A Creative Mind Abroad

In contrast to my first day at Kingston University, which was pretty lax and minimally active for this jet-lagged nineteen year-old, Thursday and Friday were quite intense. In fact I have been so busy the past three days that I have had yet to document anything substantial about my experience here. I’ll leave today’s nine-hour adventure for another blog entry, but the schedules of both Thursday and Friday were rigorous.

Because Thursday was our first official day in the summer program, it was the day we had our official orientation to the school, its procedures, grading policies, etc. I won’t go too into the nitty gritty of what we discussed, particularly since it’s basically the same stuff you hear at the beginning of every semester, but it helped me figure out a lot about Kingston University that I needed to know. One of the coordinators spoke about health forms, enrollment, ID cards, travel cards, how the Olympics will affect us at the end of the course, and other important things that will come in handy with the “study” part of my studying abroad.

Lest we forget the “abroad” part, the coordinators then led us from KU’s Penrhyn Road campus (which is where I’ll be studying) and into the center of Kingston. Like Surbiton, the other town near our dormitories, Kingston is very quaint and historic with scattered elements of modernism throughout. It’s a really interesting juxtaposition, but I will talk more about that in a later blog post. The tour brought us around to the important destinations, including the student union, train station, bus stations, department stores, boat dock, and the Rose Theatre, where we will later be able to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics from if we choose to do so. Once we finished the tour, and snapped a few pictures at the falling phone booths art installation (which is what my banner displays), we went into the Kings Tun pub and had a bite to eat. After that, we were divided into teams and directed towards London, where we engaged in a Photo Frenzy, essentially a scavenger hunt with pictures and questions. It took us to several of the interesting destinations around Central London, including the London Eye, Houses of Parliament (which houses the bell Big Ben), Bond Street, Convent Garden, Leicester Square, and Trafalgar Square. It was quite an endeavor, since we lost half the group for about thirty minutes and were afraid we were going to be disqualified, but we made it to the second pub of the day, the Silver Cross, without any penalties for lateness. While there, I had my first serving of British fish and chips, which came with a lemon wedge, tartar sauce, and a bunch of peas with I awkwardly ate with a fork. The groups had disbanded by then, so I ended up heading home with a group of some of my peers (who aren’t used to riding the subway and needed the help interpreting the Tube’s map and the train system). I had a small dinner before hitting the hay, exhausted, but happy.

Friday was centered around the university in much the same orienting way as the first, just with more emphasis on our individual classes. In the morning, I took an optional tour of the library, which is very nice and actually allows food on the ground floor. They also have a self-checkout and return section where you, obviously, check out and return your own books through a machine. Once the tour was over, I went to the first meeting of my London and Its Literature course, which is going to be very interesting in my opinion. This was also the first opportunity I had to meet with my professor/”tutor”, Dr. Nicholas Foxton. We spent the class discussing procedure, grading policy, field trips, and other important things that, again, I won’t bore you with. After that, I stopped by the student union and bought a couple things, including an Olympics-themed bag and a couple of witty British greeting cards I thought were extremely funny. After that, I read in the library until the students of the summer program met for lunch. After that was the first meeting of Shakespeare: Reading And Performance, which is the main reason I’m studying abroad at all. Nick, as Dr. Foxton wants us to call him, is my professor for this class as well, and we had, in addition to the general overview of the syllabus, a nice discussion about Shakespeare, his works, and what people do and do not like about him. After that, I went home, took a nap, and spent a good couple hours sorting through my pictures so I can begin uploading them to the blog tomorrow.

With the summer program beginning this way, I’m ecstatic to see how the classes function. Our class time is made up about a third to half of the time of field trips, and with a historic place like London, each one will be the experience of a lifetime. I see performances at the Globe and Stratford Upon Avon, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, a Dickens Walk, and other exciting things in my future! Stay tuned for pictures of my adventures and further updates!

Photos, Photos, Photos!

