Extremely late posting #1: Victoria & Albert musuem, Oxford

Pictures from the V&A: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695875245/

Pictures from Oxford: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695953505/

Hi there,

Ugh, as time has gone on I’ve gotten worse and worse about blogging. Sorry about that!

Friday August 1 I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum (the V&A, as the British call it) here in London. It specializes in sculpture, pottery, textiles… basically anything artistic that you can touch or might use in every day life in your home.

The weird thing is, I almost missed going to the museum. I’d read on the website that it was open until 10 pm on Friday nights, and that there was an entrance below-ground from the South Kensington tube stop. So, I got off at South Kensington and walked to where the entrance was supposed to be… and it was closed. Uh oh. I debated about whether I should go above ground or whether I might have misread the times (as you know, this would not be surprising given my numerous intellectual failings since being here, ha). I decided to go upstairs and investigate. The first entrance I came to: Closed. I found another that had some staff near the door, so I asked if the museum was still open and if so, where could I get in? I had to go around the block to the main entrance, but am so glad I didn’t miss this one.

I have to say… This is my museum; these are my exhibits. I don’t know that I’ve ever been just so happy to be in a museum. Every gallery just gave me the best feeling inside for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, I love history etc. but I also love looking at things and imagining how they might look in my home or on my body! Yes, it’s true, one of the V&A’s major galleries is a clothing gallery, and they even have a SHOE display!!!! That’s what I’m talking about!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They just opened a fantastic jewelry gallery as well – examples of jewelry from ancient Greece and Rome until today. The tiaras and rings in this gallery were unbelievable.

True to the other public museums I’ve visited here, you could take pictures in the V&A. Except in the jewelry gallery. I didn’t know this and didn’t see any signs that photos weren’t allowed in this particular gallery but a guard let me know I was violating policy. Eek. If you go to flickr, you can see the few pics I was able to get in before I got spanked by the ring police.

The other great thing about the V&A was the gift shop. They had such a variety of options for gifts, and better than any of the other museum shops, they had a real range of prices so that you could find something for almost anyone here. I wish I’d spent more time at this museum but time just didn’t work out that way. Next time I’m in London, I will definitely go back.

I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Londoners love their newspapers. It’s so interesting to think that in the U.S., many papers are struggling to stay in business but here, they are everywhere. I’ve been analyzing the London Lite, my particular favorite free paper that I pick up on my way home from work to read on the train home. It’s pretty similar to most of the other free papers. Bottom line is, anything that is hard news (e.g., politics, domestic policy, etc.) is written up in very short stories – maybe 2 small paragraphs. However, anything that involves blood/crime/conspiracy, celebrities, television, or sports can be found in these free papers. No wonder I love it, it’s like a daily version of People magazine. The other thing I love about it is that it has a crossword, Sudoku (never do that because it involves numbers – we all know why I avoid that one), but my favorite puzzle – they show 2 pics of a celebrity side-by-side, one photo is untouched, the other retouched. But the retouch is very sneaky – very subtle changes – and you have to identify 5 things that have been altered from the original picture. I am actually going to miss doing this every afternoon after work. I know, I am not exactly an example of an intellectual powerhouse but hey, I love it anyway!

The other cool thing about these free papers is the variety of ads you see in them. I saw an ad for MI5 (British version of CIA) in the Lite; they are especially interested in recruiting people who speak a variety of languages found in North Africa to help fight terrorism. Another favorite ad is for Mr. Habib, a fortune teller who can give you advice on work, love, school exams, and break black magic. LOVE IT. If I don’t get tenure, I might go into business breaking other people’s black magic.

On Saturday August 2, Frances Cook had me back to her house (Finches, Hilltop Lane, Chinoor – love this address). I had written in my first or second blog what a lovely little village she lives in, but she told me this past weekend that it was a crap village and not that pretty. Maybe I’m just used to Woodville as a village or something because I think it’s pretty enough. Apparently, it was almost wiped out from bombing in World War II so a lot of the buildings were built hastily afterwards and therefore are ugly. I didn’t see these buildings.

Chinoor is in the Chiltern Hills, a very scenic area of Britain. I had to take Chiltern Railways from London’s Marylebone station to a little place called Princes Risborough, which is about 7 minutes from Frances’ house. She picked me up at the station and we then picked up her husband Kit and went to lunch at a beautiful pub called The Old Fisherman. On the way there, we passed through a village called Aylesbury, which has some of the oldest private homes in the country – some are from the 1100s and people still live in them (not the original homeowners, of course – now it’s mostly yuppies). Crazy factoid: Barry Gibb (yes, of the Bee Gees) lives in an ancient house in this village. We also went through a town called Thame. Remember that the river Thames in London is pronounced “Tims?” Well, Thame is pronounced…. Tame. Not Tim. Confusing.

The pub was lovely – on a “river” (really just a creek – none of their rivers here really are much bigger than a creek, in my opinion), and the food was great. We had a fun conversation – Kit was born to British parents who lived in India. When he was 8, they sent him to boarding school in England. At Christmas, they would rent a hotel room for him to stay in over the break because it was too far for him to go back to India to spend the holidays with them. So, here he was, a little boy living in a hotel during the holidays with no familiar adults around. Isn’t that wild? Kit has lived in India, Pakistan, and several other very interesting places – he’s brilliant, funny, and a really great guy so it was fun to be spending time with him.

From there, we drove to Oxford (actually, to a park-and-ride bus station because Oxford doesn’t really have much parking). I’d already been to Oxford for the conference, but hadn’t really done any sightseeing there to speak of. I’m so glad they took me back, because it’s such a beautiful city. It’s known as the City of Spires and rightly so. They are everywhere.

Oxford University isn’t really a single university; it’s 39 separate colleges. Some are ancient, others relatively modern. We took a walking tour through 4 of the colleges with a completely ADHD tour guide named Stewart. He took 2 cell phone calls while leading us around, couldn’t stand still when trying to explain something to us, often repeated himself 3-4 times, paid a couple of street musicians to play songs for the group (even though 1 was HORRIBLE – he actually paid this guy 2x – once walking in one direction, the other time when we walked back by, ugh). He was nuts. I was ready to force-feed him a pile of Ritalin about halfway through the tour.

The university at Oxford was established in 800 A.D. It’s not the oldest university in Europe (the Sorbonne in Paris is the oldest) but it is the oldest in the U.K. and the oldest English-speaking university in Europe.

The 39 colleges are where students live and are tutored. They don’t actually attend lectures within their college; instead, the college is the center of their social lives. They go to lectures a couple of times a week in common areas of Oxford, but the primary way they are educated is through meeting several times a week with their tutors.

Tutors (professors) are PhDs who are “fellows” of a particular college, and different colleges are known for specializing in a particular subject. Students attending one of the Oxford colleges do NOT take a variety of courses, say in English, Biology, History, Geography, etc. If you want to study history, that is ALL you study the entire time you are there. You are then tutored by one of the Fellows, meaning that you have several weekly, INDIVIDUAL meetings with the professor. If we did this at FSU, this means that I would only work with students who are interested in studying stuttering, and we would meet 1-on-1 several times a week to go through readings and information together. INTENSE. And the student wouldn’t study anything else but stuttering.

Each college has high walls and big wooden doors through which the students enter. In the early days of the university, townspeople hated the students and tutors and would rob or fight with them. There was a riot 700 or 800 years ago and 63 students were killed, thus, the need for the walls and a safe place for students to study. Each college is organized in a rectangular fashion, surrounding a quadrangle (courtyard) of grass inside. Each has a dining hall, bar, chapel, dorm rooms, and offices for the tutors. Most have their own libraries as well.

The main library for Oxford University is the Bodleian Library. It’s ancient and contains a copy of EVERY book ever published in Britain. You are not allowed to check books out of the Bodleian, but you can go there to read. If a member of the public wants to do any reading at the Bodleian, you have to apply and get special clearances – it’s not easy to get into for reading purposes. There’s another building, the Radcliffe Camera (it’s a round building and Stewart the ADHD guide said it’s called a “camera” because it’s circular… Me, Frances, and Kit are pretty sure that’s not true), that’s part of the library but the ONLY people allowed in the Camera are ‘readers’ (aka students and tutors). The public is never allowed inside the Camera.
It costs about $10,000 a year to go to Oxford, including room and board, if you are a resident of the U.K. Considering you get 1-on-1 tutoring from a PhD-level professor who is recognized as a world expert in his/her area of expertise, that’s a pretty good deal I think. American students have to pay about $30,000 just for tuition. There are about 20,000 students attending the 39 colleges.

In medieval times, students had to study all the subjects that Oxford offered: literature, medicine, law, English, archaeology etc. You couldn’t graduate until you passed all the subjects, so most graduates had to study for 13-15 years before they earned their degree. Today, students earn their degree in 3 years because they are only studying 1 subject.

The oldest college at Oxford that still has its original buildings is New College (how ironic is that?). New College’s buildings were erected in the 1200s and most are still intact. This is where the dining hall and cloisters scenes were filmed for the Harry Potter movies. We were able to go inside but weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the dining hall or chapel.

