Week 6, Entry 2

I've been home only two nights and both of those nights I've had dreams about being in London. It has been a very strange experience, particularly for me, to miss a place that is so far away from my home. When I first arrived, I made a post saying that I couldn't imagine feeling at home in a place that was so far away from everyone I cared about. Throughout my college career I have always felt this way. I transferred from Miami of Ohio because I felt too far away from home. The two years I spent there were always full of yearning to go back to where I came from, to be around those I had grown up with and who understood me. My first year at Ohio State was great, but I assumed it was due to a mixture of being close to home and being around people I was more comfortable with. But this trip has made me realize that sometimes certain areas just have an atmosphere that calls to me, that makes me feel at home and at peace even if I'm miles away.

I felt this way about London. It is strange that I can be homesick in Oxford, Ohio, which is only two and a half hours away from my home, to the point where I can't stand it. But in London, an ocean separated me from those that I cared for the most, and yet I felt comfortable there, like I could make it my home if I wanted to. I realized that being in a city that has so much life and culture makes me feel connected to the world. I always had a theory that I was a city person, but never really had a chance to test it. Now I know that big cities are for me because there is an energy throughout them that makes you feel as though you are a part of something larger than yourself. When planning for this trip, I remember having small stabs of panic at the thought of being so far away for so long. I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle it; what if I had some sort of nervous breakdown? For a long time I thought I would never be able to test my big city theory because I never had the guts to go far away from home. Now thanks to this trip, I know I can handle it. I met some amazing people on this journey, and without them I know London would not have been the same. At the same time however, I feel that London calls a similar type of people together. People who have a thirst for knowledge, experience and culture. People who want to be immersed in life as much as they possibly can while they can. I know that I belong in places like this, places that encourage you to be different and to be someone important. I always hated the way some people would come back from Europe claiming to be "changed forever", like there was something in the air that just made them a totally different (and better) person, something that someone like me (who had never really traveled) couldn't understand. Oddly enough, I feel that I can say that going to Europe has changed me. I'm still the same person I was before, but now I feel that I know more about myself. I am changed because I know what I am capable of, I know what my life can become. I am incredibly thankful for that feeling.

Week 6, Entry 1

Last week's class on poetry, and particularly performance poetry, really opened my eyes to a new form of literature and entertainment. I had heard of performance poetry before and had even gone to some performances, but I never thought of it as something I could do myself. Emily's class really opened my eyes to the fact that English majors should not be at all shy about writing poetry. Whenever I attempted to write poetry, I always felt that everything I wrote down was trite and had been done a million times before. Using London as inspiration however lead me to realize that my day to day life can be incredibly unique if one just looks at the details.

To write my poem, which I ended up transforming into prose poetry, I walked around Greenwich and simply scrawled down images and sounds that I came across. I was surprised at how easily writing about my experience came to me. The best part was that it was totally and completely my own creation and experience. Psychogeography allowed me to use the world that surrounds me everyday to create poetry. It was a wonderful experience to find the literature and poetry in everyday life, and I saw parts of Greenwich I had never seen before, despite having stayed in the area for six weeks.

Another surprising occurrence during the poetry week was the fact that I was not at all anxious or embarrassed to read my work. I had taken a creative writing class before, and I was actually one of the students (embarrassingly) that refused to read work out loud. I was simply too ashamed of my work to ever let anyone but my professor read it. However, looking back on this final week I realize what a mistake that was. I felt completely comfortable around my peers and my teachers, and I loved hearing everyone's work and was surprised at how talented my classmates were. I took a lot away from my last week in London, and it has inspired me to keep on honing my poetry skills and to not be so shy when it comes to sharing my work. I am also going to keep these exercises in mind when I become a teacher, because I think they are truly magnificent and eye-opening. I think getting students to leave their comfort zone is probably the best thing that can happen to them. It has certainly been a great experience for me.

Week 5, Entry 2

This weekend I went to Amsterdam. To be honest, all I was thinking about when booking my trip there was the fact that it was a big, fun party city and I was sure to have a blast. I didn't really think about what Amsterdam might look like or where it even was. Before I left for the trip, I had to use Google Earth to look up exactly where Amsterdam was. It wasn't until I actually arrived at the airport that I realized Amsterdam is actually in Holland, or The Netherlands (which apparently are the same thing.) My embarrassing lack of knowledge about Amsterdam (apparently they speak Dutch there, who knew!) was soon put to rest after I had been in the city for about two hours.

