Hello! Long time no talk. I’m feeling horribly underwhelmed with enthusiasm to do my actual assignments, so I thought that I would take some time out to write a bit to everyone that reads here.
First I’d like to start with my room mates. All of them are incredibly nice, people people get confused when I tell them that I have my own room and bathroom, but still have flatmates. We have one long hallway that has a kitchen attached to it, and doorways to all of our individual rooms. One of our roommates (England) went to visit his family right around the end of our second week and has not been seen (to us at least) since. All of his things are still here, and nothing has mentioned anything to us about it, but he’s been gone for quite a while now. I’ve become good friends with the neighbor to my left (Canada/Calvin) who is doing a postgraduate degree in Forensic Science (He has a full outfit and everything) and the neighbor at the end of my side of the hall (India/Aditi) who is doing postgraduate studies as well. Other than that in our block we have Malaysia, who lives across from me and does engineering, and Nigeria who does internet security. I don’t see them much at all though, and unfortunately haven’t really learned their names yet. We have a good group dynamic and don’t fight at all, so that’s good.
In my actual course I’m meeting lots of lovely people as well. I’ve got a core group of friend, Suzy, Fiona, Lea, and Carly. Suzy is a part-timer, so she is only doing 1 of the 3 modules that the rest of us are doing. This semester I am doing 3 modules, and next semester we will be introduced to two new modules, with major project spanning both quarters. This quarter we are running Ideas and Institutions where we track an item from the Salisbury Museum with the goal of deepening our understanding of what the place of an object is in a museum. Our other Module, Learning and Experience, has the goal of deepening our understanding of education’s role in the museum. We’ve been visiting Brooklands museum and working with them so that each of us is designing an interactive element for a new exhibit that they’ve been awarded heritage lottery money to build. At the end of our project, Brooklands will have the option of commissioning any or all of the elements that we create (heavy emphasis on optioning). Of course, that leave one remaining module with is Major Project. Major Project is essentially what other universities might call dissertation. I’m told that here though there is the option for your dissertation to have a larger creative elements (ie you could create a major exhibit or collaborate on a project) and write a smaller paper instead.
In our course there is a large emphasis on being in museums and evaluating what they’re trying to do and whether or not they’re being successful in their goals, while working on productive ways to improve the museums that we’re visiting. While we are not partaking in internships as part of a requirement of the course, we are working hands on in partnerships with museums, and are cultivating things that can be included in portfolios. We are heavily encouraged and supported in the quest for volunteer work and internships though. I’m currently looking for the best fit for me, and will update when a position has been secured.
We’ve been to the Salisbury Museum once now, and my group took a detour over to the Salisbury Cathedral which houses part (or one of) the original copies of the Magna Carta. Very exciting, but of course, you’re not supposed to take photographs of a document from 1215.
The next day we took our first visit to Brooklands, which is built on the site of the world’s first purpose built race track (or so they claim). They have a large section of cars and during both of the world wars, they shut down the race track and built airplane production facilities, so the site has a large collection of planes as well. Some of you might know that I’m a big racing fan, so Brooklands was really exciting to go see. They had an F1 exhibit which included a simulator (however the simulator would only let you run the Brooklands track).
In addition to my school work I’ve done quite a bit of exploring on my own. I’ve been to the V&A a couple of times, once with school and once on my own. Meant to stop off and see if Tippu’s Tiger was on display, but kept forgetting.
Yesterday I made a trip into Sloane Square and Duke of York Square to visit Partridges. Partridges is a store that’s well known for having American products. It might seem silly, but I’ve missed pickles a lot since I’ve been here. It seems that the British delight in sweet pickles (even if they tell you that they’re dill pickles), and so I haven’t been able to get rid of the craving for that beautifully sour and crunchy taste. I found the perfect thing at Partridges . . . but no one in my flat can get the jar open now. I also had lunch all by myself in an actual sit down restaurant. There are some people that delight in the ability to be alone in public, and I hate it. It gives me great amount of anxiety to do things alone for the first time in public. It’s silly, and I acknowledge that, but somehow knowing that it’s silly to have anxiety about such a thing tends to make the anxiety worse. I conquered it for a small moment though, and went into a restaurant, and no one cared. They were extremely busy at 130 though, so I wish that I would have been there a bit later in the day. I have to get braver, or I have to make friends with people here that want to go out and do things with me, which seems unlikely.
They’re doing a large bit of construction on the street between where I live and the rail station, grocery store, and everything that I need in town. It’s an extreme inconvenience, and I know that they’re doing their best, but I’m highly annoyed. I walk so much more here than I did at home, and I’ve had horribly sore feet because of it. I’ve discovered (it was pointed out to me during a shopping trip this summer) that my feet fall when I walk. Plus my old shoes were quite worn out, so I’ve bought a new pair of Clarks, and I’ve bought some arch support inserts for my feet. I wore my clarks in an effort to break them in and got blisters and cuts on the back of my feet, so I’ve stowed them until my feet heal. After that I’m sure they’re going to be comfortable. If only I could figure out how to wear them in without any blisters. On the bright side though the bottoms of my feet did not hurt while i was breaking them in the first time.
I think that’s all for now. If anyone knows anything about designing teacher’s packs, KS2 students and their learning goals, or things like that though, please let me know!
Hope everyone at home is doing well, and that none of my roommates mentioned above read this and get offended that they now have names in my blogs (I’ll edit those out if you ask). Also check out the randomly attached picture to this blog post to see a bit of what I’ve been doing.
xoxo,
London Girl
Salisbury Cathedral
Magna Carta sign.
These are all from the V&A fashion archives
Me in the F1 simulator. This car is a replica of Lewis Hamilton’s 07 Mclaren. That was the first year that he drove in F1. When I got out of the car the guy commented that I obviously knew that I was doing. I did flip the car during my practice lap. Their simulated track had a plant in the middle of it, which was quite odd and unexpected. The FIA would not have approved. I tried to say that it was obviously the fault of a seagull that I swerved to avoid hitting, but the guy running the simulator didn’t seen to understand.
This is Ayrton Senna’s actual car!
In addition I’ve seen quite a few contemporary art exhibitions including Hockney, Tillman, and more. I’ve been to exhibitions at the Royal Academy, and saw American Gothic in person. I’m learning to embrace life in London little by little, and I find that it’s feeling less and less alien. Instead of feeling like a tourist every day, I find that more and more I feel less and less like a tourist. It’s starting to feel like home, and i think that’s good.
gegtoldn 