After we’d finished the tour, we just walked around Oxford a bit. Oxford High Street looked like a street mall in America: a Gap, Burger King, McDonalds, etc. Kind of depressing when you think about such an ancient and cool city having all the crap chains on it’s main street.

On Sunday, Frances fixed roast lamb leg and fresh vegetables from her garden for lunch. Sunday lunch is a major family time in Britain – lots of people talk about what they do for Sunday lunch and which family members are there. Frances invited Sharon Millard (another clinician from the MPC) and her family for lunch and it was wonderful. Sharon’s kids are 8 and 5, and the 5-year-old girl Hannah is hysterical. We spent the afternoon mostly laughing at her. After lunch, I hopped back on the train and came back to London. Have to say, I LOVE train travel. Maybe I wouldn’t love it so much if I had to ride a train for 3 days or something, but I’ve been on trains for 10 hours (New York to Vermont) and 8 or 9 hours (Rome to Piacenza) and I’ve loved all of it. It’s just so much more relaxed and comfortable than flying.

As I mentioned, I had lamb at Frances’ house, and we also had lamb when I went to Willie’s house a few weeks ago. I have eaten more lamb in these two visits than I’ve ever eaten in my life and I have to say, it’s tasty! Speaking of food, I’ve decided that this would be the theme for this entry’s random observations:

-- Everywhere you go here, you can find lamb on the menu. And on the hillsides. I try not to associate the 2 or it makes me sad.

-- Indian food is EVERYWHERE. Might have something to do with the fact that there are Indians everywhere, which probably has something to do with the fact that India was one of Britain’s major territories or whatever you’d call them up until about 50 years ago or so. Curries are the thing. I had a mild chicken curry one night for dinner and it was pretty tasty. For some reason, I have an irrational food aversion (as in, no good reason for it especially considering I’ve never eaten it before) to anything that says “curry” but I decided to live it up and went with a mild version. I am really going out on a limb in oh so many ways on this trip, aren’t I?

-- You know I miss ice. Here, if you ask for a drink with ice, they give you about 3 cubes which melt in about 3 seconds because the diet coke, water, whatever is served at room temperature. I figured out that the reason there are no free refills is because in most places, when you ask for a diet coke, they open a can or bottle – not many fountain dispensers here. So, 2 main problems for me: no ice, and not a fountain drink. Oh I can’t wait to get home…

-- Breakfast sandwiches are called “buttys.” I have no idea why they are called buttys, but if you go to Burger King to get something for breakfast, your choices are several varieties of butty. I wonder if this has something to do with butter being a major condiment here? You can get butter on any sandwich, and actually probably DO get butter on your sandwich unless you specifically ask for it to be left off. The selection of Burger King buttys include bacon/egg butty, a sausage butty which is not a sausage patty but instead a big-ass sausage like a kielbasa all curled around on your bun. Not very appealing-looking, and then when you think “Hm, this is quite a weird looking butty” you sort of talk yourself out of eating it.

-- They also have fast food stands that sell “pastys.” A pasty, from what I can tell, is kind of like a combination pot pie/hot pocket. It’s pie crust wrapped around something like steak and kidney, or some version of lamb and vegetables. They’re not very liquid-y inside like a pot pie would be, so you can easily get them for “take away” (British term for “to go”). I don’t think they look very appetizing but I’m probably wrong about this because it involves pie crust and Lord knows I love pie crust.

-- When serving dinner, the British put the dinner plates in the oven first to heat them. The ovens I’ve seen in homes tend to be bigger than ours and have at least 4 separate compartments. This lets them cook dinner at one temperature in one compartment, then heat plates at another temp in another compartment.

-- Remember when I wrote that breakfast includes baked beans? One of the places I stop for diet coke in the morning offers the following for breakfast: baked beans and melted cheese on toast. Ok, sorry, but that sounds like someone gave BACK their breakfast onto a piece of toast. YUCK.

All right, then!

Love,
Lisa

Pictures from the V&A: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695875245/
Pictures from Oxford: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606695953505/

So what if I'm a lazy blogger, are you gonna throw me in the Tower (of London)??!!??

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606404552258/

Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been a week since I’ve blogged. I wish I had a better excuse other than I’ve been tired and out of energy when I get home at night, but that’s the best I can do! Since I last wrote, I’ve (1) been to the Tower of London and the National Gallery, (2) the teen intensive course has started, (3) I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum, (4) I spent the weekend at Frances Cook’s house, and (5) we went back to Oxford so that I could actually see it (vs. just hanging out at St. Catherine’s college when I was there for the conference).

To keep this entry from being too long, I’m going to talk about the teen intensive course and the Tower of London/National Gallery. I’ll leave my visit to the V&A, Frances’ house, and Oxford for a separate entry. This will help keep the pictures straight as well.

There are 11 teens on this intensive course: 6 boys and 5 girls. FIVE GIRLS. This is highly unusual because by the teen years, there are about 5 boys for every girl who stutters. Even the folks at MPC are kind of stunned about having this many girls in one group. The boys are loving it but the girls are less impressed with the boys. HA. The format of the teen intensive is very similar to the 10-14 year old intensive course; they deal with similar issues, such as improving fluency, increasing confidence, improving overall communication skills, and looking at the relationships between thoughts/feelings/behaviors. They just do it with a more sophisticated approach and with less parent involvement. The parents did come in yesterday (Monday Aug. 4) but that’s the only time they’ll be here with the kids. I don’t really have any pics of the teens; I’m not sure if they’ll want me to take pictures and I feel as though I don’t know them as well as I did the younger kids. I’m not spending all day/every day with them because I’ve been doing some other things in the clinic. Plus, they’re teenagers and could care less about me or the other adults in the clinic, for the most part. They love being in a group with others who stutter; the rest of us are basically irrelevant!

Most of what I’ve been involved with as far as the teens are concerned are a few games about communication skills/observation, practicing fluency skills, and going out on “assignments” with the kids. In the 10-14 course, we took the kids out and stuttered for them to people while they observed. I did the same activity with the teen group with 2 of the girls who stuttered. One was VERY nervous about it, almost sick she was so nervous. However, once she saw me do it, her anxiety started to come down pretty rapidly and pretty soon she was asking me to stutter more/harder to all kinds of people. It was amazing to watch her start to feel differently right in front of my eyes.

As I mentioned, I’ve been observing other activities in the clinic in addition to helping out with the teen course. I’ve continued to watch some preschool fluency sessions conducted using what’s known as the Palin PCI approach, a therapy they’ve developed here at the Centre. I’ve also watched a few sessions with school-age kids and families, and today sat in on one of the consultation evaluations they do here at the clinic. The Centre gets referrals from all over Britain; they provide a comprehensive assessment and therapy planning to support the local therapist for the family. Today’s family came from about 3 ½ hours away and we spent right at 4 hours with them. The child was assessed, the parents were interviewed, and then there was a big discussion about what’s going well and what things might need to be shifted just a bit to help the child move towards better outcomes. It was great because the child’s local therapist was able to attend as well, so it became a very hands-on problem-solving session and everyone was really happy with how things turned out.

I know I’ve said this a million times already, but I’m really grateful for this experience. I have lots of ideas about how to structure things differently within the practice at FSU so that we can do a better job serving families. But it’s not just about our structure and procedures, it’s also about changing how I do therapy and teach my students. I want to be as good and as skilled as the clinicians here. I’ve learned so much watching them work and just watching them “be” with families.

I also got to sit in on a research planning meeting with the staff who are responsible for research here: Sharon Millard, Frances Cook, and Willie Botterill (primarily, although others are involved as well). They are very actively engaged in trying to document and build the evidence that supports why they do what they do and what is it about how they serve children that works. I had some ideas about some possible studies and it looks as though we may start collaborating on some projects – yaaaHOOO!

Ok, enough about work. How about the tourist info? And random British observations? That’s right, off we go to the good stuff.

Saturday July 26 I went to the Tower of London, the National Gallery, and Oxford Street (a “high street,” meaning major shopping area!). It was a blast!

The Tower of London (ToL) is a World Heritage Site, meaning that it has been identified by the United Nations as important to world history. For a list of sites and the rationale for their selection, you can visit http://whc.unesco.org/. The Tower is not one building but instead a complex of multiple “towers” or buildings. It was used as a prison for hundreds of years, but only for people we would today consider as political prisoners. Criminals such as thieves, murderers, etc. were never held prisoner in this complex. The ToL is still considered a royal residence; the Queen never stays here but she could if she wanted to, they told us. Given that the Royal Family owns a crap-ton of cool stuff here in the UK, I would expect the Queen could stay just about anywhere she wants much less the Tower.

The ToL is on the banks of the River Thames (Tims) and has had several different water entrances over time. When it was first built, there were even lions on the property but they haven’t been around since about 500 years ago. However, the gate you see when you visit the ToL today is the one that’s been in use since the 1200s or so. When prisoners were brought to the ToL, they were brought up the Thames and came in through a water gate – this entrance used to be the association for WaterGate until Nixon helped us out with that one. It’s also been called “Traitor’s Gate” because again, the prisoners held at the ToL were considered to be traitors against the country.

