Updates of All Kinds

There have been a bunch of updates on this here blog the past couple days. I have been working really hard trying to catch up with photos and the Scotland trip and stuff. Here's the list of posts with new photos:

Good News/Bad News
Me in the Cathedral
We All Follow Chelsea, On to Victory
Scotland: Ends (Saturday)

For those who missed it, below this post are the three posts about my trip to Scotland, I think that they are definitely worth a read. The trip was really awesome and I am so glad that I was able to go and that Vanessa came with.

If you're wondering why I didn't post about my day yesterday, I would kindly like to point out to you the length and breadth of the Scotland posts. I was pretty much blogged out by the end there. Also, Vanessa's camera ran out of battery at the end of Friday so the pictures now up on Saturday were from my disposables. Actually, all the pictures put up except the ones for Good News/Bad News were from disposables. You can tell by the poor quality of the pictures. At least I have pictures. I guess I am a glass-half full type of person.

On to my day yesterday. I woke up and got ready and was out the door at around 8:45. I thought it was curious that no one else was walking there and some people (like my roommates) were still showering but I didn't really ask anyone. Well, it turns out that class started at 9:30. Oops. I was a half hour early. Haha, you would think that by now I would have that down but apparently not. In Sociology in the City, we discussed the myth of Jack the Ripper and how it relates to the story in the East End. The murders were really gruesome and happened in 1888. No one knows who did it and there are still a ton of books written about it. I don't know, I wasn't that interested in the whole thing so I don't have that much else to say about it.

In Senior Sem we talked about some general program stuff. Phil gave me a copy of Wicked to read so that should be fun. We spent a lot of the class time talking about perception and how people react to a piece of art (whether that be music or art or whatever). We have our first theater visit on Wednesday night when we see The History Boys. That should be fun. We were given some worksheets to use to evaluate the play correctly and stuff. Then Phil said, "Art communicates" and played two pieces of music. We wrote down our reactions to the music and what we thought it was communicating. The class discussed our thoughts and that was that.

After class, I got back to the flat and saw I had a package. MY NEW CAMERA!!!! It was like Christmas, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Easter, Channukah, Rammadan, Kwanza, all rolled into one. I was SO happy. I ran around and found Vanessa and showed her. She wasn't as impressed but was still happy for me (she said she secretly hated the disposables, I openly hated them). So that was exciting. Then I worked on my blog entries for a loooong time. I ate dinner (shell noodles, sauce, garlic bread) and continued my work. I stopped and called some people on Skype which was sweet. Then I went to bed.

Today I was really tired when I woke up and slept in a little longer so I didn't shower before class for the first time since I got here which was fine. In Islam vs. the West. We discussed the fall of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century to the 19th century and why that happened. Then we shifted gears and discussed in small groups Bush's Legacy in the Middle East. We talked about homeland security, afganistan, iraq, and this idea of "change" with all the candidates now. It was interesting to talk. Our prof is insanely smart and I really like him. He doesn't use ANY notes and still delivers a well thought out and informative lecture and discussion. Awesome.

I didn't have any bread and didn't want to buy some since I leave tomorrow (!) so I stopped at Tesco (a small grocery store thing) and bought a cajun chicken wrap. Delicious. Then it was off to the National Gallery again for Art History. My prof talked about William Hogarth, an artist in the 18th century and widely regarded as the first real British artist. Most paintings that were bought in Britain before that were by Italians or French. Hogarth went to Parliament and complained of people copying his work so they passed the first Copyright Law. He painted 4 different series of paintings. One was about a harlot, another about a rake, etc. They were all kind of depressing and warned of being bad and that sort of thing. The gallery that our prof really wanted us to go to, Sir John Soane Gallery, doesn't allow groups so she told us to go in on our own time in the next week or two and see it. I didn't go today but I will go when I get back from Italy

Speaking of Italy, tomorrow I leave. We have the play The History Boys tomorrow night and when that is over, Vanessa and I are going to grab our already packed stuff from our flats and head off to the train and then to the airport. We are planning on trying to get a little sleep there before our plane takes off at 6:30 am for Venice. Very exciting. I will get all the necessary info (hostels, dates that I will be places, plane stuff, etc) up tomorrow before I leave. I am really excited and a little nervous (as always). I cannot wait to see all the amazing stuff in those three cities.

Tonight was spent updating all of those blog posts which means scanning in pictures and uploading them. I also read a litle bit from the next book in the Atilla series, Atilla: The Gathering of the Storm. Pretty good so far. I am about two thirds done. I guess that's all for now. Have fun everyone!

Toodles!