Meanwhile, in Norwich...

All right, so not that I've finished up recounting my Winter Break adventures, it's time to get back to more day to day business.

So, on Sunday, Jan. 11, I returned to Norwich. It was almost as if I had never left, which I find both comforting and disturbing. Walking back up to the Village, I sort of felt like my travels hadn't really happened. I was worried that the memories would start to fade as I got back into the swing of school life. Thank God for Photobucket and this blog. I go back and look at pictures every so often. It helps.

This semester I'm taking three classes at UEA.
I have Mondays free, which is wonderful. On Tuesdays, I have Performance: French Language and Theatre. I wasn't sure what to expect when I signed up for it, but I needed to take a French class over here in order to have enough classes for my minor. What I've found so far is that it's basically a drama class taught in French and using French texts. I'm glad that I did drama in high school, because I'm not finding it completely foreign. We've only had three classes thus far, but I'm really enjoying it. Our instructor, Dani, this 50-some, feisty, chain-smoking, semi-stereotypical French woman who is thoroughly entertaining. I'm the only non-British student in the class, but everyone is very nice. There's a lot of...hands on activity, so we're learning to get comfortable with each other.
What I really hope this class will help me with is French speaking. I find that I can read and write well enough. For the most part, I can understand about 80% of what is said to me. But I just can't think fast enough in French to get a sentence out. I can't speak terribly well. I find this particularly frustrating because I've been taking French since I was 5 years old! I was just never forced to practice much until I got to college. This class will hopefully help me with my pronunciation and confidence. And I'm going to make Matt speak to me in French when we're together from now on. If he gets to force me to speak English to him, than I can do the same with French.

I have Wednesdays free. Thursdays I have Medieval Arthurian Traditions. I've only had one class so far (I skipped the first week. I'll explain later.) but it seems like it will be a good class. I'm not entirely sure what to expect from it, but the work load seems manageable and the texts look interesting. It's strange, because the seminar is in the same room as we used for Shakespeare's Moment last semester, with five of the same people. When I went last week, I sort of found that I didn't want to talk about King Arthur. I wanted to talk about Shakespeare.
Our instructor is a very nice, enthusiastic Irish woman named Karen Smyth. She was one of the lecturers for my Medieval Writing lecture last semester. She gave the lectures on Hoccleve, which were deathly boring. She seems much better in a seminar setting. I'm really hoping that all the medieval literature I'm studying this year will come in handy, since I'm leaning more and more heavily on the idea of researching Thomas Chatterton for my senior thesis. I haven't actually read any of his poetry yet. I really should, since Chad was wonderful and found me a book of his Selected Poems for Christmas. Chatterton just has such an interesting story. I think I'd like to spend a semester researching him.
On Friday mornings I have Creative Writing: Prose Fiction. Again, I've only been to one class. When I went last week, I felt really awkward because it seemed like I missed a lot the first week. Hopefully I'll feel better this Friday, now that I've caught up. But, honestly, I've realized something. I don't really like creative writing classes. I know they're helpful. I know I need to practice in order to improve. I know it's good to have a class full of people to workshop a draft. But I hate doing exercises that don't lead me anywhere. Then again, I know that the idea is to spark creativity. It's just a complicated sort of feeling. Whatever.

So, the reason I didn't go to my first Medieval Arthurian Legends or Creative Writing classes is that, on the first Thursday and Friday we were back, Prof. Rudy scheduled an overnight trip to London for a series of meetings. We left Thursday at noon. First stop was the US Embassy for a meeting with some PR representatives to talk about how the US Embassy works to promote and explain American culture to the UK, and then British culture back to America. Then we went to Chatham House to sit in on a press conference with the US Ambassador. He's a bit of an idiot, although I'm sure in his position it's best to just avoid answering every question.
From there we went to the Arran House. Even though I had just left the Arran that Sunday, it still felt good to be back. I was even in the same room I had shared with Alex and Erica! In the evening, Chris and I went to Planet Organic to grab some dinner to bring back to the hotel. Cold vegetable curry is actually very good. Then Chris, Katie, Lauren Martin, Jen, Alana, and I met Katie's friend at Goodge St. Station and walked over toward Leicester Square to find a pub and get a drink.
I had a bit of trouble concentrating on this excursion. I had found out Wednesday night that my grandfather had passed away. Jewish custom says that the body must be buried as soon as possible, so the funeral was going on right while I was in the middle of all the meetings. I had cried when I first got my mom's email, and had felt a bit...heavy since then, but the meetings had kept me so busy that I really didn't have much time to dwell on it. I still haven't dwelt on it much. I suppose it's for the best. I fought back tears while we were at the pub, because I knew that the funeral would have just finished. Chris was very helpful and comforting. At one point I stepped out to call my parents. They were driving back to my grandmother's house in New Jersey from Long Island, where the funeral had taken place. I spoke with my cousin for a second, and said a quick hello to my parents. I didn't have much credit on my phone, so I couldn't talk for long. I just wanted to check in.
I Skyped with my parents later that week. I asked them about the funeral. I wanted to to hear that it had been a lovely service, with lots of fond memories shared. Apparently the entire thing had been arranged by my grandfather's children (My grandmother was his second wife. They married when I was 3). They hadn't consulted my grandmother on anything, didn't mention her during the service, and didn't give anyone from my side of the family a chance to say anything. The entire service had taken place at the gravesite. It was freezing cold. Grandpa's children filled in the grave by hand. Personally, I think this was a nice gesture, but apparently not in 7 degree weather. When everyone got back to my grandmother's house, my grandfather's children wanted to start rifling through his papers, attempted to steal family photos from my grandmother, and tried to stick her with the bill for the entire funeral. My grandfather was always the sweetest man. He died a week before his 94th birthday and had been in and out of hospitals for a while, but he was still walking until this most recent visit. Up until the last couple of years he had been going on walks for daily exercise. He used to go to current events discussion groups in his retirement community. He always read the newspaper and was up to date on what was going on in the world. He would tell the same stories over and over, but I loved hearing them. I can't even imagine how it must have felt, seeing all he had seen in his lifetime. He was born before the average household had a radio. He lived in New York City through the Great Depression, was drafted into WWII, saw man walk on the moon, lived through the computer and internet age. He and my grandmother traveled a lot during his retirement. He never had an unkind word to say about anyone. And to know how unkindly he was treated in his death made me so angry.

