Since I got a paper back today and did better than I anticipated, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about academics here. The past weeks (and this upcoming weekend) have really hammered home the fact that a huge part of my study abroad experience is, in fact, studying. Having papers due last week and next week—the first of the semester—made it impossible to forget that I am not just here to wander around nerdy literary locations.
So, to avoid doing the mass amounts of reading for this week and to further procrastinate writing my last paper, I thought I would tell you a little bit about my classes and what we’ve been up to.
First, here’s a basic refresher. I’m taking three classes and have an internship. Each class meets one day a week for approximately 2 hours, while I’m working a day and a half at my internship. Classes here are definitely discussion based, although there is generally at least some lecture in each session as well. I’m going to save talking about my internship for my next post, but suffice it to say that everything is working out really well!
Although I love all of my classes, my favorite is definitely Jane Austen. So far we’ve read Sense and Sensibility (my favorite!) and Pride and Prejudice, and we’re (unfortunately) in the middle of Mansfield Park. I’ve done two presentations in the class, one during Oxford week (with two of my lovely housemates) about the 2008 Sense and Sensibility miniseries (oh, Dominic Cooper…), and on Tuesday one on Mansfield Park and Mummies (proof enough that it’s the coolest class ever), a parody mash-up of supernatural monsters, Egyptology, and everyone’s least favorite Austen novel. Both were really interesting, fun topics to present on.
Last Friday my Shakespeare in Performance class went to Stratford-upon-Avon! The first main activity (besides lunch) was to spend some time at the archives. We examined production notes, photographs, programs, and reviews of four Royal Shakespeare Company productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the 1970s to the early 2000s. It was really interesting to examine the differences! Our class is relatively small (there are nine of us), so afterwards we all went and had tea (or in my case delicious hot chocolate) together before dinner. Finally, we saw the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream! Although I wasn’t particularly fond of the way many of the characters were portrayed, I found the set design to be intriguing and I really enjoyed the production as a whole. We’re reading four plays (we’ve done The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and will be doing Hamlet and Measure for Measure), and we also watch two or three filmed versions of each production in addition to reading the play and reading a packet of reviews on past productions. I’m finding the class to be a lot of work but worth it.
Fantasies of Youth is my third class. We’re studying children’s literature from The Wind in the Willows through Twilight. Today we discussed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle, and can I just say how much I have a problem with The Last Battle? I have so many feelings about this book. Primarily negative. Do you know how it ends? Because I didn’t. Oh. My. God. Anyway, enough about that, since I could write post after post just about feelings about that book (if you don’t know how it ends but are curious, do some Googling). We also got to read a short piece by Philip Pullman that was essentially summing up how much he hates C. S. Lewis and the Narnia series (he seems to do this generally as much as he possibly can), and a short fictional piece by Neil Gaiman, “The Problem with Susan.” It was fantastic to read the responses of two incredible authors to a series that I have such mixed feelings about. Today in class we had a debate essentially about whether the ending is or is not racist, classist, and sexist. My favorite type of discussion! We’re moving on to Diana Wynne-Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle next week, which I’m excited about since I have yet to read any of her work and I feel that as an avid reader of fantasy this should change.
And, since exploring cultural differences is also a key part of studying abroad, here are some other, non-academic things I have learned lately:
- If your computer isn’t charging or your toaster isn’t toasting, it’s probably because you haven’t switched the socket’s power on yet.
- Lemonade here is fizzy unless specifically marked otherwise.
- The 2 pence coins are significantly larger than the 20 pence coins.
- Apparently England has gender-specific tissues. And by that, I mean they have man-sized tissues. Although they are rather large and much more conveniently packaged, I am still puzzling out what makes these tissues particularly for masculine.
- It’s not always rainy and dreary and cold (everyone lied to me!).
- Flashlight = torch. Thus, when you discover that you need to brush your teeth and it’s night and the electrician has messed up the power in the bathroom so the light doesn’t work, you sound/feel a lot more awesome than if you just needed a flashlight. And by awesome I mean like Nicholas Cage towards the end of National Treasure. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
