Friday, October 22, 2010

So it's been a little while

I got very busy the past few weeks and haven't had time to post. The last time I posted was just before I went to Wales for the weekend. It was with the social programme for my school so it was like 75 international students. It was pretty fun. I made a friend named Garrett and went to all these ruins and an awesome castle. And I fell in love with the Welsh flag. Interestingly enough, Wales is entirely bilingual down to the street signs (with Welsh and English) but since Welsh uses other letters as vowels like w and y, the words look insane to me. That was really interesting to see. I enjoyed being out in the mountains and with grass and trees and everything because even though I go to the parks in London, I still miss the wilderness.
After my weekend in Wales, my girlfriend came and visited me for five days. That was a blast. She'd never been to London before so I took her to a few tourist-y places. We ate lots of good food and went out a lot. I was really glad to experience London with her. It made me more conscious of some of the cultural differences though. Because I've gotten accustomed to some of the differences or not thought they were a big deal, but she thought they were revolutionary. Especially compared to Ecuador, where she's studying this semester. I'm excited to go see her in Quito at the end of November.
Then that weekend, my friend from middle school and high school came to visit from Edinburgh, Scotland. I hadn't seen her in about five or six years. That was really fun to catch up. It was good to discuss differences between Scotland and Britain. I plan to visit her in November as well to get a taste of Scotland.
The following week my parents came for a visit as the first part of their vacation. It was really good to see them and cured any little bit of homesickness I had. We ate so much good food. We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the British Library. I love going to museums with my mom, she always knows so much. I also really liked knowing so much about the city we were in because then it was like I was on the same level with my dad, where as usually he is the only one that knows where we're going.
I saw them off yesterday and now have to catch up on all of this work that I'd been putting off due to constant adventures and company. I will post again soon with pictures and things. But right now I must be off to read a few books and write a paper.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Week 3

Classes went significantly better this week now that we've actually started the coursework. This week I read "Sheepshagger" by Niall Griffiths which although extremely well written was so graphic that I actually had nightmares from it. It was also quite lengthy which made it a task but I finished it in three days and two of those days I had nine hours of class. I also read "Landscape for a Good Woman" by Carolyn Steedman which I was expecting to be more about gender but it's main focus was a historical view of class. Then I read "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville which is a rather short novel about a strange man. I'm still not sure how to feel about it. It wasn't life-altering, clearly. I read selections from "City-Lit: London" as well.
This week I went to the British Library which was fantastically modern and  had lots of comfortable places to sit. However, to actually get to the books you had to have proof that they had something you couldn't find anywhere else and you had to go through all these security things and could only bring like pencils and laptops into the rooms with the books. So I didn't actually get to SEE the books. Oh well...
I spent more time reading in Regent's Park which was nice because I managed to catch it on a sunny afternoon. Supposedly this is going to be the last week of relative warmth before it starts to get cold. I'm not excited for it to get super cold because I like being outside.
I've been frequenting the gym and trying to eat fruits and veggies and have thus gained some muscle which is nice. I know I'll be taking a week off so I worked out extra hard this week. Hah.
I went on my second trip to Camden today. It was way less crowded on a Friday than on a Sunday so I enjoyed it a lot more.
I'm headed to Wales in the morning until Sunday night. Then Gina arrives on Monday morning! So I probably won't get around to posting again for a little while.
Here are some pics of the British Library.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Week Two a success

Sorry it's been a little while since I posted. I got pretty busy.
This past week I had my classes for the first time. Most of them are ok. I'm most excited for my class called Reading Women. It's really interesting- I really enjoy talking about gender. I have my first project due in that class this Wednesday. I'm a little nervous because its 30% of my final grade and the other 70% is entirely my  final essay.
Last week, I also went to Regent's Park and sat and read some Virginia Woolf there. I also finished "The Scarlet Letter" and a play called "Blue/Orange." I've read some theoretical texts about what it means to be a woman writer as well as some short pieces about defining place this week.
What else have I done?
I went to the British Museum one day which was really nice but kind of boring by myself. I went used book shopping for an entire morning one day. That was pretty fantastic, although somewhat fruitless.
This weekend, I hung out with some friends in Soho on Saturday night. Sunday we went to Camden Market which was epic. I'll definitely have to go back there. Starting last night, there was a tube strike. So the tube didn't run much today at all. That was interesting. I knew how to take the bus and had done it a few times before but it was a mess because so many people were trying to take it. It took me two hours just to get to campus this morning.
I've been going to the gym on campus a lot now. It's really nice. I'm thinking about doing some classes.
I took a night bus for the first time which was way less sketchy than I thought it would be.
I'm still searching for a good place that has comfy chairs where I can sit and read.

Also, last week me and my friend Claudia got locked into a park. There were no signs saying it closed and no one told us to leave. We ended up having to climb a fence to get out. Ooops. But here is a picture from the park.
The library I spend most of my time in.
Me and my friend Amy