Week Three

Well, week two was similar to week one in terms of schedule.  Things definitely are getting a little easier, I know my way around better and better, I'm most used to an all day job, getting up at 7 (except for falling asleep in class a little bit :P

Monday I had the morning free and then Media Studies in the afternoon.  For my homework I watched Skins (this British teen TV show, kind of like Degrassi if that helps, that has also become pretty popular in the U.S.) It was fun to watch. In class we talked about how U.S. and British TV shows differ.

Tuesday I had work and did some more volunteer database things.  For lunch I went to a local cafe type place and ate the pasta I had brought from home and read a magazine that they were giving out.  After that I went to Tate: Modern which is a block or two from my work.  It's amazing that so many museums here are free so I wandered around, mostly in the gift shop. It's nice that I can go in an out of the museum and not worry about rushing through the whole museum in a few hours.

On Wednesday I went to a primary school to help with the Creative Leadership Programme which is one of Kids Company's many initiatives.  The programme trains the grade 6 students to run lunch time groups for the grade 2 students of whatever subject they choose.  The grade 6 students who run the groups go through a several week long leadership training before leading the groups. Two other groups of the year 6 students take part in a journalism or film making group to document the mentoring program.  All of the year 6ers are together at the start of the group and do an opening exercise and then break into three groups.  I'm working with the Journalism group.  The woman who I was supposed to shadow couldn't come at the last minute so I ended up stepping in! It was a little scary to take over with no idea what to do but I think I made it up pretty well.  It was really nice spending time with the young people and being in a school.  

On Thursday I had my art history and sociology class.  For Modern Art history we went to The National Gallery, one of the many free museums in London.  We went to look at impressionist paintings as a basis for the modern art we'll study later in the semester.  There were some beautiful paintings by Manet, Monet, Degas Matisse and others.  It was great to go to a gallery and see some beautiful art, there were also some really cute school groups there in their school uniforms looking at the art, VERY adorable.  There was also a DaVinci painting there, a LEONARDO DAVINCI!!  Our art teacher talked a lot about the paintings and how the art pre-impressionism set-up the impressionists to paint the way they do, very interesting.  After class me and Sam took pictures on the Lion's in Trafalgar Square right outside of the museum :)

 National Gallery

 Me with the lion in Trafalgar Square (which was NOT easy to climb up to!!)

 Trafalgar Square: location of the National Gallery

Friday was a bit of a bummer day.  I tried to go to the are show of the "hoods that hug" and the Royal Academy.  I got there and found out that it didn't open till 12 and i had a meeting at a school at 12.  So I walked around a little waiting to go to my meeting.  At eleven I headed to my meeting taking the train.  The train is very confusing in comparison to the tube!  Two stops before the one I was supposed to get off at they stopped the train because the steering wasn't working.  You think that this would cause more upset but people seem to think malfunctions on the trains around here are completely normal.  We waited about 15 minutes for the next train by which point I was running late for my appointment.  I got off at the right stop and tried to follow the walking directions to the school.  I got very lost and eventually asked a nice British couple for help, they very nicely pointed me in the right direction.  I got to the school half an hour late but the woman I was meeting with was very understanding.  We talked about the anti-bullying program that Kid's Company is going to start in the school.  She wants me to help her create it with her and lead the training. We would train 6th graders to be able to give support/mentoring to the younger students at the school.  With my feet hurting because I made the silly decision to wear uncomfortable flats, I headed home ready for the weekend!

Saturday we went to Covent Garden, which I can best describe as a combination between Harvard Sq. and Fanueil Hall but about ten times bigger.  A very cute shopping area with a lot of stores as well as craft fair with stalls under a big tent. It was fun to see something new and walk around outside for the day.  Also, Covent Garden is only about a 15 minute walk from our house so I'll definitely be venturing back.

Saturday we went to the nightclub called Fabric.  It's pretty infamous here.  We went specifically because it was Rick's, one of the guys on the program, 21st birthday.  The club was ridiculous to say the least.  It had at least three or four floors, each one with several rooms that lead into one another, a huge maze that was very easy to get lost in.  Some of the rooms where just big dance floors, others had couchs and beds (yes, beds, basically big rectangles with leather covered cloth that people were just kind of lounging on..)  The club also only played house music, which in my opinion isn't so much of music as it is the same beat play for ten minutes at a time, and then switching to a slightly varied beat for another ten minutes, of course, this makes me feel old and like someones parent saying what is and isn't "real music" but let's just say I didn't find the music all that enthralling. Overall it was quite the experience, very interesting, and overall fun, and probably something I won't be repeating for a while.