When first looking at the street signs in an attempt to find our hostel, I noticed that the Dutch language looks like a series of anagrams, as if someone accidentally sat on a keyboard. I began to get nervous, because unlike French, Dutch is absolutely and completely foreign to me in every way. I had never seen the Dutch language spelled out before this trip. I was staring to think I had gotten in over my head when once again it became apparent that everyone in Amsterdam also spoke English. Although Amsterdam has been the most foreign place I've been to when it comes to culture and language, the city still contained at least five McDonald's restaurants and advertisements were mostly written in English. I found this incredibly strange, but Amsterdam had enough foreign aspects to keep my attention occupied.

First of all, the roads in Amsterdam are quite chaotic and confusing. There is a separate lane for bikes, and then there is a lane for cars and a lane with inset rails for the tram. All of these vehicles come barreling down the street at the same time, and at many moments I felt panic rising up in me when I wasn't sure if I was in the middle of the street or on a sidewalk. These vehicles often cross paths as well, with cars driving on the tram rails, bikers in the car lane and buses on the tram lane. The trams manage to stay on the rails, but their frequency of arrival is still confusing.

Staying in the Red Light District was also a very uniquely foreign experience that I won't forget anytime soon. Walking through that area reminded me of the psycho-geography poems we discussed in class. My senses were simply assaulted from all over. At night, the neon signs burned brightly, advertising sex shows and porn shops. We walked by brothels with red lights shining through the windows and prostitutes displaying themselves for the passers-by. I had never in my life before this trip seen a prostitute, and even now I have a hard time believing what I saw. Amsterdam was so full of life, noise and illusions that it was hard to decipher if I was experiencing the real thing, or just a hazy interpretation of the Amsterdam experience.

Week 5, Entry 1

This week I looked over the syllabus to see what texts we would be covering. I was quite exasperated to find that for the "Decadent London" week we would be covering the poetry of the Rossetti's. Having studied the Rossetti's briefly at Ohio State, I had come to the firm conclusion that I disliked them most intensely. I felt that their poetry was far too overwrought and flowery, to pretentious to be taken seriously. However, when we discussed it in class I was amazed to discover once again that talking over a text in class can make me to a complete 180 when it comes to my opinions.

Honestly, I did not expect to come to London and learn a lot about the education system. Although I am interested in it and plan on becoming a high school teacher, my priorities for this trip included mostly pubs and tourism. However, I am incredibly thankful that I was lucky enough to receive instruction from skilled professors who know how to make their focus subject interesting. After we read the Rossetti poems and discussed them, I found a new appreciation for Christina Rossetti in particular. Specifically, the poem "In an Artist's Studio" was quite moving to me, and I really felt connected to her female voice, and found the concept of her exclusion from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood fascinating. I felt so connected to this poem that I decided to include it in my large paper.

Christina Rossetti's other poem, "Monna Innominata" Sonnet 4, moved me in similar ways. Seeing the female perspective from the past is always fascinating because it brings to light the fact that the feminist movement is still quite young. Women are still facing the same issues of exclusion by men today, even if it is in different ways. One of the lines in the poem states, "I loved you first: but afterwards your love/Outsoaring mine, sang a loftier song" reminded me intensely of the book "A Freewheelin' Time" by Suze Rotolo, who writes about being the girlfriend of Bob Dylan in the early 60s when he was just gaining his fame. She was an artist herself, and wrote in her book that the two of them were very much in love and on the same wavelength. However, once he gained his fame, his love "outsoared" her's. His songwriting and his fame overshadowed her and her identity, and Rotolo writes the painful account of the strain their relationship went through due to the changing times, and her own struggle with what her place in the world should be.

It was because of the discussion in class that I came to this conclusion, and it is discussions like these that make me want to teach others. Making connections like this gives meaning to this jumbled, chaotic world we live in. And sometimes, however small, those meanings can bring comfort.

Week 4, Entry 2

This week in class our afternoon excursion was replaced by a more active form of learning. We were divided into groups and then asked to act out a particular Samuel Beckett play that was assigned to us. My group was assigned the play "Catastrophe", and I learned a lot about both how to educate people on something so intangible, and the meaning of the play itself.

While talking amongst my group, it was amazing how quickly an inscrutable play opened up to interpretation. Placing ourselves in the characters' roles, speaking their lines, and interacting with the other characters really made it much easier to understand the idea that Samuel Beckett was trying to get across. After reading so many plays, sometimes it is easy to forget that they were meant to be acted out on stage. Although I enjoy reading Shakespeare as well as seeing his plays performed, being able to perform Beckett's plays and see performances of them really opened my eyes toward the meaning of the plays. Simply reading Beckett felt like a meaningless jumble of words; almost as if he wanted to see how much ridiculousness he could cram into one play and get away with it.

