A Bad Essay and A Glimpse into Exams

I mentioned in my last entry that I had to go pick up one of my essays, but I didn't mention what went on when I did so.

First of all, getting to my teacher's office was an adventure in itself. There's been a ton of construction on campus as new buildings are erected and others are simply touched up. I'm not sure which one Arts Two (as it's called, though that makes little sense since it holds mostly history tutors and their classes) is, since whatever they were doing on it began long before I arrived. Anyway, it's finished now and my teacher has just moved into it. The trick was figuring out where the entrance was because, though it is situated next to the main road, you can't get in from there- there's a back way that I had to seek out. By keeping my eye on the building, I managed to find it (so easily, in fact, that I doubted myself.) Of course, finding the office wasn't simple- I only found the right hallway because my teacher had told us in an e-mail which is was, and though he had given us a room number, there weren't any number plates on the doors. The only reason I found his office is because his door was open.

I got there right after another girl and was asked to wait. This was a little alarming- I had thought we were just picking up the papers. We were having conferences?! I shouldn't have been freaked out by this, but I was because though I worked for about a month on this paper (including research reading), and worked hard... deeo down inside, I knew I had probably done it wrong. Because of this, I was pretty nervous when it was my turn to go in.

I was correct- despite my best efforts, I didn't do as well as I would have liked on the essay. Basically, the conference was littered with the word "but"- "Your essay was well-written... but you didn't use enough sources... but you're a great writer... but this is only the beginning of a good essay... but I consider you one of my best students in the class... but I know you can do better than this." I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about what he was saying- he was very nice about it and complimentary of me as a student, saying that he admired the way I dicussed all of the topics in class from all sides of the issue, but I felt terrible that I had done so poorly on the essay, and I could tell that he saw that I felt that way. In passing he asked me what my main course of study was, and when I said drama, he said, "Ohhh, that's why," but that didn't make me feel better. Being a drama student is not a reason for not being able to write an essay, especially since the best essay I've ever written was for the drama program here! I was kind of waiting for him to suggest that I rewrite the essay, and I couldn't decide if that was more humiliating than accepting the grade that I got.

Now before anyone gets too worried- my grade isn't bad. I'm still not happy with it, but I got a high C (the equivalent of an 82% back home), which is a grade most of my English classmates would celebrate over. I just don't like getting Cs, and I think the bigger source of my unhappiness is because I loved this class, and it always sucks to do poorly in a class you love.

In any case, my teacher gave me a lot of notes so I can do better on the exam (which is not an essay. He said it was questions, but then said we have two hours to answer two questions. Seems like an essay to me, but we'll see.)

(Also, when I was getting my replacement i.d. yesterday, I walked past a room and literally pulled myself back for a second look. For anyone who's read the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we do essay exams the same way:

Except that Queen Mary's exams look even more Harry Potter-esque because they're actually held in this set-up in a giant, red-curtained and dark wood-paneled room called the Great Hall. The only thing missing are the wizarding robes and the giant hour glass.)

(Also also- I had a nightmare last night that was very scary and I was exhausted when I woke up from it, but even as I was running from the scary people, when I ended up walking behind Will and Kate in a dark city that I knew was London but looked like Italy, I stopped to take a picture. That's how I roll even in dreams.)

"Soak it In- SOAAAAAK!"

Yesterday was probably one of the best days I've had here- and that's saying something, since I've had few bad ones.

Usually I have Wednesdays completely free, but our group performance for Adaptations is not so much creeping as barrelling closer and we really have to buckle down. Yesterday, we decided to meet up at 11 am and work until we were ready to present what we needed for this morning. It was a slow start- people were really late and there are huge issues with reserving rooms (even if you do, other people don't care... seems to be a pattern in drama departments across the world), so we had to find a place to work. We first ended up in a cafe on campus, and an hour or two later moved to one member's kitchen.
We "worked" for about three hours- I say "worked" because while we did do what we needed to do, we would have been done much sooner if we didn't keep getting sidetracked by just talking about life. And while, yes, getting done sooner might have been lovely, it was just as nice to hang out with my group. I really like all of them and I think the fact that we get along so well really helps our presentations because we're much more in synch than a group that only talks classwork might be. It's interesting because though we were obviously raised in different countries, even our childood interests were similar- I was really into the British band S Club 7 when I was younger and so were they. And then of course, there's the Spice Girls :p We had just as much fun during class and in the rehearsal period afterwards today, and I think our performance is going to be pretty good. We have to be ready to tech in a week- ahhh! (Speaking of tech... I think I'm going to be roped into teching the other group's performance. They made me do sound today and it was terrifying... and I was just using iTunes!)

Between the two rehearsal locations yesterday, I ran into my friend Lauren, who, as I mentioned an entry or two ago, is visiting from her own studies in Italy. She's staying in my friend Deanna's room with their friend Casey, who's spring breaking here. We rejoiced in our reunion and then discussed getting tickets for a show we thought we'd see- the theatre was being difficult and claiming that concessions (a.k.a. student) tickets were not available, which meant we'd have to pay almost twenty pounds extra. In the end, we decided not to see the show, but I told them to call me from Camden Market if they wanted to do dinner.
Even though we had been planning to do dinner since before Lauren got here, I kind of doubted it was going to happen- I screwed up Monday by getting late news on the Arcadia dinner and opted out of going to the bar with them on Tuesday (bars, I figured, are not exactly places to catch up- and I didn't want to go to a bar.) And when six thirty came around and there was still no word, I started making some dinner for myself. Twenty minutes in, I got a text from Deanna saying that they were going to a pub- did I want to meet them in Camden Market?

I almost said no. The news came later than I had anticipated, I was in the middle of making a meal, and I didn't want to be out late because of my 9 a.m. class this morning. But I decided to ignore all of that- I wanted to see Lauren before she went back to Italy today. I pulled my half-done dinner out of the oven and wrapped it up, grabbed my stuff, and left for Camden Market.

I'm so glad I went. It was so much fun. I'm not really a person to do things on a whim- I like my days to be planned out for the most part. But everything we did that night was spontaneous and all the better for it. The girls came to get me outside of the Camden tube station and we stood there trying to figure out what we wanted to eat. They said the pub had been more expensive than they'd anticipated- did I have anything else in mind? I said no. A man with a "Buffet, 3.50!" sign heard us talking an pointedly came to stand right next to us. "Hey, look guys," Lauren said. "There's a cheap Chinese vegetarian buffet!"
We decided to go there (the power of suggestion works well on us) and found ourselves in a very small but nice Chinese/Thai place. I had been a little worried that it would be sketchy, but it wasn't at all. However, the 3.50 price was only for take-away; no sitting down in the restaurant for that price. So we got small plastic containers, filled them to the brim, then walked to a Costa (which is a coffee shop chain here), where I bought a water so we could sit there and eat inside, as it was rather cold outdoors. The food was really good, which was lucky because I've never had Thai food and though I like vegetarian food, I don't really seek it out. The only thing I didn't like was the tofu; the soy beef was delicious.

Delicious buffet!

We got kicked out of the Costa after only fifteen minutes because it's London and everything closes by 7:30. Deanna had been told about a club that was playing some sort of cool music for free and we started walking in that direction, still eating our food out of the containers. When we got to the club, we found out that there was a charge to get in, and Deanna and Casey didn't have any money, so we ended up sitting on some very cold benches next to cast iron statues of nineteenth century horses and workmen while we finished our food. We sat there for a long time, swapping "crazy things that have happened to me abroad" stories (I'm very happy I'm going to Venice and not Sicily) and ignoring the cold.

Something I haven't mentioned is that Lauren is in the theatre department at Arcadia. Though most of the junior year theatre kids are abroad this semester, none of them go to Queen Mary, so when things happen in the department back home, I have no one with whom to discuss them. Adrienne, Laura, my mother, and friends from home tolerate me using them as sounding boards, but there's only so much they can say back about a deparment they have no knowledge of. I didn't realise how much I missed discussing theatre with someone who actually knows what I'm talking about without having to give what seems like centuries of background information. I became aware that I was talking very fast and a lot because I had so much I had wanted to say for so long, but no one to tell, and Lauren was the same way. It was actually an incredible relief, which sounds weird, but sometimes those touches of home are just what you need.

