Sorry for not posting, I can't get back in the habit. I've been driving around Mt. Airy like a person who drives a lot. It is crazy. But still, since I've had my license, I've only used 1/2 a tank of gas. Thats right, my Corolla gets some serious gas mileage. I'm pumped about that. (get it? gas... pumped...) So. Here is Emma's version of the news right now: Mt. Airy High School has gone under some serious changes. New teachers are everywhere and good old classics have abandoned us. Teachers such as Mr. Bretz, Mr. Dickson, and allegedly Mr. Bodnar have left the ranks of MAHS teachers. This year is gonna be different. Next item on our news agenda is that VH1 is coming out with another new series: I Love the 70's. To add to the greatness of I Love the 80's. I hope it's just as good. They have some of the same commentators, and I'm really looking forward to it. OK folks, that's all for now, adios!

Hello all. I am back from England. And I am running on lack of sleep. I have been up since 6:00 England time, which is 1:00 NC time. Now it is 8:20 PM which means I have been awake for... hmm... almost 20 hours. Woah. So I'm going to try to stay awake till 9:00 to get over jet lag. Alrighty, tata!

Hello everybody. Sorry for not posting yesterday. I wasn't quite in the mood. I am rather tired right now, probably from staying up so late watching big brother. It is a really boring show, but I like their accents. The main speaking guy who says the times and all that is Scottish. When he says "big brother" it sounds like "big brootha". And he says eight and AM funny. And the guy who won was from Scotland, and he had a funny accent too. The second place guy was from Ireland, and he had a sailor's mouth. They did a series of clips of him swearing, it was funny. Anyways, so this season was really boring. I didn't see that much of it, but what I saw wasn't interesting. They didn't really have conflicting personalities, so they were always just sitting around. The announcer would be like, "3:42, PM. The housemates have been sitting on the couches for 31 minutes". And then it would show a clip of them just sitting there. It was worthless. The good part was at the end when they showed a bunch of clips of the good parts of the show. So that's why I'm tired, I stayed up to watch that. I would take a nap, but the last two times I've done that, I haven't been able to get to sleep that night. And I always feel so tired after I wake up. It is a lose-lose situation. So I'll have some Coke and finish out the day. Alrighty then, bye bye now!

Today I went on an expedition with my aunt. We were determined to take pictures of funny road signs. There are some really funny ones that I have seen. Here are some examples: (these pictures are typical road sign pictures, like the one for pedestrian crossing in the states)
~a picture of a man holding the hand of a little girl and a sign below it that says: "no footpath for 1300 yards"
~a picture of a duck
~a picture of a girl holding the hand of, practically dragging, a smaller boy with a sign that says school, and another with the same picture that says playground
~a picture of an old man with a cane and an old woman following him and a sign that says either elderly people or disabled people
~a small sign that says "feeding the ducks attracts RATS" with a picture of a rat crossed out
~a small sign with a picture of a dog standing next to a pile of poop that says "clean it up"
~an exclaimation point with a sign under it that said "farmyard, tractors crossing" (I saw one somewhere else that said "caution lorries turning", lorries are 18 wheelers)
~and the finale, a sign that said: "Kill your speed" (they used to say speed kills, kill your speed).
It was fun times. Gotta love european road signs. Well, that's it for today. Cheers, mate!

News is different when you see it from a different country. I've been watching BBC news over here, and the perspective is totally different. First of all, the subjects are different, but that is to be expected. Like lately the big story has been on the death of David Kelly, a weapons inspector. It's been all over the place. But the story that made me think of the differences is this one about Saddam's two son's being killed. Over here, they are more skeptical, and they are wanting proof of it. I looked on msnbc and it was more certain and there were more details. It makes me wonder what the news was like during the war and all the stuff going on. Also, I've been hearing more about Tony Blair, but that is only natural. It will be a switch when I get back to American News. Well, that's about all I had to say, and sorry for not posting yesterday. Ta ta for now!

