Another beautiful day in London, that is, it is raining.

So, I'm sitting in my room and I've come to the realization that I'm pretty much screwed. I have three papers due in the next two weeks and an Arabic exam, for which I have not studied at all . AT ALL. Frack.

More life events. I dont' think I've shared with you all my general week schedule, so I'll do that now so you know how I spend my life, and you can stalk me down if necessary.

Monday:
10am: Arab-Israeli conflict lecture. Hit or miss on the boringness. I usually don't leave my room until 15 minutes before this lecture, so I end up being 10 minutes late, sneak in and sit behind a pillar so my teacher doesn't notice. It works well. I also reacently did amazingly on a paper for this class, like wow. Which is good as I got a C on the last one.

11am: Since I will not have finished my reading for the day, I head over to Cafe Amici, which used to be on the corner of school but is moving locations two doors down, for breakfast. It is generally empty and the Italian man gets me by tea very quickly and refers to as 'babe' which was awkward for like 5 months, but apparently now I'm ok with it. N.B; I used to get cappuccino, but i gave it up for lent, and he is confused on occasion as to why i get tea.

On a side note, Brits use 'cheers' for thank you, you are welcome, good bye, and a bunch of other random crap. I recently said it as a natural response and I was very proud of my enculteration and I wanted to share this fact with you deux.

12:05pm: Kinship sex and Gender class. Here I actually participate, and I probably did some of the reading for this class when I was sitting in Amici drinking my tea, milk one sugar. Most of my colleges will have done one reading, I try to do 2-3 but I've been slacking as of late. I have an American friend in this class, Anita, so that makes group conversation good and most of the other Anthro students are pleasant and friendly. Oddly, there is like a strong French contingent in the department with at least 6 French girls. Maybe this isn't strange, it could just be me.

1:05 Economic Anthropology Lecture: This term my teacher is German, and the most intense person in the world. She really knows her stuff, but she is a little intimidating. I generally sit in the back of this lecture so that I can charge my computer which I lug to campus on Mondays as I have so many classes. This leads to awkwardness as I am the only person in the back of a very large room, but this is the ONLY place there is a plug (socket) in the whole room. Seriously, my reoccurring cultural observations of Britain is that they are afraid of fire, hence a ton of fire doors which make walking awkward, and no plugs.

2:05 Lunch. I will be very hungry as I ususally forget to eat breakfast/i have no time. I will meet Anita in front of one of our dining halls, which is more of a cafe that is filled with students and teachers. Last week we went to Pret A Manger, which is this sandwich chain in London and then took our sandwiches back to Garrick, the dining hall.

3:05: Philsophy Lecture. Mostly these are really good lectures dealing with interesting topics and the material I think is really important to understand. I sit in the front so that I actually pay attention, however, I tend to sit near the window so I can stare outside if necessary...or if the sky is blue, which is an event that should not be missed.

4:05 Econ Anthro Class. I have this with my very intense German prof. She doesn't let us get away with not doing all of the reading and just stares at you until you speak. Overall, she engages a lot with the material and presents very good points about how the way we think in our own society as related to economic perspectives on life, so i've been blown away at times by the conncetions that I just didn't see.

5:05 Now, I should go home at this time, but recently I've been going to a lecture series on Philosophy and Public Policy which runs from 5-6:30. I've enjoyed these as they give me an opportunity, like with Econ anthro, to apply stuff to the real world and not live in the abstract realm of academia.

Afterwards, I will go home, scrounge for some food or go to the grocery store and then do my reading for Philosophy class the next day.

Tuesday:
Morning-12:05: I will do my arabic homework and then wander over to school. I also attempt to eat lunch, but sometimes I forget, which leads to me walking into a pub at 4pm and getting soup, which is amazing.

12:05: Kinship lecture. Again, hit or miss. I have one lecturer for this class, the head of department, who is very good generally, but we also have another professor who while being generally pertinent to the topic of discussion, has bad delivery and i think gets two pensive for anyone to take him seriously. I usually finish my arabic homework if he is lecturing while at the same time taking notes.

1:05 Philosophy: I love this class. My prof. is French and really smart and helpful in getting across some complex ideas. The only way that this would be better is if more people actually did the reading so that we could discuss deeper implications of the material than a few people getting very set on a few points of contention and their irreconcilability with their own life ideas that would be clear if they had read.

2-4 Arabic. Ewe. It isn't that bad, but not anything like my Gtown language courses. I do need to study for my exam though. Because I dont' need to study for class really, i've let a lot of stuff not get the proper attention and now i'm in trouble.

I have to go clean my room as Mer is coming tomorrow so I need to sort myself out as they say over here.

Ali-I'm sorry I left you alone with a strange girl in Paris. But that post was amaizng and made my day as it were, since I have to sit here and do so much work.

Where the bloody hell is Zhao, is she alive wtf. I want some news on her if you can.

Much love to you both,

elle