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/

Hello,

It’s the weekend and I have to say, I’m kind of glad. It feels like I’ve going nonstop since I got here July 2 and it’s good to have a break. Today is Lindsey’s birthday and I am feeling really bad about not being home to celebrate it with her. We also have a tradition of me telling her the story of the day she was born every year on her birthday near bedtime, so that won’t be happening either. I feel less bad about that particularly, because now that she lives on her own (and has big birthday plans for the evening), that might not happen anyhow.

Yesterday, I finished the Solution Focused Brief Therapy course at the Centre. As I think I mentioned in my last post, this information has really changed the way I think about things and I am looking forward to implementing it in my work with both clients and students at FSU. You start by asking someone what their best hopes are for the session/meeting you’re having with them (or what they’re hoping to get from the meeting), then explore using rating scales and feedback where they feel like they currently are and what it would take for them to move up 1 point on the scale to be closer to where they want to be. It gets them noticing the things they are doing well rather than focusing on the problems they might be having. I know that’s not a good explanation but it’s the best I can do! Ha

Last night after I left the Centre, I walked to Islington High Street to find dinner. Islington is the neighborhood where the Centre is located, and high streets are the main streets in the various neighborhoods. High streets are where you’ll find lots of restaurants and shops and are generally very busy places. I’ll tell you more about dinner in a sec, but I was pretty proud of myself for exploring the neighborhood (it’s in the opposite direction of the way I typically go home) and I even had to ride a different subway line and change trains in one of the stations to get home last night. It was really fun to be in another neighborhood though. I’m enjoying living in a big city and liked just being out in a neighborhood rather than in a really touristy sort of place. You can tell it’s not touristy when you don’t see postcard stands every 3 feet outside the stores.

This morning, I slept in until 10:30, then I went out to do a few errands here in the neighborhood. I’d thought of going sightseeing today but it was dreary (overcast and the high today was only 63) and I really needed to deal with improving my underpant situation or there wouldn’t be any for the upcoming week! So, I had my first adventure with the Laundromat. There is one only about a block and a half from the hotel, so I loaded up my carry-on suitcase and wheeled it down the street. I had one medium load – laundry soap was 60 cents, the wash itself was $8.00, and the dryer cost me $9.00 to get my clothes dry= $17.60 to do one load! Yikes. It’s more money if you do a large load, so it wouldn’t necessarily save me $ if I waited longer to do more clothes. I would have skipped the dryer and brought my clothes back here to hang up and dry, but there’s really no room in my room to hang them anywhere so that wasn’t as much of an option.

Another errand I did this morning was going to the post office to get stamps for postcards. The post office here is pretty much exactly the same as post offices at home – long lines, supplies like envelopes/mailers, etc. with one notable exception: you can stock up on romance novels while you’re there. They had 2 separate bookstands that were both “topped up” (filled) with romance novels with titles like “Rogue’s Mistress, Gentleman’s Wife”). They had one that was called “The Rancher & The Wench” that I seriously considered buying just because it was a fabulous title and about an American but I didn’t want to be seen buying crap like that. Maybe if I have some money left over before I leave in August, I’ll go back and pick it up.

On to food… I’ve really been craving Mexican food or something spicy, so I got on the web and googled Mexican restaurants in London. As it turns out, there were 2 on Islington High Street, which is why I went there last night. One was highly recommended, Mucho Mas, so I tried that one first. I walked past another on my way to Mucho Mas, got there and read the menu (all restaurants here have their menus posted outside the entrance) and saw that they only served burritos. Hmm. I decided to walk back to the other restaurant I’d passed, a place called Tortilla. Burritos are also the only Mexican food on their menu (no enchiladas, tacos, etc.) but at least at this place I could also get chips and salsa. The burrito I got was REALLY good and so was the salsa…. But the best part????.... Drumroll….. UNLIMITED DIET COKE WITH ICE! Here, if you order soda pop in a restaurant, they charge you for refills. Also, if you want ice in a drink (any drink, including water), you usually have to specifically ask for it and then you only get about 5 very small cubes. For example, today I got a sandwich at Subway and it comes out of the fountain but there was no ice.

