Beginning My 2nd Week of Classes

Today I began my 2nd week of classes. Mondays consist of a British Life and Culture class that is 4 hours with an hour and a half break in the middle and an Art History class. Everyone is required to take the BL&C class. I awoke to a rude awakening as I, along with most others, were under the impression that class this week started at 9:30, but apparently it was to begin at 9... So, at 8:31 my roommate Adam wakes me up telling me that we have to be there at 9. So, I get up and get dressed and pretty much immediately have to head out to the bus stop towards the College. (It takes about 20 minutes) I make it at 9:03. Not too bad really. The day was actually pretty great as our professor for the BL&C class is really great. In the first 2 hour session we spoke about some research that we had done for a river walking tour last week. This entailed researching either a King or Queen and telling about each of them in a chronological fashion. We also, had to have done research on a futbol team we were assigned. We discussed each of our teams and what their presence meant and represented throughout history. We have much more to do on it, but it's amazing how much religion and region has played into futbol history. I already am gaining a much greater passion for the game than I've had before. This is perfect because I, along with two other guys on the trip, got tickets through the group that owns our townhouses to an Arsenal game tomorrow! Going to be an AWESOME experience. Especially when you're 5th row for only 30 pounds and get free drinks at half time! Incredible deal... Moving on though. Then, we talked about what we had learned on the tour by diagraming out a circle plot in groups. Following this, we took our lunch break for a while. After returning to class, we started on a different subject. We had a homework assignment from last week to answer quite a few questions on England's Parliament. This was actually quite fun to research as I have a much firmer understanding of how their Government runs here. We set up tables and chairs all over the room to represent the official positions of members of Parliament and their tables. (Complete with Queen, Prime Minister, and Chancellor) Then, we went through a fake official process of creating a bill to be passed. I was part of the Labour Party and in the House of Commons group. We got to decide what law that we wanted to pass and exited to the hallway to decide on a "real" law to pass. We ended up settling on changing the side of the road that people drive on from the left to the right. haha It was quite fun to see Lyndon's reaction. The day then passed from there (3:05) to catching the tube to meet at The British Museum for Art History at 3:30. Our professor for that class, Mr. Giovanni, is really, really cool as well. (Way too perfect of a name for an Art History Professor right?) Amazing building! I suggest looking it up as the roof in the lobby is an all glass cover as of the year 2000. It used to be open air I guess. The entire place is set up in sections of continental history showcasing artifacts. We took today to go through the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sections. I had a really good time there. Giovanni kept it very engaging and is very enthusiastic about the subject. I learned a lot about each and actually took notes. We also went through to see the Rosetta Stone and at the end saw pieces of the Parthenon. Today had a lot of talk with religious overtones honestly. I knew that religion had caused a lot of clashing through history, but it was something to hear of some of it. After this, we left and went on about our own business for the day. So, I came back to the townhouse and cooked and Iceland deep dish, chicken sweetcorn pizza I got for a pound! mmm It was actually the best one flavorwise that I've had yet. Then, I tried to upload pictures 2 times and they failed at the very end both times. So, I tried again and got them to work. Thankfully! I'll finish captions later as I have some homework to do now. Thanks for reading and I'll update again soon.

Joel


Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that Cassie and Carey are coming to visit me on Wednesday! For those who don't know, I originally met Cassie years ago because of being friends with her brother Andy circa 5th grade. haha Carey is her boyfriend. He is awesome as well. It's going to be so cool to meet up with them here in London. They are working as Au Pairs in Italy right now. Also, I was going to schedule a last minute trip to Ireland with some other kids from the group, but ticket prices skyrocketed as they were booking so I'm not going... It's cool though. I'll still go soon!