Life in Leeds thus far

Hi everyone!

Well, I can honestly say that I have successfully settled into life in the UK and at the University quite well! It has been a very busy month full of activities and many adventures. I will try to capture some of the details here.

University:
I am really enjoying my course work and friends on my program so far. I am taking two classes this semester, Contemporary Issues in African Development and Development Theories, Strategies, and Issues. It is all extremely interesting work and topics and I find that I am spending a good deal of time out of class researching things we discussed. We have a wide range of students on the course, many of which are from around the world. In fact, I think I am the ONLY student from the US in my program and there are very few people from the EU or the UK. Thus, the ideas and perspectives that get incorporated into seminar discussions have been quite educational. I was asked to present one of my papers at a post-graduate conference in York in mid-November and am greatly looking forward to that!

Rotary/Rotaract
I am very happy to report that I am involved in an amazing Rotary club in Leeds and in the Yorkshire district. Rotary in Britain and Ireland is very involved in many charity events and as clubs. On the 20th of September, I was able to go to a weekend in the South of England (Bournemouth) for Ambassadorial Scholars. We were hosted by Rotarians for the weekend and got to see the sites, participate in seminars, and interact with one another. My district hosted a lovely dinner for all the district scholars the following week which was equally nice. I have attended two meetings with the Rotary club of Leeds and this past weekend was at the District conference in Southport.

I am also heavily involved in Rotaract here. It is a smaller club, but we are really getting it up and running. I volunteered to serve as President of the club (and even have a really cool medal to wear to meetings and such.) Our main charity activities of the term will be working with a nature conservation program to build bird nests and hosting a winter carnival for underprivileged children in December. We are also going to do some fundraising for projects sponsored by the Rotary club of Leeds. Last night, the Rotaractors came over to my house for an International Food Night. We all brought food dishes from our home countries and it was a lot of fun! It was great trying so many different dishes and having a good laugh with friends.

Cheerleading.
I am an assistant coach for the University's all-girl competitive cheerleading team and am really enjoying that. They have a lot of talent and should do really well in competitions this year. We are a hosting a national competition in Leeds in December, so are really working hard in preparation for that. They will compete in four competitions in the UK and then top of the season with a competition near Cologne, Germany in May. I am really pleased that I have been given the opportunity to be involved in cheerleading again. It is certainly been a wonderful experience and allowed me to meet lots of wonderful people. I have actually volunteered myself to host a Thanksgiving dinner for about 15 cheerleaders so they could have the opportunity to experience the traditional American holiday. Everyone is very excited about it! Hopefully, it will turn out alright!!!!

I hope this email finds everyone very well. The weather has still been quite temperate for fall in England, but I can feel it getting colder by the day. I am so blessed and fortunate to be having this experience and I am doing the best I can to be involved and maximize the wonderful opportunity that it is by learning and serving in the community.

All the best,

Laura

First week in Leeds

Hi everyone!

My husband, David, and I arrived in Leeds on Tuesday, September 4th. We quickly settled in a found a lovely apartment a few blocks north of the University of Leeds, very close to a nice outdoor park. The area we are living in is full of students and young professionals. So far, we are finding our way around well and are really enjoying Leeds as a city, as well as, the area we are living in.

I have already made several contacts with Rotary here which is great! I can tell they are going to be very involved and helpful to us during our year in the UK. The Rotaract club is still very small at Leeds despite the size of the University (30,000.) There are several other Uni's in Leeds brining the total number of students up to 60,000 for the city. Rotaract is mainly made up of international students so we are really going to work at getting some people from the area involved this year as well.

On September 20th, I will be having dinner with the District governor as well as the other Ambassadorial Scholars assigned to this area. We have all begun communicating via email and are very excited about the upcoming year!!!!

It's a bit cold here already for September. The sun is shining, but I still need to wear a jacket if I am walking outside....very different from the very hot summers back at home! The picture is of the lovely neighborhood area near the park and University....

Hope all is well. Bye bye for now :)

Laura