Try to remember the kind of September

The journey continues. This week was action packed full of many different adventures.

Monday kicked off the week with a flash mob. Ok, so its a flash mob in progress. Later this term one of our performances will be a flash mob. Best assignment ever? I think so. On Monday our class met for the first time with the guy who is composing/choreographing this event to discuss ideas. We broke into three different groups to workshop three different concepts. It was a lot of fun. We spent the morning looking for hats, having brief encounter moments from across train stations and losing signal on our cell phones. Eventually we decided on a theme, I wont tell you which one so that you can experience it first hand. It will be the next big youtube sensation I assure you!

The week continued on from there. All of our classes are pushing us to the extreme in one way or another. We had running again in fitness. I still hate running, that hasn't changed. However my breathing was better this time, so I didn't collapse from lack of oxygen. And believe me that is a big improvement. In voice we have been paired together with other students to learn their accents. I think that it will be really interesting to hear what people come back to class with. I think my partner, who is from South Korea, is a little shy about hers. We haven't met yet, and I am starting to get a little bit nervous about it. Hopefully we'll get some good work done when we meet on Monday. In acting we are paired up and looking for scenes for next week. My partner, this amazing Irish guy, and I are going to do one from Sunday in the Park with George. Should be a blast. In class we are working on playing the action, instead of playing the conflict or condition. Harder than you might think. One of our assignments is to come up with a list of 50 transitive verbs, things we can do to someone else to get what we want. Any suggestions would be helpful! We all have things like attack, seduce, coerce etc, its once you get beyond those basic ones that I've gotten a little stuck.

Wednesday.... Wednesday was frustrating. That is the day we have our one solely academic class. Really it is just prep for our dissertation. Its weird though because we are spending all of this time gearing up for a big essay, but we're not actually doing much. I think it would almost be better if they were just assigning us smaller research papers every week. Instead it is just their weird practice exercises. Go to the library and show that you can find some books, look on line and show that you can find an online source. Its hard to explain why this class is getting to me. However, I was not the only one who walked out of that class feeling out of sorts. Hopefully it will get better as we get further into the class.

Wednesday night began the social calendar for the week. After that class we all needed to unwind so we traipsed across the street to Ye Olde Swiss Cottage Pub (or as is been affectionately nicknamed Ye Olde Man Pub). I think we have now all settled in enough that we really want to start getting to know each other properly. After this week we are all well on our way. We had a very full social calendar this week. It was great. On Thursday we had an amazing home cooked Rosh Hashanah meal. Friday we all traipsed over to my neck of the woods (several other students in my course live quite close to my apartment, which is awesome) and found a much cooler pub for dinner. Yesterday afternoon we spent in the park enjoying the amazing sun that has been happening all week. Last night was a house warming party for another classmate. And this afternoon I am hanging out with my cousin. So no more moping around an empty apartment for me!

The other big thing about this week was dealing with finances. I have finally, finally gotten my financial aide check from the school. It has taken them over a month to get it to me, and it has been a rather frustrating time. I have been bugging the finance office for several weeks. Sorry the person who has your check has left for the weekend. Oh we thought we gave you your check when you came in last week. We seem to have misplaced your check. We'll have your check on Wednesday. Oh actually it hasn't been signed yet. Goodness gracious! I'm already accruing interest, and I would like to buy some groceries. How hard can this be! And once I finally did get the check the bank tells me it will be another week before it actually clears into my account. Gah! I am so sick of money, I just want it all to go away. However I am making progress so I'm going to stop complaining about it and move on.

Overall though it has been a great week. I am really glad that people have started taking the initiative to hang out. Once the term officially starts for everyone else my roommates and I plan on having our own house warming party. I also really want to host a Thanksgiving dinner too. I have mentioned this idea to a few of my classmates, and once I have explained what Thanksgiving is people seem really excited about it. However, its not for another two months so I have some time to plan. There are lots of other things that need to happen before we reach Thanksgiving.