Classes Begin

So my lovely new umbrella held up quite wonderfully to England's pouring rain today; however, unfortunately, it did not fare nearly as well with England's wind. Oh well, I suppose that is what I should have expected from an umbrella bought at "Poundland," a store here where everything costs exactly one pound.

I started classes today and while I wasn't enrolled into any of my choices, I think that these will be OK, a bit boring perhaps, but manageable. As for now I am taking:

*17th Century Writing: Renaissance, Revolution, and Restoration

*European Literature: Encounters with 'Otherness'

*Kingship in Early Medieval Britain and Europe

It is strange to only be taking 3 classes instead of the typical 5 or 6 I have at UMass. It is also unusual for me to only be in class for TWO days with only SIX hours of class time all week. This however, makes me incredibly worried about their expectations for independent research and study. At least I will have plenty of time to devote to it with my five day weekends!

Today I had the first two classes listed above, and while the 17th Century is not all that exciting, I think that European Literature should be interesting. Coming from the U.S., I always have always considered England and the UK as a whole to be part of Europe, but I have found that many natives draw a stark line between the two. Europe seems to be a entirely different land to them. Therefore, I went into this class thinking I would be touching on Brit. Lit. as well as other pieces, when in actuality the reading list contains nothing from any British writers in order to keep that distinction. Since I haven't heard of most of the authors we'll be reading (though much of the class seems to be quite familiar with them!), I am looking forward to something new. I think it will also be very interesting to see differences in perspective as the course progresses. Tomorrow I will have my history class and then my ridiculous 5 day weekend begins. Oh well, at least this gap will be great for making travel plans over the semester.

As of today, I have finally met all of my flatmates. For several days, i thought I was going to be the only girl in the flat, but two arrived yesterday. That helps balance the ratio 8:3. Everyone seems nice enough so far. Residence life is just so different here though than it is at UMass.

Well, as you can tell, I haven't seen or done anything too exciting these past few days so you're stuck with pictures of my room and my poor dilapidated umbrella!