I could write this tomorrow…

But there’s no time like the present. Many a great things have been happening over the past week and I will fill you in on what they are!

To start off, if you haven’t read my previous post about Blink-182 and how I won two tickets to any show on their European tour, you should probably check that out. That pretty much covers Thursday. Unfortunately the day came to a low point upon finding out that my Grandmother Patricia Chartrand passed away. She had been suffering from a very aggressive brain tumour and it had finally taken over. In a way, I’m glad that it came quickly so that she didn’t have to suffer through the pain but on the other hand, I wish she could have had a bit more coherent time with Grampy. Hopefully all will be well.

Friday wasn’t a very memorable day other than some lovely banter before Macroeconomics class with Caroline, Nikita and Tom. I made sure to have an early night because I was looking forward to a day of rowing on Saturday!

Which obviously brings us to Saturday. Having not been out on the water since the middle of Michaelmas term, it was pretty safe to say I was anxious to get out for some rowing. I woke up a bit early, got a little breakfast and then took the Tube from Southwark to Westminster and then to Turnham Green to meet up with the girls to take the bus to the boat house. After a while of waiting for one of the girls on our crew to show up, we decided to wait inside of the boat house instead of the in the rainy and windy exterior. Then we got the black 8+ out and the rain lifted up a bit. We have two crews set for this term. One crew is training for the Women’s Head of the River on March 3 and the other is training for a race we are doing in Toulouse, France called Supaerowing the weekend of March 9-11. I should be competing on both crews so I have two races to look forward to towards the end of Lent term! Though, if we feel we are prepared enough as the Head crew, we might be racing in the Hammersmith Head on February 19. I thought that I had a very good outing for it being only my second time on the water and I’m looking forward to rapidly improving. If you want to check out the video of our first outing as a set crew here’s the link. CLICK ME!

After our outing, Caroline and I went to Giraffe and boy is that restaurant delicious. We shared Huevos Rancheros and a Cheesebuger with Sweet Potato Fries. We are planning on going back there after our outings on Saturdays for the rest of rowing.

Which brings me to Sunday! And Sunday was a busy day. I woke up to do some work for Monday (hell day) and then made my way over to Hillsong London. Welcome Home. I love Hillsong London with such a passion. This week was my first week serving on the One27 team to make the packs with service information and provision envelopes with pens that go on the seats. Because we have Church in the Dominion Theatre that is usually host to the musical We Will Rock You, it poses a challenge to balance the packs on the arms of the theatre chairs, but I managed to catch the hang of it. After a couple of hours of serving it was time for the 18:00 service, which is widely known as the Young Adults populated service. I was so excited for this week because Pastor Brian Houston, the Head Pastor over all of Hillsong Church who generally lives in Sydney, Australia, was in London to speak to us! It was a great message, great worship, great people. Everything about Hillsong is amazing. If you’re looking for a Church to go to in London, Hillsong is definitely the place to be. If you’re not in London (as I assume most of you aren’t) Hillsong Sydney does a live feed and there are many podcasts that you can find on iTunes. So much love. I’m also really looking forward to Colour Conference in the end of April for the Sisterhood of the Church.

And now it is Monday; the most extravagant day of them all! I started the day off perfectly with scrambled eggs on toast and a cup of joe from Frank’s, which is around the corner from Bankside. I brought last week’s copy of The Economist with me and had a nice 20 minute breakfast session before heading over to Peacock Theatre for Macroeconomics lecture. I was early today, it was very interesting. After lecture, I had a meeting with the other heads of Women’s Rowing to make sure that we were all on the same page with racing and the running of the club. It was very productive. Then, I didn’t have my Research Methods lecture because my professor was ill! (Get well soon Jordi!) Class for Microeconomics followed and then I had lunch with Nikita in the 4th Floor Restaurant where we had Chinese food to celebrate the Chinese New Year! I will most likely go to some of the Chinese New Year festivities in Trafalgar Square this weekend if I have some spare time. After hanging out with Wisconsin (John) for a bit and returning some books from the Library I made my way to Old Gym to record the men’s Erg session times. 3 x 2000m! Some of them rowed in their racing onesies which is always entertaining. Jean pulled a 6:50.1 which was rather impressive for the Novice team. After my ritual of £3 Subway meals, I came back home to go to the gym and do our scheduled Erg session for the day which was titled by Vicky as the 30 minute “Ball-breaker”. And what a treat that was! The pain will be felt tomorrow from 3 sets of 4 minutes at a rate of 20 strokes per minute, 3 minutes rate 24, 2 minutes rate 26 and 1 minute rate 28. All for training and improvement. It will be worth it. It WILL be worth it. Especially when we race in the 7000m Head of the River.

I just realised that I didn’t even get to the best part of today. How silly of me to forget. I filled out an application a couple of weeks ago to be a part of a program called the Global Poverty Ambassadors of 2012. Many of you who know me personally know that I am a big supporter of non-profit organisations focused on human rights and the eradication of poverty. I have been campaigning for the ONE Campaign and Invisible Children for several years and continue to help out where I can. The Global Poverty Project, in conjunction with The Co-Operative, is an educational and campaigning organisation that activates citizens to be a part of the global movement to end extreme poverty. I found out this afternoon that I was selected to be a Global Poverty Ambassador! I will be training to deliver the 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation to places in my community and elsewhere. Expect a vlog with the presentation! Not only will I be able to take a step up in my campaigning to fight global poverty, but I will be attending the launch of the Global Poverty Ambassadors at the LSE on Wednesday. You might ask, why is this so exciting? Bill Gates has chosen the launch of the Global Poverty Ambassadors to deliver his Annual Letter! I am incredibly thrilled to be a part of this momentous occasion and you can be a part of it to! Of course, the launch itself is closed to members of the general public, but there will be a live stream of Mr. Gates’ presentation of the Annual Letter and the launch of the Global Poverty Ambassadors! You can watch it HERE on Wednesday January 25 at 13:30-14:30. For you east-coasters that would be 8:30-9:30. It will be an event that you do not want to miss. I assure you I will have an update immediately following the presentation. There are 75 Ambassadors in the first group for the year!

