hello, october! i'm not quite sure i'm ready for it to be october. at the end of this month, i'll be figuring out essay topics for my first-semester classes. there will also be "reading week", a little gem of british scholastics that i hadn't heard of before. apparently we get an entire week for- you guessed it- "reading". as i've been told and as has been exemplified by my schedule, this is an excuse for professors to simply pile on every piece of work imaginable. i think i'll still have fun with this, though. i've decided that for part of that week (maybe 3 or 4 days), my books and i will take a foray into the lake district to spend some quality time together.
reading week aside, i've had many other pleasant surprises. getting sick on sunday morning was NOT one of them. i usually come down with something after traveling 3+ time zones; it's generally inevitable and generally a sinus/respiratory infection type thing. so, i wasn't too surprised to have that start on sunday. i've gone through packages of tissues and thanked myself for packing my sudafed. on the other hand, my flatmate has been kind and concerned enough to keep supplying me with (the equivalent of) Theraflu whenever she sees me. i've discovered that people here are much, much kinder about being sick (not that you guys aren't, but i even have a couple of my classmates fussing and giving me tips on meds). one of my friends even brought me mint tea and chocolate and stuck around to watch the princess bride! i feel seriously pampered... and for those of you who know what i'm like when i'm sick, pampering me and fussing are not two things that i generally succumb to.
other than that, i've just gotten through my first week of class and i couldn't be more thrilled. the first course, m3 as it will be known, is structured as lessons for the first 5 weeks, then working in groups for the 2nd 5 weeks to put together a display in the department's building. i have a great group and am looking forward to working with them. we also get to visit a bunch of places for mini-field trips. we visited the Whitworth Gallery on monday, and got to speak with the director. we had an open discussion about the American Scene (the american prints that i saw last week) and that was fun to get to input as an American History major. the other american in my course is beyond annoying though, and i really struggle to not throw my pen at her every time she opens her mouth. in all fairness, she has said one productive thing so far (so she's at 1/27 right now). she even came in 15 minutes late to a lecture, an act which i think shows the utmost disrespect for the lecturer. oh, and then her cell phone went off 10 minutes later. so much for making americans look good.
sorry about the rant. i adore my classes and classmates, and am especially excited about my discussion groups on tuesday afternoons (this is for the contexts course). i have a great range of people with various backgrounds and am interested about finding out more about them. those differences will certainly further discussions. and beyond that, students lead each discussion in pairs or groups of threes, so i have two weeks to lead: "human remains in the museum" and "museums of empire and evolution". so excited!!
so that was my experience with the first two days of classes. other than that, we had a girls night out on friday, which was educational to say the least. the clubs are certainly something else... but it was a lot of fun. i think my favorite part of the night was when everyone got so surprised that i brought "good vodka". my only reply was "honey, i had 4 years of bad vodka and i'm not about to repeat that experience". oh, undergrads!
this weekend is looking largely uneventful. i'm thinking of heading around manchester on saturday to get some good shots of the city (i'll bring a friend so that i might actually be in some shots). on sunday, i'll be doing surveys at the Whitworth Gallery to help them with the American Scene exhibit. other than that, it's reading reading and more reading.
i forgot to mention that i visited the John Ryland's Deansgate Library on sunday. it is nothing short of amazing! it houses the world's oldest piece of the new testament, though i have yet to find it. the best part is the 3rd floor reading room, where i'll be spending most of my reading time. it's full of little alcoves of really old books (behind glass), but it really reminds me that i'm participating in a great history of learning (which makes it easier to focus on the task at hand, if that makes any sense).
and now, i'm off to read a bit more and perhaps watch an episode of the Hairy Bikers on BBC iplayer. and yes, peter, please send those south park dvds!
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