It is one thing to be a reader in exile, while I'm over here (don't ask me why, it's just different not getting to read where you normally read ex: on the couch by the window, or blah blah blah) but to also be living in the place where some of the books you read are written, or set, is something unimagineable untill you actually do it.

Today I was reading Mrs. Dalloway, and sitting in my room @ Regent's, reading Virginia Woolf's words describing the park, and then looking out the window at it, was completely amazing. It adds so much to what you carry with you into the story.

As you might have guessed, I already have started recieving the homework loads. One class I'm particularly excited about, for the reasons I stated above, is my English course, "Modernism & The Novel". We'll be reading (of course) Woolf, James Joyce, Henry James, and D.H. Lawrence, all authors from the Modernist period (roughly 1890-1930) and the funny/neat thing is that along with the list of book titles and mini bios of the authors, we got a little map, of where they lived or hung out, or their stories are set, so that we can go visit these places and get more into their frame of mind as we're reading their texts. Simply put, it's awesome.

So far all of my classes seem like they'll be well. I still haven't had Classical Music In London, but we get lots of field trips (ie: concerts) with that one, so I'm sure I'll love it.

My first class was Ethics in the Media with Olaf the German teacher, which seems promising. I'm excited about learning in that class, I think there will be alot of great stuff to come out of it. Next up was Sociology which was so-so. British teacher, funny, witty, nice. Classmates range from Nigeria to Russia, to Saudia Arabia, to France, and just all over. The worst thing we could have done in this class was to play the name game. And that we did. Guess who was the last person to go (randomly selected, I wasn't in the back of the room) that had to recite every single persons name. Me. Oh yeah.

I could tell that half of the people were already judging me (as one of the only 2 Americans in the class) It didn't help that the other American girl seemed to confirm the 'ignorant American' cliche by seriously butchered some names, and on others not trying at all but just mumbling something similar, and I could tell they were expecting me to do the same. So as soon as the first person went, I was trying my hardest to memorize each name and pronounciation over and over untill it came to my turn, and I have to say, I think I definitely surprised some people. I think I was the only one in the class to get everyones name (I only slightly mispronounced 'Jaled' I think I said it more like "khaleed", when it only needed a soft 'e') and I even got a couple verbal pats on the back at the end ("Good One" or "Good on ya"). I have to say I was quite pleased with myself.

So far, so good.

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