bookends
It’s been a few days. Classes started this week, and even though I’ve only been to one so far I’ve spent a lot of time shuttling myself to and from campus.
Monday morning, we had a completely pointless “academic induction” meeting which I think lasted under 10 minutes and which was an ultimate waste of me waking up and paying too much money on the tube to get to. Afterward, I got my student ID card and a few of us walked around the campus with nothing to do but not enough time to go back to Wood Green before we had “library induction.” After kicking it on campus, trying to figure out once and for all the difference between a regular oyster card and a student one, and debating which one to get, we went to “library induction” which was also a completely pointless meeting in which I learned next to nothing as well.
After a pretty much wasted day on campus, Manuel and I attempted to find our way home via bus since it’s cheaper than the tube. It was quite the adventure. First, we missed the bus because we were looking for where to pay for a ticket, since sometimes you pay on the bus and sometimes before. Turns out on this bus, you pay when you board. So we had to wait for the next bus in the freezing cold. We got on and paid our 2 pounds, and after the bus got stuck in absolutely horrible traffic, it first said it was changing route and then just said the bus was terminating at the next stop, so we got dumped in the rain at a random bus stop and had to wait for another one to come along. When we got back on, apparently we didn’t have to repay since we paid on the other one, but I was too far behind to hear that tidbit of information, so I forked over another 2 pounds before Manuel informed me that we didn’t have to pay again. So by the time we finally got back to Wood Green an hour after we left Oakwood, we had spent more than twice as much time as we should have to get home, and I had spent twice as much money as I should have. What a disaster! That night we went grocery shopping anddd I don’t remember doing much else. There was a big party in the kitchen next to my room which I was in and out of, but I just am not into large groups of people so I only spent a good amount of time over there after most everyone else had gotten kicked out.
Yesterday was the first day I had to sleep in since I’ve been here, and I took full advantage of it, not waking up until almost noon. We had a meeting to be to on campus at two for English Lit where one of the professors basically gave us an overview of how the classes were ran and such. I was supposed to have one right after that for my one music class, but the professor wasn’t there and I found out that the class was an early morning class, so I decided to drop it instead of dropping my 19th century lit class. That evening, Rachel, Kari and I decided to just go into London to wander and explore since we were sick of sitting around our respective dorms. We took the tube into the city and spent a couple hours just wandering through Chinatown (which is really about 3 streets), Piccadilly Circus and down along the shops on Regent Street and part of Oxford Street. We bought a couple plays for our Shakespeare class but window shopped other than that since we are all trying to save as much money as possible. But we saw some amazing stores, like a huge Apple store, a four story toy store, and Topshop, which is four stories of clothes and shoes and accessories. I’m pretty sure I could have dropped about $1,000 in a matter of minutes there. These Londoners know their fashion. After we had exhausted ourselves wandering through the stores, we split a pizza at Pizza Hut in Leicester Square and headed back north.
setting up for Chinese New Year.
Theatreland. This is on my to-do list.
Haymarket Street.
Piccadilly Circus.
and again.
yes, please.
Harry Potter display at Hamley’s Toy Store. Now this is what I came to London for.
Today was my first day of class - Late 20th Century Literature. The classes here are split into 1-hour lectures and 1 1/2-hour seminars, with discussion being the focus of the seminar period, and while the topic seems pretty fascinating, let me tell you I don’t know when the last time was that I’ve ever felt so stupid. I would say that it was potentially a difference in education systems, but another girl from Chapman seemed to be participating just fine, so I think it’s just a lack of insight on my part. Every passage or poem that we read in both the lecture and the seminar I just had absolutely nothing to bring to the table about, while so many other students were so eloquent and articulate in analyzing the texts. It’s a good thing we’re not graded on participation.
After I got back from class Manuel and I decided to head back into London to try to get some of the books on our seemingly endless list of required readings for class. With six Lit classes between the two of us, we have a ridiculous amount of books to buy, so we went to Charing Cross Road to try to find some. By the way, I have decided to move to Charing Cross Road as soon as possible. We walked only five or six blocks from Leicester Square station and saw about 10 bookstores. Sadly a lot of them were closed since we were down there later at night and everything in this city closes so ridiculously early, but we did end up shopping from four different bookstores, and I got 15 books (about half of my list for all my classes) as well as The Tales of Beedle the Bard (an impulse buy at the register! The British copy is so much more beautiful that the American one and I still hadn’t bought it!) for about 75 quid, which I was quite proud of.
And now it’s 1:30 and I should sleep because I have class again in 8 hours. These entries have pretty much been devoid of any real meaningful insights, but hopefully once I get into a set routine I can start to focus my thoughts a little more. I hope my Wednesday-Friday class schedule works out well. I’m quite looking forward to having a 4 day weekend every weekend until June. :)
