long so we finish at 2 am more or less. It was a good relaxing and entertaining night.

Today, I met my friend Zuzanna from Slovaquia!! We went to see the Free Fashion Week at West Quay´s shopping centre. We have been looking at the catwalk shows (I put some photos and a video) and we could enjoy a lot of discounts, even we participated in a great draw! The prize is 1000 pounds to spend at the shopping centre. We could not even imagine what we would do with that amount of money, well yes, buy all the clothes and shoes that we wanted. Anyway, we are not very confident that we will win because we are not keen on draws...although we hope!

Oh! And I want to share an anecdote: I had lost my phone while we were there. How scary! I was really worried, I thought I had my phone stolen. I went round all the shops we had gone and in the end ...I found it! The phone had fallen from the bag at some point and a shop assistant picked it up =)

Tonight we were going to go to the Night Roller Disco but we have decided to go next weekend. The "party" starts at 8.00 at it finishes at 10.30 so it was really worth it because we came back late and we have not had dinner. I´ll tell what we are going to do eventually.

xoxo

Tuesday, Wednesday and hard Thursday

On Tuesday, I just have one-hour lecture of Newspaper, Magazine and online Journalism. As I told you I liked it a lot! I think it´s my favourite subject right now and apart from being really interesting the professor is nice and helpful. He told us to do an assignment for Wednesday and I became a little bit nervous because it was the first one. Anyway, he understood my "Erasmus situation" and told be not to be worried. We had to read a paper about Randall´s news criteria (Randall, D; The universal journalist 3rd ed, 2007) and compare it with the front page splash of a local newspaper. I chose the Daily Echo and I could see how the main piece of news fulfilled the Randall´s rules of newsworthines. It was a very enjoyable activity and I will tell you about my feedback.

Although I only have 3 hours of Making Magazines on Wednesday, I was busy because this week is my turn to clean the shared kitchen and dining room so I woke up and I did some houseworking. Afterwards, I decided to go to the library I had been advised to read some articles about specific subjects to understand them better.
We hadn´t talk about going out, actually, I was a little bit tired after my 3-hour lecture (by the way, I realised that I had another lecture on Tuesday and my coordinator hadn´t told me anything about that. So yes, I missed two importante classes and I have one hour lecture more). However, Miriam told me that we should go out because there was a party in Oceana, the biggest disco of Southampton and we couldn´t miss it. Eventually, we decided to go there and it was really good although there was a concert and we didn´t know who the singer was lol.( I download some photos)

And here you have, that´s why I´m so tired today. Besides, I have been 6 hours at the uni in a stressful day. I say that because the unit Global Media Industries is really hard for me. Actually, it´s interesting and I like it but we have to do so much work. Today we talked about "Neo-liberal" and "Keynesian" theories and it´s quite tricky having into account that it´s, obviously, in English. Anyway, I hope I will succeed.
Now, I have just had dinner with my flatmates and it´s Skype time. Then I will follow reading "Eat pray love" by Elisabeth Gilbert and I will go to bed because tomorrow my first lecture is at 9!! See you all
xoxo

My day off

As I tell you, Monday is my day off so today I decided to wake up early and go shopping because my fridge was empty. I went to ASDA, the cheapest supermarket here, in Southampton (I hate go there because it´s far from my residence if I want to buy heavy stuff). Then, I met some of my friends and we went enquire about some gyms. We are interested in joining in any but we are looking for the best price. Among all of them, we´ll choose the closest or the one that is more convincing for its facilities.

I had lunch quite late and then I talked to my relatives on Skype (essential program if you're out and want to communicate freely).

If you want to do something interesting in Southampton you have to rush because stores close too early and after 6.30 there´s almost anybody in the street. So I called Miriam and Evelin to turn around and walk until dinner.

Now, I am in the residence and I am going to bed soon.

Tomorrow I want to wake up early and go to the university to print some slides from my units. I´ll talk to you then.

Good night. xoxo

Great weekend!

On Saturday, I woke up at 12 more or less because I had to show my friend where the train station was and I also had to come back to my residence. Then something hapenned that I didn´t expect: Stefano, the italian guy I had met in Lewis School had come to Southampton again! He´s studying in London and he decided to visit me and it was great!

We spent the afternoon at the shopping centre with some friends and bought the dinner because that night we had several plans to choose. At first, we were going to go to a housewarming party of one of our Dutch friends. However, the weather was horrible (almost hurricane) so we decided to do the plan b: partying at the residence. The night was fun, we had a great time and we were dancing till late. When it stopped raining, we went to a nightclub: the White House, but there was a police cordon because there had been a crime (the policemen covered with blood told that.) So, a bit disoriented, we returned to the residence and decided to continue the party but safe. Here you have some photos

We woke up so late because we were tired and started to have lunch at 5 more or less.Afterwards we went to my friend´s house again to tell our other friend everything had happened. Eventually I came back to the residence to sleep properly, not like the night before.

Useful English lecture (written on Friday)

Do you remember that I wanted to attend to an Academic English lecture which was out of my Learning Agreement?
I have just came from that class and I find it very useful. The professor has tried to know what our level of English making us a survey and I'm happy with the result. After having had some doubts I will finally enrol in Applied and Academic English Upper Advanced. 