England started out as a Roman Catholic country, but through time, there was a lot of strife about whether the English kings should be loyal to the Pope in Rome. When Henry VIII was King, the matter was settled once and for all because he created the Church of England – not because he was especially holy but because he wanted to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, and couldn’t get a divorce if the country remained Roman Catholic. After the creation of the Church of England, anyone who was openly practicing Catholicism would be considered a traitor and sent to the ToL.

The Tower was built as the first Royal residence somewhere around 1080. Holy cow. It blows my mind that I could go inside a building that was built 900 years ago. The White Tower, the first palace that kings and queens ever lived in, is in the middle of the ToL complex. You can tour parts of the White Tower and see how the royal family lived in early times. The walls are incredibly thick so the building stays very cool even on a hot day (it was very hot the day I was there). It’s also really dark inside.

Some of the prisoners at ToL were tortured – racked (put on a big long table and stretched, yuck) as well as other kinds of torture. Unfortunately, I managed to miss the torture exhibit somehow, which really still has me CHEESED (note use of British vocab word) because I thought it would be cool and freaky to see how people used to be horrible to others in the middle ages. I’ll explain in a sec how I was so boneheaded as to miss exactly 1 of the 2 most popular things to see at the ToL.

If you’ve ever drunk gin, you know about Beefeater Gin (yum). Well, the beefeater guy on the front of the bottle is dressed exactly as the Yeoman Warders are dressed – these guys are the Beefeaters. Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters, are the official guards at the ToL. They wear these crazy black and red costumes/uniforms with funny hats and guard the property as well as give tours. The ER on the front of their uniform stands for “Elizabeth Regina,” or Queen Elizabeth (Regina is Latin for Queen).

In order to become a Beefeater, you have to have had an exemplary career in the British military with a minimum of 22 years (random number? I think so) of service. Then, you can apply to become one of the Beefeaters and if selected, you have to learn the history of the place and be able to pretty much answer any question that could possibly come up. You also get free housing at the Tower for you and your family. In the pictures I’ve posted, the Beefeaters' residences are the brown/white buildings. The ToL has it’s own “governor,” chaplain, and doctor, and there’s a chapel on the property which is the local parish for the people who live at the Tower. No one knows where the nickname “Beefeater” comes from, but Yeoman Warders have been called this for about 400 years.

One of the things the ToL is most famous for is beheadings. For many years, if you were a political prisoner sentenced to death, you got your head lopped off. This only happened to about 10-15% of the people held at the Tower, even though they might have all carried this as a sentence. For most prisoners, they were just held a long time until the King/Queen in power died or there was some change in politics of the time and the prisoners were just let go. Henry VIII had 3 of his wives beheaded: Queen Catherine, Queen Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Grey who was only his wife for 9 days before he had her executed (and thus never crowned Queen). Famous people like the Queens were beheaded on the Tower Green in a private area; other prisoners had public beheadings that anyone could attend and watch. Apparently this was a very entertaining event to attend in those days. Yuck.

One of the stories our Beefeater guide told us was about a dude named James Scott, who was an illegitimate son of King Charles II. Charles was kind of a manimal and had a mistress named Nell Gwynn, who he had I think 13 children with. James was the oldest of the children, and in those days, even illegitimate children were recognized as royal. Well, for some reason (can’t remember it now), James was thrown into the Tower as a traitor and was sentenced to die. As a member of the royal family, though, he was entitled to have his portrait painted.

Well, the day they lopped his head off, they realized he’d never had his portrait painted and although they called the painter to the Tower to paint him REAL QUICK, the painter got there too late and the head had already been separated from the body. Bottom line: the guards and painter were afraid they’d get themselves landed in the tower, so they called a TAILOR who came in and stitched James’ head back onto his body. They then tied a white scarf around his neck to cover up the stitches and icky bits and painted the portrait. Gross. It now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

One thing about being a prisoner at the Tower was that you could actually live pretty well. Prisoners were allowed to have their own furniture, clothes, family, and servants around as long as they paid for the upkeep and brought in their own stuff. This also meant they could have their own food cooked, etc. It was kind of like living in a nice condo that you didn’t have a choice about leaving. And again, only 10-15% were actually killed, so most didn’t even worry that much about if they were going to be tortured or beheaded.

The other impressive thing about the ToL complex is that it’s where the Crown Jewels are kept. Several crowns, tiaras, ceremonial robes, swords, etc. are here. You get in a long line to enter the Jewel House and wind your way through the first floor. As you’re going through all the roped maze stuff, they have big media shows going on on the walls with scenes from Queen Elizabeth’s coronation ceremony and up-close pictures of the various crowns etc. As you get closer to the Queen’s jewels, you get on a moving sidewalk which takes you past them at a pace that doesn’t really let you stop and stare. However, that is exactly what you want to do because I promise you have never SEEN gems the size of the ones on the various crowns. The Imperial State Crown was unbelievable – shiny, HUGE diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts on it… Diamonds as big as your head, literally. Crazy to think that the rocks were real. No pictures were allowed in the Jewel House so I don’t have any in the folder on Flickr. You can google “British Imperial State Crown” and find some pics of it.

The Crown Jewels are 1 of the 2 most popular sites to visit within the ToL. The other, the Torture Exhibit, was the one I completely missed. I managed to visit the Tower Gift Shop, the loo, the little cart selling lukewarm bottles of water for $4 a bottle, narrowly escaped being bit by a raven who was irritated I was taking its picture (can a bird bite you?)… but I MISSED one of the main reasons to visit the Tower. I know YOU'RE not asking yourselves how I did this because you know I have done many boneheaded things since I’ve been here. I, however, am still asking myself. Here’s the deal. You can see the Tower Bridge from within the ToL complex. I kept taking pictures of it as I got closer and closer, and all of a sudden I realized there was a hole in the Tower wall that a bunch of people were walking through onto a sidewalk along the banks of the Thames. Perfect! I’ll go there and I’ll bet they’re walking through there because you can get a really good view of the Bridge there. So, I walked through the hole and realized I’d just walked through the side entrance and would now need another ticket to get back inside. I didn’t know they had a side entrance! Whose bright idea was that? There’s nothing at the front entrance about being able to go around to the side entrance, no sign at the side entrance saying CAREFUL YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE TOWER OF LONDON. DO NOT PASS THROUGH THIS HOLE IN THE WALL IF YOU STILL WANT TO VISIT THE TORTURE EXHIBIT. THE TORTURE EXHIBIT WOULD BE NEATER THAN PICTURES OF A BRIDGE. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO WALK THROUGH THIS HOLE????

But I do have some cool pics of the Tower Bridge, right? Sigh.

From there, I walked along the Thames for awhile and had lunch, then got back on the Tube to go to the National Gallery, England’s national art museum. You can’t take pictures inside this museum although I did manage to get a couple of the mosaics in the floor near the entrance. They were absolutely beautiful. I didn’t spend lots of time here because I’ve found that if I walk around an art gallery for long I stop really appreciating all the paintings. Instead, I planned out what I wanted to see and only took in those paintings. My favorite painting in the world is “Sunday Afternoon at the Isle of Le Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat. It hangs in the Art Insititute of Chicago. It just so happens that the National Gallery here has several paintings by Seurat, so I went to see those, as well as one of Van Gogh’s Sunflower pictures and some of the other Impressionist artists like Monet, Manet, and Renoir.

There was also a special exhibition on called “LOVE,” that was made up of different paintings representing, you guessed it, Love. The interesting thing about this exhibit though, was that Yoko Ono had an interactive artwork hanging – there was a blank canvas on the wall and a supply of Post-It notes and sticky square things you put on the back of the post-it to help it stay on the canvas. You could write anything you wanted about love on the post-it and hang it on the canvas, and when the canvas was filled the gallery would hang a new one until they had like 10 of these big canvases with post-its all over them. I have no idea what Yoko will be doing with these once she gets them, but if she puts them in her living room then y’all will be happy to know that there is a note to Ned on it from me.

Last stop of the day was to Oxford Street, one of the main shopping drags here in London. Holy buckets, what a sea of humanity it is on a Saturday afternoon during sales season. I thought I wanted to stop here to look for some things for the girls, but about 10 minutes after I got off the bus I was in meltdown mode – I was tired from the day and overwhelmed with people. In several of the stores, people weren’t even going in dressing rooms to try things on, they would just try them on over their clothes right on the sales floor. Couldn’t deal with that so I hopped on a bus and got the heck out of Dodge.

I have two more blog posts to write before I leave for home on Saturday morning. One will be about the Victoria & Albert Museum/visiting Frances’ again/Oxford sightseeing, and the second will be about my reflections on the whole experience here. On Sunday, I “topped up” my Oyster card for the last time – adding money to the automatic card I scan to ride the Tube every day. I’ve washed my last load of knickers in the sink here in the room and have thrown away a ton of random bits and pieces of things that I don’t need to take home with me. I’m having anxiety about leaving because I will miss the people here and just miss London period, but I can’t wait to be home with my family, friends, and Zoey. And ice machines. And caffeine-free diet coke. And about 6 hours of Project Runway episodes to catch up on.

Time for random observations:

-- When you want to cross at a crosswalk here, you press the usual sort of crosswalk button to stop the traffic. Here, though, when the crosswalk stops traffic, it stops it from all 4 directions instead of just the direction that you need to cross. How polite!

