Monday:
Mondays always consist of Historical Dance, Movement, Dramatic Literature, and Stage Combat. I don’t know why they stick Dramatic Lit in there right after we’ve had lots of moving around and then lunch. We’re exhausted by then, and have a hard time sitting and focusing for two hours. We do, of course, but not without significant effort and caffeine. By the time Stage Combat rolls around, all anyone really wants is a shower and bedtime. Thank goodness the class is fun, otherwise I don’t think we’d make it through. There’s something very satisfactory about the way the blades clash together, and we’re learning more and more moves that make that happen.
Movement is always a challenge, as I seem to distinctly lack any strength whatsoever. I don’t understand! I carried beach bags, library books, and snacks around all summer. I swung children around in circles. I played on playgrounds. Why do I have no strength? My current challenge is learning how to do a handstand. Sue as determined that this is required, so learn it I will. Monday found me kick my legs fruitlessly into the air like a particularly annoyed donkey. I promised Sue I would know how by next Monday, though...
The big news of the week is that a student from our programme was expelled for physically attacking other student. (It was not unprovoked, but was still absolutely unnecessary.) It was a lot of drama for a long time, and it’s a relief that it’s over.
Tuesday:
By the end of Tuesday I was absolutely drained. I started out my day bright and early by heading for a soup kitchen. “What?” you are wondering. “Why is she going to a soup kitchen? Is food in London really that expensive?” If you are my parents, perhaps you are also thinking, “We should send that girl some money! Or maybe just a care package with lots of food!” If, by chance, you happened to have those thoughts, please don’t hesitate to act on them.
In fact, though, I was going for an acting assignment. Kathryn, my acting teacher, told me to go to a soup kitchen, a poorer area of London, and try to get state aid from the government. The kitchen was infinitely depressing, and involved more religion than I could really swallow. I don’t mind religion; I think it has its place. If you’re religion inspires you to help people and live ethically and happily, then I think that is absolutely wonderful. I do take issue with soup kitchens forcing people to watch videos about the Bible before they give out food, though. Doesn’t that seem a little, well, self-serving? And the people there were terrible condescending. I felt like pointing out to them that the people they were serving were homeless, but were nonetheless human beings, and deserve respect. I didn’t, though… I was just a fly on the wall.
After the soup kitchen I headed off to Shakespeare class, and then to the Tate Museum. At the Tate we saw the painting from the Lady of Shalott! Does anyone else find that poem as glorious as I do? I was thrilled to see the painting in person. They also have a beautiful collection of Turners. We could only spend a few hours, but they were very lovely hours indeed. In the museum shop, while searching for postcards, I came across a set of… get this… soap crayons! Yes, they are crayons that you can use to draw on yourself or on the walls of your shower/bathtub. Normally they are used to lure reluctant children into the tub, but I was pretty impressed myself. After a brief but intense internal debate, I returned them to the shelf. “No,” I reminded myself, “You’re 21 years old, and you like showers already. You have no need for such silliness.” Feeling very responsible (though quite disappointed) I left the shop and headed home.
Later that evening I headed upstairs to find Kari and Dana for a walk to the opera. (Yes, we went to an art museum and the opera in the same day. Aren’t we fancy?) There, are Kari’s counter, I could see a box of soap crayons. Naturally, I told her that I highly approved of her choice to buy them, and that I was delighted that she owned them. “I don’t,” she replied. “You do. I got them for you.” What I wonderful surprise! Kari is a very sweet individual, and one of my baking buddies. (You may recall the nectarine crumble we made.) She has invited me to be her nanny after I told a particularly enthusiastic story from the summer, and now introduces me to her friends as such. And now, now she has gotten me soap crayons. Someone get this girl a gold star.
Finally we actually left the flats, and got ourselves to the opera. I won’t say much about that, except that it was performed in English (why? They had subtitles anyway) and that one of the lines was, literally, “Tony, you screwed me royally.” Think what you will.
