First Week of Classes

Only after a few days and a weekend here, classes started. I was pretty excited for them to start because I'm taking courses called Social Enterprise, Creative London (site visits!), Shakespeare's London (plays!), and The Making of Modernity (which at first I was dreading, but the material is actually pretty interesting since we mostly study modern literature). The first class Cailin and I had was Shakespeare's London. It took awhile for us to find the class room so we arrived out of breath and ready to sit down, but the second we walked into the room our lecturer said that we would be leaving in  30 minutes. We thought this was because we would only be covering the syllabus, but instead she said we were going to The Globe, which is the recreation of Shakespeare's original theater in London. We were kind of in shock so we just nodded our heads as if that was something that happened in every class! Before we knew it we were on the tube with our class on our way to The Globe. 

Once we got there, we met one of the actors at The Globe who gave us a tour of the theater. He discussed how everything in the theater is almost identical to what the theater would have looked like in Shakespeare's time. It is completely made out of wood with wood pegs holding the beams up (which is also the reason the original building isn't standing as it met its inevitable fate when a fire broke out). The Globe is the only building in London that is allowed to have a thatched roof which is made entirely out of straw. The best part of the trip though was being able to actually step foot on The Globe stage and go backstage as well. On the normal tours you don't get to do that, but since we were with one of the actors he led us on the stage to let us get the experience of what it might be like to act on that stage. There are two imposing columns on either side of the stage so actors always have to be mindful of the position where the most audience members can see them. 

He also talked about the sets of seating that were behind the stage which house the musicians now, but in Shakespeare's time would house the wealthier important guests who not only went to the theater to see the show, but to be seen themselves. We then took a look at all of the stage's decorations. The ceiling is painted to depict heaven, while the trap door on the floor represents hell. There was a lot of fine molding and the columns on the stage's sides were painted to look like marble. 

An exhibition at the Globe

In Shakespeare's time there were no elaborate scene displays so the actual stage and costumes were used to set the tone of the play. Afterwards, we did a few exercises with the actor, pertaining to Twelfth Night, the play we were studying in our class first. He also told us his insights into the play and what it was like to be a modern day actor for Shakespearian plays. It was very interesting to get this inside view of Elizabethan productions and on the very first day of class it was kind of overwhelming! We still are coming to grasps with the fact that we stood on the stage at The Globe!

After our tour of the Globe, we went to the exhibition in the Globe Museum. They had original costumes on display and also had a lot of information about the Globe's re-creation. 

Since the Globe is located in London's South Bank, we took the opportunity to walk by Big Ben and the London Eye again and take a few pictures. We definitely didn't expect our first day of class to be so eventful and allow us to see the Globe right away!

Besides the Shakespeare class, I'm in Creative London with Tara, but am also in two regular classes, The Crusades and Sensibility and Romanticism. I decided that taking two study abroad classes with site visits and two normal classes would be a good idea so that I could really see what school is like for a British student. What I've learned so far is that school is so different here! For my first class, Sensibility and Romanticism, I walked into the lecture and after an hour we broke up into seminar groups. Since a lecture has about 50 students, each seminar has 15 students that each have a different seminar leader for a small group discussion. After the lecture, the seminars last for another hour. Plus, in this class, the lecturers change every single week which is really strange for me! I'm used to having one professor the whole time. My first day of class was confusing and it seemed like everyone knew what was going on. Little did I know, the class had already started in September! Later I found out that for regular classes, the study abroad students get put into a class that is halfway in session. Needless to say, I have a lot of catching up to do. The same goes for my Crusades class. After missing 100 years of the Crusades, I'm far behind in the material but I'll only be assessed on what I've learned this semester.

I was really excited for both of these classes, despite their difficulty, because I would get to meet British students. One girl I met from my Romanticism seminar asked me a lot of questions about America. She was really funny and said she had never heard the name "Cailin" before and didn't know what a Communications major was. That definitely showed how different schooling is here, since Communications is a really popular major in the US. However, she knew a lot about American pop culture, and told me her favorite shows were Jersey Shore and Keeping up with the Kardashians. It was funny to hear that she preferred American television to British shows, because while Tara and I have been here we've started watching "Made in Chelsea" which is a British show based in London. So far, classes have been good and we are looking forward to all of our site visits and being able to learn more about what being a British student is like!