Why hello there! On the menu for today's blog will be an appetizer of random sillyness, a main dish of fun times, and a dessert of savory funnyness. A good, balanced 3 course meal. Actually, I shall tell you of today's events. First I woke up, then went back to sleep. That is the best part about summer and being in a foreign country. If all other excuses fail, I can chalk it up to jet lag. It is the greatest to wake up and realize you have like 2 more hours of sleep. I love it. Anyways, after breakfast and a shower we ventured out to a villiage called Cromer, where we viewed the Lifeboat. Quite impressive. Then we went to Blickley (not sure on the spelling) where we saw a really big mansion and ate in a pub. I love pubs. Except they are based really on alcohol, which I am not legally able to drink. After that we came back here and played rummikub for a while. Then we went to see my grandma's cousin's husband's grave. It seems like he is more closely related to us than that though. It's all just names. We also saw my grandma's aunt's grave (my grandma's cousin's mom's) along with it. While we were there we took a peek in the church where they were practicing bell ringing. Now this is not your typical Methodist Women's Handbells, but big church bells. Jill, Charlotte, and I got to ring them! The men were very impressed that we were from North Carolina. I think one man even asked if NC was in Virginia or vice versa. A rather small man assisted us with the ringing. He had to get on a box to be able to help with my rope. It was great. Then we heard them ring a song. That's something you don't normally do every day. Actually, it's something you probably will never do, come to think of it. So we had a lovely day agian. I finished Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy today (the second time I've read it) I need to read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe sometime soon. Those books are great fun. The question and answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything is, according to the mice,: Q: "How many roads must a man walk down" A: "42". Quite fun. Go have a read, it's great. Alright then, adios!

Hello! I just came up here to post to take a break from listening to my sisters' game of scrabble. "Is 'quoz' a word?" can get old sometimes. Anyways. I was going to post on how delightfully random The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy is but Grannie told me to post about something nice, like what I did today. So here it is.

We went to the beach, where I stuck my foot in the North Sea. (My grandpa said to stick my foot in the north sea so I could tell people that while I was in England I sat around with my poppa watching golf all day and stuck my foot in the north sea). Jill and Charlotte decided to swim, while I laid out on the beach fully clothed, getting rather hot. It was life boat day down at the shore, which is where Her Majesty's Coastguard's demonstrated their life-saving abilities. It was quite funny, because the first thing I saw of it was a lot of teen agers dressed in these silly outfits hanging off of a boat that had a couple middle-aged people in silly outfits. Then somebody on a surfboard (obviously a part of their team) set off a flare. You would think that they would speed away to "save" this person, but no. They waited until the flare was completely done with to go save the person. It was really funny. Then, as we were leaving the beach, they were taking the kids out on the boat and dropping them off the back of the boat so they too could be "saved". Up by the road, Jill, Charlotte, and I saw the coastguard doing some more demonstrations. They were giving instructions on how to answer the questions effectively when calling "999", the equivalent of "911".

Next, Jill, Charlotte, and I went putt-putt golfing. It was really fun. I was trying to play while holding a beach towel, a pair of binoculars, my copy of The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, the scorecard, and a mini pencil. An almost impossible feat, but I managed to beat Charlotte. After our game, we played on the see saw in a park on our way home. See saw's are the best piece of playground equipment besides the swing. It is not as fun if you're the heavier one, though. Ah, to be young again.

When we got home, and after lunch, we went raspberry and strawberry picking. We were picking and eating, and eating some more. The trick is to eat before you pay. The good strawberries were few and far between, but the good ones were soooooooo good. The raspberries were easier to pick because you don't have to bend down as much. I love eating fresh picked fruit.

So that was my day. We had dinner, where Grannie and her cousin Sally (my 1st cousin twice removed or something) discussed their childhoods. You know, how they had to hike 40 miles to and from school everyday, naked in the snow, uphill both ways. And we started having discussions on how to properly pronounce words (raspberries as composed to rosbrys). Now I am going to watch a program on Elephants. I can hear their cries from the TV right now. Fun times!!!

