So it's been a while...

Well I know it haven't updated in a while...so here it is:

Classes started last week, and after much debate and confusion over my classes, my schedule is finally settled, and I have a lot of free time on my hands. I started off last week thinking I was taking courses that are completely different than what I ended up with, but I am excited about my semester a head of me now. I was planning on taking french here, but their language department is so confusing that I really couldn't figure it all out on my own. I thought I wanted to be in a certain class, and went to the first class meeting, and no one else came. No students, not even a professor. So I emailed a woman whose name I received from the exchange office here, and she filled me in a bit more, but once she sent me the work for the course, I decided that French maybe wasn't for me this semester. Let me explain. EVERYTHING was grammar, there was nothing even on the agenda for the semester about culture, or literature, or spoken french, it was all grammar, somethings I had finished with my third year of French: and to add insult to injury, on top of the three hour lecture each week, there was a mandatory two hour tutoring session. No thanks. So now I am taking a course on the impact of Vietnam on the United States, a course on Terrorism: its many forms and the complexities of understanding why people do it, as well as how terrorism is defined (something I thought was straightforward, but after three hours of a professor explaining that every society and culture has a different understanding of, I understand is not so straightforward.) My last class is a bit less intellectually taxing, and it is a class called Being Bad. It is a philosophy course that talks about the way society views certain actions and activities to be bad. We are not talking about major crimes, just slight habits, like smoking, gambling, tattoos, etc. The class is also supposed to discuss why people do things they know society sees as bad. Each week we are supposed to discuss a new "bad" activity. It should be interesting to say the least. I am still getting used to one day a week classes, but I enjoy how in depth you can get in one three hour session, instead of two hour and a half long sessions, like we have at home. I also like that I only have class on Tuesday and Thursday night....but thats another story. One thing I am nervous about is that there are so few assignments, a mid term and a final basically, and not knowing how the grading works, and having so little direction in when to do things makes me happy to know I only need to get a C for the credit to transfer back to Keene.

On a lighter note, this Saturday, Heather, Justin, and a Swedish girl named Frida went into Birmingham for the first time. It is much larger than I had imagined based on the airport, but then again, it is second largest in Britain, only behind London. There is a tram that runs from Wolverhampton city center to Birmingham city center, and takes about 20-30 minutes, and we opted to take that over the train, mainly because of the location of the tram station. It also costs £3.80 and comes every 8 minutes.

Birmingham may be known as an industrial city, but there are also some pretty older buildings too, which look cool next to the ultra modern newer architecture. One of the most notable places we saw this, was at the Bull Ring shopping center, an enormous three level indoor/ outdoor mall larger than anything I had ever seen. They had a store in the mall that not only had food from the states that we can't get here, like Fluff and Aunt Jemima pancakes (way over priced), but they also had a Krispy Kreme restaurant! The line was too long, so we stuck to our starbucks, which we were happy to see were everywhere! Some of the stores, like the gap, were American, but some where new and Heather, Frida, and I enjoyed peeping into them. Justin on the other hand was more excited when we walked down to Victoria Square, and there was a HUGE screen playing an England v. Ireland Rugby game! I have to admit it was pretty cool to see people standing around and watching this game, that is impossible to explain to anyone back home. That night we had dinner in a pub, and went back home exhausted from the walking.

On Sunday, we tried to watch the Super Bowl, but with the time difference kick off was at 11:30 at night, and needless to say I didn't make it through the game...I'm not sure if Justin did or not.

This weekend we are planning to visit Bath, and Stonehenge. Hopefully I will have pictures of this trip to post for you all!