After performing Catastrophe, I began to realize that it was not just a bunch of nonsensical phrases and indecipherable actions, it was a comment on a tyrannical government. I couldn't believe how easily the answer seemed to come to me, when while reading it the night before it seemed to be completely stupid and meaningless. This exercise also reaffirmed my ideas about the kind of teacher I want to eventually be. When we were told we had to get up out of our seats and perform a play, I internally groaned along with the rest of my classmates. I had no desire to get up and exert myself, but after we did it I knew it was the best way to study Beckett. I was happy to experience this because I know my future students will be outwardly groaning at the prospect participating in one of my harebrained schemes, but at least I'll be confident that it will be the best thing for them.

Week 4, Entry 1

This week we went to see Shakespeare's Henry IV performed at the globe theater. We had the standing tickets, so we got to be the "groundlings", just like in Shakespeare's time. The production was amazing and entertaining, but that wasn't the best part about the experience for me. I found myself marveling at the fact that in the year 2010, people are still performing in Shakespeare's plays and paying to see them, just as they were in the 16th century.

Could Shakespeare have predicted that he would essentially become immortal? He was successful in his own time, but one always assumes that fame will fade. In this case, however, I was intrigued to see that the show had sold out. This was a show that forced the majority of its viewers to stand for three hours on a Thursday afternoon. And yet Shakespeare's pull is as strong as it ever was. I found it amazing that characters like Falstaff could still provoke uproarious laughter from an audience that exists 5 centuries later than Shakespeare was writing for.

In class, we were told that Henry IV is considered to be a history play, rather than a comedy or a tragedy. In this way it is even more heavily tied to England because it is almost a textbook about the past monarchy. Despite the fact that Henry IV takes place in the 1400s, we could still draw parallels between that monarchy and the monarchy today. I found the parallel between Prince Harry in the play and the current Prince Harry to be quite startling; almost as if there is this immortal princely attitude that someone withstands the test of time.

The fact that these texts have survived all these years and continue to be relevant to our lives today makes me feel optimistic about modern literature. I feel that literature will always matter, because it is constantly trying to pin down what it means to live in this world. By still having access to these plays, we can connect with characters and authors that have long since passed away. Experiencing the palpable excitement in Shakespeare's globe theater this week reinforced my belief that being an English major is important and worthwhile, because literature lasts forever.

Week 3, Entry 2

This weekend I traveled to Paris. It was the first time that I have ever been to a country where the primary language is not English. Needless to say, I was fairly nervous about communication. I wasn't sure what to do; I knew if I tried to speak in French (which I have never studied), I would completely butcher the language and probably offend someone. On the other hand, I had been told that the French appreciate people at least trying to speak their language and not simply expecting them to speak English. For this reason, I found myself hesitant to ask for help. I don't enjoy being bad at something, and so I don't like to draw attention to it. This however is a flawed philosophy. There is no way to learn if I don't try, and if I'm afraid to talk to anyone then I will never experience anything!

I once again found myself thinking about Nazneen in Brick Lane. In the book, it is mentioned that some of the women from Bangladesh had been in London for over a decade and still did not speak a word of English. At first this concept confused me; if one is completely surrounded by a language, wouldn't one simply be forced to learn it? However, now I can see that it can become very easy to never emerge from one's comfort zone. Feelings of ignorance and embarassment are ones I like to avoid, and so I could completely sympathize with a women from Bangladesh never learning English properly.

However, I don't believe that it is just the individual's lack of gumption that is to blame. The surrounding communities also reinforce this ignorance. While in Paris, it seemed that everyone who looked at me simply knew that I was American. After my first "bonjour", they would speak to me in English, assuming my ignorance. Of course, they were correct in that assumption, but it made me realize that I could, theoretically, survive in Paris without ever really learning French. In the same way, Nazneen was surrounded by her own little Bangladesh bubble. Although she lived in London, she lived in an area surrounded by people just like her who spoke her native language. Who then is to blame for ignorance of the country's native language? Is it the people who come to the new country, or is it the country itself that engenders this lack of motivation to learn? To simultaneously be offended by my "American-ness" and accommodating to it is a confusing notion.

Our group actually did manage to have one person fooled. Apparently our "American-ness" did not stand out to him, for he called to us "bonjour, mademoiselles!" However, right after the words came out of his mouth we had him pegged, just as all the French had us figured out the moment they saw us. We realized why he thought we were French. He was an American.