I’ve had a very hectic two days, and though I could just start at the beginning, I’m going to start here. I’m sitting on top of my desk, using my windowsill as a laptop rest, eating basmati rice with avocado out of a microwavable container, drinking green tea, and watching a field as the sky slowly grows darker. (Mind you, it’s already nine at night, but the sun has only barely started descending.) In order to get to this point, I sat for two hours waiting for my first flight to leave to Boston from JFK. After a quick thirty-minute flight, I hurried to my six and a half hour flight to London, which left around 6:45 PM and arrived at 6:25 AM. After getting about an hour of interrupted sleep on the plane, I then had to deal with customs (which was easy), and finding my travel arrangements (which was less easy). Eventually, after meeting some of my fellow students and taking an hour long ride in a van, I made it to the dormitories where I’ll be staying for the next month.

I spent the majority of today struggling with simple concepts while loathing the effects of staying up two days straight. In fact, I’m surprised I was able to get through it with as much laughter as I did. To begin with, though the suite I’m staying in is adorable, the four flights of stairs up to it are not when lugging a 37-pound bag. The proportions of everything are also smaller than my Manhattan apartment, so wrestling with the logistics of unpacking got to be a bit frustrating. Again, I love my suite, and frankly, this is the best dorm set-up I’ve been in. I have a desk, bed, end table, desk drawers, mounted wall shelf, wardrobe/closet thing, and my own bathroom! The bathroom, however, has a very temperamental shower that floods the floor if you aren’t careful. If you don’t know how to work the temperature and water pressure knob, as I didn’t when I tried to wash of my jetlag, you end up scalding yourself on really, really hot water! Outside the at times difficult bathroom, I also have a wonderful view of this field (where I just saw a fox) and the roof of a really quaint, traditionally British house. Unfortunately for me, I decided to go out to the benches in the middle of the field to enjoy the day just when they changed two of the three locks I encounter getting into my room. It was sorted out pretty quickly, and after that I got a free packed lunch, a mobile telephone (which I upgraded to make free calls to certain US numbers), and a tour of Surbiton, the town where I’ll be doing my shopping. Our tour guide lefts us to our own devices after bringing us to the supermarket, so I visited a 99 pence store for some really cheap food. If I wanted to, I could have gotten two pounds of spaghetti for 99 pence (which is only about $1.50), and I got other good quality foods for cheap as well. After that, I went to the supermarket and headed back to the dorms, but not without almost getting lost first. I ended up asking for help from one of the coordinators, who was conveniently heading the same way I was. After that, I spent a good hour trying to figure out how to work the internet, since I couldn’t remember the password I needed. Finally, I got everything in order and discovered how nice a writing spot the top of my desk makes.

Needless to say, it’s been a really long day, and I really need to get some sleep! I have to wake up early for orientation tomorrow and hope it’s less difficult than today was. All little hassles aside, I’m really looking forward to my time here. I was a bit nervous about it before arrival, but I’ve figured most of the weird stuff out already. I’ll add a separate blog entry about the cultural differences I’ve experienced in my brief time in the UK, but for now, I think it’s time for a well-deserved sleep.

The Journey and Arrival In Photographic Terms:

So long, New York!

Heading through the outer boroughs towards JFK.

Boston, with a miniature filter on!

Boston Airport is definitely nestled in one of the more beautiful areas of the East.

What do you do when the touch screen on the seat in front of you doesn’t work? Here’s your answer.

I’ve heard there’s some sports event going on in this arena in a couple weeks, but I can’t remember the name of it… Something with an “O”… Octopus?

An aerial shot of the Thames

The Shard (the pointy building) is apparently the tallest building in Europe.

The London Eye from above!

My first introduction to the London Tube happened before I left the airport… Interesting, no?

This is the bathroom connected to my room, which I think serves me just perfectly.

This is my window, as well as my field outside of it.

This is my wonderful, unpacked (and momentarily organized) room!

This is our adorable kitchen which, aside from a few quirks, has served me well.

Clay Hill Halls of Residence is really quite quaint in its buildings’ facades.

Reynard the Red paid me a visit my first night here; let’s hope he didn’t sneak away with any of my valuables!

You know what I did today, the day before I leave for Europe? I went to a taping of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on the Band Bench. That’s right, I will (potentially) be on TV the night before I leave to study abroad. I would upload a screen shot of myself, but I can’t view US videos from outside the US to get one. Still, I got to watch Alabama Shakes live and see Jimmy Fallon interview a reformed Charlie Sheen. I’d call that a good last, full day in the city for a few weeks.