We sat on those benches for a long time- some buskers had been playing when we sat down and had left soon after. Later, they came back, saw us and said, "Wow... you're still here?" We moved on soon after that, but not before we saw a mime run past us (that is not a figure of speech. A mime- black clothes, white face, beret, all of it- ran down the sidewalk next to us.)

We were headed back to the tube station when Casey said that she wanted to see Parliament and Big Ben at night. We said okay, because we can. Westminster was many many tube stops away, but why not? We wanted to go somewhere, and we went. This is why London is amazing.

The best part of that particular bit of the excursion was Lauren and Casey's infectious excitement. I've seen Big Ben and Parliament at least four times this trip. It's cool- it will never stop being cool- but I don't run back to see it all the time. But Lauren and Casey were so excited to see it that it made Deanna and me just as happy. When we discovered that the tube stairs were literally right next to the lit-up Parliament building, I was the first to go, "LOOK HOW CLOSE WE ARE, GUYS!" Lauren, with a mixture of excitement and the freezing breeze blowing in our face, looked like she was about to cry- and she's been to London before! Traveling with those two made me rerealise the amazingness of this city. I've gotten to the point where I take it for granted sometimes, but when we stood on the south bank end of Westminster Bridge, gazing at Big Ben and listening to it chime 11 p.m, I fell even more deeply in love with London.

It only kept getting colder, but we stood on the bridge for a long time, just appreciating... London and all of its London-ness. This was when one of the two non-London girls told the other to "Soak it in- soaaaaaak!" because they are headed back to their respective schools today. Casey said, "It doesn't even feel like we're here right now- it feels like what we're seeing of Parliament is just a backdrop. I can't even take this in." And that's how I feel most of the time when I'm walking around the city- I can't possibly be lucky enough to actually be here, can I?
Eventually, we had to go back because the tubes close at midnight. Lauren and I shared some British chocolate on the tube, they picked up some wine on the way home, and then we said goodbye at my flat.

I can't even describe how wonderful last night was. I kind of detest the "giggly group of girls" stereotype, but that's how we were all night because we were so exhilarated just by our location and each other's company. And to think I almost didn't go!

Now, however, it's back to the grindstone. As I said, assignment due dates are racing toward me. I've barred myself from recreational reading until April so I can complete some sources for my history essay, and I just can't wait 'til they're over and done with. The next two weeks are going to be filled to the breaking point with writing and rehearsals.

Quotes of... Recent Times:

"Who's Nick?" "Just the guy who's caught Adina's eye." "He didn't catch my eye... he just sort of got in there and now he won't get out." "Like an eyelash?"

"This is life juice."

"I think our kids would be beautiful, as long as they looked like me."

Cinematic Observations

I went to the movies again today! I saw The King's Speech, and it is truly a work of art. The script was great, the cinematography was beautiful, and of course the acting was brilliant, right down to the little girls who played Elizabeth and Margaret. It made me cry, but it was also surprisingly funny. It's a great film and you should definitely see it if it's still around you!

The English cinema experience is a little different than the American one, though not incredibly so. First of all, the cinema near us has a student price. I don't know if this is in all cinemas, but it's great. Instead of ripping your ticket, they hole-punch it. Along with selling the usual popcorn and soda behind the counter, they also have smoothies, alcohol, and on a wall across from the counter, a row of self-serve candy.


The cinema I go to has a curtain that adjusts to the screen, I guess so a full screen picture doesn't have empty space on the sides. There are a ton of trailers- I don't think we show that many trailers, but I could be wrong. The funny thing is that almost every trailer was American. Obviously, this is because of how huge Hollywood is, but I wonder if it's weird to the English to hear 80% American accents in the trailers.



Something I've always taken for granted is when the green (or sometimes blue? I can't remember) MPAA rating screen appears before a trailer, but since the films here don't need to be approved by an American company, that screen isn't seen. They do have a British equivalent, the British Board of Film Classification, and their ratings are as follows:

U: Suitable for all.
PG: Parental guidance, general viewing.
12/12A: The 12A classification is only used in cinemas (as opposed to on TV), but both mean that it is suitable fore ages 12 and up.
15: Suitable for ages 15 and up.
18: Suited for adults only.
R18: Films only to be shown in specially licensed cinemas of sex shops (it actually says this on the site.)

I think the British are more lenient with their ratings. The King's Speech was rated 12, which I would agree with; because of the swearing, I think it would have gotten a PG13 rating at home (anyone at home know what it did get?) And Black Swan, if you can believe it, was rated 15!

That's all I've got for you today. Tomorrow, I'm going to a thrift sale to see if I can get part of my costume for my Adaptations performance (denim shorts and a "vest top", a.k.a. tank top. I had to ask my classmates what this was, as while I knew we were portraying... women of less than reputable nature, I didn't really want to go onstage wearing only a vest on the top. Here, American vests are called "waistcoats.") Then I have to get cracking on my essays- I at least want to plan one or two of them out.

The Mystery of the British Notebooks

Hm... that sounds like the title of some Boxcar Children or Nancy Drew novel, both of which I was obsessed with in elementary school.(See a funny video about the questionable quality of the Boxcar Children series here. Even taking all that into account, I still had dreams of living in a boxcar and eating only bread and milk like they did.)

Something I have noticed about around 95% of the notebooks here- they're all TINY. the cute Peter Pan notebook I got at Selfridge's in January is adorable, but only a few centimeters thick.

Cute, but not exactly serviceable.

This is pretty much the norm for notebooks here, and it's what causes me to hesitate buying the large amount of otherwise adorably designed notebooks. Because seriously... I write a lot. I still prefer to write my novels and plays in longhand first, at least partially, and a pad that only gives me fifty pages (25, double-sided) just seems pointless.

But not to my English classmates. When our teachers ask us to pull out our notebooks, the Americans pull out their giant three-subjecters (all identical, since they were literally the ONLY ones we could find.) The English kids, on the other hand, all take out their skinny little writing pads. Sometimes, they even take out those tiny back-pocket ones, the ones that make me want to go, "What are you, a reporter?"

Now, this mystery might be solved as easily as a Boxcar Children puzzle if the British kids didn't write any notes, maybe a sentence here or there. But that's not the case. I enjoy taking notes, and the teachers give us plenty of opportunities to exercise this nerdy pleasure; some classes, like my history one, are divided into two sections, one of them being an hour of strictly note-taking. And the British students take more notes than I do- sometimes I'm just sitting there listening to the teacher talk about something that has nothing directly to do with the subject and I hear scribbling all around me and wonder, "What are you writing down?!" So if they take so many notes, WHY are their notebooks so small? If I took that many notes, I'd have to get a new one every two weeks! My big one is only going to just last me the rest of the term.

The questions don't even stop with the size of the books. I haven't seen a single writing pad with college-ruled paper. I've refused to use anything but college ruled since about middle school, and it really bothers me to see all that unused space on the wide-ruled page.

Anyway, perhaps you're not as OCD about notebooks as I am, so I'll stop blabbing on about them. I suffered through another RT lesson today in which most of the class denied that they'd ever had fun at any theatre, ever, and never would (they seem to see laughter as some sort of mortal sin) and I did a lot of impatient sighing and clock-gazing. Only three more times in that class and then I'm FREE!

Some English words/pronunciations I observed today:

"Anti-clockwise" (a.k.a. counter-clockwise)

"Clagging on" (like "weighing down", "forcing upon")

Intergral pronounced "in-TEG-ral."

Controversy, pronounced "con-TRO-versy."

Now I'm off to make some dinner!

*sigh* Frustration

I am working on an essay right now. Well, not right now. Right now, I am procrastinating on the essay by blogging about how much the essay is frustrating me. When I procrastinate, I write/edit anything but what I'm meant to be writing/editing.