As for tomorrow, because I decided to write this and prolong going to bed (it’s now 2:00am), I will get close to 8 hours of sleep and wake up at 10. Being the lucky duck that I am, I don’t have class or lecture on Tuesday so I don’t have to worry about anything! But because I am in training I am going to go for a run in the morning and then head to Uni to go to Rowing circuits and then get some work done. I’m also going to start a new page on my blog titled, Things I Love About London. Does that sound cheesy? Maybe so, but it’s not going to be your average work of fancy for architecture and such. Stay tuned.

I have included several links throughout this post that can give you more information to the organisations that I am a part of or events that I am taking place in.

That’s all for now!
Update on Wednesday, FOR SURE.

I’m a happy camper.–Kerry

This doesn’t happen to me… BLINK-182!

I won. I never win these kinds of things. I don’t know how the luck of the world would come to me at that moment, but it did and I couldn’t be more excited! I’m currently in a state of denial.

Earlier this afternoon, I was wandering around Covent Garden looking for Mark Hoppus from Blink-182.

It is taking me forever to write this post because I keep thinking that this didn’t happen.

So, I ate lunch and then ventured over to Covent Garden because I knew that there was going to be someone giving out a bunch of free Blink-182 signed merch with no idea where exactly in Covent Garden it would be or when it would happen. I’m going to say it was sheer luck being in Covent Garden at the time the tweets were going out. I was constantly checking my phone for updates and after about 20 minutes of aimless wandering in and out of Covent Garden Market two tweets came through. The first said, “Don’t be a square. I have a secret item to give away right now. But you must pick that or a signed item. It might be nothing. Feeling lucky?” and the second a couple of minutes later said, “Did I say square? I meant a garden.”

Trying to figure out these hints was just SO LOVELY because there were still absolutely no hints about his exact location until another 15 minutes later. THEN we hit the mother load of intel with the tweet saying, “The nicest people and the best coffee on London.” This was including a picture of a coffee cup with a bunch of spoons in it and then 2 minutes later, “Adronicas the best coffee in the Garden.” I just so happened to be right around the corner from Adronicas and ran over to the front of the shop. Still, I was very confused because there was really no sign of someone with merch and I was assuming that it would be a giant bag of merch or something crazy big. Just some people drinking coffee out front and no one in the shop? Seemed a little inconspicuous to me, until a crazy kid came running into the shop and the barista inside was pointing out the door and said that the guy in front of the shop is who we were looking for. There were about 5 people or so at this point and we asked the guy out front if he knew anything about the Blink-182 merch give away. He calmly said, “No” and looked back at his phone. But then he whipped out a giant saddle bag and said that it was him who we were looking for. The little group of us then got really excited.

I was just excited to have the opportunity to get some free signed stuff. But then he looked at the group of us and then directed his attention to me where he then said, “You were here first. Do you want to go with the secret item or do you want a signed item. Keep in mind that the secret item could be you paying for my bill for the coffee I just got. But you have to be confident with your answer.” I was a little taken aback. Winning contests like this NEVER happens to me. I’ve entered random contests for years just saying to myself, “the only way you have a chance of winning is if you enter so you might as well.”

I remember what I thought when I read the tweet earlier in the day about the secret prize and I was reading the comments on facebook of people saying what they would do. As we all know I hate making decisions and that is exactly what I thought upon reading that update. That and I had no idea what I would pick. But alas, I had to make a decision. Paula was there and I figured at least one of us would end up with something signed so I might as well go all out. HOORAY FOR SPONTANEITY. I told him that secrets were fun so I might as well have the secret. Then he opened his bag and took out a piece of paper and told me to write down my name and e-mail so that I could tell him which show out of any on the Blink-182 European tour I wanted to go to because he was giving me 2 tickets. WHAT

Then he proceeded to hand out signed stuff to some of the people that had realised who he was and started swarming around us. Then it was over! He said that was all of the merch and walked away. I couldn’t really contain my excitement after that. I literally was frolicking back to the LSE screaming randomly and jumping around. I most likely looked like I escaped from an insane asylum to any passer by, but I didn’t care. Paula and I then went to the Three Tuns to have a celebratory beer for signed merch and excitement. I then looked at Blink’s tweets and felt like a moron when I read the tweet that said, “Haha your standing right next to me.” After thinking about it, I was literally standing right in front of Chris saying, “WHERE IS THIS GUY?!?!?!” I’m seriously amazed he didn’t just bust out laughing because I was thoroughly confused. The final tweet? “You found me. Everything is gone. The secret item? Two tickets to whatever show you want on the blink European tour.” VICTORY!

Now I just have to pick which show I want to go to. Sold out London show? Hmmm… the possibilities are endless. I just wanted to share my story of the day with you.

Considering the last time I saw Blink-182 was in the latter part of 2009 in Charlotte, NC for the Reunion Tour, I can safely say I’ve been looking forward to seeing Blink for a while. It should be even more awesome considering there will be new songs to be heard live for the first time! Can’t wait.

Boy am I glad I’m in London right now.

CHEERS MATE!