On Sunday I took it easy and got ready for another full week!

And so it begins!

I just made it through my first week of classes and internship, wow.

On Monday I had my "day off" which consisted of only one class.  I woke up early and went to the bank and grocery shopping.  Then I had lunch at home and I had my Media in Britain class. My tutor, as they're called here is named Dr. Portonova.  She is from Italy and wore the most amazing pair of sequenced blue sneakers, or should I say trainers, to class. I got really lost on the way to class because the building is a little bit off of the main campus.  She talked about the main aspects of British media, and told us we'd be splitting into groups of four to make presentations to class and to have in class discussions.  Me and Julia, a girl on my program are in a group with two acting majors from Shenandoah Conservatory.

On Tuesday I had my first full day of my internship.  I went in at nine and met with Bex, my supervisor.  She showed me around the building.  It was a really cool building, the whole place was covered in paintings, and cool designs and art, there wasn't an inch of white walls.  She told me more aboutthe organization.  They have two drop in center and a alternative school in addition to programs in a huge number of public schools.  Not only does the organization offer art therapy, it also has general art programs, sports, cookery (as they call it here) and they have someone who references each child in their centers and helps them find counslers, doctors, get back into school etc., whatever the child may need.  For my first dayI helped Bex with a report she had to do.  I went through the huge database of volunteers and made a spreadsheet of what each of them does and at what school, it was quite the process.  For lunch Bex showed me around the neighborhood, it turns out i'm two blocks away from the Tate Modern (which has FREE admission), I hope I can go at least scope it out for my lunch break one day.  Overal the first day went great, it was cool to learn more about the organizaition, meet a bunch of the staff and start being productive!

Wednesday I had work again but I went to the Urban Academy one of Kid's Companies centers.  The fashion class their is doing an exhibit at the Royal Academy(which is "a unique organization that is independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate").  which is a pretty big deal.  Kid's company has their own fashion line called Bare threads label that is work produced by young people at kids company.  One of their projects is "hoods that hug" which are basically a hood and scarf attached, each with their own unique design.

This is a picture from their website of one of the hoods.  The exhibit is of a huge variety of hoods, made by the young people in the program.  The reason I went to help was that some of the hoods weren't finished and the exhibit was on Sunday. I spent most of the day weaving a hood that was made up of three interwoven hoods, it's hard to explain but believeme, it was quite the process.  It was really cool to go to Urban Academy and see what Kid's Company does in action since i've only been at the office.  It's pretty amazing that they have made an entire alternative school and that that is only a small part of what they do.

Thursday I had classes from 10-5.  yikes.  It was nice to have a little break from my internship though, and I think that's how it'll feel while i'm here.  Since the weeks are so long I'll be glad to switch back and forth between classes and work.  My first class of the day from 10 - 1 was my modern British art class.  We had a cute young-ish professor.  He's an anthropologist, who makes his money doing music and is has lectured on the philosophy of medicine, and likes African drumming and jazz. Quite the array of interests. He talked about the basics of the class, and how all art is abstract, interesting, i'm excited about it.

Friday I had my internship again, I did this big filing project organizing all of the volunteers and updating the status of the ones who are no longer volunteering, correcting the files and database etc.  It was tiring but, call me a dork, I actually really like office work! Friday night we went to a few different pubs and generally wandered around.

Sunday we went on a tour of Cambridge! It was the last activity that Ms. Watkins had set-up for us.  The bus left our flats at 9:15 in the morning.  We drove to Cambridge and picked up our guide who narrated as we drove around.  It was interesting to hear about what a huge history the town has, see all of the really old time colleges (there are sooo many in Cambride, almost as many as Cambridge, MA haha)

Caius College (it looked like Hogwarts!)

For lunch we went to the dinning room at Caius (pronounced Keys) college.  Apparently visitors aren't allowed to eat there, so we felt pretty special.  It was this old time dinning hall and we all sat at one long wooden table while servers brought us each course of our meal.  It felt pretty grand hall first night of the year back at Hogwarts grand feast kind of deal.  We had a yummy warm roll and butter (you know how I like my bread!) broccoli and carrots, roasted potatoes, pork, and a berry tart for dessert, it was great.  I'm appreciating free food here even more than at Clark.

 Punting!

 Our cute punting driver

 After lunch we went punting.  Picture riding in a gondolla with a man pushing you, but the boat is flat and you're in England.  It was a ton of fun.  Our guide was cute and funny and it was nice sightseeing via a boat.  After the punting we hung out in Cambridge till we had to go home and chilled in a pub overlooking the water.

