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.