I thought I was in heaven when I got to Tortilla and I will definitely be going back. Just to have some kick (spiciness) to the food was great. A lot of the food here is sort of bland, e.g., steaks are cooked only with salt and pepper to season, and even if they say the meat is grilled, it looks like it just came out from under a broiler. They don’t use steak sauce, but instead bring a sort of brown vinegar which has an ok taste but unfortunately smells like a wet dog. Also, they have salad bars but they only have about 4 items on them and 2 dressings: 1000 Island and some kind of weird ranch. It’s not worth the money to pay for a salad bar because it’s not much different from just ordering a bowl of salad and the bowl is cheaper.

They do have some American food chains here: Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, and KFC. There are some differences though – for example, McDonald’s doesn’t have Big Macs (but this is offset, in my mind, by them carrying these tasty little fried cheese things – kind of like tater tots with cheese in them, yum). I haven’t eaten there yet other than the cheese dealies and to get a diet coke. They don’t serve breakfast and neither does BK. I could really go for some cini minis about now. Subway is pretty much the same as it is in the U.S. – two biggest differences are that they don’t use oil/vinegar on the sandwiches AND they have CORN as one of the vegetables you can get on your sandwich. Corn on a ham sandwich? Weird. When you get your sandwich made, they ask you what kind of salad you want on it. KFC is different too – only original recipe, no sides except for chips (the British word for French fries; potato chips are called “crisps.”). I am missing me some mashed potatoes and gravy. I’ve eaten at Subway and KFC because the meals are cheaper than pretty much anywhere else – KFC only costs $6 for a 2 piece meal, and Subway is slightly more (around $8 for a meal deal). I like pubs but dinner there is at least $20 and I want to have money for sightseeing! Oh, and here’s a slice of heaven…. There is a Krispy Kreme in Paddington station!

Last “entry” before I get to random observations… I am still somewhat confused by the crosswalks here because of the different directions of the traffic. I have gotten myself almost hit about 5 times this week just because I am looking opposite directions. For example, before you step off the sidewalk, you normally look left, then right, correct? Here you have to look right, then left. Ugh. I keep trying to remind myself but I’m bad about stepping out in traffic anyway (just ask Ned) and somehow I always forget. Also, when you are walking down the sidewalk, you walk on the opposite side of what you normally would. So, in situations where you would be walking on the right hand side of a sidewalk and people coming at you would be on the left, instead you walk on the left and they come at you on the right. I finally figured this out a day or so ago; I couldn’t understand why everyone was giving me crappy looks and people walking together were having to part to let me by. Ha, not exactly a quick learner, right?

Ok random observations:

-- “Well done!” is what you say instead of good job. Well done is used to compliment you on everything (except for when someone tells you “Brilliant!”), from finding lost car keys to fixing a jammed printer to seeing a movie to discussing what you did last night after you got home from work.

-- Many people here use rolling carry on suitcases for going back and forth to work, instead of a rolling briefcase or some sort of other briefcase. I was so surprised when I saw all kinds of people getting on the subway on weekday mornings with these suitcases; I thought, “Wow, there must be a lot of people who go on business trips,” until I was seeing the same people each morning with their suitcases. Like I said, I’m a quick learner (ha).

-- I still hadn’t brought up my burnt out lightbulb but was planning to do it Monday morning. However, Chris and the maintenance guy just came around checking tvs and I told him about it so they just took one out of the room next door. The funny part about this is that when Chris asked the maintenance guy if he wanted to come in and check out the wiring for the tv, the maintenance guy said he didn’t need to because he was familiar with the layout of this room. I then said, “Well, it’s not exactly too hard to figure this one out,” and Chris immediately started laughing his booming laugh and spread his arms out to show that you can just about touch the opposite walls via arm span alone.

-- Remember me telling you that the Brits seem to love the tv show Malcolm in the Middle? Tonight they’ve advertised a three-peat – three episodes back to back. Ugh. I did find a Law & Order SVU on the other night though – HEAVEN!

Ok, enough for one blog. Hope everyone is doing well and thanks for the emails that let me know that you’re reading it! I thought maybe it was only Ned, Kenn, and me. Ha

Love,
Lisa

P.S. No new pictures to post today, sorry, but the only new place I've really been is the laundromat and it pretty much looks exactly like laundromats at home: bleak.

