Refugee Awareness Training

Today, I went to a training for the British Red Cross called Refugee Awareness Training. Before I got there, I had to create an IAP (Individual Action Plan). It felt weird to create an IAP for myself, I mean, I've created IAP's for some of my clients at ABC in the past, but never for myself. I thought it was going to be 6 hours of boredom and dreaded going, but I really enjoyed the training. It was interesting to learn about the difference between Refugees and Asylum Seekers as well as legislation that benefits refugees and asylum seekers that has been passed in the UK. It was interesting to learn about how the Red Cross actually helps refugees and what kind of services they provide. For lunch I recieved a voucher to eat in the cafeteria, which had really good food. I tried a potato gnocci and I throughly enjoyed it. I meet a lot of really cool people from all over the UK who work for the Red Cross. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would enjoy it and found it interesting to learn about refugees and asylum seekers. Pop quiz: What group of people are most likely to be overstayers (staying past their visa's experation date)?
The answer: College Students. Anyways, I thought that was an interesting fact that you would enjoy.

Canterbury

On Friday we went to Canterbury. It was one of the required trips and I wasn't sure if I would enjoy spending five hours in Canterbury since I felt like there wouldn't be a whole lot to do. We got there and got to tour the Canterbury Cathedral which was really cool. It was huge and very pretty on the inside. I got really photo happy during the tour and took almost 60 pictures of the Cathedral itself.

Some of my friends and I decided to visit this Canterbury Tales museum. It was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. It was cool because you had a little thing that you put up to your ear and then a narrator comes in and tells the story. Then you move to the next room when the narrator tells you to and hear a different story from different characters as they travel on their way to Canterbury. The stories were funny and entertaining and we all enjoyed it. On our way out they had two of the character models and a bunch of dress up medieval style clothes, so we decided to dress up and get our pictures taken with the characters. It was a lot of fun. After we left the museum we decided to get something to eat so we settled upon "hotdogs" from a street vendor. The hotdogs were more like brats, but it was still tasty. The guy selling the hotdogs to us was interesting. He was really funny to talk to and I had a good time in Canterbury.

Football Match and National Archives

So the football match yesterday was awesome. We sat on the netural side though so it was harder to get into the game because the crowd wasn't as rowdy. The underdog won the game which was really interesting. Today I went to the National Archives just to see what it was like. It was huge and I found it really interesting. Everything is going good her. Anna's cousin is visiting this weekend so we have all our extra floor space taken up by a huge mattress.

My Week

This past weekend I stayed in because the doctor had told me that I couldn't drink if I wanted the pills to work. I think it was better that I stayed in anyways because we had a paper due for our theatre class on Monday which I finished on Friday night. Most people in the class ended up writing it late Sunday night. A bunch of people were also in Rome for the weekend so it was quiet on our floor as well. On Monday I took the last of my pills and even though I still have a disgusting cough sometimes, I feel much better. On Monday I also went to see a show called England People Very Nice that dealt with racism and immigration. It was an interesting play and has received a lot of critism because some view it as racist or discriminatory. I thought it okay, and I didn't get a lot of the jokes that they made because I didn't know the history of immigration here in London. I thought that it showed how many different ethnic groups all went through the same thing and how each time other ethnic groups were just as racist towards the incoming group as the people before them.
Yesterday and today I went to work and was able to make it through the whole day without getting sent home or to the doctors office! I'm about ready to start calling and visiting some of the places on my list of organizations. For those of you that don't know I'm researching organizations that have a support group for refugees/asylum seekers or women and then talking to them about how their support groups are run. This is because the Red Cross is hoping to modify, scrap or start a new women's support group. After I've visited a few places and called several others, I then compile the data into a report and if everything goes as planned towards the end of April I present my findings and my recommendation to the board of directors or whatever they are at the Red Cross headquarters.
Tonight I am going to a football (soccer) match with the group. It was an optional activity but since I'm too cheap to fork over an arm and a leg to see a Manchester United game, I figured 10 pounds to go see a premiership league game isn't too bad and might be the only chance I get to see a game while I'm here. (the premiership league is the league that Manchester plays in, it's the top league in the country. Usually Central doesn't go to a Premiership league game because it's too expensive and instead to go a lower level league game, but we were somehow able to get discount tickets to the game). I'm really excited to see the game. Hopefully it will be a good one.

