Hello my dear friends and family!
I just wanted to give you all a quick update on my now not-so-exciting life. Reality has finally hit and I am facing the fact that I do have work to do while I am here (what a thought considering I am in school) and that this work is not going to get done on its own! Sad but true... Anyways, my week...
Monday, All Hallows Day, Day of the Dead (in Spain), and Halloween whichever you prefer. I actually didn't celebrate it, so it doesn't really matter to me. Thinking back though I think that this is the only year that I haven't done anything, kinda depressing hun? Eh, I'm over it. Basically this was my first real experience with Roehampton's library. I spent the majority of the day looking up stuff and figuring out that despite what people say, this library is not very helpful. I don't ever what to hear complaints about Biola's library because all I have to say is at least they don't still check out books by hand at Biola. Maybe you are catching my drift a little bit but if not let me help you a bit further. The idea of hooking up your computer to the internet while in the library is evidently the unpardonable sin, I was scolded once... it wasn't very fun. I almost got excited though when he said that i could connect to the wireless internet in the library (now your talking my language) but, oh wait, it doesn't work. Hmmm... Oh well, once again, I've gotten over it and just moved on. I basically spent the rest of my day reading what articles I could get a hold of and finally around 9 pm I had had enough, so I went and got ice cream. I didn't really realize how much energy I had until I met up with Annie and her Dad to walk to the pizza place (I know I said I got ice cream, but it was on sale at the pizza place) and I couldn't stop myself form skipping and talking a mile a minute. This is what happens when you're used to going out every day and walking all the time and then just stopping and staying inside all day. Not a good option. Anyways, had ice cream, it was good, I went to bed a happy camper (after working out in my room because I still had so much energy).
Tuesday I actually don't remember what happened, which means I spent the day actually working on stuff. The life of a good student...
Wednesday, I did more of the same. Things didn't really get interesting until by Bible class that night. We talked about the book we had read earlier in the semester about integrating the arts and Christianity and how it wasn't sinful to not have an explicit Christian message in order to consider yourself a Christian artist. Good times. Then we talked about a study that was conducted by an organization here in London about agnostics and what their views of Christians and Christianity were. It was a very interesting discussion and we were able to talk about the similarities and differences between here and America. Basically, both countries are not happy with Christians because we are intolerant (which is really, you don't believe what I believe therefore, you are intolerant) hypocritical (but only because we actually profess to a moral code, if you don't profess to have morals then you can't be hypocritical) and other such issues. (We talked about these things in greater detain than I am doing here, please don't think that this is the end all be all to the two things I just brought up) The areas that were different were actually quite interesting and encouraging in many cases. Londoners tended to bring up more intellectual issues about the Bible being inaccurate and Science disproving Chirstianity whereas in America I don't think that these are brought up quite as mucha s they used to thanks to recent surges of apologetics in these areas. There's tons more that we talked about and if your interesting in more details then just ask.
THursday, was much the same, research, research, research... but that night was so much fun! Sierra and I got dressed up and made our way to Royal Albert Hall to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play Broadway hits. We arrive about 10 minutes late, oh the joys of public transport, and made our way to the very top of the theatre to our restricted view seats. And they definitely were restricted! There were 4 singers, all extremely talented and a great orchestra. At the interval Sierra and I moved down to some empty seats that we had spotted and enjoyed the rest of the concert about 20 feet away from the stage. We heard everything from Guys and Dolls, to Phantom, to LeMiz, to Cabaret... and to end the evening they played a medley of songs from Mama Mia and everybody got up and started dancing, including the brass players! It was so cool to see everybody getting up and moving about, swaying their arms and singing at the top of their lungs, probably not something you see often at Royal Albert Hall. Anyways, it was an amazing night and I loved every moment of it.
Friday, I spent most of the day... wait for it... in the library! Yes, it's true, more research, perhaps someday I will actually be able to start writing my papers instead of reading other people's papers. When I couldn't take it any longer, and the quazi-wireless internet quit working for who knows how many times I finally went back to my room. That night the girls and I watched two movies, Wedding Date (cute, girly, set in London-which was funny, good ending) and Breakfast Club (that was my first time seeing it and it was totally different than I expected it to be, very deep psychological things going on the whole time - and here I thought that I was watching a movie to get my mind off of psychology...).
