Back in the Swing of Things

With my illness over and my DC trip behind me, I am now up to my old tricks back here in London. The week has revolved around my upcoming choir concert (it's in a few hours, actually). We've had a few extra rehearsals for our Bach Magnificat, and we've even started working with the orchestra, which is also made up of UCL kids. It's very exciting when you hear a piece of music finally come together and swell and take over a room. A few of my roommates are even making it out to the concert, and I'm grateful for that; an hour of classical music is not every one's bag.

My classes have been going well, too. I've started raising my hand and participating, and am no longer (slightly) intimidated by all the intelligent British accents. On Thursday in my Roman Britain class, we hiked through the rain into the Moorgate section of the city to look at the remains of the old Roman amphitheater. It was very cool, but again, you had to use your imagination; it only consisted of a few low stone walls (no more than knee height).

My favorite class is probably Cognitive Evolution and Early Technology. This class explores the development of human consciousness and cognition and tries to link this to examples in the archaeological record, such as stone tools. This is my smallest class and is gathered around a table, seminar style. I like this class because it often turns into a philosophy discussion instead of a straight lecture; we debate questions like: What is consciousness? What makes humans different from other animals? What is the mind, exactly? At no time does the discussion veer into anything theological, which I find interesting and consider more likely to occur at Fordham (not that there's anything wrong with it one way or another).

I've gone out dancing again, too. Thursday night I was dancing with an Irish guy who thought I was Irish also (I don't know why, my American accent is pretty unmistakable), and when I told him I was from New York City he promptly stopped dancing with me and left the dance floor without a word. Did I intimidate him or something? Whatever the reason, it was rude! Oh well, I recovered after about 10 seconds and continued dancing with my roommates.

Delight of delights- when I got back from the club on Thursday, I turned on the TV and saw the Red Sox/Rockies game was on! Granted, it was 1:30 am, and it had just started, but I couldn't believe my luck. One of my other roommates, a Rockies fan (and the only one I have ever met) sat down and watched the game with me. Watching baseball was great. Over here, instead of commercials, they have two commentators discuss what just happened in the inning: a British guy and an American guy. The commentary was pretty lame, I have to admit (I didn't even think the British watched baseball) but I didn't care- the Sox were on! I held out valiantly until the 7th, when by then it was about 4:00 in the morning, and I dragged myself to bed, makeup smeared all over my face.

So tonight I have my concert, then hopefully more Red Sox. I let you all know how the concert went in my next post- stay tuned!