12 Jan

Had another fairly early start today so I woke up at 8:30, got ready real fast, and made it in time for breakfast which closes at 9:15. I left for the train station just past 9:30 and had to wait there until almost 10 for the train to London Bridge. It was running a few minutes late. I had my Pod with me which was a blessing since it provided much desired entertainment for the ride. I had an English department meeting at 11 and I found the room at the Strand campus with plenty of time to spare. Other JYA students trickled into the room and I recognized several of them. It wasn’t until 5 minutes to 11 that the first guys walked in and I think they ended up totaling 3 (out of nearly 20 people). An elderly woman with a kindly face walked in an said that she was waiting on someone else who was the “essential person” of the English department and was the one responsible for keeping it running smoothly. Since we had some time to kill, she proceeded to hand out packets of information the department had already prepared for each of us. Such a change from the chaos of the War Studies department! She introduced herself as Rivkah (riff-ka) Zim and I recognized the name as the professor who would be teaching one of my classes. She went on to say that she was the one responsible for admitting us into the English department and that she would be teaching only one undergraduate class this semester, one I’m taking. I found that to be really exciting news since it means that she’s clearly rather high on the department pecking order and that her class will be really good (not to mention I felt some pride to think that she found me worthy of being in that class). It’s a level 3, or senior, level class that seems intense but also a lot of fun (“Court Cultures in the Age of Elizabeth”. It’s also one of the few classes that do not have a seminar (recitation) but just a two-hour lecture. Dorothy Pearce was the other woman responsible for introducing us to the department and I felt the two of them did an extremely competent job of it. They answered questions promptly and clearly and offered helpful tips on how to get around the building and around London. They also treated us like juniors and not like freshmen new to the whole college process. We learned that “drop/add week” does not exist in the UK and that once you’re signed up for a course you’re pretty much set in it unless you have some major issue like a schedule clash or something. Unfortunately, several of the JYA students did. UK students typically have schedules in which all their classes belong to just one level, unlike what we do in the States where you can easily be in both freshmen and higher level classes. Since we are clearly not degree candidates, we can take courses across levels. This leads to scheduling conflicts, which I luckily did not have, and I hope they will be able to resolve. It sounded like the JYAs would have to drop a Jacobean Shakespeare class that will be a pity. I left the meeting feeling quite pleased and much relieved that one of my departments here is organized and well structured. I am eagerly looking forward to my English classes. I also found out this morning that one of my English classes conflicts with my War Studies class so I’ll have to see what can be done about that. After the meeting I grabbed some lunch and ate it by the college chapel. You can pictures of it once I get my ws_ftp program working again. It’s gorgeous and just stunning for a college chapel. I then caught the Tube for Russell Square and the British Museum. Since there is just way too much to see in that place in one or even four days, I decided to pace myself and just visit the Greece and Rome exhibits. I made an obligatory stop at the Rosetta Stone before heading over to Mycenae and then to the Parthenon exhibit. I was interesting to see how the museum had set up a special section devoted to explaining the history of the Parthenon and how Lord Elgin was really doing the Athenians a favor by taking the sculptures since they probably would have been defaced or destroyed otherwise. I felt fury anew when I read about how Christians and Muslims had defaced much of the friezes because they considered them “pagan” and thus deserving of destruction. The marbles really are beautiful and its hard to realize how important they are until you get up close. The detail is amazing and to think that they are nearly 2500 years old is just staggering. Bronze and colored pigments once used to be part of the friezes and metopes but those too are long faded or lost. A whole troop of British schoolchildren were at the exhibit with me and seemed to be having fun lying on the floor and drawing the sculptures. I wonder if they have any inkling as to how important or famous those sculptures are. They were more concerned with each other and the tour groups passing through. Ah, the innocence of youth. I calmly and deliberately strolled through the entire exhibit before heading upstairs. I didn’t find much of Greece and Rome there and after stopping by the gift shop for a bit, I left. Only two hours, but I intend to come back several times in the future. It was past 3 when I left the museum and so I headed down to Charing Cross in search of some books before going home. Clearly, the Charing Cross of book fame and area around the station of the same name are not one and the same and thus before I knew it I ended up at the Victoria Embankment (road running along the river). I made the most of my accidental wandering and walked by the riverside to Waterloo Bridge. Since my batteries still had some juice in them and I wasn’t feeling tired of walking, I decided to walk along the bridge to the South Bank. The view was stunning as always and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it. I just can’t wait to catch it in full daylight with a bright blue sky and puffy white clouds. That would be just perfect! I caught a bus home at the end of the bridge and I fortunately didn’t have to wait too long for it. I dozed a bit on the ride home but woke up well in time to make my stop. I relaxed in my room for a while before Lainey came back. I met up with Tom, another American, on my way to dinner. He goes to Tufts back at home but was actually studying abroad in Egypt last semester. He said he really wanted to get away from Tufts for a while and clearly he did. I’ve longed to go to Egypt for ages and he gave me some advice on traveling there. Dinner was okay; vegetable frittata and spiced potatoes. After dinner I went with Lainey down to Sainsbury where I bought some water, a dish, and some glasses (I got tired of using plastic cups and paper dishes). Lainey bought some wine and wine glasses that were selling for 80p for a 4-pack! She had a mini wine party with Gregg, Tom, and Kate in her room around 8:30 while I cleaned up my room and then stopped by around 9 to talk a bit with them. We went to the fuBar after that and I tried a snakebite which is beer mixed with some blackcurrant juice/syrup. It still tasted pretty awful but not as bad as some other beers I’ve tried. I guess I’m just too much of a sweet tooth. On the way to the fuBar, we were complaining about the weather and Gregg made a brilliant comment. “You know,” he said, “if it wasn’t for the Gulf Stream, this place would be 30 degrees colder.” We pondered that for a moment, and then he said, “So thank God for the Gulf Stream!” He’d had most of a bottle of cheap champagne (the rest ended up on the floor when the cork prematurely popped due to overcarbonation) and a couple of glasses of wine. Lainey found this comment especially hilarious and when we all got our drinks at the bar, she made a toast: “Thank God for the Gulf Stream!” It was funny. I went back to my room after I finished my drink and was not going to be convinced to having another one. Just not my thing, really (especially if it’s bitter). I just chilled for the rest of the night blogging, trying to play chess with Joel online, and just taking it easy until sleep. Cheers!