Troubles with Class

Hello, or all right as Baz says. Haha, I love Baz and Martin, they entertain us with all their British saying, and they are awesome when we complain. We blame them for all of England's faults- today was the Popcorn chicken I cooked was not crispy, and I said that the British have no respect for crispy popcorn chicken. By now they just laugh and take it... we are training them well.

So I had a good week of classes, um we talked about the papers due in January. I decided that for my Renaissance class I'll write my paper on Dr. Faustus, The Tempest and Macbeth, and those plays all have the common theme of magic. So I'll be reading Macbeth soon on my own, go me. The Tempest I'll be reading for the third straight semester... so exciting. In 19th century, I don't know what my topic will be yet, but I might write it on Mary Barton and some novel, and who knows for 18th century, anything but Joseph Andrews. I'll probably write it on Moll Flanders, the only novel I have enjoyed reading in that class.

18th century was interesting this week... only 4 people including myself showed up to seminar! How many kids are in my seminar group, oh yeah 16. So we didn't talk about Joseph Andrews but just about life, school and plays in the Renaissance period. I was a little excited that we didn't talk about Joseph Andrews because I could not read it. I got 140 pages into it, but also redid my MySpace page, took a few surveys for it, found out that I look like Colin from Who's Line Is It Anyway, facebooked a few people, cleaned my room, made my bed, and watched two episodes of Lost. I wasn't avoiding the novel... not at all. So in seminar we instead talked about different stuff, it was me, the teacher and 3 British girls. One of them made a comment about how much she pays to go to school and no one shows up, and I started laughing. My teacher asked why I was laughing, and I said, "You pay 3000 pounds to go to school, that's 6000 dollars, or what my tuition was for high school! I pay 23,000 a year, and I go to a state school! My friend pays more than 40,000 for her school!" But my teacher was like, "Is that American dollars?" And I said yes, and he said, "Oh that's not that bad." Uh, talk to me 20 years from now when I'm still paying it off! Monica says what Oxford students pay for their whole time at Oxford is still less than what she pays a year.

My teacher asked why kids weren't coming to class, and someone was like, "Well everyone has jobs." Not a good enough reason. Is this a new thing or something? I know kids who play college and have jobs, and they still go to class. My teacher said that sometimes kids don't go to class because they don't get the novel and that's fine. WHAT? If I don't get something, the place I want to be is class, even seminar so I can ask questions.

I guess though in the past few years the British educational system has been declining, the tuition is not enough to cover the needs of the teachers and schools, and at Kingston the energy bill was like 1 million pounds last year. WHAT? I believe that though, every building in Kingston is way overheated, I die every time I go to class. Not that it's very cold here yet, my window is still opened all the time and I haven't bothered to turn my heater on yet. I'm saving Kingston money... at least someone is. This is also the first school I've been to since grade school that isn't writing intensive. I'm turning in one or two papers a class each semester, by now in the US I would have turned in at least 5. But no, all I've turned in is little exercises in Scriptwriting class. I spoke up about this, that it's insane that English majors do not write papers, and my teacher said, "Well I can't grade 70 papers a week."

Yeah but you can assign a few a semester. It's just so weird that I'm so use to writing papers and now I'm not. I'm learning a lot, so much about the history in around the time that these novels were written and when they take place, and it's fun to sit around and discuss the novels, but what about a paper? It seems weird that I want to do a paper, but I just haven't in a while, and I like having grades.. I don't have grades! It's just weird.

We also discussed 18th century novels and their obsession with the ancient world. I said that I would be on the same page as everyone else if I hadn't taken my ancient classes the previous year. But I know the references because I'm obsessed with that time period and we read all the important works. But no one knows them, well other than Odysesseus and Troy. But when someone makes a reference to Orestes, or Socrates they don't fully get them. They know Socrates but not enough to get the reference. The same with the Bible, I know the references after 14 years of Catholic school, and all the jokes about me being way too close with the Bible in high school, but all this stuff goes over their heads. I'm kinda glad we have Core now, I get a fuller, more complete education. I'll probably complain about it when I get home, but I see the point of it now.

Anyway, what else is going on... um I joined the gym. Yeah I know I said I wasn't going to work out until the spring, but Amaya and Kathleen joined, and they were telling me about it, and yeah the next day I joined. I just love the gym. I'm also just taking it slow, doing some chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps, abs and biking. That's it, no benching, squatting, or anything. The weight is low, well one because I can't do much, two because I have a lot of time. I'm not overdoing it, unlike in previous years... hahah oh boy. I really want to get back to the level I was at summer before sophomore year, maxing out at 130lbs, and ready to go. But I will not rush it and hurt myself. The bike I go all out on, I do about 30 minutes, hills at level 4. It's a good workout, with the bike I can't do anything but go all out, because I listen to Gladiator and Gladiator makes me feel so good, I can see Maximus fighting, and I'm just inspired. I feel good though going to the gym, I usually get up and go, or like today get up, eat, watch Hogans and then go to the gym. It all depends what time I get up. I sometimes go with Amaya, Kathleen and Cassie and that is fun.

A few hours ago Kathleen and I went to the town centre because the Christmas lights were being turned on. That part was not exciting, but they had all these activities which were awesome. They had people walking around dressed in funny costumes, Frosty was holding a chair that had a guy in it who looked like he was 200 years old! Two male angels were floating around, they were really floating too! We went to the shops right by the market and go candy and stuff, and just walked around. It was fun, and we met Amaya by Sainsbury's and of course went in and I didn't go in for anything but I came out with the most stuff! Saturday morning is going to be awesome though, I got pancake mix, eggs and syrup, and we are so having pancakes and eggs! Yummy!

Alright well I'm tired of writing. Cheers!