An Update Long Overdue, part 2

Monday, Nov. 3- I can't say I remember what happened during the day. Usually my Mondays are taken up with my Shakespeare seminar, which runs from 11 to 1, then a two hour break, and then another hour. Since it takes twenty minutes to get from the Village to my classroom, it's not worth it to go home during the break, so I usually get lunch with either this other American girl named Samantha or my friend Alan. Whatever I did, it obviously wasn't interesting enough to be remembered.
That evening, however, the Dickinson students were invited to the Dickinson/UEA 20th Anniversary Dinner at the Sainsburys Centre, the university's posh art gallery. It was a bit daunting, since we had to dress up and hobnob with UEA executives, Deans, the Vice Chancellor, etc. There was a slideshow running pictures of Dickinson Norwich students from years past, but most of the pictures were of us and, I assume, generously provided by Prof. Rudalevidge. We got to drink wine and stand around looking awkward until we were invited to sit down at our assigned tables. I was at a table with Prof. Key (the director of the Dickinson Science program), his wife, the UEA Dean of Science, a boy from the Science program named Ryan, my friend Phil (also from the Science program), and the student representative from the School of American Studies name Meghan, who was very nice. Mostly we talked about how we liked England, travel plans, and, of course, the upcoming election. Meghan and I were both vegetarians, so it was nice to have someone else with me when we awkwardly had to tell the waiters, "Sorry, but I was supposed to have the vegetarian meal..." In any case, the food was delicious. For the second time in two days I had halloumi, the main dish was this vegetable pie with mashed potatoes and a wine gravy, and then an amazing chocolate pudding for dessert. It was really nice not to have to cook for myself, and to have good food for once, too.
Prof. Rudy, Prof. Key, a representative from the Dickinson Office of Global Education, and the UEA Vice Chancellor gave speeches about the continuing relationship between the two institutions, and how the growth of the Dickinson program shows a real American encouragement to go abroad and learn about other cultures (despite the stereotype). After dinner I hung around with Chad for a while talking to this woman Betsy who was a Dickinson alumni from a few years back who had been working at Dartmouth University Press and had come to UEA for her MA. Obviously I was excited, and we talked at length about publishing, university presses, and the Writing Center (where she had worked during her time at Dickinson). Anyway, Betsy is also living in the Village, so she, Chad, and I all walked back together.

Tuesday, Nov. 4- Again, I'm not entirely sure what I did during the day. I'm sure that I went to my Medieval Writing lecture at 4, as I normally do, but it has been so boring lately that I can't for the life of me remember what was talked about. Anyway, around 8 I went to Circus as I normally do. Pawel and Stephen didn't feel like going to the pub or anything afterward, so they went home. Matthieu had been in London taking his sister to the train station and hadn't gotten back to Norwich yet. So Alex and I went back to his flat for more Greek food and to play GameCube. Matthieu eventually showed up, but I left around 11 to go to Prof. Rudy's to watch the election. I got there just before the first polls closed, got some food, and sat down with everyone else to watch the action unfold. CNN must have been channelling George Lucas for all the halograms and strange special effects they were using. Everyone got very excited when they used a halogram. In any case, we were all very tired throughout the night, but would perk up each time there was a "Predicition Annoucement." Leah and I were tense all night waiting for CNN to make a call on Virginia, which at first looked as it it would go to McCain, but, finally went to Obama. We screamed, jumped up, and hugged each other. It as around 4AM when the west coast's polls closed, and Obama was pretty much a shoe-in, but when CNN announced that Obama was going to be the next president, the entire room (except poor Annie, who is our only Republican) expoded, jumped up, cheered, and started hugging each other. Annie has been a really good sport about everything, especially considering how pro-Obama England tends to be and how much they like to express that opinion to you. The next bus back to campus left around 4:30, so the majority of us left to wait for it. We were the only people on the bus and probably annoyed the hell out of the bus driver by singing American patriotic songs the entire way back to campus. Then we walked back to the Village, embodying the stereotype of the loud American, but we didn't care, we were all so excited.

I obviously slept in the next day, seeing as I didn't get to bed until 5AM. I spent all day working on my paper for Humanities 309, finished it, and that's about all.