Class Begins, and I don't want time here to end

We had our first class today with Matthew, our Classical Music in 20th Century Britain class, and I love it! We created music in a circle, listened to 5 very different pieces, and talked about music, culture, and art. The discussion was so good, and its the first 3 hour class where I didn't take any notes AND felt completely linked in to the conversation. If all of our classes are anything close to as good as this one, I am going to LOVE waking up for school.

Monday night, while debating whether or not to buy tickets to a musical, I think it was Nathan who said: If you're going to go broke, you might as well go broke for watching musicals. And that sounded convincing enough! So I let go of 20 precious pound to see a fantastically hilarious and almost too crude, but ultimately great musical called Avenue Q. The play opens on Avenue Q where a nice looking young fellow moves there after getting a BA in English and doesn't know what to do with his life, he spends the play looking for purpose (this "person" is actually a muppet!). All the more reason to feel GREAT about my BA in English. The play was hilarious though, and well worth the $.

Tuesday our art class was canceled, so instead of class we got a tour of the Westminster Abbey, paid for by the program. Little did I know, Westminster Abbey is the burial ground for a LOT of different really famous people, to name a few: Isaac Newton, Handel, Chaucer, many many Kings and Queens, Charles Dickens, etc. The one tomb no one walks over (there are literally plaques above graves everywhere you walk), is the tomb of the unknown soldier, surrounded by poppies. I'd like to link you to a poem if you're interested about this idea: taking a representative body out of the war carnage to honor and commemorate all of the soldiers. (look up "body of an american" by Toomer). My english class readings from the past are making me so thankful now that I am here, there is so much to appreciate knowing!

Tuesday night we had a free dinner with all of the other schools on FIE programs. I met lots of other students and to my happiness, the dinner turned into a dance party, beginning with 90's US hits from middle school and highschool and sort of moving through time. It was a great way to spend the night, I stayed and danced soo much. Tuesday was also Andrew's 22nd birthday! So people were celebrating when I got back and we went back to the Churchill. I got some older british men to sing me beatles songs and our a capella group sang until the owner of the pub told us to quiet down, and the people in the pub were upset that we stopped singing and applauded us! It was really fun!

This afternoon I ate lunch in the kensington gardens and threw a frisbee around with dylan for a long time. It was a sunny, relatively warm afternoon and it felt good to be outside! Tonight we go to see STOMP! I'm going to make some dinner, I found some indian spices to put on vegetables, I'll see how it goes. I love you all back home and I hope things are going well in your perspective areas of life,

Jo