Here is the problem: I signed up to write an essay about my favorite-in-the-world play and its film version (which I also love) for my Adaptations essay. Sounds perfect, right? What's better to write about than favorite material? Yes, yes, I thought this, too, naive blog readers.

I joyfully re-read the play. I gleefully watched the movie again and excitedly held the play in front of me while watching it and scribbled down TEN PAGES of notes on the similarities/differences, why certain things work/don't work within the theatre/film setting, etc. I was pretty proud of myself because, from a play that I knew backwards and forwards and upside down, I got to know even better.

Yeah. Yay. Until I found out that the essay wasn't supposed to be 4,000 words long. It is only 2,500. Usually great to find out about an essay, except that I have about ten times too much material for this piece, I don't know what to cut, and here's the worst part- I haven't even used any of my sources yet because I've got so much to say on the play myself that I haven't needed them. And I have less than 400 words left to write- AHHHH!

"But Rachel," I hear you say from your distant, non-play-obsessed Land of the Normal People. "Surely having too much information is not a problem at all. Just cut it down." You think you know all, don't you, blog reader? Yes, perhaps this might not be a problem for you, but again, I am not normal. I can b.s. my way through any essay-I'm rather wordy, if you haven't noticed- but I have a serious problem with cutting things down when I've got a lot to say. To me, it is all important (especially when it comes to my favorite plays.) This is why I am sad. I've got about eight pages of notes left uncovered in this essay and I really really want to talk about them.

*sigh* Well, there's only one thing for it. If I can't talk about it in my essay... I guess I'll just have to talk about it here.

Whoa, did I just lose all of my followers? :p I am kidding, I will not subject you to my insanity. I will just go cry quietly in the corner by myself now :/

P.S. Also, due to the awesomeness that is Jersey Boys, I cannot get Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons out of my head. I would like the awesomeness to quiet down for a bit right now...

Packages and Theatre Snobs

While I did not have a significant other with whom to spend Valentine's Day, I did get a V-Day gift of sorts today! I came back from my RT class to find a large box sitting by my door. I knew it was the package my mom had sent to me, but I was unaware of the awesomeness of its contents. Behold, readers, a box to make any Valentine's Day a good one:

In this box were wonderful things like calling cards, candy hearts, potato chips that are actually potato flavored (it's really hard to find plain ones here), Pop Tarts (unfrosted, 'cause frosted is just gross), a pot holder, Apples to Apples, my copy of Peter Pan for playwrighting reference, graham crackers (you know the story about those), animal crackers (also can't get those here), instant breakfast drinks, chocolate straw thingymajiggers, yummy cereal that's hard to find even at home, some pictures of my own face (...I needed some more headshots, okay?), gum (I could own Violet Beauregarde in gum chewing), and... FRINGE SEASON ONE!!! (I am obsessed with this TV show but do not own any of the DVDs... or didn't! I actually went, "Oh. My. God. Yeeessssss!" when I saw them. I've already watched two episodes [one with commentary] and a bunch of behind the scenes stuff.)

This lovely box made me feel a little better after RT. It's definitely my least favorite class. I really enjoy the seeing shows factor, but the big problem is that I think my classmates believe that to enjoy a show means that you're somehow intellectually beneath those who didn't, so they declare that they hate every show. This isn't everyone, but it's most of the class. I don't understand how, with the shows ranging from Shakespeare, opera, experimental theatre, classic stories, adaptations of classic plays, and a farce-y musical, they couldn't pick out one show that they liked. I liked all of them, and most of them aren't the type of theatre I'd usually go to see. While I may be a theatre snob, the prescription of all of these shows is curing me of that, and they seem to refuse to do the same. As I wrote, I thought Water was brilliant, but I walked into class to people insulting it without taking breath. When I sat down, they asked me what I thought. "I loved it, actually," I answered. I really wish people would be more open-minded, at least for this class. We can all go back to our snobby ways once we're out, but this term, I'd really like to have an RT class where there's not a fog of negativity blanketing the room.

Tomorrow night I'm seeing Frankenstein at the National Theatre. I think I'm going to get there a little early, as they have an awesome bookshop attached to it; I bought many plays when I was there with my theatre posse in March of 2009. And Wednesday, I'm seeing The Children's Hour, which I get more excited for by the hour. I love theatre!

Flying By

That's basically what my time here is doing. Not only have I been here only a month, but I didn't realise until tonight that this coming Saturday is when I'm going to Wales, and next week is going to pass by in a blur because on the days when I'm not in class, I'll be seeing show (Carmen with flamenco dancing, Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch [who played Paul Marshall in Atonement] and Naomi Harris [Tia Dalma from the Pirates movies], and The Children's Hour WITH KEIRA KNIGHTLEY!) Then that Saturday, Megan's coming, reading week and our adventures commence, my plays are produced that next weekend, and I see another play... and then February's over.

After sitting through another slightly painful RT class (during which a group of classmates verbally attacked another's opinion. Their arguments were redundant and tedious after three minutes, but they kept going for much longer while the rest of us, including our teacher, studied our nails until they chilled out), I observed a few things. Despite some of my classmates in RT being like wolves when they get bored, most of my English classmates are quite timid when it comes to doing things. For example, when an American student answers, they just say what their response is. Students here seem to preface nearly every academic response with, "Isn't it..." or "Could it be..." They also apologise when they get an answer wrong, which baffles me. You're in school to learn. Yes, it sucks to get something wrong, but it's no reason to apologise. It's not the end of the world.
Also, because the students are so hesitant, teachers have to drag the answers out. They have the habit of, after the student has responded initially, pressing them with, "Can you expand on that?" I sometimes feel like the students here are terrified of making mistakes. I can't claim that I'm not this kind of person, but students here tread very, very carefully. I think it does have something to do with the fact that your entire grade depends on three or so assignments, but it's still a very different attitude than in America. But even with all that, it also seems like sometimes they try to do as little work as possible (like with RT's giant freak out last week.) Sometimes they'll even say they prefer not to answer a question... and the teacher will allow it, without asking them to try to answer (quite the opposite of the "expand" idea.)

Teachers also apologise a lot. My oldest teacher (who isn't very old at all) doesn't so much, but my two younger ones are constantly apologising- for the length of assignments, going overtime in class, making a slide that's hard to read... it's all very tiring, actually. At home, teachers rarely apologise for the length of an essay or going overtime... then again, students don't complain about it to the teacher, so maybe it's all give and take.


On another subject, I had dinner at a place called Nando's tonight with Adrienne and Megan. They're all over the city and they serve delicious chicken "burgers" (which are just chicken sandwiches) with "chips." Their restaurants are nicely decorate with cool lights, too- sadly, I didn't know we were going, so I didn't have my camera to take a picture.

That's all for me today!

How Do You Describe a Graham Cracker?

Greetings, readers!

First of all, I got my ticket to Wales! Yay! I was especially happy about it because I bought mine literally a minute or so before the trip completely sold out. I'm pretty jazzed to go to the land of Dylan Thomas, besides only having read a few of his things... but I did see a play and a movie about him! Does that count?

Today has been full of interesting and fun little tidbits... I learned a few new English words/phrases and taught my English classmate some as well. Our teacher stepped out of class today for a second, so we were all chatting and all of a sudden, one of the girls, Emily, says, "Okay, I have to ask you guys this- what is a graham cracker?" All three Americans stared first at her, then at each other. "Do you really not have graham crackers here?" I asked. They're such a staple of... everything, from childhood up, that I never considered that they might be an exclusively American thing. She shook her head. We tried to explain what it was, but it was really hard. I mean, how do you describe a graham cracker? It's difficult to find the words to talk about something you've never explained before because everyone always knew what it was.
Eventually, we ended up saying that it was sort of a cross between a regular cracker and a cookie ("biscuit"), but they were confused, saying that a cracker is supposed to be "savoury." I have no idea what "savoury" is supposed to mean. I've seen it on boxes of crackers and stuff, but I assumed that that was just a synonym for "tasty" or something. Apparently not.



