The World in Britain

  Wow, it has been far too long since my last entry here!  Life certainly has been very busy.  As others have written, we visited the Globe theatre to see a marvelous production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Going into London by train was so fun–I’ve never taken a real train before and consequently have fallen in love with the ease of public transportation here.  Especially the Tube and the ever fabulous Tube map, which is a work of art in itself.  Going to the Globe felt almost surreal and I was so absolutely thrilled that I nearly screamed in an embarrassing manner as soon as the building came into view.  Since then, I’ve returned to London a few times.  I went in with Reena and Michaela to do some exploring and meet a friends studying there.  We had a little picnic in Hyde Park then took the Tube to Westminster.  When we climbed out the station, I got the thrill of lifetime realizing that we were standing right beside Big Ben.  Then we attended an evensong service at Westminster which was an awe inspiring experience.  The Saturday evensong is almost completely sung by the choir and hearing the glorious music in the context of such a glorious space filled me with an indescribable sense of beauty.  Afterwards, we navigated the Tube to Covent Garden where we met my friend for an excellent pub dinner and dessert at the adorable Candy Cakes cupcake shop.  The day was so laid back and it was so wonderful to enjoy the city in the relaxed company of friends. 

 The next week, I returned to London with a different group of friends to see ‘Spamalot’ and of course, make the obligatory pilgrimage to King’s Cross station platform 9 3/4.  Another amazing adventure in London town! 

Recently I’ve also been working to settle into Uni life.  I’m really enjoying my literature classes but the newness of the system has been occasionally confusing.  I’m finally getting used to the huge lectures and the somewhat disconnected smaller seminars which feel so much more familiar.  I have a great deal of reading constantly but I’m really enjoying the discussions in seminars.  I’ve also gotten involved with the University chaplaincy on the advice of a former Readingite.  The chaplains are wonderful and the openness of programming has provided me and a few other girls from my house with wonderful opportunities to discuss spiritual matter with like-minded people.  About two weeks ago, Rissa and I went on a retreat with the Chaplaincy to a local Benedictine monastery.  I’ve always wanted to visit such a community and the experience was both unique and revitalizing. 

Well, we leave for our first seminar trip tomorrow so I need to get to bed.  Stonehenge, Bath, and Bristol–here we come!

It has been another great week here in England, actually yet another week of firsts.  Last night it snowed here in Reading!  We were all really surprised, and of course that sent us into a flurry of girly squealing as we all rushed outside to get our first taste of English snow.  After we all froze to death out there and took plenty of pictures, we came back inside and all had hot chocolate, which was of course appropriate for the weather.  It actually snowed enough last night for there to still be some on the ground this morning, but it is freezing right now!  Winter is definitely on its way.

Speaking of winter, a few weeks ago we caught a hedgehog in our backyard before it went into winter hibernation!  It was adorable! We brought him into our conservatory and let him wander around a bit and ooh’d and aah’d over him and then let him go again.  It was really a lot of fun, and just goes to show the completely random and exciting things that go on here at 153 when we’re not traveling or in class.

Classes are still going well.  I’m so glad that I found a Public Health class here.  I would never be able to take anything like this at home, and because I’m having such a good time with this class, I’ve decided that I’m definitely going to go to graduate school for public health.  This class has already been a valuable experience for me…after only 4 class meetings. Sociolinguistics is also still really interesting.  It’s been a really cool experience to be in a class with mostly graduate students from all over the world.  It puts everything we’re learning into an intersting experience.

This past weekend we also had our first party of the semester.  It was of course, a Halloween party and everyone dressed up and had a good time.  There were some pretty creative costumes and it was good to just hang out for a while together.

Probably the most interesting thing I’ve learned about British culture this week is that they don’t eat pumpkin pie!  How can it be autumn without pumpkin pie?!  We read an article in the Times yesterday about how Americans supposedly don’t actually like this foreign substance of a pie made out of pumpkin, so we set out to prove this writer wrong.  Sarah Bramhall and I headed to the British version of Wal-Mart (Asda) and bought ourselves a pumpkin.  We cooked it down and made a pie-completely from scratch.  It was fabulous and quite the adventure.  We were practicing for our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner.  153 has decided to make a full-fledged turkey dinner on Thanksgiving–we’re really excited.

I am off to do some homework since we’re going on our first seminar trip this weekend to Stonehenge, Bath and Bristol and the next weekend I am headed to Paris to visit a fellow Randolph-Macon student who is studying in France.  I’ll have plenty to talk about next week!