Wednesday and the Imperial War Museum

So the Amoxicillin has been giving me the runs as well as an upset stomach. Yesterday I took my pill when I woke up and was feeling a little naucious when I left for work, but I was bound and determined to make it to work. About half way through my ride to work, my stomach and the moving tube began to not get along, so I got off at the next station to use the toilets. At the same my boss called to see how I was doing. She asked where I was at (which I thought was curious because I wasn't late) and I told her the name of the tube station I was at. She must have put together that this stop wasn't a stop I normally make a transfer at and insisted that I go back home. When I kept saying that I was fine and I was almost to work and would be in shortly, she said that they wouldn't have room for me to sit on the level with the bathroom and I would have to run down two flights of stairs to get there. I kept saying I was fine and once I was sitting at a desk at work I'd be okay. She said that she didn't want to see me come in to work since they had a lot of client meetings scheduled and she didn't want to risk giving them something and insisted that I go back home. So I finally gave in and went back to Vandon House. I did some work and had e-mailed Sophie to ask her what the next step was. She e-mailed me back saying that she had been informed that the Red Cross simply decided to modify their current walk-in support group because they won't have a budget to start and maintain another one like they had been planning and that I should focus more on general service support groups for my research. This means that my work has been drastically reduced which doesn't make me very happy.
Today I decided go to the Imperial War Museum, which we have to go to for one of our assignments. I ended up going by myself because everyone else waits until the day before things are due and then goes to visit them (most of the people went the day before journals were due to the Museum of London, spent about twenty minutes there standing in the lobby and then decided to call it good and wrote about how much they hated the Museum. I for one, would like to get more out of my experience here then drinking and would prefer to spend time at museum's and explore and learn some new and interesting things). I decided to walk there because I was feeling a little woozy from the pills and decided that the tube might not be a smart choice. It was a nice half hour walk from Vandon House but I enjoyed just walking and people watching and being outside. When you walk up to the Imperial War Museum there's two big cannon things at the enterance. I was stunned at how massive they were. When you walk into the lobby area of the museum you're surrounded by all sorts of gigantic military equipment. They had all sorts of different tanks and missiles as well as huge planes hanging from the ceiling. I think everything was real because they were life size and a few of them had part cut away and a glass window so you could see what the inside of the machinery looked like. It was really cool and I was overwhelmed by the amount of tanks and planes they had to check out. You could also experience what it was like to be in a submarine that existed during WWII. That was pretty neat only I was surrounded by a bunch of screaming elementary students. Then I decided to check out the Ian Flemming/James Bond exhibit which closes on the 28th. It was really cool learning about Ian Flemming and how he came up with some of his story ideas for the James Bond books. The director here in London had suggested the exhibit saying it was a good one and at first I wasn't sure how I would feel about the exhibit but I decided to give it a chance and I'm glad I did. I learned that Flemming had a fascination with golf and gambling (which was prohibited in London in the 50's when he was writing the books) and the majority of his books are based around these two things. I also learned that he had a fascination with how to cheat at both of these and those people that cheated at either of those two things in his books were the villians. I also learned that there were two movies (I don't remember which two) that invented villians that weren't in the book version. Then after I finished checking out that exhibit I decided to explore the Holocaust exhibit which is one of their permanent exhibits. I read almost everything, that was until I got towards the end of the exhibit. I think the most moving thing was the model of Auschwitz with a detailed description of how the gas chambers worked and behind this model was a wall of shoes. I think this was the most striking images and the one that caused me to begin to tear up. I worked my way quickly though the rest of the exhibit since it moved from that into the torture and forced labor of those in concentration camps. Then it went to the liberation but it was still hard to read people's testimonies about what they found when they entered the camps. Before I had entered the Holocaust exhibit I had planned on checking out the crimes against humanity exhibit as well. I guess that goes into more detail about the concentration camps and inhuman treatment of the Jews during World War II. I decided after I finished the Holocaust exhibit that was enough for me for one day. I plan on going back sometime to see that exhibit and they also had an exhibit that showed paintings from artists during WWII. I think it would be interesting to see that an find out what artists thought about what was going on during the time.
Besides that there's not much to say except that I can feel the medicine working even though sometimes I still get the cough that's so bad it's gagging and I do still have a massive cough and last night I had to sleep sitting up my cough was so bad, but I can take death breaths AND I can breath through my nose both of which are major improvements. Hopefully the rest of this goes away in the next few days.

