Day Nineteen:

Today was a regular class day. I'm loving my Political Science class, even though the reading from the Leviathan (by Hobbes) is really hard to understand. Dr. Holland is probably the best professor I've ever had. My Victorian literature class ("The Woman Question") is... well I'm not exactly sure what it is. I like the novels, poems, etc. we're reading, but I feel like she's trying to cram too much into one class. I can't tell what she wants us to get out of the class. We talk about poems, poets, novelists, novels, writing devices and styles, how it applies to the Victorian Era, how it applies to Women's issues... there just seems to be so much crammed in with no real direction. And she quizzes us on the craziest stuff from our readings - names, dates, titles - but seems to care less about concepts and application. Anyway, I think I would really enjoy the subject but I get so frusterated feeling like I'm putting so much into it and not getting what I want out of it and not giving Dr. Paul the results she wants either. I just don't think her teaching style jives with me, although she's a wonderful lady.


Whew! Well after classes I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) with some friends. It's a huge museum so we focused our time on 3 exhibits: the 1700-1900 British exhibit (esp the Victorian Era stuff), the Collaboration of Theatre Design exhibit (or something to that effect), and the Fashion exhibit. The Theatre one was my favorite. It was kinda random but mostly showed mini-models of sets for different productions. It gave me some good ideas to tuck away for choreography later.

Backstage... this is where I belong!

One of the mini-model stages. Neat, huh?

This mask was really worn by a child dancer during a performance. In the picture they showed it was so hard to tell the kids were real.

Bret, I think you should look into getting a suit like this. Just a thought.

Baa, baa pink sheep?

The sign said to try on the corset and hoop skirt... so I did.

I've got no clue what this was supposed to represent, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Bounce. Surf.

Dinner was excellent: some kind of steak and potatoes with asparagus on the side. The Hollands' little girl, Gracie, sat next to me, and I think she got a sugar-high from eating the meat. She was a little carnivore and then just went pshycho. I've never seen meat have that effect on anyone, but her sister Mitsy verified that this happens a lot when they have good meat. Really!?

After dinner Karly, Kourtney, Veronica, Sarah and I went to the park to read the Leviathan. Good news... It was much shorter than the selections for last time! It only took a little over an hour this time!

Brother Chittock came and gave another fireside. He spoke about his experience living through the Blitz. Wow. I've been so blessed not to ever have to feel the direct effects of war. They had a bomb shelter in their back yard and sometimes had to sleep in it for days and days and days. I can't imagine how scary that would be as a child, but even more so as a parent.

Bret would be happy to know that after the fireside they gave us chocolate chip cookies. They were small and kinda hard, but they were homemade cookies nonetheless. I think every day should end that way. After enjoying my one and only treat of the day, I went upstairs and Veronica convinced me that 9:15 wasn't too late to go out for a run if we went together. So we took an intense run through Kensington Park as it got darker and darker. We felt safe together, but we decided maybe it was a little to late to be out running after all. I'm glad we went though. We'd never run together so I think we really pushed eachother - she made me run longer, I made her run faster - and even though I wanted to die when she suggested another lap around the pond, I feel so good now! I just can't figure out how dad can like it enough to run marathons, triathalons, etc. He's crazy!

Me and Veronica all pumped (and sweaty) after our big run.