The Common Room

Before now "the common room" was a term I only knew from the Harry Potter movies and now it is a term very near and dear to me. It is the room in House 9 downstairs full of couches, pillows, bean bags, a TV and a cabinet full of a wonderful VHS Disney collection and hilarious DVDs. It resembles a high school youth room and on any given night of the week it is the gathering place of our group. It is a place where we do homework, complain about homework, worship together, watch way too many movies (including The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Anchorman), drink tea and eat biscuits, have pillow fights and massage trains, play card games, and fall asleep on the couches at 2am cause we are too tired to go upstairs to our beds. All in all the common room is a sacred place of good times. 


This week we began with our weekly worship time as a whole group in the common room. Monday nights we have our chapel time known as 9@9. (Because we gather in House 9 at 9:00pm. There is a store around the corner called 9 to 9 and we always interchange the two on accident!) Anyways it has easily become one of my favorite things about study abroad. This Wednesday marked Lent - the beginning of the Lenten season. It felt like home to hear the familiar story of Jesus in the desert for 40 days and the story of sacrifice and repentance. We all wrote down things that distract us from God and what we are choosing to give up this next 40 days to become closer to him. We then burned our papers with what we want to sacrifice to God and used the ashes to make a sign of the cross on our foreheads. I feel so blessed to be in a community that supports each other in striving to get closer to God. Each week a different group plans 9@9 and I look forward to seeing how we grow in the future and for my turn to contribute. Every week I catch myself thinking how so many things I am learning and experiencing here would be perfect to use at camp. I will just have to wait and see if I find myself there again this summer. 


We went to a rugby game the other night and it was incredible! It was so beastly! It is definitely a sport for MEN only - football without pads and no breaks every ten seconds. Don't get me wrong I love me some American football but this was so much more intense to watch! There were people dropping like flies on the field and the medic would run out to them while the game was still going on. We were like what would happen if someone pummels the medic!? I learned all kinds of rules about the rules of the game and different terms for things they do. Ruck and scrum are my two favorites!
I also have this theory that we developed while we were at the rugby game. we saw this HUGE manly dude go up to his mom and his puppies after the game and start playing with them and rolling around in the grass. It was absolutely adorable. Therefore we decided that the bigger and manlier the man, the cuter it is when they play with babies and puppies. I polled many of the girls on our group and all unanimously agreed, haha. O and I forgot to mention that it only cost 1 pound to go to the game! You better believe we will be going back again!

Try and tell me this isn't cute!

A scrum- it's like a tip off in basketball kind of

When they throw the ball in from out of bounds they lift each other up to catch it!

Then we came back and watched Little Mermaid in the common room which I found at a thrift store for 50 pence. That's right my friends Little Mermaid VHS for less than a dollar!! I was ecstatic and Disney sing a longs in the common room are my favorite!