I'm sick in London

On Wednesday, our theatre class went to see Twelfth Night. I could have been really good but our seats were crappy. Our view of the stage was not very good and our ability to hear the actors was not very good either. The actors had not been trained to speak upwards to the people in top seating rows, so we had to strain to hear and everything was still muted. If we hadn't read the book for class before we went I would have been so lost. I was disappointed by the actors and the director of this show. On Thursday, one of the girls we stayed with in Wales, Megan, came to visit. She came in on Thursday night so she wasn't able to see a whole lot when she got in. The next day I was feeling better so we went out to a dance club with Megan. It was a lot of fun. On Saturday we took Megan to two of the markets here in London. One of the markets we were able to find a lot of cool stuff for cheap and some of the sellers are even willing to baragin the price down a few pounds more. I bought three gigantic pictures of different sites in London to give as gifts to some people for only 5 pounds total (this is about 8-9 dollars). We then took her to another market which was more high end. Most of the stuff was ritzy and expensive, so we simply looked around at stuff not willing to spend an arm and a leg to buy anything. On our way to and from the market we passed George Orwell's house which was very different from what I was expecting. It didn't look like the inside of the house was open to the public, otherwise I might have gone in to investigate, but the house was really tiny and a pastel pink color. The sign on the house was really tiny, which led me to believe that a lot of people didn't care it was George Orwell's house. On Sunday I was feeling better so I went for a walk around St. James park and people watched. I also brought a book, so I sat and read my book on the park bench for a few hours. Yesterday, I woke up feeling worse than I had before, but I didn't think it would be a wise decision to miss class two weeks in a row, so I made the journey to class. That night our theatre class took a tour of the National Theatre then saw the play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by Tom Stoppard. Stoppard was influenced by Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot for those of you who may know plays but not authors) and other other absurdist playwrites. This made the play very interesting. It was a play about Russian dissidence during the time of the USSR. The play included a full orchestra and some interesting things happened in the show. During one of the songs, guards came out and began kidnapping and beating up members of the band, it was interesting to watch and it took me a few minutes to put together the meaning of it with the story. Overall, I thought that this play was one of the best plays I've seen for class yet. Today I went to work and within a half hour of me showing up Sophie, my boss for those of you might not remember, told me I didn't good and suggested I go to the walk in health centre. Locating the nearest health centre to work, I went in, filled out the paperwork and sat down. I usually bring a book with me to read on the tube ride to work, so I pulled out my book and began to read. Within five minutes of sitting down my name was called and I followed the doctor into one of the "conference rooms"--it's the examination room, but they don't call it that. He asked about my symptoms and then we talked a little bit about politics all well I continued to cough up a storm. Within two minutes of sitting down with the doctor, he told me I had an infection from the symptoms I described and the way my cough sounded. He hadn't used a stethoscope or done any tests at all when he made his diagnosis, and this scares me a little bit, but at this point my cough was to the point where it was so bad, it would gag me and I couldn't breath, so I'm willing to try anything he gives me, so long as it makes me feel better. He prescribed amoxicilin and sent me on my way. Then I went to the nearest walk in pharmacy, handed them my prescription and was almost immediately handed back my pills. I have to take three pills a day, and I have to make sure to take them at the same time every day. The doctor suggested taking it around the times I eat so that I remembered easier. He said I could start today, but should keep in mind that I can only take three a day so if I take one later tonight I won't be able to take one tomorrow morning since it might throw off the medicine. He said I should only take two today and end with one in the am on the seventh day. I walked back to work with my pills and took my first one. Sophie said that I was starting to sound a little better later in day after I had taken the pill so I'm hoping that it continues that way, even though right now, I don't feel much better from earlier. I'm hoping that these pills make me better because if they didn't work, I was suppose to come back in after the seven days are up and we would try something different. He told me the name of these other pills but I forgot the name, all I remember is that it starts with a A and sounds funny. He said those pills were much bigger, but would be a little stronger, if these didn't work. He said that these pills were so big, I'd have to break it into two and then swallow the two parts. I'm praying that the amoxicilin makes me better because I'm not really wild nor enjoy taking huge horse pills. I'll try to keep you guys updated throughout the week as to my health.

Pictures From London

Oh, so I forgot to mention that I couldn't figure out how to post all my pictures here on my blog, so I created a photo bucket account instead. I attached the link. More pictures will follow, but the computer was running really slow and I got impatient.

http://s651.photobucket.com/albums/uu232/deepice/London/