It was quite the week, I'm tired just writing all of it, but it's nice to continue to feel more and more settled.

First weekend in London

So, after going out Friday night, which was a lot of fun, we got up Saturday for a walking tour of the city with a Shakespeare and Dicken's theme.  The walk was interesting but there were two things that made it hard to enjoy:

1. The first was that before we went out Friday night I had fallen on the stairs in my friends apartment and twisted my ankle.  After walking on it all Friday night, going on a walking tour with a hurt ankle wasn' the most fun.

2. Also, it was REALLY cold.  It's been surprisingly cold here.  We all expected much milder winter but it's been almost as cold as Boston, so after walking around for two hours we were all mildly frozen.

Besides that, it was cool to walk around the city and our tour guide was really nice, it showed us some interesting areas of the city especially the older parts of London and the center of the city which is the only part that is technically London, not a borough. 

Saturday night I was exhausted (and had a very sore foot) so I decided to stay home.  Hannah and watched Little Ms. Sunshine and I updated my blog :)

Statue honoring Shakespeare

On Sunday we had a bus tour of the city. It was great to see the whole city from the comfort of a tour bus after walking all week.  The tour guide was a sweet Biritsh woman with a very "proper" British accent.  She was funny and it was interesting to hear what she had to say about London. 

 London Bridge, a tad diappointing

The beautiful Tower Bridge, next to London Bridge

 

Trafalgar Square

Gates to Buckingham Palace

After the tour we went home and I got ready for the very busy week ahead!

Sending my love,

xoxo

Nina

Friday: Day 4

On Friday Hannah and I knew that we NEEDED our phones and couldn't wait a day longer.  We were going to go in the morning but Sam had gotten an e-mail saying she could come pick up her bank letter from Shabana.

                (Backstory: There were many complications to opening a bank account, the bank the had the best program said that we needed a letter from our school confirming our addresses. Shabana is one of the co-ordinators of international students at Birkbeck.)

We decided it was important to get our bank letters so we went to Shabana's office and picked them up.  Our main activity for the day was the London Eye.  The london eye for those of you who haven't heard of it is basically a huge ferris wheel excepy each compartment fits about twenty people.  It rotates really slowly, so your ride is about 30 minutes long and you can see a beautiful view of London.  We decided that there wasn't enough time before the eye to get cellphones.  We headed straight there and arrived in the nick of time! The london eye was a lot of fun. The main attractions were Parliment and Big Ben and a beautiful view of the Thames River.  It was exciting to see more of the typical London attractions which we hadn't seen yet since we've mostly stayed in Bloomsbury. 

 Me on the London Eye with Big Ben in the background

Sam, myself, and Hannah on the eye

 View from above of Parliment, Big Ben, and the Thames

After the London Eye we went back to where we had searched for a phone several days ago.  Hannah and I each purchased a phone and Sam "topped up" her minutes. For those of you who don't know the british slang, top up means to add minutes or money to your pay as you go phone, it took us a little time to figure that one out!

After finally getting phones, which was such a relief, we went home and cooked dinner, and figured out what to do with our first Friday night in London.  We decided to all hang out in one of our apartments and then go out to a club or bar.  Turns out, it's not very easy to co-ordinate 30 people going to the same place.  We ended up splitting into groups and we went to a club called Gem, in Soho.  It was fun and quite the experience for our first weekend.  Who knew that they played California Gurls in London?

A bunch of us at Gem

 

Thursday: Day 3

Today was our orientation for Birkbeck, it was at 9:30 a.m.  We all walked over in the rain (it rains A LOT here), the main campus is only a few blocks from where we are living.  Basically they put us in a room with about 75 others students all studying abroad here too. We went through the basics etc. etc.   

Afterward, I went home and got ready for my interview at my internship.  I was excited by nervous for what it was going to be like and didn't want to get my hopes up.  Another student on the program, Julia and I were supposed to take the tube together but her interview got canceled so I was on my own!  I took the tube from the station a few blocks away, Russel Square.  Russel Square is on the Picadilly Line, I took the Picadilly line to Green Park and then transferred to the Jubilee line and took it to Southwark.  (I know not ALL of you will care what tube stops I took ,but I know Stanley will :)

The plan was to meet Chauntelle, one of the supervisors of the London Internship Program and go with her to the internship.  I waited for about fifteen minutes (and ate some banana bread!) Chauntelle then showed up and it turned out she didn't really know how to get there from the train stop, but together we figured it out!We got to the building just in time and went in and found Rebecca Peters, my supervisor, we talked about experience I'd had relating to the company, and Chauntelle discussed the requirements of the internship from LIP's perspective.  Rebecca was really excited about what I'd done and said that  I could help with a art therapy group and lead a creative group for primary school kids.  The program mostly works within schools in greater London so I would go into schools and work with groups.  Rebecca was really nice and enthusiastic and I think it's a great environment and organization.  I'm really excited about the internship and I hope that it continues to go well!  

