It's not all bad though. These people love their chocolate. There's Cadburry chocolate everywhere and it comes in every different sort of arraignment you can think of. Also as long as you don't go to a fancy restaurant, the food is fairly cheap, or at least reasonable. In terms of school, they give us course packs instead of books. The course packs are basically all of the readings we have to do for the term compiled into one big book, four only about 8-10 pounds. It's so much cheaper than buying a $150 book or seven little books for just one class. Another thing is, I love my room. My bed is right by the window so I often pull the curtains open and read or write in here while sitting on my bed. It's so cozy.
I left you at Monday night when I was going to get dinner. Well I went at about 6 and all they had left was tuna. Gross. I didn't eat tuna in the States, I'm not eating it in the UK. I stopped at the Village Shop with Kate (on campus convenience store) and bought a box of chicken nuggets. So for dinner we each cooked up some chicken nuggets in the oven and I had some yogurt and doritos also.
Later that night I had the brilliant idea to add another English class and drop my Politics one, but I don't know if that's going to work. I'm going to have to talk the English department here into doing so, they didn't seem too thrilled at the idea unfortunately.
Yesterday, Tuesday I had my first English class. It was Literatures in Time: Texts and Contexts from the eighth to sixteenth century. It was a gigantic lecture! I've never been in a classroom with that many people. It was especially odd because it was English. It actually ended up being totally fine though. There are two professors that teach each class, they kind of take turns talking. The class is a combination of the works of literature that came from the eighth to sixteenth century and the history around the works. Basically who wrote what, read what they wrote, and understand how history influenced them to write this. The lecture was for an hour then we broke up into much smaller seminar groups.
My seminar group met in a different building and had about 15 people in it. Most of them were British, but there was one other American and two people from India. It's a level 4 class, which is like a first year class. We went around the room saying stuff about ourselves and if we had any experience with Medieval literature. I was one of the few that has, I've read Chaucer and Beowulf and all of kind that stuff, in senior year of high school. I think it's really strange that I'm in their country, where all of this stuff was written, and I've read it and they haven't. Anyway, the class discussion was really interesting and I like our seminar leader a lot. We have to read Beowulf in its entirety for next class, which is kind of boring and a little difficult to get through, but I read it a few years ago so I have an idea of what's going on. After class I read some of it, I'm about half way through it.
I bought a ticket for a walking tour of the 2012 Olympic site. My friends and I are all going to do it, it's next Wednesday. I'm really excited to go see it. The Olympic site is fairly close to here I think, it's somewhere east of here. The East End, where I live, is slowly being renovated and updated because the Olympics will be so close to here and this area will get a lot of attention. I can't wait!
I tried to do my laundry yesterday also, but the laundry room closest to me (in the next building over) was broken. The next closest one had like 20 people in it so I decided I would just wait til today. After I gave up on laundry I went to eat dinner at the Curve. The food was alright, some sort of beef, green beans and little crispy potatoes. I'm happy I got the dinner meal plan though because I would not want to cook for myself every night.
Last night I had Orientation for my service-learning class that I'm doing through Villanova. I took the tube to South Kensington, where I met two other Villanova girls that go to King's College. When I was at the counter checking to make sure I had enough money on my oyster card to get to South Kensington, I got so confused. I said, "Do I have enough money to get to........South Kensington?" I was so lost for a second because I kept wanting to say New Kensington, which is near home, but I knew that's not where I was going. It was awkward.
Anyway Kerri, Mary and I walked around South Ken, which was a really beautiful area, before we had to go to the EUSA building. I want to go back there soon, separate from my class, because the Natural History Museum is there and it's gorgeous.
In the class I met about 10 other Villanova students, who already knew me because I frantically emailed them earlier this month about my Visa. We found out exactly what we're doing for the service-learning class. I'm going to be volunteering in a school/after school care program with kids and playing with them or helping them with their homework. I'm really excited for this because I do something similar to that at Villanova and it's so much fun. There are also other Villanova kids that will be going to the same place that I am. I have to complete 30 hours in the time that I'm here, which isn't really that much. We also have a class once a week and we'll get a grade in it at the end that will go towards our gpa.
It seems pretty cool because I'll get to see different parts of London and work with children. They gave us a student oyster card that has 80 pounds on it, with a 30% student discount, to use when we're going to class or our volunteer site. I'm so happy about that because in the UK you can't get a student oyster card unless you're here for six months, which means I don't qualify for one. Eusa gave us one because we're volunteering, so it'll be cheap to travel.
Eusa also has a support system set up for us with emergency phone numbers and all kinds of other things if we need help. They have trips planned for us, like tonight we're going on the London Eye. There is a weekend we can go to Wales if we want, I don't know if I'll do that, and a few other things that I can't think of right now.
When I got back, I hung out in my room for a while then went to the New Globe with Sammi, Anna, Kate, Martha and Lucy to chill. I'm glad I went because there were a lot of people there and I met some more kids from QM. I got back and went to sleep around 12:30.
I don't have class today so I'm just doing some reading and I might go to Brick Lane...I'm not sure what that is, some kind of shopping district, but everyone talks about it all the time. I should also do my laundry. I'll take lots of pictures when I go on the London Eye tonight, it'll be cool. It's like a huge ferris wheel in central London and you can see everything from it.
Anyway, here's me in Canary Wharf the other day:
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