So one of my American classmates, Tracy, asked, "Well, if you don't have graham crackers, what do you make s'mores out of?" More stares. "Please tell me that you guys eat s'mores." A short silence, then Heidi said, "...I've seen them on t.v." Now it was our turn to stare before declaring that introductions between the English and s'mores must be made.
But this led to further intrigue. "We could just make them in the microwave," I said. "But nothing is the same as making them over a campfire." Funny looks from the English classmates. "Do you guys go camping a lot in America? Like... outside?"
"Yes."
"And do you make a fire all the time? Even in the summer?"
"Especially in the summer!"
"How much food do you bring?"
"Enough for the whole time, it's just not fancy."
"And how long do you stay out there, a day or two?"
"Sometimes a week or two."
"But... why?"

Now, I'm thinking that perhaps there are people in the UK who go camping once in awhile, but I could be wrong. Perhaps my classmates are in the majority who think that we Americans are weird for desiring to spend a week or more sleeping in a tent and cooking our food like pioneers.

Another inquiry was what a Twinkie was. Another hard thing to describe (without simply saying "gross.") We ended up saying it was sponge cake with cream in the middle. They were also pretty enthusiastic about Pop Tarts, which seem to be a rarity; when they do crop up, they're in limited flavors (Tracy asked if perhaps they had s'more flavored ones.)

It's so funny that there are little differences like that that turn out to be not so little at all. Can you imagine your life without graham crackers? I don't even eat them regularly, but I'd certainly be at a loss when wanting to eat s'mores (yeah... picture life without s'mores. Looks pretty bleak, doesn't it? :p)

While we were working on a group project today, we were giving our pictures funny headings like "I Lovez You Anywayz", "No More Eyeballs For You", and "Everyone Hates Soranzo" (all of which pertain to 'Tis Pity She's a Whore), Emily wrote on top of one, "Up the Duff." This is apparently a slang term for being pregnant. They asked us Americans if we said that and we answered that the closest thing was had was "bun in the oven."
I don't know if I've mentioned it, but in addition to the English and American students in my class, we also have a German girl, Ilka. She studies English (along with other things), and her English is amazing. Emily asked her if German had any colloquialisms like "bun in the oven"/"up the duff." Ilka responded that there is, in fact, a German phrase that essentially translates to "meatloaf in the oven," which we all thought was hysterical.

Something else that provided a good deal of humor was my explanation of how my theatre class played a warm-up game. In the game we were playing, you pass around a clap with a certain "word" or noise. They mixed up their version a little bit and needed something that would send someone's gesture back to them. I suggested that we do what my classes do, which is making a sound like a "wrong answer" buzzer on a game show. They could not stop laughing at the sound and couldn't seem to bring themselves to make it when we were playing the game. That's another thing I've never questioned because every theatre group I've gone to in the past eight or so years has done it like I demonstrated, so no one ever found that sound funny.

In this class, my group also performed that piece I mentioned last week, with the conglomeration of Beatles music, recitation of Shakespeare, a scene from 'Tis Pity, a ton of Post-its, lines from Titanic, and German songs, among many, many other things. I was a little worried about showing it, to be honest. I wasn't sure if we had worked it out enough and thought perhaps we would emulate the Wooster group a little too much (they tend to figure that if they know what they're doing, it doesn't matter if anyone else does... which kind of defeats the purpose of a performance group.) However, when we finished, our teacher exclaimed over it- she loved it! Apparently, the presentation would have been acceptable to show for an exam- whoa. Our classmates seemed to like it, as well, so yay!

Two more observations: many times, instead of agreeing with "yeah" or "exactly" or whatever, a lot of the English will just give an affirming, "Mm." I always noticed this in British movies, but it really is a common thing here. Also, I stopped in a show repair place a few days ago to get some leather protector for my Oxfords (things of beauty, they are... but I need to spray them to keep them that way), and when I paid for it, the man at the counter said, "Ta, love." I've read about this expression and I was ridiculously excited to actually hear it said (basically, it means "thank you." "Cheers" is more commonly heard.)

The shoe place was a stop on my way back from Samuel French, which is the company that distribute a good percentage of all plays. I've always wanted to go to an actual Samuel French store (ah, the odd dreams of an actor.) The one in New York is just a warehouse; you can't actually buy anything there, so I was excited to go to this one. It was surprisingly small, with only one or two copies of any given play that they happened to find. It's actually probably a step or two below the Drama Bookshop in New York in terms of space and material. However, I found all but one or two of the plays I had on my list and got a few more for good measure. Really, I only stopped buying because I had a limited amount of money in my wallet, as I hadn't planned to go there that day.
One of the plays I got was so good that I read it all yesterday; I couldn't put it down. I read it while I was cooking, waiting for the tube, on the tube, before and during intermission of The Invisible Man... it's amazing. I've just been reading scenes from it all day today (I may also have been reading it out loud while making dinner.)

The Invisible Man was another show I didn't want to see. It was a good show- a little silly for my taste (it was part musical and a little farce-y at times.) Again, the casts' resumes are incredible. The youngest woman in the cast, who I thought must be close to my age, is either older or just really got a head start- her credits are astonishing. She was the original lead in Well, a play that I love, and I would have just been impressed by that, but she's also been on national tours, on several tv shows, and a movie... and hers was one of the shortest resumes.

I think that's enough for today. I'll tell you more stories later. Tonight for me: unsupervised rehearsal, perhaps embarrassing myself in a belly dancing class with Adrienne and Emmie, and then Sense and Sensibility with the same two!

"Is Life Shiny For You?"

That's what an Irish girl in my class asked an American classmate today in Reading Theatre as general "How are you today?" and I thought it was such a cute, happy expression!

Today started early (well, early for me.) I woke up later than I wanted, at 7:30, and ten minutes later, was out the door to meet Laura. Where were we going, you ask? Silly, we're theatre kids- we were going to freeze ours butts off outside a theatre for two and a half hours, hoping to get tickets for tonight's showing of King Lear!

We fought our way onto the tube- morning rush hour is just about as fun as afternoon rush hour, as it happens. Finally, we reached Covent Garden around eight, got to theatre... and there were already about twenty-five people, maybe more, in line waiting for the thirty available tickets. First of all- why were that many people sitting outside a theatre a eight a.m. in the freezing cold?! Were they insane? No, they're just theatre people. The two women on either of us, at least, were both actors, and I don't doubt that a good percentage of the others were, too. There was also the attraction of a very famous actor (who I've never heard of) playing the title role.

We took our places at the back of the line and figured that if everyone got one ticket, we'd be fine. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. The women ahead of us was getting four and I'm sure people further ahead were getting more than one. Still, we decided to sit it out, even though sitting on the stone steps of the store we were in front of was really cold.

The people at the head of the line were obviously ticket-stalking pros. They had sturdy chairs, blankets, and lots of things with which to entertain themselves... and they needed hours of entertainment because, as we found out later, they had arrived at 4 a.m. Yeah. I love theatre, but only an audition is going to get me out of bed before four (yes, I have.)

Everyone in line was very nice to each other, holding places so people could run to the nearby cafe and get coffee and breakfast to go. I brought my Nook along and made the mistake of reading The Postmistress when it started getting really tragic and needing to cry. I tried not to though, since my tears would have frozen to my face. (Actually, I'm exaggerating- it's been a lot warmer these past few days, thank goodness. I don't know if I can handle that kind of cold until March.)

So we waited there until 10:30, when the box office opened. When the person about eight places ahead of us left the window, they announced that they were sold out. So no ticket :( I wasn't too put out; as I've stated before, I'm not a fan of King Lear. But I'm sure it still would have been a good experience.

The street we were sitting next to.

On a different note, I have been becoming increasingly annoyed in my RT class. Our teacher is quite young- a Ph. D. student- but a very good teacher for the class. However, a lot of my classmates are quite rude to her; if she expresses an opinion, they shoot her down before she can even finish her sentence. And while this is a critique class, they don't do this to their fellow students; they at least let us finish our sentences. The same students constantly challenge the assignments.