Week 1 at the Michael Palin Centre

This week has been my first full week at the MPC (http://www.stammeringcentre.org.uk/) and I have loved every minute of it. The clinicians here are *amazing* and I am learning so much.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to observe two different preschool therapy sessions – one a more straightforward case of a 4 year old who is stuttering; the other a more difficult case of stuttering with lots of behavior management issues to boot.

I participated in the screening of a 4 year old whose parents are concerned that he is stuttering, but the unusual aspect of the screening was that the family was Muslim and from Somalia, so the screening was conducted in Arabic with the aid of an interpreter. This was an eye opening experience for me, and really neat in that it confirmed that parents everywhere are concerned when their children begin to stutter. It was also interesting to hear stuttering in a language like Arabic.

I also got to help out yesterday with a follow-up appointment from a consultation for a 12-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome by assisting with collecting and analyzing his speech sample. In addition, I sat in on an intervention session with a 12-year-old girl who has trouble formulating her ideas in addition to her stuttering. I was able to show the clinician some strategies for making it easier for this girl to decide what and how she wants to say something by drawing out a story on paper before she tries to tell it. Not only was the girl able to tell a better story, she was much more fluent when she did. That made me feel pretty good that I was able to teach other clinicians something while I’m here!

Today was the first day of a 2-day workshop on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. It’s a way of having a conversation with clients that focuses on their strengths and what they’re doing right rather than trying to pin down what their deficits are. We did role plays with it this afternoon and my head is spinning with all the ways I want to incorporate this approach – not just into my clinical work but also in my teaching/supervision and in my personal life. For more information, check out http://www.brief-therapy.org/.

I’m finally posting pics of the MPC and my Tube travel points. The clinician eating soup in the picture is Willie Botterill – she wanted me to take this picture for those of you who have visited here – once you visit, you find out that they all eat the same soup EVERY DAY for lunch and it’s kind of a long-running joke. So Joe, Kevin, whoever… this one is for you! Ha. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606077602975/

I take the Tube each day from Paddington station (about a block and a half from my hotel) to Farringdon station (6 stops away). The Tube ride itself is about 15-20 minutes as long as there are no delays; the clinic is about a 10 minute walk from the Tube station. This makes my entire commute approximately 45 minutes. The only times I haven’t really liked it so much are when the Tube is really crowded (more in the evenings than in the mornings) and when it’s really raining a lot.

Speaking of weather, it’s rained from Sunday-Wednesday in London; today was the first day that it really didn’t rain for any extended period of time. It’s also cool – about 68 for a high. I love it.

Last bit of info… I caused a bit of drama last night here at the Rhodes Hotel. When I got back to my room last night, my internet connection wasn't working. I rebooted my computer and did everything I knew how to do, but still no luck. This was about 9 pm my time. I called downstairs and spoke with Maria (the co-owner), who told me there’d been problems earlier in the day with the internet but she thought it had been fixed.

In the meantime, I needed to charge my ipod and wanted to play some music at the same time. I brought my JBL ipod speaker system with me so I got out my UK plug adaptor (to adapt my 2-prong US power cord to the UK 3 prong system), plugged my ipod speaker into it… and… ffffffffttttttt brown smoke started coming out and all of a sudden POP! I blew the circuit or fuse or something. Eeek, oops. Apparently, I needed an adaptor AND a voltage converter. When this happened in my room, it also blew out the tvs and some of the outlets in the other rooms here on my floor.

Pretty soon, I hear Chris, Maria’s husband, up here talking to my neighbor about the tv problem, so I opened up my door (after I'd opened my window and tried to fan/air out the burning electrical smell and any evidence of brown smoke) and said, “Wow, Chris, I’m having the same problems, WEIRD!” No way was I telling him that *I’d* caused the problem, I was too chicken and I have to live here another month yet. So, Chris fixed the fuse and all the power came back on but I was still having an internet challenge. Just so happens that Chris’s nephew from Hilton Head, SC was visiting and he works for Dell or something so he got me all fixed up.

About 15 minutes after he left, the light over my bed burnt out but I'm going to wait a day or two to ask for a light bulb. Don't want to push my luck up here in the "canopy" (being in my room is like being in a forest canopy -- all I can see out my window are the tops of the trees).