Last night we had our first official party of the year, and it was a very successful Halloween Costume party! It was a lot of fun! Everyone was required to come in costume, and there was a lot of students from campus as well as a lot of my friends from Chilis there! All in all it was a good night and it went smoothly. There were no problems with Peter, our security guard, and everyone had a great time! The decorations were amazing, and there was even left over funds for pizza and tasty snacks! Everyone’s costumes were amazing, and I would say our first party of the year was a success!

I’m sorry to say that its been FOREVER since I’ve published a post!  So I have lots to catch up on.  I’m sure that you’ve all read about our fabulous trip to London in September to see a play at the Globe, which was a truly amazing experience.  We were groundlings, so we stood in the yard.  I was one of the first ones in the theatre, so I got to lean against the stage.  When you can feel the actor’s spit landing on you while he’s talking, you know you have a good spot.  Before the play, I went in early with some housemates and friends and we toured St Paul’s Cathedral, which has been and remains one of my favourite places in London. It was beautiful.  Brooke and Sarah dragged me up the millions of stairs to the top of the dome, and despite an awful fear of heights, the view was spectacular!! We saw all of London from the best vantage point.  After the play, my roommate and I explored a little around Hyde Park and ate great Indian food.

Sam, Katt and I decided to go back to London the next day.  We had the ultimate touristy day.  We got off the Tube, and I randomly picked a direction to walk in.  This is when I discovered that I have a strangely gifted sense of direction.  We walked in the opposite direction from our original plan, but wound up in Trafalgar Square, which was fantastic, talk about the photo opportunities.  Katt joined the little kids and climbed onto the lions under Admiral Nelson.  We then walked past number 10 Downing Street towards Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey.  Fabulous walk and of course we stopped for the typical photo op in a red phone box.  We then toured Westminster Abbey and snuck some pictures.  Katt did the robot on Charles Dicken’s grave, just to show him what she thought of Great Expectations and we saw all the dead kings and queens you could dream of.  Then we walked past Buckingham Palace and through St James Park and met Sarah and Vance for lunch at the original Hard Rock.  After lunch, we headed towards the Tower of London and walked around the perimeter since it was a little late for a tour.  Everyone then headed home except for Katt and I, the intrepid tourists.  We wandered around and found a beefeater, or palace guard to take funny photos of.

Classes started 2 weeks ago.  I’m taking Sociolinguistics, which is a graduate level course, but fascinating! Wednesdays I have Intro to Public Health, which is a great opportunity that I wouldn’t have back at Macon, and Fridays is Russian which is a tutorial style class.  Just me and the professor.  I’m really loving the classes so far, including the World in Britain seminar. My seminar paper is on the danger that Mary, Queen of Scots posed to Elizabeth, and I am trying to work hard on it.  I have a good outline and in 3 weeks I have to have 20 pages written.  Yikes! But I’m enjoying the topic and my paper advisor has been very helpful.  I will be well prepared to write my senior paper next year.  I’ve been meeting some other very interesting people in my classes, especially sociolinguistics where literally everyone is from a different country.  I’ve been working with a couple of cool American girls in that class and we’re all comparing our experiences so far.

Last weekend, Sam and Katt and I headed back to London (how could we resist, we live a half hour away).  We strolled around Covent Garden and ate cupcakes at “Candy Cakes” and then walked all around the shopping districts along Regent Street and Oxford Street.  We had lots of fun in London’s biggest toy store, Hamley’s and found a designer dress on mega-sale for Sam for Ring Night.  We headed back to Covent Garden for dinner at an Italian place and the we all headed out to see shows.  Sam and I went to see French and Saunders (a great comedy team) do their last live show together, and it was so worth it and so hilarious! Katt had picked up some tickets to see Avenue Q and she had a great time there.

This weekend we’re having a Halloween party, which should be quite fun, and then the next weekend we’re headed on a seminar trip to Bristol, Stonehenge and Bath!! I’m really excited about that.  The next weekend promises to be fun too, as Sam and I are going to visit our friend Lucy who is studying abroad in Paris; we just booked the tickets today.  So we have plenty of fun things planned and plenty of interesting work to do!

I will update very soon, but right now I am attempting to write two essays before tomorrow’s Celtic Paganism class at Oxford. It’s a one-on-one seminar. Normally I would have been working way ahead of this, but I went on a one-time weekend retreat at Douai Abbey with the Chaplaincy, which was wonderfully worth it… Unfortunately, all of the lovely relaxation and mediation that I found there has been forgotten in the whirlwind of classes and last-minute work today. Now, I’ll just go get a cuppa downstairs and type, type, type.

More later - as wonderful as Elysia’s posts are (that is, very!), there are other things to tell you about, too! :)  Cheers!