Then, I went to the computer´s room in the library and afterwards, I went home to have lunch and rest a little bit because I felt sick.
My Spanish friends phoned me to go to their house, have dinner and watch a film and eventually I slept there because I was too lazy to come back to my residence. We went to bed at 4 more or less because we chatted until that time. One of my friends, Evelin, wanted to go London to visit some friends the following day and I had to show her where the train station was. We didn´t sleep ago but I knew them a little bit more.

My awful day and the recovery

Yesterday I didn´t write anything, I know, but believe me that it was impossible to me.

The day started like that: the weather seemed to be hot and sunny (how gullible!) but I actually didn´t feel well. I had a headache and a principle of having a cold. Anyway, I was excited to find out how the new subject would be. I tried to draw strength to attend to Communication in Organisations as I told you.

Although the professor was quite nice and tried to encourage people to think as a PR would do, I was not motivated at all because I found it not interesting at all.

You can imagine my situation (sick, unmotivated and suffering from the worse weather I have ever seen, what it was a sunny day had become a depressing, grey, rainy day). I tried to talk AGAIN to my coordinator because I was dissapointed and worried because I had to choose another subject with the same credit points, interesting and acceptable for my home institution. Looking for my ideal new unit, I found some cool ones but I wanted them to fit in my schedule.

I have to thank to my coordinator who was really nice to me and help me to decide whether I should choose.
Eventually, I decided to try with Public Relations and Media Industries for Journalists because I like Public Relations but always related to Journalism. Fortunately, I will attend to these classes in the second semester so I´m even more free than I was before.

Having Making Magazines as my second lecture in the day was also a positive aspect because although I had never designed online magazines before I really liked it.

Despite the fact that I was sick and tired, I decided to have dinner with my friends from Alicante (I will upload some photos) but anything else. They went out and I went to the residence with the purpose of relaxing and forgetting the stressful day.

As you can imagine, I missed you all so much.


Today everything was different. Well, not everything because I am still sick ( the weather in freezing, as in winter) but almost. I woke up at 8.30 because I had to go to other new class: Broadcast Journalism at 10.00.
I just can say that it was great!! I am really happy because I found an appealing unit!

Although it was our first class on this subject, the professor gave us recorders to interview people from the university and make a vox pop ("The vox pop is a tool used in many forms of media to provide a snapshot of public opinion", http://www.mediacollege.com/video/interviews/voxpops.html). The lecture was very active, entertaining and something that I like because it is really useful (students here don´t study as much theory as in Spain, but degrees are more focused on the practical aspects).Besides all this, I've been lucky enough to do the interview with a very nice classmate who helped me to communicate in English.

The second lecture was Global Media Industries. It´s a subject of the highest level and I think it will be hard to pass but as I´m quite interested in this subject, I will try. The first lecture will deal with political economy, the Classical view of Adam Smith and the Critical Theory by Karl Marx.

I will tell you about about this in more detail but now I am going to take a hot soup and my medicines to try to get over completely.


xoxo

My first class

I talked to my coordinator and she said to me that everything is OK if I want to do another English class so tomorrow I´ll go to have my Learning Agreement signed in.

My first class was good because I could understand almost everything the professor said. We were about 15 students ( It is a quite notable fact because Spanish universities often have more students in each class) and it was just and introduction of the subject. I was a little bit worried when the professor started to talk about the work we have to deliver. I'll have to work hard because I have to write several press releases, write a story and a column of opinion but I hope to succeed with this course.

In short, I can say that I liked it =). And now I´m  going to sleep ( actually, today I´m not going out because tomorrow I have to get up early). My next class: Communication in Organisations.


I will tell you. xoxo

The expected start

Although I have been here for about one month, this week is the most important one. The university starts. Actually, I should have started yesterday but, fortunately, Monday is my day off so today, at 15.00 my 3rd year at Solent University starts officially.

I came here on Wednesday, 1st and I have been attended to English Classes at Lewis School (http://www.lewis-school.co.uk/), near my University. I could learn lots of things, and what´s most important,  I had the opportunity to review the English which I had abandoned since the end of second year of Journalism.

After having finishing these two weeks, I fully intruded in the university: "Freshers´ week" ( the term that UK universities and colleges give to the period immediately before beginning of a new academic year. Its purpose is to give new students a chance to meet their housemates, make new friends and sort out administration tasks, http://www.freshers-week.com/). And so did I. We were talking to our Erasmus coordinator who explained to us everything we has to know about the university and Southampton in general. It was a week plenty of meeting to establish our Learning Agreement,enrol and register in the university, get our student card and inform on the activities and sports offered by Solent. All this followed by a myriad of parties. 

Although it was a good opportunity to meet new friends and I have already made some in Lewis School and I could travel with them during my first two weeks. We went to London and Bournemouth ( I will upload some photos for you to see how well we had there)

Now I have to go. I need to meet my coordinator again because I have to finish my Learning Agreement and send it to my home university. Afterwards, I will be attended to my first class: Newspaper, Magazines and online Journalism. Wish me luck! xoxo