The big drama today was that a girl had come into our class from the other section of the same lecture and was distressed that our teacher wanted our theatre program (or here, "programme") project to look fairly artistic and creative. She assured us that it would not affect our grade; she just wanted to see us put in the artistic effort. Unfortunately, even this statement caused the girl to protest that this was unfair; her original teacher just wanted a document and she wasn't going to accept someone who made an artsy program getting a higher grade than her. Our teacher repeated her statement, but then two students who had been there since day one joined in the protest. The girls sitting around me and I were just shaking our heads, wondering what the problem was. Our teacher had made her point clearly, but the one-sided debate went on for a good ten minutes, and then was brought up again later.

I don't get what was so hard to understand and why some of my classmates refuse to respect our teacher. No matter an instructor's age, if they're your instructor, you need to practice at least common courtesy around them. Apparently Americans have a bad reputation for treating teachers poorly, but I can say that I have never seen that kind of behavior in a college classroom. Most likely, it's just the students; God knows we have enough problem students in American universities... but maybe ours just don't even both to come to class.

"The good news is, we're all born innocent. The bad news is, we all end up driving on the freeway." -Stephen Tobolowsky

"There Is the Sense One Gets Walking Around London At Night, of a God Grown Sleepy."*

Hello, everyone!

I love the little traffic feed I installed on the right there- it's fun to see when people visit my blog. I've been trying to make sure I don't update needlessly and bore you all with, "Today I went to class. We learned stuff," so that's why there wasn't an update yesterday... because that's all I did :p But my Thursday class, Adaptations, is going to push me just like I knew it would. One of our main focuses (and a thing we're meant to try and emulate in some ways) is the Wooster Group which is a theatre group from New York that puts together some very... interesting pieces of theatre. Not my style, but that doesn't matter- an assignment is an assignment. So next Thursday, my group will be performing a ten-minute presentation that involves blasting different songs at the same time by the Beatles, among other artists, lots of quotes and pictures about love and death playing on four different computers at the same time, innumerable Post-its with German words written on them, and an incestuous brother and sister confessing to their dead mother about their love, then reciting speeches from things as varied as Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. It's going to be... fun?

It suddenly got ridiculously cold here yesterday and it hasn't gone away. It's probably the coldest it's been since we arrived and we are not enjoying it. It actually flurried yesterday!

Last night, Laura asked me if I wanted to accompany a group along to a museum tonight; they didn't know which. I said yes and we ended up at the Tate Modern after my class today. As I've said before, one of the things I love most about London is that you can hop on the tube and go anywhere you want in the city... and almost anytime you want!

I feel terrible saying it, but the museum didn't do a lot for me. I'm not an art person, so I just kind of look at the works and hope that through osmosis or really hard staring, I can get some sort of meaning out of it. It doesn't help that it was modern art... sometimes it just annoys me. For instance, there was a "piece" there was literally a mirror attached to a piece of canvas, none of the canvas showing. That is not artwork, it is DIY. Laura claims she's going to look at that "piece" when she is angry to help her get it all out :p

The nice thing about museums here is that they're free. Sometimes you have to pay to see the temporary exhibits, but mostly, you can come and go as you please and not pay a cent!

Speaking of cents, I really do like the money here. While I still sometimes have to remind myself which coins are 20p (pence) and which are 10p, I like that there are pound and two pounds coins. It tends to mean that I have more money than I realise in my wallet!



In other news, I have not had any reportable cooking accidents, though I continue to burn my wrists on the edge of my saucepan. Tomorrow, I am going to attempt to make scrambled eggs, so I'm sure an entertaining story will ensue from that.

Tomorrow, a few of my friends are going to Wimbledon, but I opted out of the trip. Besides needing to do homework I've been neglecting, Wimbledon doesn't thrill me too much and it's extra money to go because it's on the other end of the city, so I figured I'd stay nice and warm in my room. I may have to venture out to get some supplies for an assignment, as the school store here has nothing beyond folders, and will likely freeze to death in the pursuit of art supplies.

And now some pictures I took tonight:

St. Paul's Cathedral from the Millenium Bridge

St. Paul's again from the south bank of the Thames

*A quote from the novel The Postmistress by Sarah Blake which, as of page 96, is pretty awesome.

Rachel is Stupid: Episode Two

Hey, fans, we're back with another episode!

So soon?! you exclaim. But in your heart of hearts, you know that Rachel is occasionally a fountain of stupidity, and oh, fans, the fountain was flooding forth like Niagara Falls last night. Let us again visit the incident from Rachel's P.O.V.


I was supposed to go to the opera last night. Seriously, the opera. It was for my Reading Theatre class, which is, as of now, my least favorite class, though for reasons that are administrative and not academic*. So after going to the library to do some homework, I headed to the tube station a full hour before the show was to start.

I had done my research. I knew that I had to get off at Tottenham Court Road to reach the theatre. Unfortunately, I assumed that the direction in which I had to go after that would be clearly marked, since it has been for every other theatre I've gone to so far.

But you know what happens when you assume. It was not clearly marked. But even worse than that, the real problem was that, because I had spent the better part of two nights before calling around the theatres/going on their websites and getting all of my tickets for every single show I had to go see in the term, I got my theatres mixed up. Instead of asking for the theatre that I was actually visiting last night, I kept asking for the one I'm going to on Tuesday. Obviously, I was unsuccessful in finding it.

In my desperation, I called Laura and asked her if she could look it up for me (good thing I topped up my phone beforehand... I had a feeling I'd need it.) Because I gave her the wrong theatre name, she got me directions to go to that location, which I did.

Or tried to do. Besides the fact the apparently, every person with large luggage in the nation decide to (slowly) use the tube last night, here's the thing- even when I was in the right location for the incorrect theatre... no one had heard of it. This theatre is supposed to be located on a very small, dead end road... and it's not there. Not only is it not there, not a single one of the six people I asked had ever heard of it. People keep telling me that things happen for a reason and I try to believe it, so perhaps the reason this happened is to show me that, uh... Tuesday's theatre isn't present in this world.

So I had an incredible amount of fun running through London (literally) until it was too late to get into the show whether I found the theatre or not. It was especially amusing for the people around me, I'm sure, because my knee is still spazzing out, causing me to have to gimp my way down the sidewalk. It was only after the time had passed that Laura contacted me and was like, "Um... I think you might have the wrong theatre," and then it all became clear to me. I felt like an idiot, mostly because I am one.

So I'm going to attempt to go back tonight. The good thing about getting a new ticket is that I actually get to sit down, and for a student price (the other one was standing room only... and when you have to take extensive notes, that doesn't work out so well.) Maybe Harriet Walter will be there tonight :p


*The issues that are making this theatre-going-for-class thing very hard are caused by a glitch in the system (we were told at the theatre induction meeting on Wednesday.) Basically, QMUL decided that they were only going to buy enough tickets for the "actual" QMUL students in the class to get, which means that, because most of the shows are at well-known theatres that sell out in a second, we associate students are not even guaranteed to get a ticket... but you have to see the show to take the class. And if you do actually get a ticket, it's almost always full price, as opposed to the ten of fifteen pounds QM charges you. It's incredibly frustrating, especially because I feel like the "real" students don't understand that, if they don't go on the specific night that QM reserved their tickets, their ticket just sits at the box office, unused, when an associate student who can't see the show otherwise, could use it. When we began our discussion on Julius Caesar this week, only half the class had gone to see it. That means at least six reserved seats sat empty. Ughhhh.
And unfortunately, neither our teacher nor our advisor can do anything about it except apologise. This means that class is pretty much operated under don't ask, don't tell- if you don't see a show, just pretend you did so she doesn't have to kick you out of the class. (Though this can only be taken so far; there are a certain amount of papers that need to be written on specific shows.)
In good news, my home school was offering extremely cheap tickets to a very expensive show that I am required to see, one that has been sold out for months. When I told them I needed the ticket for academic reasons, they said they'd do what they could, but it was still a lottery system. Thankfully, I found out today that I did in fact get the ticket! So now I have tickets for every show that I'm meant to see, however expensive those tickets may have been.