So, our third week of classes is underway…and I must admit that I am stressing out a lot. While most other uni students picked their classes last semester and were able to procure “syllabi” and reading lists - I did not get any reading lists until the first week of classes - only to find out that I have 4 1,500 word essays due on Thursday. Before I can write these fabulous essays, I must first read several Renaissance texts. I have finished Richard III and Arden of Faversham so I only have Troilus and Criseyde and the works of Isabella Whitney/Lady Wroth left. We may only meet once a week for each course (module as they call it here) but, we are expected to do A LOT of work on our own, without the guidance of a professor. British students are expected to be adults in every way, and be able to prioritize their time appropriately. Luckily, priority is not a problem of mine - the only problem is just lack of time. Fortunately, after this week, I will be on the same schedule as the other students. I dont like being behind everyone else, but luckily, the professors here are really understanding, and the women from Randolph-Macon who preceeded our group left a very strong repertoire. We are known on this campus for our intellect and excellent work ethic. It is really nice to come into an atmosphere that thinks so highly of where we are from, and what we have done as Randolph-Macon Women. The same goes for Randolph College - as now the women of Randolph-Macon are ensuring a good reputation for Randolph. The only scary thing about having a reputation that preceeds you is that it truly means the pressure is on. I think this year’s group of Readingites are up to the challenge!

I am one of the fortunate students to have a three day weekend! I have no classes on Mondays, and so for me this past week, my first day of class was Tuesday, October 7th. I started out my day with Renaissance Drama (lecture) and it was really interesting. Unfortunately, because we got our class schedules so late, all of my British peers had summer reading that they completed long ago - and I just found out about these summer readings, so I am a bit behind. I read The Spanish Tragedy in 1 night for my Renaissance Drama class. It was really interesting, and a bit Shakespearean in content. I also have a Shakespeare course on Tuesday, and it was about The Taming of the Shrew, which was really controversial. The course consists of 4 Randy-Mac women, and no one else.  I already have a presentation due on the shrew next week. It seems to be the trend here that courses move along a lot faster than at home. Wednesday I have a cognition lecture, and my class is 400 students large!! IT IS HUGE! It was really hard to pay attention in this class, because I felt so disconnected from my peers and professor. I guess that I will have to get used to the size and teaching differences here in order to do well in this particular course. Fortunately, there are 2 professors, so I will have the opportunity to experience different voices and opinions and talking methods in this course.  Thursday I have the Renaissance Drama Seminar, and it is about 12 of us and the professor, discussing in detail the key points of Renaissance Drama, both on the page and on stage. At night, I have salsa dancing as a course, and I am really excited to learn to do the Salsa!! It will be a fun way to interact with others. Finally, on Friday I have Medieval Romance Literature, and the professor is really amazing. We had her for a few classes during the World in Britain course, and she was a pleasure!

I worked a lot this week, and with class, the inevitable discovery of books already read by everyone else that I had no clue about, and the intimidation of being an international student on a huge campus, I am really tired this weekend. I do plan on going to the union tonight and meeting British students, but tomorrow after work, I will have to start cracking down on all the reading I have not done….

So, this past week has been a week of many events! Schedules are being finalized because courses officially start Monday! I got all the classes I wanted, and I have Renaissance Drama every Tuesday from 9-10 am, as well as Shakespeare and Romance every Tuesday from 1:45-2:45. I have Cognition from 12-1 every Wednesday, and my Renaissance Drama Seminar every Thursday from 3-4. I Have salsa dancing every Thursday night and finish the week with Medieval Romance from 2-4 pm every Friday! With this schedule, I will finish my English Major requirements, save Senior Sem! Those will fulfill all my pre-1800 requirements, and I will be pretty well-versed in the medieval/renaissance/elizabethan eras!

 This week, our private courses ended, and so we all had to write huge papers that were due yesterday! I finished Monday, but the rest of my housemates are definitely more into procrastination then I am…so Thursday I decided to go to London by myself to see Avenue Q - which was absolutely fantastic and amazing! It was worth it - and when everyone else was jealous, I hope it was a lesson that procrastination is LAME!

 When we were not working on papers or figuring out classes, we were at Freshers Faire - which is an excellent way to meet people and find out about all the clubs/societies/sports/goings on of Reading Uni! At Freshers Faire we found out about a lot of the parties going on this week, and a few of us went out to Q Bar (which is a techno/hip-hop club) and had some fun meeting other college students! Tomorrow night - the last night of freshers week is a massive foam party at Q bar - and I am pretty sure everyone is going!!!! It should be a lot of fun, even if it is too cold for bathing suits…

Monday starts classes, and even though I dont have any, the excitement and pressure is definitely on!