So, you ask me what this is, eh? What am I doing with a loosely packed, medium-sized suitcase if I’m going to be gone for a large suitcase’s worth of time? Well, I give you three good reasons why my medium-sized suitcase is going to serve me well in my six-week journey to Europe:

1. I only packed two and a half weeks of clothing. Now, I know that seems like a ludicrous amount for six weeks, but access to laundry machines makes 18 plus days worth of clothes more than adequate for my trip. Two sessions of laundry and my minimal clothing becomes an extended-use wardrobe.
2. Space saver bags. Yes, when I say space saver bags, I mean those “As Seen On TV” oversized Zip-loc baggies with the specialized air valves. They have a travel version which I decided to try and believe it or not, they actually work. Instead of vacuuming, you roll out the air from the bag through self-sealing holes in the bottom. I pulled back some of my stuff in the suitcase to show it off in the above picture. While it’s true that my clothes are probably going to be extremely wrinkled, I brought a spray bottle to fix that and will be enjoying the extra souvenir space on the way home. I also get to use them in my over-sized backpack for my weekend travels, since I really don’t want to roll around the suitcase for my four-day trips.
3. As a continuation of the last bullet above, I don’t want to lug an enormous suitcase around Europe! Seriously, using a medium-sized suitcase is going to make my airport experience super easy, and with all the ferries and buses I’ll have to deal with in Ireland, it’s just easier to have the one, condensed bag.

In essence, I took what I needed, including options in wardrobe and footwear, without exacerbating my scoliosis. I think that’s a pretty good deal in the grand scheme of things, and besides, it’s going to end up overflowing with new, interesting things from around Europe regardless of how big it is.

Looking ahead to my departure Tuesday, I’m drawn back to the months that have lead up to my trip. My idea to study abroad this summer actually came from a winter trip back to my parents’ home in Texas. My parents had traveled to Europe over the summer, and I spent a night with my mom just looking over the photos from their trip. Seeing those fragments of a trip I had never really experienced made me crave something more than my past travels. While it’s true I’ve been out of the country many, many times, with one of those trips landing me in a week-long summer camp in Spain, I haven’t been to England, or France, or Scotland, or any of the other countries my parents were able to visit. Looking toward my love of Shakespeare, I determined to study abroad in London, and I spent the next day exploring study abroad options.

Because my inquiries started over Christmas Break, I wasn’t able to apply for the program yet. In fact, I wasn’t able to do much of anything related to study abroad until the Macaulay Access Period started. My experience with that was not only hectic (mostly because of a three-hour wait in the Financial Aid office) but it also happened before I’d fully applied to the program! I received my study abroad check before I was even offered a place in the program, which made for some difficulties when gathering the necessary documentation. Needless to say, I sorted it out, but not without a few pushes from my Macaulay advisor.

By the time I’d received my check from Macaulay and the acceptance letter from Kingston University, finals was upon me, so I had to put my study abroad rush on hold for a full three weeks as I hammered out over 60 pages of final essays. I won’t go too much into the workload, seeing as though I am a Creative Writing major, but it inevitably forced me into a mad dash to get things ready for my six week long trip. In the course of just under four weeks, I had to organize my life into a suitcase, make arrangements for travel and other related plans, read two classes worth of books in advance (totaling about eight books including four Shakespearean plays), set up notifications with several institutions, and pretty much put my summer on hold. It’s now three days to go, and I’m still rushing to get everything in order before I leave.

At the end of the day, or several crazy months, I still think I’m incredibly privileged. Without the financial help of Macaulay and the really understanding support of so many great people, I probably wouldn’t be leaving this Tuesday for the experience of a lifetime. Sure, I’m arriving in the UK the same time I normally go to bed over the summer, but the things I get to do while I’m there are worth a little (extreme) jetlag and bureaucratic finagling associated with travel for long periods of time.

I’ll probably update this blog again either just before I leave or after I arrive, so stay tuned and expect lots of pictures! Once I figure out the easiest way to insert mass quantities of pictures to this website, I’m going to be smothering the server in pixels of England-y goodness. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on the other side of the pond!