I have to say, Chris and Maria are here about 18 hours a day -- from 8 am until at least 10 pm or later every day. They're as nice as they can be. Even though my room is small, this place is starting to feel a bit like home. And I'm only sucking wind after the 4th flight of stairs now -- I take a little rest then go the last 2 flights. Chris is hilarious, he's Greek and has this booming laugh and will laugh longer than one would normally expect when you tell him something funny. It makes me laugh just to make him laugh.

Last but not least, today’s random observations:

-- Notebook paper in the UK is, from what I can tell, 8 x 12. It’s also either 4 –hole punched or 2-hole punched. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t use 3 ring binders here but they don’t – the ones I’ve seen have all been 2 ring binders. This is wrong, in my opinion. Everyone should know that 3 rings are God’s plan for binding looseleaf paper.

-- When someone tells you not to buy a $3 Walmart umbrella to use for a month-long trip to England, where it rains pretty much every day, you should listen to that person (Ned, you were right). Picture me walking down a very busy street in London, tons of traffic and lots of people walking too, with a broken umbrella. Half of it was fine, the other half hanging down in my face and flapping with every step. I’m not sure what a Florida Cracker would look like in London, but I’m relatively certain it might have been what I looked like yesterday.

-- If you are analyzing something, breaking it down to figure it out, trying to sort a problem out, you are “unpicking” it. As opposed to picking it? This doesn’t make any sense to me.

-- People aren’t smart, they’re “clever.” Actually, you can be smart but it’s referring to how you dress and present yourself – “Well, YOU look very smart today!” It cracks me up to hear someone tell a little kid that he’s a “clever, grown-up little chap!”

-- I have seen more linen clothing here that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not sure what the reason is for this, but everyone wears linen. Even the guys wear linen suits. And for some weird reason, it doesn’t look as wrinkly as linen does in the US.

-- By the way, it’s not the US. It’s America, and I’m an American. If you say you’re from the US, they will ask you, “America, you mean?” However, when you say "Yes, I DO mean America," hardly anyone says “Brilliant!” I guess you only get that if you specifically say that you are from Florida (see previous post).

Love, Lisa

Coping with London so far...

Hi all,

I don't have any pictures to share with you from the last couple of days because it has been raining like crazy. The forecast for the next few days, however, are for sunshine so I'll try to get some pics in of the Tube, Michael Palin Centre, etc.

Latest news in London:

(1) The Church of England is in the stages of approving females to become Bishops. This is causing a lot of controversy and is all over the news here, because about 1300 employees (I would assume this would be local pastors) want the Church's synod to approve a motion that excuses them from having to work for a female Bishop.

(2) The topic of "knife culture" is still a hot one. All the papers have stories about the people who've been killed in stabbings the last couple of weeks and what it means for their society. They are especially concerned because the Olympics will be hosted here in 2012 and want the city to be perceived as safe.

(3) The National Trust conducted a survey of school children, asking them if they knew things like the difference between a bee and a wasp, or could identify a magpie. They also asked if kids could tell them who Dr. Who's enemies are. Dr. Who is the #1 television program here in the UK - if you like science fiction, it's the show for you (you can catch it on BBC1 on cable in the US). Guess what? Only 50% of kids could tell the difference between a bee and a wasp but 90% could name at least 2 of Dr. Who's enemies. All the adults are in a wad about this because there is such a culture of the outdoors here. Speaking of this culture, this morning when I turned on the BBC's version of the Today show, the first shot I saw on the screen was of a HUGE cow's butt -- they were doing a remote location from the Yorkshire Agricultural Show. It was kind of an alarming scene to wake up to, Ha.

Yesterday was my first day to go to the Michael Palin Centre, which is in an area of London called Islington. I have to take the Tube from Paddington station to Farringdon station, then walk about 10 minutes to the Centre. It was a terrible-horrible-no good-very bad travel day. First, I had difficulty buying my tube ticket because the automatic ticket machine wouldn't read my debit card. Luckily, I had some cash on me. Then, my worst fear -- getting completely lost -- unfortunately came true. I got off at the right Tube stop in Islington, but I couldn't figure out the street map to get to the Centre so ended up walking around through neighborhoods for almost an hour. It was pouring rain and I was wearing a dress and heels. Not good. I had no idea how far I'd have to walk from the Farringdon station to the clinic -- I was told it was close -- so I didn't think my choice of footwear would be such a big deal. WRONG. By the time I got to the MPC, I was almost in tears.