 Interview outfit!

After the internship I took the tube home and went to the grocery store.  The large grocery store near the tube is called Waitrose ($10 to anyone who can tell me why it's called that).  I had only been in their briefly so I walked around the store getting to know where things were and picked up a bunch of groceries and other things I needed. 

That evening a bunch of us walked around the city again exploring, it's fun to keep getting to know the neighborhood better and better. 

 

Wednesday: Day 2

I woke up at 11 feeling very well rested. Hannah and I still needed phones so we decided it would be a good idea to go get them today. A few other people needed phones too so we headed off on a wild goose chase to a store called 02 (pronounced oh-two). We walked for what felt like a very very very long time, which it turns out was only about half an hour. Finally we got to the store. Hannah and I weren't convinced so we went to several other stores in the neighborhood to ask about phones. Long story short, I cam home empty handed.

That night we all hung out in the third floor apartment in my building (where Sam and Hannah live), and relaxed, it was nice for us to spend sometime together as a group.

Tuesday: Day 1

Ok, so now that I have a TINY bit more time I'll try to recap the last few days, it's been quite the whirlwind:

Tuesday: Day 1

We arrived at the airport and waited with some students from Sienna college (on of the other two colleges on our program), we waited for a while for others to arrive and wandered around the airport a little.  Then we got on a bus that was going to take us to our flat, Chauntelle, one of the supervisors of the program didn't come with us so we rode the bus by ourselves. It took us to 19 Bedford Place, one of the flats and the offices of ACORN housing which is the housing company that rents us our flats.  We were all very excited to be able to take a nap and a shower but we were told we couldn't move in until 2 (or 14:00), and it was 11.  We were all quite disgruntled but took the opportunity to wander around the city.  We went to a coffee shop and hung out there for a while and then went to Tottenham Road, the closest street with a lot of big stores especially electronics stores.  Some people got cellphones, and we went to a grocery store and had a snack.  Finally, we headed back and were able to move in.  My other roomates were already here, but luckily they left me a pretty nice bed :)

I took the hour we had until orientation at three to shower and start unpacking.  At three everyone from the program crowded into our living room.  It was a lot of people and kind of overwhelming.  Ms. Watkins, the head of the program talked for about an hour about rules, schedules etc. After that we were on our own to do, whatever..

It was only around 4 and we were all exhausted but thought it would be best to stay up until somewhat of a regular bedtime so that we could start to adjust to the time zone.  I unpacked a little more and went to the grocery store to by some food.  I got just a few basics to help me make it through the first day or two, rice krispies, milk, pasta, and tomato sauce.   I went home and cooked dinner, it was nice to have some food after such a long day.  Some people went out to a pub for dinner so I met them there after I cooked dinner and we hung out.  Then we tried to pass the rest of the time of the evening (time was moving soooo slowly) by wandering around and trying to find other cool pubs to hang out in.  We finally found this cute pub and went in and hung out. Of course just our luck there was only one other group of people there and they were from New Jersey haha, they were interesting to say the least :)

Finally it was 9:30 and we were all exhausted so we went back to our flats.  I finished unpacking and went to bed after a veryyyy long day.  

Here are some photos of the flat:

                                                                             my bed!

my triple which I share with Alyssa (from Clark) and Jillian (from Stonehill)

our kitchen!

living room!

Welcome to London!

Hi Everyone!  I know it's a little late (seeing as I've been here for three days) but here's my first blog entry!

For everyone who happened to stumble on this blog, my name is Nina, I'm a junior at Clark University in Worcester, MA, USA but right now i'm spending the spring semester in London.  I'm taking classes at Birkbeck college, part of the University of London, and doing an internship. 

The classes i'm taking are:

-Media Forms and Institutions in Britain

-Aspects of Modern Art in London

-Modern British Society since 1945

My internship is with an organization called Kids Company where I'll be assisting doing Art Therapy and getting to run creative Art groups for kids in primary school. 

I'm living in a flat in the Bloomsbury neighborhood.  I'm living in an apartment with five other women, and in a triple room with two other girls.  We got lucky and have one of the nicest apartments.  It's very cute and I like it already.  

Alright, that's the general summary, to all my U.S.ers, I miss you already!
 

xoxo

Nina