Wednesday:
You may recall that last week I wrote about observing meerkats. I took a couple videos of them, and spent every day leading up to Wednesday scuttling around my flat as a meerkat. I would scuttlescuttlscluttle then- oh!- what’s that!- sit up on my back legs (ie knees) and peer fixedly up, then to the side, then in front, to the other side. If things looked particularly interesting, I would stand up on my tiptoes and stare some more. Yes, this was really, truly required for class. I promise. It all came to fruition on Wednesday, when we performed our animals for the rest of our class. In our class of twelve we had: a giraffe, lemur, kangaroo, meerkat, bear, lioness, tiger, gorilla, otter, flamingo, bearded pig, and okapi. Some were pretty obvious, and easy to figure out what the person was doing. In fact, most were. People had done their research, and were quite good. I only got to see half, because the other half of the time I was busy being a meerkat. We hadn’t told Kathryn beforehand what we were going to do, so she was pretty much guessing. Some of them were obvious: kangaroo, meerkat, and otter, for instance. Very few animals move like those do. She got most of the rest also, but the crowning glory of the day was when she turned to Dana and asked, “Were you an… okapi?” Dana had been very uncertain that Kathryn would have any idea what she was (quite reasonably, really—I’m not sure everyone’s even heard of an okapi), but she got it right away. We were very impressed.
That evening, Dana sent me a message about 6:45, asking if I wanted to go to see Vanessa Redgrave’s one woman show, A Year of Magical Thinking. I wanted to So Much. I’ve been dying to see that show. But… I did promise myself that I would finish my first draft of my dramatic lit paper by the time I went to bed on Wednesday. What to do, what to do? After a very careful re-assessment of my available time before the due date (Monday), I used an age-old strategy for making a decision. I flipped a coin. Heads was “go see the play,” Tails was “stay home and write the paper.” (Which one you’re cheering for probably depends on how much money you have invested in my education.) Well, I went—and I am so glad I did. The show was truly remarkable, a 100 minute long monologue, with no intermission. The power that Vanessa Redgrave has is absolutely stunning. Her presence, her skill, and her charisma carried what could have been a depressing, weighty show into being an always-touching, sometimes-funny story of a very real woman. It was absolutely worth it. (To those of you wondering what happened to the essay, don’t worry. It’s done, and ready to be printed out at school tomorrow.)
Thursday:
Let me briefly explain my schoolwork system to you. When things get tight, I decide when I will get what work done. Once my work for that day is done, I get to play. If the work isn’t done, though, no playtime.* I’m pretty good at estimating how long it will take me to get stuff done, so I rarely come up against the problem of not completing my allocated amount. Therefore, I spent Thursday morning catching up on the paper I’d neglected the evening before, and then after class on Thursday I wrote out my notes for a discussion later this coming week. It was hours of work, but then it was done. And that meant that I got to play!
I headed upstairs to Flat 3, my home-away-from-home-away-from-home. I happened to arrive at the same moment as Rania (who genuinely lives there, and is not just a constant visitor like myself). She pulled out her keys and smiled, “Welcome home!” as she ushered me inside. I found Dana and Sevita doing a Norwegian folkdance (I wasn’t as surprised or confused as you might think), and Liz doing something on her computer. My buddies were busy. Nevermind. I went over to the section of wall I will always associate with handstands, and started practicing. Then. THEN! MY FEET HIT THE WALL! All action in the room came to a stand-still. “You did it!” cheered Dana. I did a little happy dance, and did it again. And again! I can do handstands! Well, I can do them against a wall if someone catches my legs and props me up before moving way. But I am so much closer than I was. Huzzah!
Friday:
This Friday my Shakespeare class got out at 3:45. Each week it alternates: one class gets out at 3:45, and the other gets out at 6:30. It’s pretty clear which class you want to be in. Afterwards, Dana and I planned to celebrate “Just for the Heck** of it Day (meaning that we’d do something fun just because we wanted to). After get ready for our excursion, I went upstairs to find her. She opened the door and told me she wasn’t quite ready, but would be shortly. I sat down on her couch and waited for her. “Close your eyes!” she called out from her bedroom. Vaguely amused, I did so. “Hold out your hands,” she said, this time much closer. I did as I was told. Something soft was put into my hands, and I opened my eyes. This is what I found there:
Slippers! Dana had knitted me a pair of slippers! I immediately put them on and did some sliding around on the wooden floor of her flat. Then I did a little prancing, and thanked Dana profusely. I love my slippers!Our JFTHOID excursion was to a knitting store in south London. We found some great yarn! She’s making mittens, and I… well, my primary goal is just not to make a whole lot of knots. It was a fun adventure, and I’m excited for our next JFTHOID.
That evening we went to see the ballet Manon. It was breathtaking-- extremely talented dancers, beautiful choreography, everything. Elizabeth, my friend from Scripps, came along with us too. I’m glad that we happened to have extra tickets so that she could come along. I can’t emphasise enough how visually stunning the performance was. Here’s a picture of some of us before the show.