The rest of the day went well, though, because I got to observe a follow-up day from last summer's school-age intensive program (which is what will be starting for me next week). The parents and children who all participated in the 2-week experience last summer return on a fairly regular basis in the year ensuing, and yesterday was the last follow-up because these families had hit the one year mark. I met the kids and worked with them a little bit, but spent most of my time observing the parent group. One mom was very concerned about her son's transition to a new school so the group worked on a problem-solving exercise with her and it was really cool to watch.

I also had a chance to ask Jane Fry, one of the MPC therapists, some general "How do I live in London" questions, such as what are the names of the grocery stores here, where can I do laundry, etc. etc. Turns out that Paddington station has several small markets in it that are much cheaper and have a lot more variety than do the small convenience stores I'd been passing here in the neighborhood. And given that this is where I start and end my travel day, it's super easy for me to pick up what I need there.

Today at the MPC was even better than yesterday; I participated in a staff meeting this morning to plan the intensive course for next week, then sat in on an evaluation for a teenager this afternoon. Tomorrow will be primarily clinic observation, then Thursday and Friday I'm enrolled in a workshop to learn how to do Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. I've already had a chance to observe some aspects of this therapy and think it has tremendous potential for the work we do at FSU, so I'm really excited to be able to get this training.

I am loving working with the MPC clinicians -- it's SO cool to be around so many smart, talented people with such an in depth knowledge of stuttering. I feel like I'm going to be such a better clinician, teacher, and supervisor when I leave here.

Ok, you know me -- I have to include some random observations, so here they are for today's blog:

-- the term "maths" is used instead of talking about algebra, geometry, calculus. I think that's a hard word to say.

-- Moms here all walk their little ones to their "nursery" (daycare) and most of the little ones wear uniforms. All of the school-age kids I've seen have uniforms (typically a neutral pant with blazer and tie for the boys, and skirts with white shirts and/or blazers for girls), but it's really cute to see little tiny kids as young as 2 or 3 in similar dress.

-- I've found that if I use a term that is U.S. specific (e.g., crap-ton), no one will ask what it means. The Brits are very polite, almost to an extreme, so they won't ask for clarification unless they know you well.

-- Speaking of terms, cookies are "biscuits" and the slang for them is "bickies." "These are some very tasty bickies!"

-- I see "Full English breakfast" advertised in different restaurants and finally found out what it means. It's eggs, bacon (which comes in round slices rather than strips), sausage, BAKED BEANS, and toast. Baked beans for breakfast? Are you kidding me? Aaaaack.

-- I had imagined that the pubs here would be similar to our bars in terms of size. They aren't -- most are pretty small. They are lots of fun though -- crowded, noisy, and random people will sit together at tables vs. sitting alone at the bar. They usually have sports on tv -- btw, the Wimbledon tournament was a HUGE deal here -- and most have an outdoor area as well. Pubs are everywhere -- almost 1 per block in my neighborhood.

-- My new favorite phrase of the day: "When things go pear-shaped." This is the equivalent to our "when things fall apart," or "when things go south." The first time I heard Willie (one of the clinicians) say this today, I thought she was talking about someone's body shape - it took me a bit to figure out what she meant although I did know that my interpretation was incredibly wrong. I just couldn't figure out what it meant for a bit.

Ok, enough for now, especially with no pictures.

Missing all of you!

Lisa

Oxford Dysfluency Conference, July 3-6

I just returned from the Oxford Dysfluency Conference (ODC) earlier today and I have so much to share about this experience!

My trip to Oxford started with my boss Jane (from the Stuttering Foundation) picking me up at my hotel Thursday morning (3 July, as they note dates over here). She had hired a BMW 730 and a private driver to take her back and forth to Oxford, so I was definitely riding in better style than I think I ever have in my life. John, our driver, was originally from Glasgow (Scotland) and had a pretty heavy brogue accent. I have to say that so far, listening to all the variations of the English accent has been one of my favorite things about talking with other people here.

