Guy Fawkes Day

Last week was rough. I’ve been going through a lot lately and been having trouble communicating with people so when I do it comes off wrong or I just end up losing it. I’ve been quite emotionally and I think it’s because of me not knowing if I’m leaving soon or not. There are a few other things but mostly it’s the question of when am I leaving?

I found out my grade for my dissertation finally. I’m happy to say that I passed though not with flying colors. At least I’m done, at least I can say I now have a masters, but until I pick up my dissertation up it’s going to be bugging me about why I got the grade that I did. I can say now that my supervisor was quite hard on me for a lot of things. I do wonder if the English was not up to par but then I would think that shouldn’t account for such a large part of the grade. I don’t know really since I really thought I was doing what he wanted. I know he had to nit pick a lot since he couldn’t find a lot he had issues with but I don’t know.

Anyway it’s Guy Fawkes Day and I wanted to share a little something with ya.

 

“Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot…”

 

I’m more than sure I probably shared this last year and with V for Vendetta having come out there’s not many who don’t know what it is that I’m talking about.

However there might be a few. So Guy Fawkes was with a group of men in the early 1600s who were conspiring to blow up Parliament but was caught while he was guarding the explosives. The group was called the Gunpower Plot. I don’t think he was the only one that was caught but I can’t remember. However we were discussing the other night that one thing was for certain, we couldn’t want to die the way he did. Hung, drawn and quarter is not a nice way to go, but he pissed off the King and had to be made an example of I guess.

There are many that might say that we need a Guy Fawkes now with the way the government is going. We definitely need something.

Anyhow it might not be known in America that on the 5th of November bonfires are made all over the place in celebration of the failure of the plot. Fireworks are allowed to be shot off and if you don’t go to a large bonfire, many people just have one of their own. We tried it this year but the fire didn’t last long and we just ate inside until we shot off fireworks. Though I wonder if many have the bonfires in memory of Guy Fawkes since he’s not really considered a villan now. Just food for thought.

©Lisa Helker

Colds and Bonfire Night

Last week I came down with a cold. I was hoping I was just waking up with a slightly scratchy throat that would go away as I got up and started doing stuff. Unfortunately it didn’t. So Wednesday I spent the day trying to do homework and getting slightly distracted by non-homework stuff. That afternoon I met up with Mike and we went to his and had a nice evening in watching a movie and eating dinner. The next morning instead of going to school I stayed home because of my cold. I did stuff around the house and attempted homework since I wasn’t at school. Got a little bit done but the distraction of certain cats kept me from doing more. I swear they know when you’re doing something important and decide to sabotage it. The rest of the weekend was a mixture of hanging out, being sick, trying to do homework and generally being lazy. Mike and his mom were gone for a bit because they was recording a cd with his brass band so I mostly just hung out with his dad and the cats. I stayed over Monday again and had every intention of doing homework buuuuuuut I did something else instead. Mike’s mom has offered to pay me to do ironing once a week and I’ve been thinking about it and decided to do a bit Monday cause I never got to it Saturday due to doing homework instead. It was 4 hours of ironing a basket full of stuff and I didn’t even get finished but I did it! And I got paid lol It was nice to do something for his mom since she has been nice enough to do stuff for me while I’m there.

Now for Saturday evening after Mike and his mom got back from recording. Bonfire night is celebrated here on November 5th. It’s to remember Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot against King James I of England and VI of Scotland. The reasoning behind it has mostly been forgotten but people still like to have a bonfire and shoot off fireworks every year. Bonfire toffee and toffee apples are popular for this particular event. Now one thing I’m a bit interested by when reading about Guy Fawkes Night/Bonfire Night/etc. He wasn’t the only one in on it and as far as I can tell not in charge of anything beyond guarding the explosives. Guess he made a bigger impact. But anyway, we had dinner and shot off some fireworks in the backyard. They don’t really have a bonfire around here now according to Mike’s mom. Too bad, would have been fun. Now we have some fireworks for New Years Eve 🙂

Here the link to the videos I took.

And lastly I want to mention one more thing, it’s sad news unfortunately. My mom emailed me last night to let me know she had to put poor little Onrey to sleep. He’s been having some problems the last few months and they found out he has kidney stones. He was too old to guarantee that he would survive surgery so my mom thought it best to let him be at peace. I’m gonna miss that little guy.