*Clearly this system isn’t foolproof. Things like seeing A Year of Magical Thinking come up.**Observe how I keep my posts solidly G-rated. Are you impressed?
Saturday:
Saturday morning found us crawling out of our beds bleary-eyed and unenthusiastic about being awake so early. My alarm went off at 7am, and I entertained some grumpy thoughts before remembering that I always get up at 7. I guess it was just the fact that it was a Saturday that made me feel like the situation was somehow unfair. Anyway, after some groggy showering/dressing/breakfast eating, we found ourselves on a bus headed for Stonehenge!
Why yes, over ever seat there was a little tea/wine button. It’s true. I spent Saturday at two rather incredible places in England. The first was Winchester, the old capital of England. We explored the town, had a tour of the cathedral, and ate lunch before boarding the bus again.
King Arthur's Round Table, as commissioned by Henry VIII
About an hour away from Winchester you are in the middle of no where. There are sheep, fields and… well, then a small tourist oasis—café, gift shop, and the opportunity to purchase tickets to go on a stroll around Stonehenge. The programme provided us with admission, and we happily swarmed around the stones. It’s impressive. They aren’t as big as I’d imagined, but the weight is phenomenal (17-40 tonnes). And they’ve been there for thousands of years! How did people get them there? Why? You must have a fairly pressing religious reason to go to that much work.
They weren’t created as a tourist attraction, but they are now. Of course, we took lots of photos.
Saturday night involved “Juno” and baking chocolate chip cookies. I really do bake a lot, don’t I?Sunday:
This morning I woke up early, got dressed, and headed out (in the rain) for a big grocery store journey. I say “big” because there is a small grocery store about 5 minutes walk from my flat. The big grocery store (that has all kinds of exciting food, as well as fresh flowers) is more of a 20 minute walk. Normally, this is not a problem, but the rain made it mildly un-fun. I was soaked by the time I got there, and (here’s the punch line) the shop was closed. Really.
Doesn’t open until 12pm on Sundays.
Humph.
And now, over to Luna!
Here I am in front of the Tate Museum. It's a huge art museum with paintings, sketches, and sculptures by hundreds of different artists. I could spend hours wandering through and looking at everything. There's so much to see! It makes me want to try doing some art myself.
Here I am with my friends Dana, Anna, and Melanie right before we went in to see the ballet. The ballet was called Manon and was absolutely beautiful. The dancers are very graceful and flexible. This was one of my favorite things I've ever seen... and I've seen a lot of theatre by now, because I go everywhere with Litza!
We got to play dress-up in Winchester, the city that used to be the capital of England a long time ago. Unfortunately, they didn't have any hedgehog-sized hats for me. I don't understand! Hedgehogs are a native species in the UK. I think they should have armor for us too!
This is a view of Winchester from the rooftop of another building. Isn't it a cute little town? Some of the shops have signs with pictures of what they sell, just like a long time ago. People did that so shoppers who couldn't read still knew where to go.
Here I am at Stonehenge. Stonehenge was built thousands and thousands of years ago. The rocks are from over 200 miles away, and had to be brought to this location. This was long before automobiles were even thought of, so how do you think they got all these enormous rocks? It would have been quite a journey!
Here I am in front of the Tate Museum. It's a huge art museum with paintings, sketches, and sculptures by hundreds of different artists. I could spend hours wandering through and looking at everything. There's so much to see! It makes me want to try doing some art myself.
Here I am with my friends Dana, Anna, and Melanie right before we went in to see the ballet. The ballet was called Manon and was absolutely beautiful. The dancers are very graceful and flexible. This was one of my favorite things I've ever seen... and I've seen a lot of theatre by now, because I go everywhere with Litza!
We got to play dress-up in Winchester, the city that used to be the capital of England a long time ago. Unfortunately, they didn't have any hedgehog-sized hats for me. I don't understand! Hedgehogs are a native species in the UK. I think they should have armor for us too!
This is a view of Winchester from the rooftop of another building. Isn't it a cute little town? Some of the shops have signs with pictures of what they sell, just like a long time ago. People did that so shoppers who couldn't read still knew where to go.
Here I am at Stonehenge. Stonehenge was built thousands and thousands of years ago. The rocks are from over 200 miles away, and had to be brought to this location. This was long before automobiles were even thought of, so how do you think they got all these enormous rocks? It would have been quite a journey!
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