-- There are more short guys here in London than I’ve ever seen in my entire life combined. I’m not saying there aren’t any tall men here, I’m just saying that I have never seen such a herd of short ones. And not just my-height-short, I’m talking not even coming up to my shoulders. Irish Leprachauns, perhaps?

-- It seems that the restaurants are all staffed with (a) Russians, (b) Polish, (c) Indians, or (d) Pakistanis. The only place I’ve eaten where this hasn’t been true (both fast food and regular restaurants) is this little Italian place about a block from the hotel. Everyone there IS Italian.

-- If you get something figured out (e.g., figure out a person’s motivations, analyze and figure out a problem), you’ve “sussed” it. I don’t know yet if I’m a good susser, but I think so.

-- Brushing your teeth is “cleaning your teeth.” This just sounds funny to me.

-- All the kids and clinicians from the Centre comment on my accent. I'm not sure if they're aware of this or not, but I'm from Nebraska. We have no accent there. However, they insist I do and to prove it, they had me say the phrase, "When I marry Mary, I will be merry." According to them, the three "mary" words should sound different from one another. Mine all sound exactly the same. Try it out.

-- You “bang the door” when you want to shut it. “Could you please be sure to bang the door on your way out?” The first few times someone asked me this, I thought, why bang it, wouldn’t you like it closed instead? That one took me a bit.

-- Bandaids are called “plasters.” Can’t remember if I’ve posted this one already but this is another term that still catches me off-guard when I hear it.

-- And now, for the mother of all caught-off-guards … the other day I was sitting in Frances & Willie’s office (they share) working at Frances’ computer. Willie was in the office as well, working on some paperwork at her desk. Out of the blue, she asks, “Lisa, do you have any rubbers over there? Could you hand me one please?” WHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTT????????? What did you just ask me, you respectable, lovely, well-mannered, upper class Englishwoman? And what do I look like, some skanky American prostitute type woman? This is what I was shrieking inside my head. Instead, I politely said, “Excuse me?” and she repeated the request, saying she desperately needed a rubber because she’d made a mistake. A little late in the game for the rubber NOW, don’t you think, if you’ve already made “the mistake?” Turns out, the British call erasers “rubbers.” She was writing with a pencil and needed an eraser. Color me embarrassed, but please, just use an eraser to erase my embarrassment, ok?

All right then!
Love,
Lisa

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606404552258/

End of the Intensive & Hadrian as Elvis

Hi everyone,

I have had a busy few days since I last blogged. The 10-14 year old intensive course ended at the Michael Palin Centre – it was hard to say goodbye to the parents and kids, harder than I thought it was going to be! Emma, one of the kids in the course, said to me, “Promise you won’t forget about me, Lisa!” It was weird to think that I will probably never see these families again despite the fact that over the last 2 weeks, I’ve learned so much about them.

The course was such a personal experience for these families, learning about ways to support each child’s communication skills to increase his/her confidence and ability to communicate. The kids were hilarious and the parents very welcoming of me. I took a bunch of pictures of everyone and have created a set that is linked here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606414084603/ It includes pics of each child, his or her parents, and some of the charts they created while working on various aspects of coping with their stuttering (they call it stammering here).

The intensive course for the teens started today. They will be here for 2 weeks like the 10-14 year olds were, but their parents come only one day vs. every day as with the younger kids. There are 4 speech therapy students who are assisting with the group too; one is from University College London but the other 3 are from a university in Edinburgh, Scotland (pronounced Edinboro). Anna, one of the students, has an incredibly heavy Scottish accent – today I was asking her about whether they have to go to other spots in the UK for their clinical placements and she said, “Nay, we uze-u-ah-leee steey near Edinboro and don’t hafta go aweee” = “No, we usually stay near Edinburgh and don’t have to go away.”I would love to tape some of her conversation because her accent is absolutely fun to listen to. I think in my next life, I’m going to be British so I can have a cool accent and use all kinds of cool expressions like chuffed, minxy, and knickers (the word for underpants).

The weather is warming up here in London – it’s about 30 degrees Celsius here today, which is about 80 or so. I know that doesn’t sound warm, but considering that very few places have air conditioning (including the clinic), I am DYING. Thank you Jesus that my hotel room has a/c or I’d be one unhappy camper! I looked up the conversion ratio to see if I could figure out how to know what temp in C = what temp in F but it involves a relatively complicated formula. Those of you that know me know that math is out so instead I found some kid website where you enter the temperature in one window and it converts it for you. If it gets above 24-25 C here, (mid 70s), the Brits think it’s a heatwave. Actually, for them, it is.

Besides the weather, the big news stories the past week or so have been (1) about the Madelyn McCann case and how the British police bungled the investigation, and (2) the “canoe” couple who faked the husband’s death to collect about $500,000 and moved to Panama. They even told their adult sons that dad had died. They were sentenced to 15 years in prison last week.

Speaking of news, the British LOVE newspapers. They are everywhere. There are a couple of free papers you can get in the mornings when you are getting on the Tube, and a couple of other free papers that you can pick up on your way home. Then there are all the tabloids (red tops, they’re called) and the bone fide newspapers (e.g., The Times) you can buy. They are printed so that you can open them like a magazine rather than the American version of folding in half horizontally. I couldn’t quite figure this out when I first noticed it, but I am now thinking it probably has something to do with public transportation. Since so many people ride either the Tube or buses here, I think it’s easier to read, fold, and manage a newspaper that’s set up like a magazine.

In the free papers and tabloids, they refer to people in their stories by their first names rather than Mr. or Mrs. This is kind of surprising to me, given the British likelihood to be super polite.

Nothing too new on the knife crimes front. Some of the Members of Parliament have talked about enacting laws to enforce knife control but now that the crimes seem to be happening less often than when I first got here, you don’t hear as much about this type of legislation.

I had an interesting experience last Thursday afternoon. There is a small set of townhouses across the parking lot from the clinic. They are “council estates,” meaning the local housing authority owns them. They’re the nicest public housing I’ve ever seen – every day when I walk past, I think, “This would be a cool place to live, I wonder how much these places cost.” Well, in order to be eligible to live there, you have to have some sort of chronic health condition or disability that makes it difficult for you to own your own house.

Anyway, when we went to lunch last Thursday, a funeral for one of the residents was taking place. Being the hillbilly that I am, I thought about running back upstairs to get my camera but then decided that would probably be the ultimate in tacky (even though we all already know that I am tacky enough to take pictures of pictures… LOL).

Why take pictures of a funeral? Because what I saw is particular to the East End of London (the area where the clinic is located). For traditional East End funerals, the morticians supply not only limos to transport the family to the church or cemetery for the service, but they also use a glass-enclosed horse drawn hearse.

One of the people who works at the clinic explained the ritual to me. When someone dies, the morticians come to pick up the body from the home or hospital, etc. Anyone who sends flowers to the family sends them to the house, not the mortuary or church. Either the night before the funeral or the morning of, the morticians bring the casket to the house where the dead person is ‘laid out’ prior to the funeral service.

On the day of the funeral, this beautiful wooden and glass hearse is brought to the house, pulled by two large black horses with very shiny harnesses and huge black plumes on top of their bridles. It’s driven by a guy in a black riding costume in a coat with long tails, a long whip, and a top hat. The hearse is pulled up in front of the house and the casket is loaded but the door is kept open.

Then, the morticians pull the limos up behind the hearse and proceed to empty the house of all the floral arrangements and put them on the roof, hood, and trunk of the limos so that each car is covered on the outside with flowers. They use bungee cords to fasten them down but they are careful to arrange the flowers in such a way that they coordinate in both colors and in height etc. so you don’t notice any of the cords or anything.

Once the cars are loaded with the flowers, the pallbearers remove the casket from the hearse and it pulls forward approximately 100 yards. The immediate family lines up behind the pallbearers/casket and follow it as the pallbearers walk it forward to the hearse, put it inside, and close the door. The family then returns to the limos and gets in, then the whole procession follows the horses and hearse to the church or cemetery.

It was beautiful, and absolutely silent. You could have heard a pin drop and there were at least 100 people in this small parking lot who were part of the funeral procession. I asked why the casket was loaded, then unloaded and reloaded and the person telling me about this ritual said that it was a symbolic leftover from the old days when the bodies laid out at home were carried out the front door etc. and this was just to symbolize a similar occurrence.

There would be something very comforting, I think, in knowing that when you die this is exactly the procedure that would take place on the day of the funeral, and as I said, it was beautiful and quite moving. I’m really glad I got to see it. The horses were amazing – again, very patient and quiet. I’m convinced that British pets have the best manners of any I’ve ever met.

Last Thursday night (6/24) I went to see the Hadrian exhibit at the British Museum. The pics from this exhibition are linked here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606397462206/(btw, I LOVE that you can take pictures in most of the museums here!). Note the uncanny resemblance between Hadrian’s profile as a young man and that of ELVIS. Maybe Elvis never left the building? Maybe he’s been around 2000 years?

One interesting factoid about all these sculptures of Hadrian – when archeologists dig up some statue that could be him, one of the first features they look for is creases in his earlobes. Evidently, Hadrian was known for his extremely curly hair, his creased earlobes, and his remarkable resemblance to Elvis (just kidding about the Elvis part). An even more random factoid: if you have a crease in your earlobes, it’s an indicator that you are more susceptible to coronary artery disease. Who knew?