We left London on the M40, one of their big interstates. It is SO weird to drive down the "wrong side" of the interstate; I'm still freaked out not only by being in a with the driver on the wrong side and on a road on the wrong side, but by little things like making a right hand turn from the left lane and cutting across oncoming traffic -- I know it's the same principle as when we make a left turn in the US, but it still seems wrong somehow. And scary. Being on the other side of the road also means that when there are 2 lanes going the same direction on the interstate, the fast lane is not the left side (as it is for us) but on the right side. Very weird to be traveling along and have someone blow past you on the right side of the car.

Also, they don't have semi-trucks in the same way that we do. They have big trucks, but they're not separate cab/trailer combinations as far as I have observed. And they're not as shiny as our big trucks. I supposed this is because once you get off the interstate and get into small towns, the streets are so narrow that no semi could ever fit to make deliveries.

Before we went to St. Catherine's College at Oxford, where the conference was being held, we were invited for lunch at Frances Cook's home in the village of Chinoor. Frances is the director of the Michael Palin Centre and was also the program chair for the ODC. She hosted Jane, me, and the other clinicians from the Michael Palin Centre who were instrumental in planning the conference. Chinoor is a tiny village that is quaint and picturesque -- cliches, I know, but I truly can't think of any other adjectives that would better describe it. Many of the houses there don't have street numbers but instead are named -- Frances' address is "Finches, Hilltop Lane, Chinoor."

Frances’s house is in a beautiful setting, at the top of a hill and with gorgeous flower beds all over. It looks, both on the inside and outside, exactly what I thought an English house would look like. Again, I can't get over how the flower gardens here are all over and so beautiful. I wouldn't have the patience for it or interest but it sure adds to the visual experience. The pictures above are of her house and gardens.

It was fun to meet all the clinicians from the MPC in an informal setting like that and we had lots of good conversation about all kinds of things. I think I really will like working with them.

Afterwards, we drove on to Oxford. When we first entered the town, it looked pretty much like any of the other towns I’ve seen so far. I saw my first English Subway restaurant here – they actually had 2 that we passed. I haven’t seen any in London yet. But, as we got closer to the college, it started to look more and more medieval and interesting. I took some cool pictures of a few of the buildings that we passed that are posted on the flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606014357598/ . The one above is of one of the buildings associated with Magdalene College, which was founded in the 1600s. The other pictures of old buildings are also part of Magdalene.

Oxford University is actually made up of a bunch of separate colleges, some dating back to the 1400s. There are multiple campuses, with each college having its own. The college the conference was at, St. Catherine’s, looks like it was built maybe in the 1950s or 60s.

St. Catherine's is a liberal arts and sciences college. They have lots of "majors" or "programs of study" such as we have in the US but the big difference is in admissions and instruction. First, most of the programs of study only accept 3-5 students per year. This is for an undergraduate degree. The big programs accept up to 10 students per year. How's that for competitive admissions? You have to have a stellar academic record and if you pass the first level of screening, you have to come to St. Catherine's for a 2-day interview with the faculty. The faculty are called tutors, not professors. If you are admitted, you attend lectures 3-4 times a week with separate weekly tutoring sessions. At a tutoring session with the other students in your program/year, you generally have to show up with a written paper that is used as the basis for discussion with the tutor and fellow classmates. There are no regular exams; instead, at the end of the year you must submit a paper on a chosen topic. The minimum lengths for these final papers of the various programs I checked out averaged 15,000 words. This means that your entire academic progress is evaluated one time a year on the basis of about a 300-page paper. Those of you who know me well know about how much I'd love to be grading that assignment. Ugh. http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/

As with London, the grounds of St. Cat's were beautiful. There were water gardens outside my dorm and everything was very clean and green. The modern-looking building pictured above was my dorm. On the flickr link, you can see more pics of it and the water gardens, and of my room. The best part was that my dorm room was HUGE compared to my hotel in London -- at least 3-4 times larger. And only up one flight of stairs instead of 6 (I finally counted the flights here at the Rhodes Hotel). There were ducks everywhere and I can tell that I'm really missing Zoey because at one point I almost walked over and tried to pick up a duck and snuggle it (like that would work anyway)... I actually stopped myself right after I'd stepped off the sidewalk and was heading for the duck when I realized what I was doing. THAT would have been slightly embarrassing! ha.

