Island Rubies: We Actually Do Homework

Some of you may be surprised to learn that we actually do study during study abroad programs. If you're looking for an exciting new entry, I'm afraid that all of the school work has finally caught up to us and we suddenly got very boring. Up until now we've only been doing just enough to get by, but then all of a sudden this week snuck up on us and we had four WHOLE days of class and two papers due! Quite tragic, I know. Actually it's kind of funny because we complained a ton about having four days of class in a row. I would have killed for a four day week back in Provo.

I guess I should tell you a little bit about classes. I haven't really talked about it before because it's not nearly as exciting as the other things we've been doing, but I don't have anything else to talk about this time. So, while we are enjoying our lives in London we are actually still full time students at BYU, which means that we have to take 12 credits.

The Classes I'm Taking:

Humanities 202 Honors-- I have to admit, it's pretty sweet to take this in London because we actually get to see stuff instead of just looking at pictures.
English 300-- All mystery novels, all the time. Enough said.
Walks of London-- We walk around London. A lot.
Religion 350R-- We learn about the history of the Church in Britain and stuff. It's pretty cool.
European Studies 336R-- British economic and social history. It's really interesting.

A fun note to go along with studying-- We have a library in the center and tables and such, but they are all on the first floor. I live on the fourth floor (AKA the fifth in America). I also am sick and tired of climbing stairs. My legs are burning as I speak. We don't have desks in our room, so that means that my bed doubles as a table and I kneel by the side of it to do my homework. I thought I was being all smart when I carefully selected a bunk on the bottom since I was tired of having to climb onto my raised bed last semester, but I didn't realize that this bunk is not high enough for you to be able to sit on... So now I spend all of my time on the floor. I would have to say that I don't really recommend writing papers on your knees.

Oooh, we did get to do one fun thing since we got back from Cornwall. On monday we got to go on a our of the Globe. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's basically a theater that has been recreated to be as much like Shakespeare's globe back in the day as possible. It's in almost the exact same place and has only been open for the past 11 years, so it's still a pretty new thing. I remember learning about it in 7th grade when we studied Shakespeare in Mrs. Patrick's class. I never really thought I'd actually be able to go there. It's definitely the place to go and see Shakespeare performed. You can even get rained on since it's an open air theater. Today we got to see a Midsummer Night's Dream there. It was pretty much amazing as far as Shakespeare goes. We got to be the "groundlings," meaning that we stood the whole time. It only costs five pounds for a groundling ticket though and you get to be right up front with the actors. The performance is even good enough that you don't realize that your legs are still burning from going up too many stairs in one day. Sitting down is for lazy people.

I also went shopping. That always makes things better. There's this store called Primark that's amazing. The closest thing to it I can think of if Forever 21 because it just has so much stuff and it's all really cute and cheap, but it's way bigger. It's two stories and has more stuff you could ever look at. It even has home goods. And it's only two tube stops away...

That's pretty much it. Tomorrow we have more class. We do get to go to listen to a panel of current mystery novel authors at the Waterstonen's at Picadilly circus though, so that should be pretty cool. I'll probably go to a baroque concert at St. Martin's in the Fields for Humanities tomorrow night as well. Good stuff. Life never really gets bad here. Even when you procrastinate papers...