This weekend will be much less exciting than last weekend- I have much homework to do and my room is a mess. As much as I wanted to avoid buying large-ish things that I'll just have to desert when go home, I really need something to organise my papers... they're EVERYWHERE and driving me crazy. I think a group of us might venture out to a museum, though I'm not sure which one, and I want to do a good amount of writing and sign up for the gym. Whoo, hot times at QMUL :p

Quote of the Day: "Why is this so important? Well, because it's the subject of my Ph. D." -my history teacher (possibly not professor)

"If You're in a Tragedy, Don't Drink Anything!"

So I realised that even though I told you about my birthday, I didn't show you! So here are some pictures from the day of my twenty-first:

The package my family sent.

The cool thing about the package (besides all the yummy food and the ostrich) was that it came while I was Skyping with my mom, so she got to see me open it! (She also got to see me go to sit down at my desk, miss my chair, and fall on the floor :p) My friend Laura also made me some delicious chocolate chip cookies!

Outside the gift shop at the Titanic exhibit

My delicious replacement for alcohol! (I've got much less than that left now!)

The best garlic bread in the entire world.

And now for some random pictures I took yesterday:

An ad on the tube that makes me laugh every time I see it.

Poetry on the tube!

Don't you just hate it when your cough is all tickly? :p

I'm almost done with my second week of classes- one more in two parts tomorrow. I had Adaptations today and while really love it, four hours is just a really long time to have a class. But I did have fun today- it was a smaller than usual group, as some sort of sickness seems to be going around and other people had to drop the class, so we had a really good discussion about the play we were reading, starting with dissecting the title and the different connotations it would have today and then going through definitions of words we had to do for homework and finding moments in scenes from the play that matched it. Then after tea we discussed the articles we were supposed to read. As it happens, because our teacher skipped around a bit, I read a few articles too many, but it taught me a lesson, anyway. I had underestimated the amount of reading that needed to be done, thinking it could all be done in one short shot... but as you can see from this list, it was a little too extensive to sanely do in that timeframe.

So while I did get it all read in time, my procrastination meant that I was up until the wee hours of the morning reading and then got up an hour early to finish.. after not being able to fall asleep for a long time and having to be in class at nine. So never again!

I thought the booklets we got for some classes were a little weird, but after using mine, I actually quite like it. Instead of handing us articles to read each week, they're all in the booklet. Not only is it very neatly put together, but this way it's easy to refer to past articles. I found it a very good resource- not to mention that all of the articles we had to read for class today were really interesting (well... save for one.) Here's what my booklet for Adaptations looks like:

And on the inside:

So I'm really finding that handy. I also felt like I could hold my own in the discussion today. I think our orienters kind of exaggerated the differences between the English students and us; they made it sound like our English counterparts would eat us alive in class and we'd feel dumb all the time. But I contributed a good amount to the conversation, got some "that's a really good point"s from my teacher, and made more Shakespeare references than I even knew that I knew (my class loves to reference Shakespeare.) The quote in the title was said in our discussion; since so many people are poisoned in tragedies, we feel it's a good rule to follow in general. So so far, I think I'm doing all right in my classes.

Random fact of the day: here, you don't just call your teacher "professor" because they teach you. In the UK (and perhaps all of Europe), professor is actually the highest rank, and you have to work up to it. So while it's not an insult if you accidentally call your instructor "professor," they like to be called by their proper title (I suppose much like addressing an American professor as "doctor"- they usually correct you and say that they're not a doctor.) So while some of my teacher may be professors, others will fall into the following categories: Lecturer, Technicaly Director, Senior Lecturer, Reader, or Performance Supervisor. Now if I could only figure out which of my teachers fall into which category...

Oh, also... apparently, the weight of another year of life is too much for my body to handle. Halfway through my birthday festivities yesterday, the muscles of my right knee decided to completely spaz out, leaving me hobbling around and unable to climb stairs like I was 121 instead of barely 21. Now they're still quite painful and I don't know what's wrong with me. Getting older is FUN! :p

To History, With Love

I had my third and final class of the week just now- Madness and Medicine in Modern Britain- and I'm ready to write love songs about it. Perhaps one day we will find our differences, but right now, it's true love between this class and myself. It's exactly what I thought it would be; it covers the treatment of mental illnesses beginning in the 19th century (that's modern for Britain, whereas in America, "modern" is 1980 ;p) and going until the mid twentieth century and I am so excited. A lot of our studies will be done about the Victorian period which, if you know me at all, you will be aware that I have been obsessed with this era since I was about seven years old.

Not only is this class catering to my obsessions, but we also have a specific "module" (which is both a term for a class and, apparently, a specific area of study within a class. These double-meanings are killing me) focusing on female hysteria, which is the mental illness I spent pretty much all of last semester researching; in the end, I wrote two research papers that were completely focused on that and a play that touched on it. I can't wait to learn even more about it, and Victorian treatment in general.

My professor is Greek, accent and all, but it didn't take long to get used to it. I like how he teaches so far, especially since he doesn't expect us to just sit there and listen during lectures- we're allowed to take part (which I did; hooray for knowledge of the Four Humors!) My seminar (which comes after the lecture and in which I am the solitary American) was awesome. We discussed things that used to be considered mental illnesses or causes of them and I talked for too long about the perception of the dangers of female education in the Victorian era leading to hysteria. The teacher was very interested in the fact that I'd done work on this already, although I think his and my definitions of research differ a bit. After I was done speeching, he was like, "Well, don't worry, we don't do that any more; you girls will get just as much work." :p I am completely and totally in love with this class, and as soon as it was over, I handed in my registration sheet that will permanently put me in all of my classes.

Last night, for my Adaptations class' "unsupervised rehearsal," we were supposed to watch the film version of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, so we gathered in one of the rehearsal rooms. While the classmate who brought the laptop looked for a version online (there are no copies in the school library), we were chatting. At this point, it was just a few of the girls in the class- the single guy in the class couldn't make it and two of the girls were pulled from the class due to scheduling issues. There was an interesting exchange of questions- the English girls asking the other American girl and me if certain things were still big in America anad if we watched any British TV, and we asked them the same questions about England. As is turns out, these English girls have seen about ten times more American television than I have. I've never seen Jersey Shore, 90210, Saved by the Bell, and had never even heard of this new show about brides getting extreme plastic surgery every week, though another girl did express her love for Gilmore Girls. It was kind of funny, especially since the British shows I do watch (My Family, Dr. Who) got wrinkled noses from all of them.

This weekend- in about forty-five minutes, actually- I am going on homestay in Herne Bay. I'm bringing my computer, but I don't know if I'll be able to update, so I guess you have either many long entries or one mile-long entry to look forward to ;p


My review of some of the candy in yesterday's picture:

Swizzels Matlow Refreshers (strawberry flavour): Exactly like our Laffy Taffy but less sweet, and all the better for it. I like candy that doesn't make my teeth hurt once I've finished it.

Swizzels Matlow Drumstick (original raspberry and milk flavour): Again, like Laffy Taffy, but this one was too hard to chew to be very enjoyable. The taste was fine, but a little strange; I think it's the added milk.

Cadbury Roses (chocolate and peanut, chocolate caramel, and chocolate orange creme): the first two were delicious, but the chocolate/orange combo is really big here and I still don't understand it. It's not that it tastes bad, really... it's just a really weird concept, and that makes it hard to eat. But I know that this does not deter all Americans (namely, Adrienne, who seems to love this combo.)

Cabury Eclairs: another thing that was too hard to eat; I was afraid I would crack my teeth and so stopped my attempts. Plus, it's almost completely caramel, and I'm not a caramel person.

Swizzels Matlow Snap and Crackle: Pretty much as the same as the Refresher, so I'm not sure why it's called a Snap and Crackle.

Bounty: the definition of deliciousness. Chocolate and coconut!

Rocky: more like a chocolate covered cookie (er... biscuit) than anything else, but still tasty.

Cadbury Dairy Milk: it had an oddly coffee-like aftertaste that I wasn't a fan of, but otherwise, pretty good.