Moving on.
We slept over at the Arran House on Thursday night. On Friday we got up, ate breakfast and had a meeting with a manager from the UK Foreign Office. They served us tea and cakes in the Locarno Room, the beautifully decorated room where the Treaty of Locarno was signed (the treaty that basically allowed Germany to invade Poland). We talked about UK foreign policy. It was a really interesting meeting.
From there we went to Canary Wharf, one of the major financial districts of London, for a lunch meeting with the CEO of Barclays Wealth at the Barclays Bank headquarters. I'll admit that the economic discussion was a bit over my head, but the lunch was a fantastic gourmet buffet. And they gave us little toys, like a nifty USB picture-storer device and a really great pen.

Then we went back to Norwich.
Since then, what noteworthy things have I done? Chad and I joined LitSoc for its Fairy Tale Pub Crawl. He went as a hobbit and I went as Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Oh! And I finally got my LitSoc sweatshirt. It's quite comfortable.
I've been to Circus at least twice so far. I was supposed to go last Wednesday, but I spent the entire day working on a paper for Prof. Rudalevige. I think all the Dickinson students did. It was easily the worst paper I've ever written. I was ashamed to send it in, but I figured a bad paper is better than no paper at all. I've never been so unhappy and so stressed about a paper. I was on the verge of tears. Though, most of my peers also admitted to writing substandard essays. I suppose none of us were in the mood so soon after winter break. The essay had to be emailed to Rudy by midnight, and I was working on it until 10pm. Circus normally starts around 8. I could have gone late, or just met my friends at the pub, but I wasn't in the mood to go out. My flatmates convinced me to come into the kitchen for a drink, and the six of us actually had a great time drinking and talking, playing games. It was the first time we had all hung out as a flat since we had gotten back, and one of the few times this entire year. We should do it more often. It's fun. They made me take my first shots (mixed shots, though, so they weren't as strong) and tried to get me drunk, since I never have been. I don't know. I'm just not interested. But I had a good time, regardless. It was a good way to break the horrible mood I had been in.

This past Monday night, Pawel and I went to see Underworld: Revenge of the Lycans. He invited me because he knows I like vampires, but I had never actually seen Underworld or Underworld: Evolution. So I prepped by watching them back to back on my computer the previous Friday afternoon. They're not very good. This newest one was passable. Mostly I like seeing the same guy who plays Tony Blair in The Queen play Lucien, the badass werewolf leader.
After the movie, Pawel and I went to the Forum for a cup of coffee (well, I had chai) and we talked for a while.

I suppose the most exciting thing to happen occured yesterday. Chad and I finished booking a trip to Spain and Morocco for the end of February. On Feb. 25 we're flying into Malaga, where his friend Chris is studying on the Dickinson abroad program. We're staying at this fantastic-looking hostel, and Chris has offered to show us around. We're there for two nights. Then, on Feb. 27, Chad, Chris, and I have booked spots on a 3 day/2 night tour around northern Morocco. We're staying up near the northern coast, so no Marrakesh or anything quite so well-known, but, still, I'm ridiculously excited. The tour seems like a good deal, too. 180 euros for the tourguide, two nights hotel, and meals. On Mar. 1 we head back to Malaga. Chad and I stay one more night at our hostel, and then we fly back to London on Mar. 2.

There are still a million places I want to go before I leave. I need to travel around England more. I particularly want to see the Lake District, Bristol, and Cornwall. I want to go back to Ireland. I want to see more of Wales. I still have to get to Scotland. I want to just take a weekend trip to Sweden. Matthieu has invited me to go home to Paris with him for a weekend. And I spent four hours online last night researching tours of Romania.

We have four weeks off for Spring Break, and then immediately after we go into a five week Exam Period. I'm taking all my classes "Coursework Only," which means that my grade is dependent on the essays I write during the semester, not on an exam. So I have an extra 5 weeks to travel. I'd love to take at least a week in Romania. Yes, this is my weird vampire fixation coming through. Unfortunately, all the tours that hit the spots I want to see are a bit cheesy, "Dracula Tours!" Normal Romania or Transylvania tours go to "Castle Dracula," which is actually Bran Castle, where Vlad the Impaler never lived. His actual castle is called Poenari, and only the cheesy tours go there. The cheesy ones also go to the monastery at Lake Snagov, where Vlad the Impaler is buried. Those are the two sights I most want to see. I found two tours that look amazing, but one list a bit...dubious (The website wasn't that impressive. Poor English grammar, although, that might just be because the guy who runs the tour is Italian and working in Romania...) That tour is only 375 Euro, though. A more credible-looking one was over 800. So...we'll see. I really, really want to go, though. I got a bit giddy last night looking them up.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else to relate. Tonight I have Circus again. Tomorrow is the LitSoc Games Night. There's a Burn on Saturday that I might go to. Sunday is Rudy's Superbowl party. Then, come Feb. 25, it's off to Malaga and Morocco!