2 Feb

I was a little slow in leaving the dorm today so I had to book it to get to the train station in time. I arrived there a few minutes before the train which is usually pretty good, but that was only because I hurried most of the way. Had I walked at a normal pace I probably would have just missed it. That was pretty much the only adventure for the morning. Court Cultures was as entertaining as ever; it’s definitely my favorite class here. My professor said that she saw snow by King’s Cross station on her way to the college. She made it a point to inform us “visiting students” that it rarely ever snows in central London and that if it did (we could just look out the window) we would simply have to go outside and frolic in it. I believe the whole class found that idea rather agreeable, though unfortunately such an event never came to pass.

We talked about John Lyly (pronounced “lily”) and his play “Endymion” today. It’s a rather funny and enjoyable play and I highly recommend it to anyway interested in a short and sweet Elizabethan drama. His work precedes Shakespeare but after reading Shakespeare I could see how heavily Lyly’s work influenced his early plays (especially Love’s Labour Lost). I realized after class that I would not be able to buy our train tickets for Spain because I would be trying to reserve them 61 days in advance instead of the maximum of 60. I guess I’ll just have to go tomorrow (I’m not going to make a trip all the way out there just for inquiries; I want to get tickets too). The weather was literally freezing for most of the day, and since it didn’t look like it would get any better, I decided just to go home.

As usual, I relaxed for a bit before dinner at 6. I had a “Mediterranean pasta bake” which was quite good; personally, I think the vegetarian food here is much better than the other stuff. Lainey and Gregg watched the movie “Waterloo” in their Experiences of War class and apparently this movie stars the actor who plays Captain von Trapp of the Sound of Music as the Duke of Wellington. Lainey did and impromptu rendition of “Edelweiss” with a Waterloo theme that was hilarious. I then had the song stuck in my head for a while.

After dinner I did the reading for my linguistics and Court Cultures class. I found a couple of books at the library about Queen Elizabeth’s reign and how she struck a balance between being a woman and a monarch in a time when a female queen was hardly desired and even less accepted by a majority of Europe. I also found out in class today that Elizabeth I loved to wear just black and white to aid in her symbolic role as the chaste moon goddess, Cynthia (or Diana or Belphebe). Emulating her would certainly a) make my wardrobe even simpler than it already is and b) turn me into a huge dork. I’m already pretty much the second so I really don’t have anything to lose. She’s certainly my favorite queen and I can’t wait to learn more about her (that, and I really need to see the movie “Elizabeth” with Cate Blanchett; I’ve heard it’s amazing).

While I was reading, Lainey came over because she was simply not getting anywhere on her paper outline for one of her classes. We started chatting about schoolwork and then Gregg decided he’d rather talk than work so he came by too. We ended up just chatting about random things from food back home to Trivial Pursuit to our classes here. Tom stopped by for a little while around 1. Lainey left at 1:30 to call her parents and Gregg left soon after. I have great neighbors. I still had some reading to finish so I worked on that until about 2:45. At precisely 2:30 I heard a fire alarm go off in one of the nearby buildings. Within moments I heard the shouts of disgruntled students in the courtyard. Poor guys, I’d be fairly upset if that was our dorm. Around 3 I finally fell asleep.