Ontological Queasiness*

I've just gotten back from my second class of the week (one more tomorrow.) It was Adaptations, the one I was most scared of, since the description pointed toward things I wasn't sure I wanted to do. However, I've never dropped a class and didn't want to start now, so I went anyway. And just as with every othe class that I've initially been really scared of, it proved to be fine... great, in fact!

So far, I really love the class. The teacher is really cool, and not just because she's nice. I am constantly surprised and grateful at the amazing professors I get the opportunity to work with- and I'm not just talking about here, but at my home school, too. They all do such incredible things in addition to their teaching that I basically sit there all class period thinking, "I'd just like to be you, please." So what amazed me so much about this particular professor is that she once sat down with a huge pile of resources and wrote a play. That in itself is enough to get my attention, but then she went on to mention that, oh, she did this work with a few people, including Alan Rickman. And not only did she create this show with these people, but it went on the West End AND Broadway, as well as many places in between.

The class is very small- we only had nine today, but I think there will be twelve if everyone turns up. In this group, I'm one of only three Americans. The rest, save for one German girl, are English, and again I was struck by how similar we are as students (though there are some differences, which I'll touch on later.) All of my classmates are really nice and I'm happy that this is the group of people that I'll be creating a performance piece with.

I was worried that a four hour class would drag, but it didn't at all. We started off with a game and then read through the (again, very long) syllabus. Then we broke for "tea", which basically meant we were given about twenty minutes to go and get something to eat, but the teacher did tell us to "go and have a cup of tea," by way of dismissal. (I did not have some tea, if anyone's wondering, but I did last night, so I'm not a complete failure :p)

(Side note: the couple across the hall from me is arguing- or, as they would say here, "rowing" again. They really like to row. They do it pretty much every day- loudly.)

After tea, we reconvened and split up into groups to discuss adaptations as a whole- which we'd seen, why we liked/didn't like them, what made them worthy/unworthy, and if there's a line that can be crossed. We were told at orientation that the professors here like American students because we talk a lot and therefore contribute to the discussions, and I would say that I did observe that to be true, but I wouldn't say that the English student contributed any less than we did, either.

Something that I should have expected, I guess, but was still surprised at was my classmates' attitudes toward "Americanised" films/TV adaptations. I was in a group with two English classmates, and they kept saying, "No offence," to me as they spoke in disgust of the Americanised versions of different films. The other English classmates, too, wore looks of disgust as they spoke of them. However, something to keep in mind is that most likely, we all signed up for this class because we're adaptation snobs, so it may just be the way my classmates watch films. It didn't detract from the conversations we were able to have. In fact, the girl in my group, Alexandra, said to me, "We're sitting here complaining about America ruining our stories, but are there any American stories that we've made British?" I couldn't think of any off the top of my head, but if any of you know of some, I'm sure that information would be helpful for this class in general. It doesn't matter if the adaptation was good or bad- I'd just like to know!

Oh, also, I was chosen to write the things down as we were discussing them, and one of the things was "color." Without thinking, I wrote it down my usual way, and Alexandra jokingly sad, "What is this? What is this strange word?" For some reason, I was embarassed; it's not like I want to hide the fact that I'm American, but I do want to blend in with my fellow students. I will be watching my public spelling from now on :P

In the end, the class flew by. We had some really great discussions and I'm very excited about it.

Now for you (almost) daily dose of random observations:

Chloe asked a few days ago if people used the word "loo," and at that point, I hadn't heard anyone say it. But today, both my teacher and one of my classmates used it. Additionally, one of the orientation people said "jolly good," completely genuinely, which I didn't think people said anymore, either; I thought it was more of a stereotype at this point. Another one that we do sometimes say in the US: "Get cracking."

A phrase that completely throws me every time: "What program are you on?" To me, this seems like they're asking about medication or a diet or something, but what it really means is "What university are you going to?" or, if you're at your university, "What is your area of study?"

Diary = planner. My teacher today kept saying, "I'll give you the dates to put in your diary."

They LOVE essays. When I would read Harry Potter as I kid, I always noticed how many essays the students have to write, and now I know why; it's at least a huge part of the QMUL system. For the two classes I've had so far, we have to write at least two huge essays (although, to a WriMo, 2500 words is less than a day's writing, so it's not too daunting) and they're what make up most exams. And one of my teacher's tips today about creating our performance piece was, "Think of it as an essay."

My teacher forgot to print out the dates that said essays were due, and her response to this was, "Oh, how am I?" It's hard to explain how this is said, but basically, it's another way of saying, "How could I do that?" Emma Thompson says something similar in the Sense & Sensibility (1994) commentary when discussing her character's costume- she says, "Look at her, what does she look like?", basically just meaning, "Look at that costume." It's very odd, but I like it.

People (mainly younger women/girls) are either immune to the cold or just choosing fashion over comfort (a notion I am not a stranger to), going around in tank tops or dresses/skirts with tights on underneath. Today, it was just slightly warmer and people weren't wearing any coats! I guess you just get used to it.

A big difference I noticed in the students is that they seem quite a bit more cultured than American students. When my class was discussing adaptations, the English students and the teacher continually worked in references to poetry, pieces of art, articles I suppose they've read in other classes... we don't do that back home, really. We only reference what we've worked on in that particular class. Because university students don't do gen. ed.s, only the subject they've come to study, I think they go through each class at the same time, together, so they always know what another person is referencing.


Flatmate Emmie stopped by my room earlier to give me a piece of candy and she told me that they had something called the "Refresher's Fair." Basically, it's like my school's Activities Fair, where all of the clubs gather tables in one place and give people free stuff for signing up for their club. I don't know how to say no, so besides being in the theatre, newspaper, and film club, I also ended up in the art society and the volunteering club. Legally, I'm not allowed to volunteer, as my visa doesn't allow it, but the girl asking literally grabbed my elbow and steered me to the sign up sheet. So I won't be taking part in their activities, but they did giv me lots of candy and a mug :p



^I don't know what any of this is except the Bounty bar- those are delicous, like our candy Mounds. But I think I should try some of this now ;)

(*If you're wondering, this is a phrase I learned today in class, defined as "a cocktail of shame, neurosis, guilt, perversion and pleasure at the heart of theatre.")

This Entry is As Long As My Class' Syllabus

This toast with jam that I am eating is deliciously carb-tastic. I just thought I'd share that with all of you :p

Today was my first day of classes, and though I use the plural, I only had one on this particular day. It started at two, so one would think that I would have the whole morning to relax and calmly do stuff. But no... because I am me. Since I had to go see a play tonight (more on that later), I decided that I couldn't put off getting my Oyster card anymore. So at ten, I walked down to the tube and took it to the proper stop. I did not look at a map because I knew the address and I had been to the office before. But (now, stop rolling your eyes, Mom :p), I kind of forgot that when I went to the office last time, we had had to get off at a different stop due to work being done on the line. So I got lost... three times. Thankfully, a woman in a hotel I kept walking past looked it up for me online, and it turns out that I just kept walking down the wrong end of the street on every road I went on.
Finally, I made it to the office and got my card (a LOT of people haven't picked theirs up yet). This means that I can stop buying day passes every time I want to go ONE place ONE time (though, thankfully, I usually end up getting my money's worth out of the day passes, since I tend to go a lot of places just for fun.) Unfortunately, being lost meant that it had taken me about forty five minutes to get to the office, so a lot of my free time was wasted.

I visited the school library to see if I could pick up a play I have to read before my Thursday class, but besides having problems with my card so that it took me forever to even get INTO the library, their system is not easily navigated and I had to get to class, so I didn't end up finding the play. The library is GINOURMOUS- it's got a lot of big sections just for studying (and, downstairs, for louder, general hanging out) and floors of journals and books and even a section full of pretty good DVDs. I will definitely be checking it out tomorrow when I have no classes.

