Welcome, welcome

My gramma says that I need to be keeping a journal, so here I am. Now gramma will get to learn all about blogs.

Brief intro for the uninformed... I'm an American living in England with my partner (who I'll refer to as "D"), who's doing a postgrad degree. He's been here since October 2003, and I came to join him finally in June 2004. We also live with our dog Wookie, whom you'll probably see and hear about before the end of the day.

We've just gotten back from a month-long trip back to the States, where we were able to see most of our immediate family as well as several friends. I'll put up the photos from our trip on my website.

We're back in Oxford now and trying to settle in. I don't have jet lag because I use this little visualisation thingie. Starting about three days before I left the States, whenever I looked at a clock, I'd add 5 hours to the time and picture in my mind what that time looked like back in England. For example, if we were driving around in North Carolina at 5pm, I'd look at the clock and say to myself, "OK, that's 8pm in England. So the sun's down now, and i'm probably starting to wind down for the evening... it's time to start getting sleepy." Or when I woke up, I'd think, "OK, it's 7am here, so it's noon in England, so I'm waking up late, and the sun is high in the sky, and it's the middle of the day, so I've got lots of energy at the moment."

Even though D made fun of me to no end every time I did this in NC, I've had no problems with jet lag so far. I was able to sleep for about 3 hours on the plane (because even though it was 8:30pm NC time, I told myself that it was 1:30am, so it was time for sleep), and I slept for about an hour on the bus home from the airport. So I had plenty of energy and was able to walk the dog to the store for eggs and milk and straighten up around the house a bit while SOMEONE else in the house was knocked out completely and feeling ill. Ahem.

The housesitter was excellent (although he left a huge pile of his stuff in the living room and many other things scattered throughout the house), and Wookie is exhausted from all the excitement. He's slept nonstop since we got home. He doesn't even open his eyes when I call his name. Poor little guy.