My First Week in England

So as of yesterday I have officially been here for one week. that seems so crazy! in all honesty, i feel like i've been here longer than a week. but in a good way. i def miss everybody back home a lot, but im not letting it ruin my time here. its been a blast so far! lets see...what all have a done....

the job hunt is moving along slowly. I brought my resume and cover letter here on one of those memory stick things and all i have to do is update the phone number and print it out. i felt completely dumb because Alex' parents had been talking about some CV thing that i needed to do and i had no idea for 3 days that CV is what they call a resume (that was a total dur dur durr moment). so now that i have that all straightened out i am ready to turn in some apps. i am having trouble finding decent jobs that i can apply for at this point. i know social work jobs are everywhere and they are in desperate need of social workers.....but i cant find many job postings for them on job sheets or the internet. i have found one that im going to turn in an application for....its a general social work position at the town counsel. i would be doing testing and evaluating for the foster care system. i know its a lot of work, but i really dont mind paperwork at all and i love the testing end of things. the only other possibility i have atm is something at the hospital. alex' mom works at one that has a psych ward connected to it....she doesnt work in that part of the hospital but knows someone who does that offered to get be a look around if i wanted. i have always wanted to get some job experience in a pysch ward so i guess this could be my chance! the lady isnt in again until monday so hopefully itll be worked out and ill know sometime next week if i can go talk to somene and possibly even do some observation kind of stuff to see if its something i would like doing. im very excited about that! this weekend i plan to sit down and work out with alex where all the town counsels are and other agencies that employ social workers. that way i can go around town next week and drop some resumes off (and hopefully talk to some people about jobs they have available).....cuz i know theres tons of job opportunities in this field out there im qualified for!!!!!

well now that ive bored you with my job situation, allow me to bore you with everything else ive been up to.....cuz thats why youre reading this (which im still finding kinda werid that i write a bunch of boring entries and all you people in america read it. ha ha, suckers!) welp, we have done a few things this past week. Alex has had to work a lot this week (and its his weekend on at work so he works all weekend), therefore it allows me to sleep in a lot and have time to be lazy all by myself. its kinda nice. sometimes people are home, and sometimes its just me a pepper (the family dog). starting with pepper - i have kinda sorta befriended him. he still growls at me sometimes, but has yet to bite me, AND has even come up to be one morning and rubbed his face on my leg and let me pet him for an extended period of time. i probably backtracked in my progress with him on wed because i took his rock and put it back outside. its kindof strange, but he will go outside and pick up big rocks and bring them inside. then he just leaves them by his food dish or in the room that is populated atm. he only has one rock that he does this with at a time, so he will choose one, bring it in, put in on the floor. then someone puts it outside and he brings it back in. the cycle only stops when someone hides the rock from him. then he mopes about for awhile and chooses a new rock. anyways, i wanted to see if he would actually search for the rock so i put it outside in plain sight and he walked past it twice to bark at something before moping and finding a tiny pebble for his new rock. i guess he wasnt too attached to that one?

wow, that was a rambling sidebar, sorry. what have i been up to? hmmmm. we spend a lot of time being lazy and just sortof hanging out. on tues we went out with a bunch of his friends to a chicken restaurant called Nandos. it was really good. pretty much everything is some form of peri-peri chicken. i had a really good chicken wrap with spicy rice. the boys played a bit with the different hot sauces, and some of his friends tried to explain all the words they use that Americans dont. they couldnt really think of many but did explain a lot of the slang phrases i would probably be hearing. it was interesting. we then went to a pub that was having a 'dont break the bank' drink special. every tues they have a big selection of drinks for £1! ...i got to try sips of a lot of things, most of which i liked, but stuck to caramel apple cider and then some English beer. it was a good night. i wanted to take pictures but my camera isnt working....surprise surprise. i need a new one for sure (Christmas present anyone?! lol). luckily Helen brought one. unfortunately all the pictures of me arent so good cuz i look sad, but they are on facebook so you guys can check them out. the night was really fun despite the pub being packed and everyone was really nice.

im struggling to work out what i did on wed.....which is odd because i know Alex didnt work...oh yeah! slept in a bit, watched some tv, Alex did the whole ironing pile which was an over flowing laundry basket, and we stayed in to socialize with his family. it was a nice day. yesterday we got up early (9 am, so really not that early) and Luke and Graham picked us up for a picnic and tennis day in Lichfield. we went to ASDA and picked up food (strawberries, mango, pineapple, watermelon, choc chip and oatmeal cookies, 2 kinds of cold pastas, some sausage roll things i didnt eat that looked gross, and pork pies that i also didnt eat), stopped at a sports place so Alex could get a new racket and Luke could get tennis balls and a sweatband....then it was off to Lichfield. if was a bit of a drive but was worth it. the town is kindof old styleish, very posh, and adorable. we went to a park there and Graham and i sat eating strawberries on a bench while the other two played. it was really fun. the thing that caught me off guard was that you have to pay to play tennis at this court. its a strange concept to me since it was a public park. but, lucky us, the office was closed so we didnt have to. after a few hours of chatting with graham and watching tennis the boys had had enough and we walked to the open fields for a picnic. it was beautiful and sunny out, although a bit cold for me in the shade since i was wearing a skirt. we set up the picnic and laid around chatting and eating in the sunny weather for an hourish before picking up grahams little brother and driving back to Alex'. Alex showered, i chatted with his mom and grandmother, then Luke and Graham picked us up and we went to the cinema for a film (ha, how English sounding of me). we saw Coraline in 3d again since Luke hadnt seen it and we all very much enjoyed it a few days before. seems silly to go see it again i guess, but Alex and i didnt have plans and we had good company in which to watch it with.

today Alex works 7 am - 5 pm....so im currently checking emails and whatnot before i finally get dressed properly and grab some lunch. then more job searching i go! i also intend on painting my nails (and painting in general) after i make a general cover letter from the job specific one i currently have ready to be turned in. not too sure what we have planned for the night. i seem to remember something we have planned with Luke and Graham...maybe it was Helen, but i cant work out what it is.....im sure it will be enjoyable, whatever it ends up being.

i cant really think of anything else big to add in here. im sure all of you are wondering about a bunch of different things that i have yet to mention but i have no idea what people wanna know about so i guess this is all for now. im headed downstairs to eat with Paula (his mom) and then ive got to get busy on my job hunt.

i love and miss everyone! im going to try to start calling people this weekend for some quick chats but my old phone is completely dead so i cant get anyones number out of my phone! it really sucks cuz i have a horrible memory and could only think of like 5 numbers from my old phone......so most of you are SOL unless you give me your numbers again. sorry guys! i swear i brought my charger but cant find it even if my life depended on it. talk to everybody later!