Happy Anniversary, London

It's official. Today marked the close of my second full month abroad. So much has happened in the past two months, and by the looks of things, the pace isn't showing any signs of slacking. With this in mind, I've decided to "hit the brakes" for a while - all of last week, this week, and next week, my plans involve spending quality time in England. The great thing about that decision is that the weather in the UK, with the exception of a couple rainy days, has started to clear up. Also, one of those rainy days was a day I underwent self-imposed dorm arrest in order to finish my first "essay" of the "term." Those words are in quotes because I'm trying to sound more British... "paper" and "semester" are words no one uses here and are therefore sure-fire ways of waving the big fat American flag in casual conversation. Because of differences in their educational systems, they don't call these years at school as "college," strictly referring to their coursework as "university" or "uni" for short. They also don't have majors and minors in British institutions, so the equivalent of asking someone, "What's your major?" is "What do you study?" or even "What are you reading?"

My digs. Entrance to King's College Hall.

At the request of some of my readers (yes, that's you, Grammie), I'm going to detail what my classes are like at King's. The short version is, they're great. I really have enjoyed them so far, and can't wait to see what the rest of the term holds (British brownie points for saying "term" - but Brits probably don't say "brownie," so back to square one there). Basically each of my four classes is similar in size to smaller lectures back home, with around 20-30 students in attendance. The only class that's an exception to this is my Jane Austen class, where the lecture is closer to 70 students but the seminars, smaller discussion groups that meet on other scheduled days, are more in line with the previous number.

The local pub in Denmark Hill - no dropped calls on skype when I use their free wifi! UPGRADE!

The similarities between courses basically end there. Although I have each class only once a week, other aspects of the course are structured completely differently. My adaptation writing class splits the term in between two professors, and students are assessed by two assignments, one for each professor. We just made the transition from Teacher #1 to Teacher #2 a couple weeks ago, but our assignment for Teacher #1 is due at the end of this month, so it's a little scattered. That assignment is adapting a short story of our choice into 12 separate scenes with explanations detailing our creative process, and for right now I think I'm adapting Oscar Wilde's fairy tale of sorts "The Happy Prince." The second half of the adaptation class is focused on American film noir, and we kicked things off by taking a look at "The Maltese Falcon" in class. I'm not sure what the second assignment is, but I think we are analyzing a couple scenes of a film adaptation of either poetry or prose. Knowing me it will probably end up being from Jane Austen (whose House in Chawton, England I made a pilgrimage to last week).

Jane Austen's House in Chawton.

Which forms a perfect segway into another class, my Jane Austen in Context module. Not surprisingly, I love this course, which is great because I have it at least twice a week. Monday nights are a screening of some kind of adaptation that usually deals with our lecture on Tuesdays, and Wednesday is my "seminar" day (a seminar is the equivalent of a USC discussion section). Also not surprisingly, I've seen most of the adaptations screened for the class - the only exception to that so far has been the 1940 Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy - I'm assuming we watched that one in place of the 1995 version because we're only allowed two hours for the screenings... that was during the second week of the course, and most of them since then display a range of interpretations - Clueless, Lost in Austen, Rozema's Mansfield Park, so on and so forth. Also ALSO not surprisingly, I love my teachers for the course... not only because they're very knowledgeable and admire Jane Austen's writing as much (if not more than) I do, but because of... their names. The main instructor's name is Elizabeth, and the other teacher who is teaching a couple weeks out of the course is Jane. And Jane's last name is... Darcy. Not kidding. Had to keep my jaw from hitting the floor on that one. I know, I know, I need to get a life.

Even though I've enjoyed learning more about the books themselves, the part of the course that has actually been the most interesting has been the assigned reading. There's a lot of it, for starters. We are expected to read all six of Austen's major novels, but in addition to those are some books that are from other female authors during Jane Austen's time. I've really enjoyed reading the works of these authors because it's afforded me a glimpse into the types of books Jane Austen would have read as well as other female writers who dealt with the issue of female identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - writers such as Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Hays, and Mary Wollstonecraft. The reading has been very demanding for this class alone, and I have a lot to catch up on, but I'm very grateful I've read most of Jane Austen's work before this class so that it lightens the load considerably (the only book I have yet to finish is Sense & Sensibility). I hope to be able to use these readings in my assessed essay at the end of the term, which is the sole basis for my grade for the course. Our only restriction is that the essay has to be 4,000 words and due at the end of April. While our teacher has given us a list of questions we can answer, she's also given us the freedom to create our own prompt and run with it, which I think I will end up doing. The wheels are still turning in my head, but I'm feeling the pressure to make some ground on the essay because, while the deadline is far away, at least three weeks of the time in between now and then I will be traveling, so I need to make sure I give this essay the attention it deserves.

Chawton Estate Church where Jane Austen's mother and sister are buried.

My other two classes are Travel Writing and Into to Christianity, the latter of which being the class I wrote my first British essay for. We had roughly four essay topics to choose from, and I ended up writing about the importance of the doctrine of Jesus for salvation in the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon. I have no idea what I'll get on the assignment (sounds like they grade a lot harder here than back home), but I chose it specifically because it was an area of Christianity's history I wasn't familiar with and consequently learned a lot more about. This essay is 40% of my final mark, the rest of my grade being determined by the second paper, which is due in May at some point. This class' structure is probably the most different from any class I've ever had - we meet only once a week, but each lecture is delivered by a different professor in the Theology department - although we have had a couple repeats so far.

Travel Writing is the class I'm least motivated for, which is ironic because it's the only course I'm taking here that is technically Comparative Literature at King's (the other two English courses are ones where I cleared them with USC for Comparative Literature credit, even though they don't fall under the same category). This past week we had presentations on a piece of travel literature of our choice, and I researched Mary Wortley Montagu's Life on the Golden Horn, which is an account of this wealthy British woman's travels through the Turkish Empire with her husband and infant child in the early eighteenth century. The presentation went fine but I don't really think it matters, as this is another class where my entire mark hinges on the assessment during exam period. This class is technically my only "assessment by exam" of the four, so I'm a little annoyed with it at the moment because it's the only due date I don't know of yet and therefore can't plan the rest of my time abroad!

Okay, enough of the boring stuff - let's have some fun!

At the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Dr. Watson was such a grouch! And he looked nothing like Jude Law.

Grrrr Blogger just deleted this last portion of my post. I'm tired. Will resume in next post, hopefully before I head to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day!