ENGLANDINSPIRATION: What a great night!

13 January 2011

So this morning I completely overslept.. right through two English lectures! Oops.

Well, at least it sounds like I didn't miss much in Shakespeare, and I'll have my seminar on Monday anyway. Speaking of which, I've got to get reading-- I'm supposed to have The Merry Wives of Windsor and Twelfth Night read for next week!

Waking from my lovely, long rest, I headed to campus for my 12:30 meeting with my tutor, Helen Hackett. Yes, I have a tutor. UCL is on what's called the tutorial system, meaning that I go to lectures once a week, seminar once a week, and then meet with my tutor to decide what I want to write essays on (I can write about literally anything I want) and then my tutor grades my work instead of the professor. I already have to decide my first paper topic for next Friday! Which is crazy, because I haven't even been to a single class yet!

After my meeting, went to Waterstone's bookstore and bought some Shakespeare plays. Also bought a book called "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger because I couldn't resist. Went for lunch with Vanessa at a sandwich shop (tuna on potato again--this time with sweet corn! my new favourite). After lunch, bumped into Hillary and headed back to Waterstones (because I just can't get enough of this bookstore. I frickin love bookstores).

Walked home and did laundry! What an adventure that was. Also showered. Then headed to dinner at an Italian pizza place. Got to see Cameron from Wash U! She's been studying at UCL all year. After dinner, took the tube to Picadilly Circus to go to The Comedy Store, a stand-up comedy club. Had such a fun night! Who knew laughing for for 2 hours would be so much fun, or such great exercise (the equivalent of rowing for 20 minutes)! The comedians did a great job of picking on the Americans, which was pretty hilarious. I decided that a comedy club might be one of the best ways to really understand a culture. Here's what I learned: the British are extremely unenthusiastic compared to Americans. Even their cheering is completely different and much more subdued, kind of like a low, drawn-out "yeuuaaa" rather than an American sounding "woooooo!" They love fat people jokes. But their version of "fat" is more our version of very slightly overweight or slightly chubby. They make lots of jokes about dwarfs too. Northern and Southern England are completely different, Northerners being more working class and Southerner's being the wealthier, white collar crowd. Lots of straight men seem gay. Don't let that fool you. British people are more private with their bodily functions and are more reserved in general.

..except when it comes to barfing on the street, or using public urinals in the middle of the road, both of which I've witnessed in the past week.

But, back to my story, the best part of the night was when one of the comedians said that when people talk about things that happen being "so random" that they're probably not very interesting people. Basically, everything that happens is "random," so really nothing's random. Coincidences happen for very logical reasons, based on varying levels of probability and so there is very little that can actually be considered random-- much less than we normally think. Lesson: Life is random, or else it's not random at all. Either way you think of it, it works. As long as you don't pick out various events as "random" and others as non-random.