I get the blahs some times. I worry about them, because I have been previously diagnosed with depression. The latest round of blahs started in November last year. There was November, March, June/July and now. I mostly chalked it up to stress, with moving and things changing. I'm sure part of the current set of blahs has to do with stress too, stress of change, money, trying to find a job and get things setup for our life. But, I was thinking back in March that I should go back and see the doctor again and maybe get put on medication again, but I didn't and I kind of regret it.
I am slowly climbing out of the depression and I really do want to write about our time and experience so far, before I forget things.
We left New York City on the 15th, and we had a 9 hour flight to London, we went through customs and then had to go to a different terminal to catch our flight to Leeds. The husband almost missed the flight to Leeds, because of the foil wrapper on his gum. Jasmine and I left him at the security desk so we could get on the bus that took a 20 minute drive (it might have been shorter, but not by much) to the airplane, that away we could at least tell the airplane crew he was on his way and they would hopefully wait for him, but he made it on time.
Leeds has an awful lot of food blogs, which I think is strange, because when I think of places to go and eat, Leeds isn't one of them.
Jasmine goes to ballet and swimming classes now on Saturdays.
I found Korean classes at the university.
Currently Reading:
The Affinity Bridge: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation by George Mann
This book isn't going as well as I had hoped. The beginning was really awkward and stilted, the coversations between the characters feels odd and I couldn't really tell if this was supposed to be the first book in the series or not. It is a bit weird that the book isn't offered as a kindle version in the UK (as far as I could tell) and got a better rating in the US.
January 13, 2014
Yeah... this is so old.
When we arrived in Bradford (the Leeds/Bradford airport is clearly in Bradford and not between the two cities) I think I had two 30 minute naps, and Jasmine and the husband had been awake the whole time. We caught a taxi and told him to take us to the Hilton, but he took us to the Hilton in Leeds, our reservation was for the Hilton in Bradford and we couldn't change the reservation and since it was free (yay points) we had to take a taxi back to Leeds (ouch that was all painful and expensive lesson.) It was still morning and we fell asleep until about 5 or 6pm. We had dinner at the Chinese/Thai buffet next door and shopped for a few essentials, like toothpaste, and went back to sleep.
We had to get up early in the morning so we could go look at an apartment. We took the first one that we saw. Reflecting on that, I'm not sure if it was the best idea (the owner has done way too much work on the house on his own, we have already had a toaster on fire and the washer flooded the kitchen when a hose snapped under the cabinets), plus the place was filthy. However it was close to the university for the husband, and close to a school for Jasmine. When we had no idea where anything else was or how to get any where those to things where important.
After signing for the house we called and scheduled a cleaning company, talked to the owner about taking out furniture that we knew were weren't going to use, and called a cab to take use to Tesco Extra in Seacroft. When I read about Tesco when we were still in the US, it was described as being like Wal-Mart, but honesty that isn't true. At Wal-Mart you can expect this to be cheap, but still last for a long time. We bought a set of three pots and the littlest one has already rusted, and it looks like the middle one is on its way out already. So, I would says some times are more like the quality you would expect from the Dollar store, cheap and not long lasting. Without knowing better we had to buy things there, because we didn't know where else to go and there were things we just needed for the house, like pillows and blankets.
The next week the cleaning crew came out. Three people worked for four hours cleaning, it was just that bad. There are still spots that aren't clean, like over the kitchen cabinets. I love my home country, but they can't, or won't, make a decent cleaning product. I've scrubbed the kitchen cabinets over and over before the cleaning crew came out and the cleaning crew also scrubbed them, but they are still nasty and sticky to touch. Luckily there is a US base not too far away, where we can get US products from every once in a while.
Halloween was a bit disappointing here. Since we live in a university student area almost no one hands out candy. Plus, some punk ass kids smashed Jasmine's pumpkin. Next year we'll take Jasmine some place else for trick-or-treating.
For Thanksgiving we got all of our sides at one of the US bases here, and I got two turkey drumsticks and a turkey wing from one of the butchers at the Leeds Open Market. There's no way a whole turkey would have fit in our tiny oven, which is just as while since I didn't see a whole turkey on sale any where here.
The brother-in-law and his family came up from Germany for the Christmas break. We spent two days in London. The first day we went to The British Museum, which is free if you ever get a chance to go. Since it was during school break it was a bit crowded, we didn't get to see everything (that would be at least two or three days to do), but we did get to see the things that we specifically wanted to see. The next day we took a bus tour around London, we sat on the second floor of an open top double-decker bus, and it was really cold outside. It was fun, but because everything just takes so long, it is London, we didn't get to do as much as we had hoped. We had tickets a river cruise from the bus tour, but it was really quick and there isn't a guide who calls out the sights. We did stop at King's Cross station before leaving London and got our pictures taken at Platform 9 3/4. We also took a day trip and saw Sherwood Forest and bits of Nottingham. Unfortunately Nottingham Castle does charge, so we didn't see the inside of the castle. There was a lot more that we wanted to do, but because of the winter break there were a lot of places closed, especially places in the National Trust, which like The British Museum are free to see. So, that was a bit disappointing, because we didn't know that some of these places were going to be closed beforehand, we could have planned better.
Let's see... Jasmine still takes ballet classes on Saturday with Northern Ballet. On Sunday she has swimming classes at The Edge. She has moved up from Stage 1 to Stage 2, so there are kids her age in her class. In stage 1 I think she was the eldest. She still won't put her face in the water, but I think she is getting more confident and progressing nicely.
We are considering moving when our lease is up, not just because this place is still a bit of a mess, but we need to find a better school for Jasmine. The school she is in right now is totally disorganized. We are going to try to get her evaluated by an independent speech therapist in the meantime. The kids in her class are on multiplication, but Jasmine doesn't have a solid grasp of addition and subtraction yet. It just feels like she is being left behind. I know that she will be behind in things like US history when we go back to the US, but I don't think she should be behind on something like math, basic comprehension, spelling or reading. So, we'll see what they say at the evaluation.
Hopefully my next post won't be so drawn out. I'll try to get some decent pictures of the area and post them, but it might have to wait a little more. Mid-November it snowed a little bit here and water got into my phone, needless to say the phone died. I should have the new one soon. Yeah, I've been without a phone for two months.
Currently watching: Nothing, we have a test for Korean class on the 29th, so I am studying for that.
Currently reading:
City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments) by Cassandra Clare
It is actually a reread, but going good so far.
Swagbucks it is how I make money for amazon gift cards!
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