Golf is a funny game. I've been thinking about it all day, since I have been watching the British Open. I wonder who thought of it? Seriously. You hit a ball with a stick in an attempt to make the ball go a really long way. Then you move it around a bit trying to hit it into this tiny hole. The hole is really infinitesimal compared to the size of the other stuff around the hole. I wonder what it was like back in the old days when people were making up all of this stuff. Did they think that it would someday become a huge spectacle? It seems that nowadays everything that can be invented has been invented. But maybe it's always seemed that way, until someone invented something and it was really great. Maybe someone is inventing something right now that people won't be able to live without in 50 years. I guess I just don't have the mind of an inventor. Going back to sports, if you think about it, all sports are kind of weird. Well, not track or swimming, because people just do that kind of naturally to get from point A to point B. But something like basketball must have seemed so random to people "out of the loop".

Woah... I just lost my train of thought. That's probably because of this weird ticking sound in the office right now. It's really annoying. Sorry about that folks. Or maybe just folk. I'm not exactly sure. Anyways- tata!

Sorry about the delay in posting, I just didn't have enough motivation to post yesterday. But now I do. So here's the story of our trip in London. We went on a train to Liverpool Street (not to be confused with the town Liverpool) in London. Then we took a taxi (cool!) to the RAF club (royal air force) where we stayed. After a small lunch of tuna sandwiches (care of my grandmother) Jill, Charlotte, Mom and I walked to the meeting place for our tour. We just so happened to pass the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. How cool is that? While on our tour we saw St. Paul's Cathedral, where the old lady feeds the birds, tuppence a bag, on Mary Poppins. I was bummed though because they were cleaning it and the steps were covered in scaffolding. Then we made our way to the Tower of London. On our way we learned that the clocktower that everyone thinks is big ben is really not named big ben. Big ben is the name of the bell inside. Anyways, we toured the Tower of London. It was great. We saw the crown jewels. I have never seen so many jewels and crowns! It was so extravagant! I don't even want to imagine how much they are worth. So that was fun, and tiring, and the end of our tour. Oh yeah, we went on this lousy boat ride on the river Thames (pronounced "tems"), but it was hardly worth mentioning. The next day in London we went shopping. Gee whiz is that place huge! I got two shirts and a purse, extremely minimal compared to what Jill bought. It was really great. Then that night we went and saw the musical Grease. Talk about funny! The people had British accents and were trying to have American accents. They would always slip, and it was funny watching the guy who played Danny, John Travolta's part, try and have that accent. It was great. The next day we went home on a train and that ended our trip to London. Oh, and we rode on double decker busses and went on the underground and rode in taxis a lot too. I had tons o' fun. ttfn!

Hello! I am back! Well, not really. I am in England as you read this, if you read this on the listed date or within 2 weeks of it. I am having tons of fun over here in a small town called Clare, where my grandparents live. Today was an interesting day. We went to a craft fair, almost like the autumn leaves festival, except the people weren't rednecks, they all had british accents, and it was held in the courtyard of an old church. While we were there, Jill, Charlotte and I got tired so we decided to sit on what we thought were nice wooden benches. Then a man came up and said: "These are coffee tables, not benches". We were slightly embarassed and decided to leave the fair. We went to a bridge and played pooh sticks. This is a game that Pooh Bear played with his hundred acre wood friends. You stand on one side of a bridge and drop a stick in the water. (you drop it so the current will take it under the bridge) Then you look on the other side of the bridge and see whose stick comes out first. It is really fun, you should try it sometime! I will warn you that it does not work with leaves, they take forever to fall, and sometimes they just stay in one place. After that, we went to a music festival. It was an experience to say the least. My sisters and I sat under a large tent on a blanket and played scrabble while we listened to the music. There were these teenagers in the tent who looked at us and laughed. I don't really pay attention to people who dress punky like they did. That seems to be the fashion these days in England. I really don't like it. I guess because they all have to wear uniforms to school, they decide to rebel when they get the chance. I'll stick to Old Navy, Gap, and Target. Wow. I haven't posted in a long while. It feels really good! I'll be back again on Tuesday or Wednesday! (I'm going to London for the Weekend)