Fall Fling

On tuesday I went to the Fall Fling with Becky. We were taken out to the stables at Lake Thunderbird and where there was a hay ride waiting for us, Just like being back at the Reaseheath open day riding in to straw on a flat back trailer pulled by an old vintage tactor.

It took us through the woods into a clearing where there was a bon fire with logs to sit on around it. We had hot dogs to cook in the fire and afterwards made the s'mores again, but its still not so good with out Cadbury's chocolate!Cooking dinner, the hot dogs
We then sat and talked to people around the campfire until the hayride came back to take us home. It was a clear sky that night and as we were no where near any where built up when you looked up you could see so many stars it was really beautiful and I even saw a shooting star, maybe two.

A very good night but it was very cold and we smelt all smokey when we got home.

Last Week, A Long and Slow one

Last week was a very tiring week and it dragged on , probably because I had so much work to get done, the final 2 week push before thanks Giving, (next week now YES!) However the week did perk up a bit at the weekend.

On Saturday i went to a bar called the Vista which is at the top of a 6 storey building and shard a few birthdat drinks with our friends David- the American who came to Reading last year- and his friends. Needless to say there there was numerous consumption of Hurrican cocktails for him.

On sunday, Becky and I sang in one of the 3 concerts that we will be giving with OU Women's choir, it all went well and it was really nice to hear some of the other emsembles sing too.
In the evening we drove out to Moore to the Warren theatre to watch the new Jame's Bond film Quantum of Solace and it was a very good film, there a little to many changes of camera angles at times but otherwise I enjoyed it which I was worried about as the person who'd written about it for the news paper was not very complementary about it at all. My theory is just that they didn't like it because because its a British film.
The cinema is a new one and there is entrance music and itwas so huge.

When we got back we slumped back into sadness that there was another week of intensive work to do before the break.

The National Weather Festival

Yesterday I went to the National Weather Festival which took place in the National Weather Centre. THere were hundreds of families who had turned up to watch the weather balloon launches, meet and get autograpghs of the weather presenters on Channel 5, see the chasing cars and get advice on alsorts of weather issues. There were also rooms with fun activities to do for children.

I went with Becky, Rob Lee and Dean (the really tall guy from Australia who's in the hail video). We got lots of free pens and pencils and some flying thing that you drop from high places outside so we are going to take them to the weather centre on monday and drop them down from the 5th floor. We all met thr channel 5 weather people and one of the men gave Dean his e-mail address so that we cna e-mail him together and he says he'll organise a trip for us to the tv studios which should be really fun if we get to go but I suppose it will depend on a lot of different things.

We talked to lots of people as we all knew differnt lecturers and people who work in the building so it was nice to talk to people outside of lectures.
We came back and I was ready for my lunch. Walking outside makes you hungry especially now it is much colder.

Nature's own fireworks

Wednesday was bonfire night and as it is obviously not celebrated in America it was set to be rather a dull evening. However, there were storm alerts out the night before and on checking again in the morning we decided to go chasing in the afternoon in the hope yet again that we were going to see a tornado, which unforetunately we did not.

We did however see some of the chase trucks from various new channels so we can't have been far off from the action. We ended up setting off back home but getting caught in ahail storm which we stopped for to take cover. The hail stones were quite large, bigger than garden peas by a long way which was very cool and you could see how how it had built up layers and layers of ice around it when it started as a small stone. Also we got caught in A LOT of rain and when driving the car we went though quite a large amount of water which splashed up in a wall and just hit the wind screen. It was long after that we pulled in.

All the chasers on the move as different storms strengthen

Some of the really big hail that fell on us

The video shows the size of the hail, the noise it made, and some very excited met students.

We got back to the weather centre a little ahead of a storm that was heading to Norman from Edmond and went up to the observatory and were treated to hours of endless thunder and lightening which eventually passed over us dropping floods of water and more large hail storms. There were flashes of all colours as we saw the lightening hit several transformers in the city but it was fantastic to see and made up for not being able to have a bonfire and fireworks.

The thunderstorm view from the Observation Deck in the National weather centre, Norman

Halloween

Yesterday was Halloween and I dressed up as a witch to go out. First I went upstairs to a house party where there were lots of people in different costumes. Three was a costume competition and Pete won a pair of witch slippers which are really fun but the flash when you walk so I can see them getting on your nerves after a while.

Little Red Riding Hood gets attacked by Pete the ware wolf.Laura, Becky and I, the housemates.
Jean-Baptiste, Rob and Laura are pirates!

Later I went out to Club 101 where there were some people in very interesting costumes, my favourite had to be the people dressed as I-Pods, complete with head phones and everything. I came home early but there was a knock on my door as Pete had come back but his girl friend was still out and had his keys so we chatted and looked at photos of the night until everyone came back so I didn't get to bed until quite late, but it was ok as I slept until mid-day! As it was so late I decided to make pancakes for a brunch, it is nice to have a slow day.

During the week the meteorology department was really getting into Halloween. There were bats hanging from the stairs and creepy things put up on the walls. Lots of people from the offices were all dressed up in costumes. One of my lecturers bought us biscuits in the shape of pumpkins with bright orange icing on, and another lecturer bought in lots of sweets for us to help ourselves to and on monday our choir leader did the same.

Now we are 10 weeks into lectures everyone is very tired and it feels like we should be having a holiday now but there are another few weeks to go unforetunately.