Saturday was a day of rest, from school work that is, we had another class fieldtrip to go on. Oh, and Happy Guy Fawkes day! We went to a gallery and saw the largest exhibition on Edvard Munch that is know to exist, very interesting artist, troubled within his soul, more psychology, I can never avoid it. Then the best part of our day, Nigel (our prof) took us to Starbucks! We were given £5 to spend and all of us took full advantage of it! Venti decaf toffee nut latte, and a berry scone, ahh so good to have a small taste of home that didn't come directly out of my pocket! Then we went to the National Portrait Gallery and saw an exhibition on Self-portraits, it was interesting to see how famous artists used their individual techniques to create a piece that represented themselves. Also, I went through a small portion of the rest of the gallery which was really cool because basically the entire gallery is British history told through portraits. I need to go back there, I spent almost an hour there and I only made it through the first 100-150 years. Crazyness! Then we went to STOMP, holy cow, it was absolutely amazing. Go and see it! I was totally impressed with their style, uniqueness of instrument choice (all everyday items that you would find around the house) and the amamzing way that they got the audience involved without saying one word. By the end all of us in the theatre were doing STOMPlike things, it was so much fun! After that the girls and I went to Hard Rock to have dinner and the original, but the wait was forever and a day so we resigned ourselves to having fish and chips. We then made our way to Shakespear's Globe theatre where there were street performers acting out the history of Guy Fawkes day. Basically, he was a guys who tried to blow up the Parlament Building on 5 Nov 1605, luckily, the 'Gunpowder plot' (as it is not termed) was found out just before it happened and everyone lived happily ever after... except Guy Fawkes who was lynched. Hmmm... So anyways, now Nov 5th is a day of celebration with fireworks thoughout the city. we watched fireworks go off from either side of the Millenium Bridge (and on the bridge itself too) which is over the Thames. The fireworks were so close and so incredibly loud, it made me miss Disneyland and 4th of July. I don't care whether or not it is scientifically possible or not, sound carries differently in this country. Every thing was so much louder, we could see fireworks going off from miles away and still here the explosion as if it were right above our heads. Then we went home, and had an interesting experience trying to get a bottle of Diet Coke (one of the old school kinds) to open on the Tube. It all ended with one of the guys who was sitting across from us getting up and knocking off the top while it was up against a ledge. It as absolute brilliance, I guess if comes from drinking beer so much, I will have to try it next time I have a bottle. The rest of the night was spent having a splendid conversation with Paul through Skype (which is totally amamzing by the way, you should try it sometime!). Finally I went to bed and was happy.
Sunday I didn't get up for church on time but ended up going (I was only about 15 minutes late) anyways, I was tired, but glad I went. I came home and attempted to read but feel asleep. I woke up an hour later decided to eat, since I hadn't all day, and procceded to fall back asleep and then I woke up and read a page and fell basck asleep until 6pm. I think that my body was trying to tell me something! After that whole thing I went to the library, did more research, ate, talked to my parents (it was really good to talk with them briefly) and then went to bed.
Monday (a.k.a. today sort of, it was when I started writing), went to class, nothing too exciting. Then I decided to venture out to the British Library... if you don't know anything about this library then you should Goggle it, this place was insane! You have to get a reading pass, which is basically your library card, but you can't check anything out. You go to whatever room you are speciallizing in and in there are a billion reference books for you are (the one I was in was Social Sciences) then you go on the computer and request whatever else you want to look at. If they have it on site it will be delievered to your reading room in about 70 minutes! Can you believe that! Most of the items are not stored on site so they take anywhere from 48 hours to a week to get there. Oh, and another thing, whatever you want to take into the reading room has to be put into a see through plastic bag that they provide and all your other stuff has to be checked into the cloakroom. This place is hard core, I felt like I was trying to find classified documents or soemthing. I will have to make many trips back there because they actually everything that I had been unable to find else where... so for the next few days I get to go back and see what has arrived and if it is of any use to my research. Fun times, and totally overwhelming. I came back home, ate and did more reading and now here I am typing at 1 am in the computer lab. I think that I am going to go to bed now. So, goodnight! If any part of this doesn't makes sense then get over it... haha just kidding, well sort-of, basically you can attribute it to the time of day that I am writing. Alright, I'm really going to bed now. Peace.