My class today, Reading Theatre, was pretty good. I left early to get there, but I wasn't the first one there- surprising, but the girl who was is just as much of an overachiever as I am, but more outwardly so, if anyone can believe that. She's also very nice. People started trickling in and then this woman came in holding a big stack of papers. I say "woman," but truthfully, she looked young enough that if she had come in and sat among us, we never would have asked question. She asked us to arrange the rows of tables and chairs into an inward-facing square so we could all see each other (you know you're in a theatre class when...)
I was pleased to see how small my class is. People had made it sound like we were all going to be in classes of eighty or more, but my professor said that they hadn't even expected as many people as there are to be in the class. That said, there was another section of the class being given at the same time in a different building. I heard from my nice fellow overachiever that we're lucky to have gotten the professor we did; the guy has a reputation as being on the not-so-nice side.
My class is about fifty/fifty in its percentages of international and English students. We have seven Americans, nine English, one Irish, and one whose accent I couldn't place. Not too bad, and no one seemed to judge any one any way, which was cool.
It's funny to hear just how many English accents there are. It might seem like it's a bit late to be commenting on this, but besides the fact that for the first few days here, I was surrounded almost completely by Americans, and actually, London itself is so diverse that I hear way more foreign accents than English. In fact, I've heard more American voices on the tube than I have any other! So sitting in class today was really my first chance to hear a few different accents. One girl even commented on hers at one point: "You may not believe it with my accent, but I am actually middle class," was her statement. I don't think you'd ever hear a comment like that in the States.

In the class time, we went over the syllabus (thank God... I didn't think we were going to do this; I thought she'd just hand us the TWELVE PAGE SYLLABUS and say, "Work hard and enjoy!") and the professor gave us some finer details for the assignments. I don't have a sit-down exam at the end of this class- just two big pieces of writing due that will be huge percentages of our grade- the ONLY parts of our grade. That's one of the weirdest things about academics here- you don't get a participation grade and homework is just reading, so it can't be marked. It's especially shocking to a theatre student not to get a participation grade; that's pretty much our entire grade sometimes at home, along with the assignments we're given during the semester. It's a whole different world over here, academically. While I was getting a little worried, the girl who had been there before me was asking question after concerned question... which was great because she was basically asking everything I wanted to and I could look normal for once in my life.

Another thing about English students (or at least the ones in my class)- they're just like us. In everything I've read and with everything I've been told, I expected my English counterparts to basically already have all of the work done before the term even started- like that scene in Mona Lisa Smile when Katherine asks rhetorical, this-is-just-a-preview questions and it turns out the the girls know every single answer already. But thankfully, this wasn't the case. Some were just as overwhelmed by the reading list as we Americans were, a few complained about being asked to do extra work (and they did it loudly), and some tried their hardest to get out of doing said extra work. It was like... university. So there's one big worry off of my shoulders- I can just blend in (or look like an overachiever. But it's better than looking like a slacker.)

So one big surprise on the syllabus (though thankfully, I had found this out a day or two ago, previewing the document online) was that, even though today was the first day of class, we were supposed to go see a play tonight. As I said, I found out about this a little bit ago, but that didn't make it any less surprising that it was so soon. Some of my classmates didn't even know that we had to see a show tonight. But that wasn't the biggest problem for me; that was that I had been told to order my tickets for the show through the school e-shop. So I did... only to have our professor tell us that associate (a.k.a. international) students wouldn't be being included in the student tickets- we have to buy our own in whatever way we can. Okay... well, I couldn't un-buy my ticket. Unfortunately, my (and another American student's) buying a ticket online meant that I technically took a ticket away from a regular student. Oops...
After class, during which we brainstormed about what "how" and "where"s do to an audience's perception of a show, the other girl and I were asked to stay behind and speak to the professor. Great... my first day of class and I'm already in trouble. We weren't, though- she just wanted to make sure we weren't denied tickets once we got to the theatre. In the end, she just told us to get to the theatre super early to guarantee getting the ticket we had paid for. "If you bought one already, then you deserve the seat," she said.

So the situation slightly sucked- no only was I not guaranteed a seat I had paid for, but in order to hunt down said seat, I had to give up one I definitely had and had already paid for. I had signed up months ago to go on an orientation dinner cruise on the Thames tonight, and I really wanted to go. It had been a nice, clear day, Adrienne and Laura were going, and can you imagine the pictures?! But the show (Julius Caesar) isn't playing again until the 18th, and we're discussing it in a few hours before that night's show. It was a no-win situation, especially since it was Caesar, which is a play that doesn't exactly thrill me. I read it when I was fifteen and came away none too impressed and all too bored.

All the hall-talkiness of my first day of class and meeting Laura at the library afterward meant that, in order to get to the theatre early, I had to run back to my room, change into something acceptably evening theatre-going, and have "dinner" (bread and Nutella, anyone?) before going to the tube station. I made the commute with no trouble and the theatre was easy to find (thankfully, since I apparently never learn my lesson and hadn't brought a map.)

The theatre is called the Roundhouse, and the structure is in its title- it's a round house, although the house itself is not strictly "in the round"; it's more of a thrust. I got my ticket, bought my program (yeah, they're not free here, but they're totally worth the extra money- they have rehearsal photos, interviews, and lots of theatre-nerdy goodness inside) and spent the waiting time reading over the reviews we were supposed to read for class and then reading Going Bovine. As I was doing the latter, I heard a voice talking next to me and glanced up briefly... then did the most giant of double-takes and literally got a head rush that had me tightly gripping the wall. Because standing right next to me, talking into her cell phone was HARRIET WALTER!!!!

Excuse me, this merits some more punctuation: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HARRIET WALTER!!!!

If you don't know who she is, first of all, shame on you :p You can see all of the AMAZING stuff she's been in here, but though I love her movies and TV shows, I love her most for her incredible acting book that came out last summer, Other People's Shoes. It's the first non-fiction book that I've ever hovered over with a highlighter because of all of the amazing content. I've quoted it to my friends. I love that book.

Here's the version of the rest of the story I would like to tell: I said, very coolly, "Excuse me, but are you Harriet Walter? I'm Rachel and I think you're incredible." Ms. Walter said hello back and then we chatted like best friends and then we hung out and we are now inseparable.

Here's the version that actually happened: My brain tripped out, trying to figure out how it could be possible, or even if it was possible that it could be her, then accepted that I was in London, at a well-known theatre, and that I was, in fact, standing next to one of my favorite actors. Cue me almost fainting and then freezing like a deer in headlights while my brain screamed, "TALK TO HER, SHE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE!" until she figured out where her friend was and walked behind me toward the bar. Goodbye, Opportunity. It was cool freaking out while you passed. *sigh*

The show itself was actually really good, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I got WAY more out of it than I did five years ago, probably because I've actually had some Shakespeare experience since then. Which made me think... maybe I should be willing to read/see Shakespeare I've previously hated (*cough*KingLear*cough*)... maybe I'll actually like it. I did go in and out a bit during the second act, but it was a very well-done show, and it really made me think of my home school, as the theatre department's next show is Caesar and basically everyone I know is in it. I'm glad I went to see it tonight (mostly because I saw Harriet Walter, but it being a good show didn't hurt either.)


And now for some random observations of the day:

Uttered by my theatre teacher: "I'll hand you out the syllabus." I thought this ordering of words was a Lancaster county thing, but apparently it's not limited to my home county!

Instead of dimming the lights in the lobby when it's time for the audience to take their seats, they ring a big bell.

British actors' resumes are, in general, more extensive than any American ones I've seen. In America, theatre actors tend to have mostly done theatre, and film actors, film. Here, it seems like almost everyone dabbles equally in theatre, film, television, and radio.

At intermission, the audience clears out of the theatre so quickly and completely that for awhile, I thought I had just imagined that there was more to the play and it was over already.

When they do return from intermission, they bring food like candy and water ice, as well as open cups that hold beer, among other things.

I think I'm beginning to understand why, when the British try to imitate American accents, they automatically revert to exaggerated Southern American. It's easy to take the general extension of vowels just that little bit too far.

The tube is a bit scary at night when you're on your own...just sayin'


(Oh, and about comments- I've heard there's some trouble with those dumb twirly letters not being able to be typed... I'm working on fixing that!

A tip from my mom regarding this: when you can't see the box you're to type those dumb twirly letters in, click on where it says "word verification" [it won't look lik something you can click on; do it anyway.] That worked for my mom and me. :) )