The conference itself was fantastic. I heard so many good presentations and met the nicest, most interesting bunch of people from all over the world. The keynote presentations really challenged my thinking about things like how to measure whether clients are getting better from the therapy we offer them and how to respond to parents when they ask, "Why does my child stutter? What causes it?" The rest of the papers were either reports of research or sessions on assessment and treatment techniques. I got to know well people from Australia, the UK, Finland, Norway, and Sweden which was so cool. I am going to join a research team here in the UK that is beginning to standardize an attitudes scale for teenagers who stutter. This age group is near and dear to my heart so I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.

One of the other great aspects of this conference is that all the meals are provided and everyone attending the conference eats in a communal dining hall. This means that we all went to breakfast, lunch, and dinner together and you end up sitting with all kinds of different people. The food was outstanding -- definitely the best conference food I'd ever eaten.

The foreigners I met had so many questions about the US that ranged from how we train students to become SLPs, to how much group vs. individual therapy we do (they do a lot more group therapy here), funding for services, and topics that were completely random like where the best vacation spots are in the US and how often I see celebrities (ha, none until last March, then I've been meeting them in droves -- Matt Lauer, Dr. J, Anderson Cooper, John Glenn, just to name a few... )

I have to say, though, that one of the most thrilling parts of the conference for me was meeting Michael Palin, the namesake of the Centre where I'm training in London. He is an English comedian who was a founding member of the comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus, and has been in several movies as well. Currently, he hosts a travel show called Palin's Travels (http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/) that is on the Travel Channel in the US. Probably his most famous movie was A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played a stuttering thief/assassin named Ken. He isn't a stutterer in real life but based his character on his dad, who was a severe stutterer who never had treatment. When the movie came out in 1987, it caused a lot of controversy in the stuttering community because his character was bullied by another played by Kevin Kline, and at the end of the movie, Ken runs over the bully with a steamroller and immediately becomes fluent. This really upset people who stutter because it seemed to say that if you just expressed your rage, you wouldn't stutter anymore. Anyway, that's how Michael Palin became involved in the Centre here in London and he's been an amazing supporter ever since. You can find out more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Palin

He attended the conference's banquet on Saturday night and gave a speech that was both funny and interesting. There was a cocktail party before the banquet and I had the opportunity to meet him as he was visiting with Jane and Joe from the Stuttering Foundation. Jane took pictures of me visiting with him and will email them to me later this week and I'll post them as soon as I have them. I also had my picture taken with him after dinner -- can't wait to get this one as well. Brushes with greatness!!! ha He couldn't have been nicer and dang, he's kind of WAY handsome!

This post has already been too long but I wanted to point out some other fun British observations:

• When people asked me where I was from and I said "Florida," I would say about 90% of the Brits responded immediately with "Brilliant!" Ha, really?
  
• They use the word "mad" to say that someone is really excited or enthused about something, "He's absolutely mad for hill walking" (um, what we call hiking) OR they use it to say someone is crazy "He's mad - completely barmy" (yes, I have heard someone use the word barmy since I've been here). They do NOT say "mad" instead of saying someone is angry/upset.


• Other words they've used that I love so far: "keen," "vile," and "whilst." "Whilst" caught me off guard at first -- "You might like to do something whilst you are doing something else." I'm not sure if it's because I'm a speech pathologist that I am noticing the accents and vocabulary and enjoying them so much, but it really makes me happy to hear the speech and language they use here.


• All the power outlets have switches. So not only do you have to plug something in, you have to flip a switch to turn the outlet on. This has caused me distress several times when I've plugged my laptop in to charge it and not realized the outlet wasn't on, or when I was really sleepy and trying to dry my hair but the hairdryer wouldn't turn on. I've gotten pretty savvy about it now but this is still freaky to me.


• None of the windows have screens. Most of the buildings here are not air-conditioned but you can open all the windows. I had my windows open in my dorm room the entire time I was in Oxford and never had a single bug fly into my room. In fact, I haven't seen that many bugs at all

Tomorrow I have my first day at the Michael Palin Centre. I'm really looking forward to it and am just so excited to be here! I just wish I didn't have to be away from everyone to be able to have this experience.

Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedc/sets/72157606014357598/