There are two things that amazed me about the whole Hadrian business. First, the wall he built to separate the Roman part of Britain from the northern tribes still exists. I thought it was cool that in certain parts of Nebraska you can still see the wagon wheel ruts from the pioneers crossing the prairie on their way west. That was only 160 years ago or so. Hadrian’s Wall is almost 2000 years old. That’s almost inconceivable.

The other amazing thing to me shows my ignorance regarding ancient history. In AD 70, the Romans took control of Jerusalem and were relatively hard on the Jews. However, when Hadrian came to power, the Jews had a leader who was fighting to take back control of the city. Hadrian squelched this by sending his troops to kill over 500,000 of the Jews. The ones that survived, believed to be about 1000, fled to caves in the Judean desert. To further punish the Jews, Hadrian then gave all their land to what was then Syria and Palestine. The conflict we see today in that region of the world began 2000 years ago, with Hadrian’s actions as emperor of Rome. Amazing.

Oh, one more interesting fact about Hadrian: he had a gay lover named Antoinus. In Roman times, it was acceptable to have both male and female lovers whether you were straight or gay, and Hadrian was married. However, he was with his pal Antoinus pretty much 24/7 and there were lots of drawings, sculptures, and ceremonial plates etc. that were made in A’s likeness. When A died on a boat trip down the Nile, Hadrian was devastated and tried to start a cult of people who worshipped Antoinus. This must have been quite a deal back then, because a good part of the exhibition was dedicated to their relationship and the artwork that came from it.

After I was done going through the exhibition, I checked out the Africa galleries at the museum. Different from the rest of the building, the Africa galleries showed primarily contemporary pieces – artwork from the last 100 years with some earlier items but not much. I found this very interesting, knowing that the British had colonized a good share of the African continent for a long time but didn’t see the need to plunder it the way they did with say, Egypt, Greece, or India. I had planned to also see the Asian galleries but by the time I was done finding out all about Hadrian and seeing the interesting pieces from Africa, I was museum-ed out and decided to head home.

I spent Friday night trying to de-intensify from the intensive course, and trying to cool down. It was quite hot on Friday too and by the time we finished our session notes from the day (each child gets session logs in his/her clinic file), walked to the Tube, and rode an extremely hot train home with extremely smelly people (me included), I was toast. I curled up in my air conditioned room here at the Rhodes Hotel and literally chilled out.

Saturday was another day of sightseeing but that’s another blog entry in the next day or so – this one has been long enough!

Random observations for this entry relate mostly to the concept of time. Most British seem to be very punctual and there are lots of clocks everywhere. Church bells also ring the time so it’s hard to NOT know what time it is. Words used to describe time:

-- First, you never say 8:30 or 8:15 as eight-thirty or eight-fifteen. You say “half-past” or “quarter past.”

-- Second, it’s also acceptable to say “half 8.”

-- You can talk about something you’re doing a week from Wednesday by saying, “On Wednesday week, I’m going to be visiting the National Gallery.” The only other time I’ve heard a future date like this is when I’ve been in Memphis. Random location association, right?

-- A two-week period is called a “fortnight.” The families spent a fortnight at the clinic learning about stammering. I’ve heard this term before but always in some historical fiction novel so it was surprising to me to hear it used in modern day conversation. I wonder about the origin of that word.

I leave for home Saturday week. Although I’m so excited and happy to be going home to Lindsey, Ned, Kaitlyn, Zoey, and all my friends, I am going to miss London very much. I love it here and again am so grateful to be having this experience. It’s brilliant!

All right, then!
Love,
Lisa

Hadrian pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606397462206/

10-14 Intensive pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606414084603/

At my (friend's) country house...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606345036905/

I’m “filing my report” a couple of days after the fact; this blog is about my trip to Wimborne, Dorset, to visit Willie Botterill at her house in the country.

Willie is the Associate Director of the Michael Palin Centre and actually lives in 2 places; in London, she has a 1 bedroom flat (i.e., apartment) that she and her husband live in from Sunday evening until Thursday evening. Then, they commute 100 miles home to Dorset to the house they consider as their home. Willie invited me to join them this past weekend.

Her husband David (who goes by “Bot”) had already gone to Dorset earlier in the week, so we took a bus from Victoria Coach Station. Victoria Station is one of the major train/tube/bus stations here in London, along with Paddington and Waterloo stations. You can get almost anywhere you need to go in England using one of these 3 stations.

The bus ride took almost 3 hours to travel 100 miles because of the traffic outside London. Within the city, they have a congestion charge program. There are geographical boundaries that run east-west and north-south that apply from 6:30 am until 7:00 pm on weekdays. If you drive a car within these boundaries, you must log onto a special website by midnight that night and pay £8 ($16) for driving within the congestion zone. They have cameras mounted at various spots around town and will take a picture of your license plate, so if you don’t pay, you get hit with a pretty big fine (I think around $400).

The good news about the congestion charge is that traffic within the city is really very good – not a lot of cars, getting around quickly is fairly easy. However, once you leave London, it’s kind of a nightmare. I guess this time of year is especially bad because the kids have just begun their summer vacation so every family is trying to get out of town to go on vacation.

Bot picked us up in a little town called Ringwood (I had to look this up because I kept wanting to write Ringworm), which seems to be about 10 miles from where they live in Wimborne. When we drove up to their house, I almost fell out of the car. It’s not a house, it’s a MANSION. It was built around 1840, has 13 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, and is on 5 acres which are mostly gardens. It’s an absolutely amazing house in an amazing setting. I’ve loaded lots of pictures of her gardens because I know some of you will enjoy looking at them but if you’re not a garden-type person, you’ll want to page through them quickly.

The interesting thing about their living arrangement is that they share the house with Willie’s brother Robert and his family. Robert and his wife have 2 young daughters and live in the house full-time. Willie & Bot are only there on weekends. They bought the house together because both families wanted to have a house in the country and if they pooled their money, they could get a large place. When they bought the house, it was kind of a wreck so Bot, who flips properties as his business, did a bunch of construction and fixed it up. One of his biggest projects was to make a 2nd kitchen for the house along with a sitting room, with the reason being that most families spend their time in/around the kitchen, so it was important for both families to have their own space in that department. Willie admits that it’s an unusual arrangement but it works for them for now.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures inside the house because I thought it would be tacky. (I did do some tacky stuff that you’ll find out about in a sec, but it wasn’t in front of Willie & Bot. Ha)

About the house, I can tell you that they have 12 foot ceilings, the rooms are huge (e.g., their dining room can easily seat 25 people around the table plus not have to move out the china hutch or sideboard), and it already had 2 master suites (huge bedrooms with dressing rooms and bathrooms). I had a tub in my bathroom but no shower, so Willie had me use her brother/sister-in-law’s bathroom because it had a shower. I used about 75 gallons of water for my first shower there, though, because I didn’t realize that the shower head operated on a completely different faucet system... I turned on the water in the tub which came gushing out like someone had busted open a dam, then I turned the knob for the shower and water came gushing out of there too. Hmm. Found out the next morning that you can turn the shower on withOUT having to turn on the tub. Yikes.

The weekend was supposed to be a quiet one, but plans quickly changed. Willie and Bot have 2 sons, Sam who’s 28 and Harry bwho’s 24 who both showed up for the weekend. They also have a daughter named Jessie, but she was in Spain with friends. Sam works in London in financial public relations, and Harry is a toy engineer with Lego in Denmark. He was home visiting for about 10 days and showed up Saturday with about 7 of his school friends. The 13 bedrooms immediately came in handy. Both boys are fabulously good-looking (see their pics on Flickr) but better than that, they are smart, funny, kind, and well-mannered.

One of the interesting things about the boys is that they attended the same boarding school as Princes William & Harry. Sam played on the same soccer team as William, and Harry and Harry built model airplanes together. Their pictures from the school and the team/planes are hanging on the wall together with Willie’s other family pictures. Here’s the tacky part – I was too chicken to take pictures of the interior of the house, but I DID take pictures of the pictures with the princes that were hanging on their walls. Of course, I only took them when I was alone for a bit in the house on Sunday. Because I’m a chicken and tacky at heart. Can you believe it??? UGH I am such a hillbilly. I truly was having a “Should I? Shouldn’t I?” debate with the little devil on one shoulder and the little angel on the other. Needless to say, the devil won out and I took the pics, but the angel is making me feel guilty enough that I’m not posting them. At least not tonight. LOL

On Saturday, Willie and I went into Wimborne Market, a combination farmer’s/flea market. This was an experience. First, the farmer’s produce was amazing – very colorful and tons of it. The interesting thing about this was that the people working in the stalls were shouting things out at people walking by, “Get your grapes here, only 1 pound for a nice bowl of grapes!” “I need some customers, help me clap to get some customers!” In addition to produce, there were also cheese stands, meat stands, antiques booths, knick-knack bad garage sale type stuff, jewelry, used clothing, new clothing.... You name it, you could get it here. I loved it. I bought a dress from one of the new clothing booths – it’s from Paris and is linen, so I’ll fit right in with the rest of the people here. It’s also brown, which will also make me fit in. I wear much brighter clothing than most other women here in London, I’ve noticed... Kind of sticking out to everyone who pretty much looks at me thinking, “You’re not from around here, are ya?”

