This is the night that either makes me or fordoes me quite...

not really. I just like that quote from Othello. :)

So here's what's been going on the past few days...

Tuesday
In the morning, I went to STA Travel and spent a lot of time working out plans for traveling. I got all these possible times and dates, but I couldn't set anything in stone because I needed to check with people first (travel buddies, hosts, etc). Then I went to school to eat my lunch and I found people making Valentine's Day cards (in the lounge) for everyone in our program, which was cute, so I helped them for a bit. Then I went to my only class of the day (my Novel class). Our prof is SO funny. And nice. She has a very silly sense of humor. As a part of the course, we all have to do seminars (where we research an article or subject about one of our books and then present to the class and lead discussion). Bethany and I are doing the first two (on Jane Eyre). I haven't read my article yet, but I'll let you know how it goes. Afterward, while I was waiting for Anne to get out of class, I shared an English Milky Way with another student. It was a very weird experience. :) They're called Milky Ways, but they're more like caramel-ish tasting Three Musketeer bars. Very strange.

Once everyone was done with class, a small group of us headed over to the area of the theater (we always do this to make sure we can find it), where we were to see a performance of Private Lives. We heard a soprano saxophone when we were taking the tube--not quite as good as the real thing, but close enough. I was happy. We ended up getting dinner at a Chinese restaurant close to the theater. I had sweet & sour pork with white rice. It was very tasty, but it cost extra to have the white rice (which I thought was stupid) so it ended up costing a bit more than I would have liked. :P The real catastrophe was once we got to the theater...I realized I had lost/forgot my ticket! I was SO mad at myself. It was so unlike me and I was going to be so upset if I couldn't see the play--especially because it was for a class. And the professor who was coming to the show (who could possibly help me out) was late (I later found out it was tube trouble--a common problem here). Fortunately, she arrived just in time and was able to produce a list that enabled the ticket people to print me another one. YAY! The play was really good. It was very dated, but not in a bad way. There were lots cocktails, silk evening gowns, cigarettes (:P), dawlings, misogynistic comments, etc. It was a little window into the lives of four people for a brief period of time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As always on play nights, the ride home was long and I was very tired. My eyes hurt from having to stay open. On our walk home, Anne noted that the sky was very blue (not a normal black or grey). It was and really pretty and clear. We could actually see the moon and stars. It was a nice ending to the day.

Wednesday
This day was (and will always be) a looooong class day. We have two three-hour classes right in a row. It started off having to stand in front of the AHA building in the cold for a while (the person who had to unlock it had bus trouble). Our first class was theatre. Our prof is really nice--he's older and he has a lovely voice, is very big and tall, and wears a pink scarf. Unfortunately, this class period was rather boring. It was mostly introductory/history stuff and he read a lot (from notes and quotes, not from a play), which--despite his nice voice--was not very engaging. I hope that class gets better. It probably will. After that we had a one hour lunch break, so I wolfed down some food and rushed over to STA to tell them to go ahead on booking things for the trip to Italy (before prices went up). Then I rushed back to AHA just in time for our Britain Today class. It was an alright class. We visited two churches. First, a Protestant one and then a Catholic one (the only "old" catholic church in England). (By "old," I mean old in English standards, which means, like, the 13th century.) We did some cool contrast and compare. And talked about the similar situations that both groups faced during the Reformation period. The last part we spent back in the class room, which was fine except that it was rather hot so some people got drowsy.

After that, we took a loooong bus ride to Hackney to see Othello. It was a longer ride than we anticipated and at one point people started worrying that we were going the wrong direction, but a nice man informed us were weren't (so our minds were appeased). I had a Subway sandwich for dinner once we finally got there. We were there pretty early, but in this case it wasn't very nice because we had to wait in the cold outside the theatre (just like at the beginning of the day). We waited a really long time. The play was very good. I've never seen Othello before and I really enjoyed it. Again (like AMND), you'll have to talk to me in person to get all the details and my opinions. We learned at intermission that we were seeing 3 understudies, including...Iago! (that's right, someone had to step into one of Shakespeare's greatest characters--with more lines than Hamlet!--at the last minute. pretty intimidating.) He was very good for an understudy (originally he would have played Cassio), although he did stutter a few lines (not noticeable to the average theatre goer), but he really was too young and handsome and likable to play a proper Iago. I liked him though. The other very interesting thing to learn at intermission was that Desdemona (who I really liked) was being played by the actress who plays Tonks in the Harry Potter movies! Crazy, eh? She was so good. Her death scene brought tears to my eyes and made the entire audience unsettled. It was a great show, but so loooong. And it started late (we learned today that it was because they had to finish the run of the play with the understudies, which means they had, like, a five minute turn around! amazing!), so we didn't get out until after 11pm. Our trip home wasn't super long, but it seemed long because it was so late. We had to take an overground train (which took forever to come!) to the underground, and then finally make the walk home. Needless to say, we were all very tired and sad that Thursday is our earliest class day...

Thursday
Today we got up early to go to Shakespeare class (that's right. the reason we were up so late is also the reason we had to get up so early. :P). Our class was fine. We just talked about the performance. Afterward, I went to the stationery store to get a folder and then went home (it was sunny!) to get a shower and do some homework reading. I read all afternoon. I'm well into Jane Eyre now (which I've read before, but it's been a long time) and I also read the next play for our Theatre class (The Second Shepherd's Pageant). I read downstairs by the fire, which was nice a toasty. I started to fall asleep at one point... Ros fed us well and we figured out our route to Paddington (yes, like the bear!) Station tomorrow (we're going to Bath!). Anne isn't feeling well so she went to bed early and I just finished making us some sandwiches for tomorrow. And now I need to finish this ridiculously long blog, so that I can go to bed. I'm not even going to do much editing. We need to get up at 6:30am tomorrow. bleh. But it's going to be a cool trip to a really cool place! So I'm excited.

This is the outside of the Protestant Church.