Ever heard of Opal Fruits?

The past two days, I've been very studious and have worked on my essay that's due on the 19th. The topic: Did the use of male actors in Shakespeare's plays confine or liberate female roles? Pretty dorky, huh? I'm arguing the "confined" point of view. Luckily, my teacher, Cath, is really cool and is letting me use American spelling and bibliography! The English spell quite a few words differently than we do in the good ole U.S. Examples: tire = tyre, realize = realise, color = colour, favorite = favourite, program = programme, center = centre, etc. On Wednesday night, Tooley cooked tacos with the taco mix her mom sent from home. Yum! My parents mailed me some Jello pudding mix and Vanilla wafers so that I can make banana pudding...I can't wait! The Christmas lights on the main street in town were on Wednesday night (just a test), and they were gorgeous! I can't wait until all of the lights are on for good so I can take pictures and post them for everyone to see. The big news in England is that Tony Blair may be out of office sooner than expected. The MPs (Ministers of Parliament) in the House of Commons (like our Congress) just vetoed Blair's plans for school and terror reform. Gordon Brown (currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer...kind of like the treasurer) will replace Tony Blair if he ever steps down from the office of Prime Minister. High tensions for the Labour party! Tooley learned an interesting tidbit at work today...Starbursts candy originated in England under the name Opal Fruits. When the company tried to market them in the U.S., manufacturers refused to produce them because the name was misleading...they weren't really fruit candy. They changed the name to Starbursts for American consumers, and seven years ago, ended up having to change the name in England, too, to save on production costs. Tooley said one of her coworkers used this as an example of Americans thinking we're bigger and better than other countries. (We get comments like that a lot). Our landlord also makes comments about how Americans think they have to drive huge cars and live in huge houses. I would say for the most part, the English really do like Americans, but view the country as a whole as extravagant and conceited. But you'll rarely find an English person who is rude to an American just because they're from the U.S. Tomorrow, I'm going to Conventry for the weekend to stay with Bianca and the Littlefords, so my next post will be either Sunday night or Monday morning. Have a great weekend!