The other funny thing about Wimborne market is that we saw 4 of Willie’s relatives there. She had warned me that a lot of her family lives around Dorset and we might run into some of them. So, it’s Saturday at noon and I’ve already met 2 of her sons and 7 of their friends, and 4 relatives.

Saturday afternoon, we drove to Sandbanks (on the English Channel), where I met approximately 20 more of Willie’s relatives – nephews, cousins etc. I’m not kidding, we met up with at least 20 as we walked along the beach and various places around Sandbanks. She and 119 other family members own property in this little town, left to them by a grandfather who wanted it to be a place his family met up each year. She obviously takes great joy in having this family connection – every group of relatives we met, she would get a huge smile on her face and there were hugs/kisses all around. It was neat to witness.

If you look on a map of England, and look at the south central coast, you will see a city called Bournemouth and maybe even a harbor called Poole Harbour. Sandbanks is right on Poole Harbour, just a little to the west of Bournemouth. It is the 2nd largest natural harbour in the world, with Sydney Harbour being the only one that’s larger. The harbour is on one side of the town and the English Channel is on the other. When you’re on the beach here, you can see the Isle of Wight in the distance on one side. On the other, you can see some distant white cliffs – these are chalk cliffs known as the Jurassic Cliffs. There are so many fossils embedded in these cliffs along the English Coast that about 240 miles of the coastline is being designated as a World Heritage Site. I tried to take pictures as best I could of the Isle of Wight and of the cliffs, but they were pretty far from where we were standing on the beach. There’s even a castle on Poole Harbour – Gramercy Castle. I tried to google it to see what I could find out but the only thing that kept coming up was Gramercy Park Hotel in NYC.

Saturday night was quiet for the most part – the boys went out with friends and Willie, Bot, and I had a quiet dinner in. Sunday morning, we made breakfast for everyone then made up a picnic lunch for Bot and all the “kids” because they went back to Sandbanks to sail. Willie and I took a walk around the property, she went to the grocery store (and I took pictures of her pictures of Princes then had a guilt meltdown about it), and then threw a barbeque for everyone when they got back. It was really great to meet so many talented and fun young people and it made me really wish that Lindsey had been with me.

I asked Willie if she’d had any Princess Diana encounters and she said that once, the boys were allowed to bring movies to school to watch because it was the end of the semester and they were finishing up with exams etc. Harry wanted to take a movie that was rated PG-13 but she refused and told him that it was inappropriate. They get to school, and lo and behold, Prince Harry showed up with Universal Soldier, which was rated as “18,” meaning only people older than that were supposed to see it. Willie told Diana that she thought that Universal Soldier wasn’t appropriate for the kids and Diana made Prince Harry give it up. Bot said that the advantage to having his sons go to school with the Princes was that they were in the safest place in England; there were 2 police booths on the school property and both Princes had 2 bodyguards with them at all times.

All in all, the weekend was really enjoyable and Willie and Bot’s hospitality and company were fantastic.

Ok, so time for random observations:

-- The English don’t refrigerate their eggs. You can buy eggs off shelves in the grocery, in the farmer’s market, from a butcher shop... And they don’t keep them in the refrigerator when they get them home. Willie told me that eggs will actually keep for quite a long time before they go “off.” This makes me wonder about friends I’ve known who got food poisoning from eating raw eggs. The English also keep their jellies/jams in cupboards rather than in the refrigerator.

-- Dogs are everywhere here – people take them all over the place, sometimes even on the Tube. I have to say, though, that they are 100% better mannered than most American dogs I know including, unfortunately, the Z. They walk calmly on leashes, some of them don’t even have to be leashed, you never hear or see them barking... It blows me away.

-- Proving my point that a 2 ring binder system is against God’s plan for binding looseleaf paper... I bought a large 2 ring binder the other day because the one that the clinic loaned me was too small and was getting filled up. The large binders though, have a weird clasp and lever system by which you open them up to put the paper onto the rings. Somehow the binder I got was messed up somehow and the little lever came off a wheel so that the rings wouldn’t close. I was trying to fix it when POW, the metal pieces exploded off the spine of the binder and one pierced my fingernail right down to the nail bed, right in the middle of my fingernail. I was bleeding and everything, and it HURT. Still does, as a matter of fact. First of all, a 2-inch binder is not a complicated piece of office equipment – a metal lever system shouldn’t be needed. Second, I have used many ring binders in my life and the worst thing that’s ever happened to me is getting a small pinch when I accidentally shut the rings on my finger. I have never had any sort of penetrating wound from a binder. Until now.

-- There was some discussion at the planning meetings for the intensive course about whether it was ok to use the term “brainstorm” or whether we should use a term like “thought shower” instead. The brainstorm term is supposed to be biased against people with epilepsy, therefore not politically correct. It IS ok, though, to say someone is “having an epi” when they are upset and having a fit. Does this seem strange to you, that you shouldn’t use “brainstorm” but it’s ok to use “epi”?

-- When the English make coffee, they pretty much use Nestle Instant Coffee. You can buy the brewed stuff at Starbucks, LaTazza, or Caffe Nero, but if you’re making it at home, you make instant coffee.

-- Knife crime continues to get lots of attention in the papers (mostly because they keep having knife crimes occur). The teenagers who commit the crimes are referred to as “yobs.” From what I can tell, this is the word that would be equivalent to “thugs” or “gangsters.” “A gang of yobs was seen chasing a young woman...” LOVE this word and plan on adding it to my vocabulary as soon and as frequently as possible. Ya big yobs.

-- There are 4 speech pathology students who are doing a practicum placement at the clinic to help with the intensive. They’re mostly observing therapy rather than conducting it themselves, but it seems that one of their main jobs is to make tea for all of the MPC staff and parents. Several times a day, they go off to turn the kettle on, they bring cups of tea to the clinicians, they wash up ... This is very different from what we would expect from students in the US. Although, it does seem like a good idea for students to run and get me a diet coke (WITH ICE) every now and then... Hmmm...

Love,
Lisa

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606345036905/

Important relics the English have ripped off from the rest of the world... aka The British Museum

Hi everyone,

I’m sorry it’s been almost a week since I’ve posted anything. I’ve had some really late nights this past week trying to get some work done “after work” at the clinic, then spent Thursday evening at the British Museum and Friday night traveling to Dorset to spend the weekend at Willie Botterill’s house in the country.

The first week of the ages 10-14 intensive therapy program was, well, INTENSE. The families come each day from 10-3:30 pm, with an hour for lunch at 12:30. Other than that, there is one brief (maybe 10 minutes?) break in the morning and the rest of the time, both parents and kids are working like dogs. The kids practice fluency tools about 3-4 times per day for about 20 minutes; the rest of the time is spent learning about stuttering, communication, talking about how thoughts and feelings influence our behavior, and doing behavioral “experiments.” For instance, on Friday the kids brainstormed all the possible reactions they believe other people have when seeing them stutter. They then had to write down how it made them feel when other people did X (e.g., laugh at them, tease them, make fun of them, etc.), rate how strongly they felt that feeling, then rate how likely it would happen if they stuttered in front of someone. After they’d made these ratings, the other clinicians and I took them out in the neighborhood and WE stuttered to strangers (asking them where the nearest Tube stop was, where could we find a pharmacy, etc.) and the kids’ job was to watch to see what reactions we got. Afterwards, we checked out whether their predictions actually came true and how they felt about what they saw. It was pretty fun.

The parents group meets while the kids are meeting, and they discuss all kinds of things… Their worries for their children, what communication is actually about, how to give praise, how to deal when their kids have meltdowns… they also practiced stuttering with one another and had to go out and stutter to a stranger as well. Probably the neatest part of the parents group that I was able to witness was the parents discussing their thoughts, feelings, behavior, and physical responses when they see their child stutter, and developing the understanding of how their reactions influence how their child reacts in situations like that.

The kids’ regular speech therapists (from their home area) also spend 1 day with the groups, ½ the day with the parents and ½ the day with the kids, to observe what’s taking place. They stay afterwards for about an hour to discuss what they observed and figure out if there are any changes they need to make to the child’s therapy program when he/she returns to regular speech therapy. This week, each family will bring the siblings in to spend a day in the program as well. The clinicians do a family session with each family to teach the whole family how to do problem-solving and discuss any issues that might need to be talked about as a whole group.
It’s amazing to be a part of both of these groups. I’ve gotten lots of good therapy ideas that I can implement even in individual therapy with kids back at FSU, and I am beginning to feel more confident about working with parents as well.

We have one more week with this age group, then the teenager intensive group starts next week and runs for 2 weeks. The teens come on their own; parents only come in 1 day.

As I mentioned, Thursday evening I went to the British Museum. It has all kinds of artifacts, mostly ancient ones, from around the world. It’s been in continuous operation since 1753, and contains things like King George III’s library (the King who was in charge during the Revolutionary War). It’s divided into galleries by regions of the world: India, Africa, Egypt, Ancient Europe, Greece, the Americas, etc. The bottom line: it’s filled with stuff the British ripped off from these regions when they were going around conquering everyone. Even British citizens will tell you that it’s all been ripped off. They have quite a few priceless things in their collection, and it’s cool because they let you take pictures inside the museum. The pictures I took are posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606283577685/

Because I went in the evening, all the galleries weren’t open like they are in the daytime, so the only thing I didn’t get to see that I set out to see that night was the Lindow Man, a 2000 year old mummified dude that was preserved in a peat bog up until about 15 years ago. I guess he was so well-preserved that you can still see parts of his clothing and his red hair. That gallery was closed, unfortunately. However, I DID get to see the real Rosetta stone, the stone that allowed people to decipher hieroglyphs and another ancient language. I also saw loads of mummies and sarcophagi from Egypt, and these really important pieces of the Parthenon (an ancient Greek building built about 2500 years ago) called the Elgin Marbles. They are called that because Lord Elgin, in 1801-1805, brought them back to England and gave them to the Museum. They’re not really marbles (I actually thought they WERE the kind of marbles you played with but they must be extra-special-really-neat or something), they’re statues and carvings MADE of marble. Once again, I’m an idiot.

There’s a big stink now about Greece wanting these marbles back because their view is that the English ripped them off (which they did) and they should be located in Greece as part of their national heritage. It’s such a politically hot topic that the museum has a little brochure about it in the gallery where the marbles are on display, and although they are trying to be all politically correct about the whole stink, they are obviously biased. Here’s some information straight from the brochure:
1. Parthenon Sculptures in Athens: Recently the Greek authorities have continued the process of removing the sculptures from the Parthenon, work that began over 200 years ago. Nearly all of the sculptures have now been removed from the building. They are being transferred to the New Acropolis Museum, which is due to open in 2008. (Lisa’s comment: Pretty objective and factual, right?)
2. Parthenon Sculptures in London: The sculptures in London, sometimes known as the “Elgin Marbles,” have been on permanent public display here in the British Museum since 1817, free of charge. Here they are seen by a world audience of five million visitors a year and are actively studied and researched to promote worldwide understanding of ancient Greek culture. The Museum has published the results of this research extensively. (Lisa’s comment: Hello, like a world audience wouldn’t view them in Athens, study them, or results be published? Give me a break!).

I’m going back to the Museum this coming Thursday; they have a special exhibition opening called Hadrian: The Empire, about Hadrian, one of the most famous and violent Roman emperors. It’s going to be such a big and special exhibition that you have to buy a ticket with a timed entrance to even be able to get into it. I’m also going to try to see the African and Asian galleries, neither of which I had time to see last week. Plus, I spent about 2 hours at the museum and at some point, it becomes sort of overwhelming. There’s only so much plunder you can take in at one time.

Also on tap for sightseeing this coming week: The National Gallery, which is the premier art gallery in the country (that’s Wednesday night), and the Victoria & Albert museum Friday night. The V&A has a bunch of textiles and things – clothing, tapestries, etc. from ancient times through today. There’s a special exhibition going on right now of the costumes the Supremes wore when they performed in the 60s that I’ve heard is really cool that I’m going to try to see. Then Saturday, I plan to go to the Tower of London, where you can see the Crown Jewels and the place where they used to chop people’s heads off and torture folks back in medieval times. Sounds gross but also fascinating. I really like all the history here, and you get such an appreciation of how people in Europe have preserved their history and value old buildings and things vs. how in America we think it’s great to rip old stuff down and build something new and shiny in its place. Sunday may be the day I go to Kensington Palace, or I might just hang out and do laundry, etc.

I have to say, I really am enjoying living here much more than I anticipated. I actually think I could live here full-time and would love to work at the Centre. However, there are things I miss a ton about home (besides Ned, Lindsey, Kaitlyn, Zoey, and all my friends/family). I miss caffeine-free Diet Coke. You can get Diet Coke here, but not caffeine-free. In fact, I haven’t seen any caffeine-free sodas at all. I miss ice machines. Fiercely miss them. And I really miss someone to have dinner with. Every day all the clinicians eat lunch together which is nice, but having dinner by myself every night is getting old. I also miss the Bravo, TLC, and A&E channels. TV here leaves a lot to be desired.

Ok, here it is, my British update for this blog:

-- This week I finally was brave enough to ride the bus instead of taking the Tube everywhere. The first one I rode was a regular sort of bus, but the second one I rode was a double-decker. I sat up top and took pictures of people below me.

-- Men here don’t typically wear wedding rings, and an overwhelming number of women wear just a simple gold band. I’ve only met maybe 3 women so far who have any sort of diamond in their ring. The simple gold band goes for anyone, no matter what their income or social status.

-- The computer keyboards have similar keys but in different places. The letter keys are all in the same place, but the number 2 has quotation marks “ instead of the @ sign. Also, the # symbol is on the regular keyboard (where the quotation mark should be) vs. on the number 3. In my opinion, this is messed up. It also makes using the computers at the clinic to check my email because my password has the # sign in it and I always forget that it’s not on the 3, then get irritated that I can’t get logged in and start getting pissed at FSU for the email system being down or messed up. It takes me about 5 minutes to remember it’s me not using the right keys.

-- They have loads of different types of radio programs on – soap operas, talk shows, etc. that are different than from what we’d have in America. The kind of stuff you’d expect to see on TV vs. hear on the radio.

-- New words:

* Taking a Mickey Michael = making fun of someone. Most of the time they just say, “taking the mickey out of someone” or “taking a mickey.” That was very confusing when I first heard the parents and kids using the term.

* Chuffed = pleased. The parents were talking about one of the kids talking to a stranger on the Tube and how chuffed she was with herself afterwards. The weird thing is, that once I heard the parents use the term, then I noticed the kids and clinicians using it too. I guess it surprised me because I’d been here 3 weeks and hadn’t heard anyone use that word until about Wednesday of this last week. I really like this word.

* Crotty = crappy or nasty-looking. “That fruit looks a bit crotty, doesn’t it?”

* They pronounce “issue” as “iss-you,” without the /sh/ in it. They also pronounce “schedule” as “shed-yule,” without the /k/ sound. Their calendars are “diaries,” including appointment schedules – “Let’s check the diary to see when they are shed-yuled to come in.” I also heard some people this week saying “CON-tri-bute” instead of “con-TRIB-ute.” Not everyone pronounces it this way, but it seems that people from Wales especially say it this way.

I’m finding that some of the English expressions/vocabulary are creeping into my speech. The other day I said, “All right, then” as I was ending a conversation at the clinic, and I’ve also started saying things are “brilliant.” I don’t even think about it. It’s funny to me that I would have picked this stuff up so quickly, vs. never saying “might could” even though I’ve lived in the South for 6 years now!

I love the way the British are so specific with their language (no one uses words like “things” or “stuff”) and how they don’t drop word endings (they say “working” instead of “workin’”). And they don’t really use slang as much as we do, “So he was like…, then I was like…” I’m going to try to work on being more specific and getting rid of some of the slang myself, just because it sounds so much nicer.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m in Dorset this weekend at Willie Botterill’s country house (i.e., MANSION – it has 13 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms). I’m going to write a separate blog about it, probably on Monday or Tuesday, because it’s a whole set of pictures and stories in and of itself.

All right, then!

Love,
Lisa

I'm such a TOURIST!

Hi there,

I have lots of pictures to share with you on Flickr with this entry; the link is at the end of the blog post and be prepared because I think there are around 65 of them.

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous weather here – about 70 degrees with a few clouds here and there but NO RAIN finally! Because it was so nice out, I played 100% tourist and walked along the South Bank area of the Thames (pronounced TIMS), crossed Westminster Bridge near the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, then went around the corner to see Westminster Abbey. From there, I walked down Whitehall (the street with all the government buildings), ate lunch at a pub, then walked to Trafalgar Square. After THAT, I walked through St. James’ Park to Buckingham Palace. I ended my afternoon by walking up Piccadilly Street to Piccadilly Circus, London’s answer to Times Square, where I got the Tube back home. All in all, I was out for about 7 hours.

South Bank was fun – it has a distinct summer festival atmosphere with street performers, parents out with the kids, tourists, museums (e.g., the London Aquarium, the Museum of Horror Movies, etc.) That’s also the location of the London Eye, sort of a giant ferris wheel that you can stand up in. When you go on it, it’s called taking a flight. It has a spectacular view of London but it also has a spectacular price tag and spectacular waiting line, so I decided to skip it unless I get to the end of the trip and have money left over.

Probably the thing that struck me the most, however, was finally getting a glimpse of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Up to this point, I hadn’t yet seen that famous image that we think of when we think of London. To be honest, up until yesterday, it felt as though London is just a generic big city that you’d see anyplace only with really cool accents and vocabulary. However, that all changed when I got to the banks of the river and saw it for the first time. It really is an amazing sight!

I walked the length of South Bank from the Royal Jubilee bridge to Westminster bridge, where I crossed the Thames. This puts you right in front of the Houses of Parliament/Big Ben, and you are just around the corner from Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is actually comprised of several smaller churches so I took pictures of one called St. Margaret’s; it had beautiful stonework and these huge wooden doors that were amazing. Then I walked around to the front of the Abbey. It was closed because of it being Sunday, but there had been some sort of service just before I got there so people dressed in their Sunday best were still milling about. It’s such a shock to see such a famous building that’s so huge right in the middle of town, across from a modern office building. It has a nice gift shop that actually had decent London souvenirs rather than the rubbish (ha, how’s that for a British word) you see on the streets or in convenience stores. I stocked up!

After Westminster, I walked along Whitehall, the avenue where all the important British government buildings are located. I even walked past 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister, but it was blocked off with gates and guards so you really couldn’t see much of anything. One of the locations I walked past was the quarters for the Horse Guards, one of the Queen’s army regiments. They actually had some guards on horses outside the gates – go figure! Their uniforms were gorgeous, as were their black horses. There was a sign warning that the horses will occasionally bite and kick but I have to say that they were some of the most well-behaved horses I’ve ever seen, considering the crowds around them all day and how they have to stand so patiently while at the post.

By then, I was hungry and needing a diet coke, so I stopped into a pub called The Clarence. It had a great vibe, great service, and GREAT onion rings! It’s interesting how the Brits have the same names for some foods, like a club sandwich, which really aren’t what Americans think of when they think “club sandwich.” I have to say, though, that the food here was really good and I’ll go back when I’m in that area again.

On to Trafalgar Square. This commemorates Lord Nelson but more importantly is considered a national heritage site; it’s a frequent location for both demonstrations and celebrations. The National Gallery of Art sits just off the square, and there are statues and fountains all around. It really is a cool gathering spot. Yesterday when I was there, there was a group of individuals protesting China’s ban on North Korea in the Olympic games. But there were also loads of people just hanging out, climbing the lion statues (they are GIANT), reading near the fountain. It was neat. Many of the foreign embassies are either on Whitehall or at Trafalgar Square.

I looked at the map and thought that Buckingham Palace was a ways away, but saw a sign that pointed in the direction of the Palace so I decided to go for it. I walked onto an avenue known as Pall Mall (but people here just call it the Mall), which is the famous avenue you see whenever you see any kind of processions from the palace into London (e.g., Princess Diana's carriage ride on the way to her wedding). St. James’ Park is along the Mall on one side and is a beautiful and lively park. There were families galore having picnics, and a small orchestra was playing under a tent. You can rent lawn chairs for $4.00 for two hours and there are hot dog stands etc. along all the paths.

Across the street are Clarence House (Prince Charles’ home) and St. James’ Palace (Princes William & Harry live here). I tried to take pictures but they are behind some pretty tall walls and there is a lot of landscaping that extends even above the wall. Here’s where I saw my first Household Division guards – you know, the ones with the red jackets and huge furry black hats? You can walk right up to them and stand near them to have your picture taken, but they won’t speak to you or look you in the eye. The other interesting thing was that they were holding machine guns that had huge knives attached to the ends of them. I don’t know why that surprised me so much, but it did. I guess I thought they’d just have a shiny sword or something but I read online that the guards are actual serving soldiers and are considered to be the elite among all British army members. Guards are placed at St. James’, Clarence House, and Buckingham Palace. I was too late to see the Changing of the Guard (it usually occurs around 11:30) but from what I understand, it’s kind of hit-or-miss in London anyway in terms of the schedule and whether there are too many tourists to even see the change. All the guidebooks recommend that you go to Windsor Castle to see the Changing of the Guard.

Continuing down the Mall, you can see the Queen Victoria Memorial which sits right in front of Buckingham Palace. All around are beautiful flower gardens and these HUGE black gates tipped with gold. It’s really pretty impressive. The palace itself is impressive in that it’s so freaking big, but I didn’t find it to be particularly beautiful – except for the gates. It needs some new window treatments – the curtains are sort of your run-of-the-mill sheers (at least that’s how it looks from the outside, I’m sure they’re fancy from the inside. Despite me yelling, “Hey, Queenie! I’m here to represent! How about a shout out?” she ignored me and didn’t come out. I don’t understand it. I think it may be because they’re still fussing over us winning the war. The least she could have done was throw me a biscuit.

From there, I walked up Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly reminds me of a street in Manhattan; all big hotels and street vendors with paintings, used books, jewelry, etc. I was knackered (tired) after all the walking (those of you who know me well probably can’t believe I did all this hiking around) so I decided to head home. I also had a bag full of souvenirs that I was sick of carrying around. I hopped on the Tube and came back to my perch at the Rhodes Hotel.

Today at MPC was the first day of the intensive therapy course for the 10-14 year old kids and their families. I will write more about that later in the week, but my job so far is to sit in on the parents’ group and assist Willie Botterill, the lead clinician. This means I write things the parents say on big flip charts and write important information on post-it notes about things we need to remember (e.g., “get box of Kleenex”). It’s great, actually, because it allows me to really pay attention to the group process and see how these parents are experiencing it rather than having to try to be on my feet and lead the group. I continue to be so grateful for my experience here and get such a buzz out of watching these clinicians work.

Ok, now for the random observations:

-- The bathrooms here really ARE called “loos” (they don't just call them that on TV). You go to the loo. If you say “bathroom” they just think you’re American. If you say “restroom” they have no idea what you’re talking about.

-- Water pressure is a funny thing; although they have much better water pressure here than in, say, Italy, if you’re in a public restroom and the person next to you flushes their toilet, you might have to wait a minute or two before yours has enough pressure to flush.

-- Also, the public restrooms in the Tube stations all cost some amount of money to use. The loos at Paddington and Westminster stations are 30p (p = pence, about 60 cents) and the loos at Piccadilly Circus station were 60p. Can you believe it, $1.20 just to go pee. Yikes. The other stressful thing about this is that when you really have to pee and you have to come up with money for it, and you aren’t 100% certain yet about what coins are what denomination, it can make you really hop up and down.

-- Speaking of coins, they have coins for: 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, 1 pound, and 2 pounds. This is way too many coins, in my opinion. Or, if they’re going to have this many, they should at least be ordered by size. The 5p coin is the smallest, and 2p is one of the largest. The only ones I know for sure are the 1 pound, 2 pound, and 5p coins. I’m probably getting ripped off because every time someone charges me, say, 1 pound 80 pence, I just throw some coins at them and ask them if that’s right. Every time I think I have the amounts figured out, I find out that I’m wrong. So, this tells me that they have too many coins and should just reorganize their monetary system so that it makes it easier on people like me. Who have to pee. Now.

-- Back to the bathroom topic. The English are extremely polite. This is evident even in the setup of their bathroom stalls. The sides and door come all the way down until about 6 inches off the ground. This means that you can’t see whether someone is in the stall or not. Remember the famous “Can you spare a square?” from Seinfeld? Yeah, that wouldn’t happen here. However, in order to help you determine whether a stall is available or not, they have little indicators on the doors. Once you go into the stall and slide the handle across to lock it, a little window on the front will say “Occupied” or “Engaged,” or have a little red dot in it to show that that stall is in use. If the stall is empty, this same little window will say something like “Available” or have a green dot. This is one of the things I actually really love about the British system and think America should consider adopting as a practice. Besides being irrationally afraid of clowns, one of my other big fears is someone walking in on me while I'm going to the bathroom in a public restroom. I don't worry about that here. I also haven't seen any clowns, come to think of it. Hmm, no wonder I'm loving this place.

-- New words/sayings: “pitch up” = get started or get going. I like this term a lot. “Joiner” = carpenter. We have a dad in the group who is a joiner for the BBC and works on the sets for East Enders (major soap opera sort of show here) and Pride and Prejudice. That gave the group a big charge because even though he’s not famous, he’s probably met people who are. LOL

-- It was 74 degrees here for the high today. Although it was warm in the clinic because of no air conditioning, it actually was a gorgeous day today. However, the Londoners were dying from the heat -- one of the clinic secretaries told me that “Summer is finally here! It’s so hot!” Um, guess I won’t be inviting her for a summer trip to Florida. Or Nebraska. Or Kansas. Or Illinois. Or Philadelphia. Ha.

-- There's are big signs out on the streetcorners in front of my hotel that say, "KERB CRAWLING RESULTED IN 18 ARRESTS BETWEEN 10-12 JUNE. BEWARE THAT POLICE ARE PATROLLING THIS NEIGHBORHOOD AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR LICENSE IF CAUGHT." It's been out there for several days and I kept meaning to ask Chris & Maria about what the sign means but just hadn't gotten around to it yet (remember, I'm trying to keep my head down because of the whole blowing up the 6th floor's electrical system last week). This morning at breakfast, another American (some scruffy looking guy from Virginia) asked Chris about it and he really dodged the answer for quite awhile, then finally told us that kerb crawling was men picking up prostitutes. Because this is such a touristy area, I guess there are occasionally some working girls out working our street. I haven't seen them, but then I don't go out after dark much. If you pull over to pick up a prostitute and a policeman catches you, not only do you go to jail and get a ticket, but they take your driver's license away. Wow. Most interesting to me, however, is that they spell "curb" as kerb. Wrong.

As always, thanks for your emails that let me know you’re reading along. It’s great to hear from home and I know I’ve been bad about responding; I’m going to try to get caught up with all of you this week.
Love,Lisa

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606144494232/