Virginia Woolf, television game shows,more commuting adventures, and I should warn you this ones a novel

Greetings Friends,

So, I must admit I feel a little special knowing I have somewhat of a loyal fanbase to my blog. GRANTED, a majority of the readers are either caring and loving parents checking up on the sons/daughters adventures in London, or amazing admissions people back at Simpson checking to see how their favorite overseas ambassador is doing. Its nice all the same to know I'm getting read.

Yesterday marked the official beginning of classroom time here in London. The first 3 weeks had all been a part of our "British Culture and Society Class" and learning about its history(hence all the musuem visiting), culture differences etc. Now that class is over, we're adjusted to life here in the city,for the most part and its time to get back to class. Lucky for me, on Tuesday/Thursday I only have the english class "Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group." Which while I have been excitied for it, I still really wasn't ready to start classes, I mean who is? But, it turned out to be pretty swell. I realized how long its been since my brain has actually had to think and link things together and get involved in an actual intellectual discussion and I enjoyed it *pause- as I push up my nerd glasses*.

After class I came back and it was nice because the house was quiet and empty. In the afternoon class on Tues/Thurs the econ class goes on and there's only 4 of us that are NOT taking it. So it was good to get a break from people around the house and have it sorta to myself. Thats another thing with this trip is its a CONSTANT being surrounded by people. You room with other people,hang out with other people, travel with other people,shop with other people, the streets, tube and bus have LOTS of other people. Sometimes it nice to just try and escape and hear your own thoughts again. But, for the most part its nice and I haven't gotten too stressed/bogged down by other people,homework,the city.etc.

Today, we had our art class and it was another stimulating brain exercise. We visited the "Tate Modern" museum which is one of the largest modern art museums in the world. We looked at a Piscasso painting and James (our prof for the course) told us some of the symbolizm and etc. that Pableohad put in there and it was pretty interesting. We also looked at a couple works of his rival "Matisse" and even some advant garde type sculptures, like a urinal that had been placed on its side and signed by the artist and is now world famous.

After the museum it was lunch time and then we had to hop on the tube to try and find our way to another part of the city for our afternoon meeting with the volunteer agency we are working with for our service learning course.

The meeting turned out to actually be a waste of 3 hours of my life. We went there and expected to find out more about what we'd be doing for our community service, some of the areas we could work in etc. We had filled out forms on-line for the agency that listed our interests and what we wanted to do and the like beforehand. WELL, turns out there was a bit of miscommunication and the lady from the agency made it sound like it was going to be close to impossible for us to find volunteer work without getting a background type check, which takes forever to do. As well as the fact that most places needing volunteers want them for at least 3 months and we're only here until December. So, we mostly listened to her trying figure things out and tell us what we wouldn't be able to do. Luckily, JP had done some other contacting and a few us got things set up. I get to help build a fundraiser from the ground up with 4 of the other kids on the trip for a homeless shelter. I'm pretty pumped about it and think it'll be great. BUT yea, after the 3 hour meeting we headed back to the flat, so we could get directions to our next stop for the day.

We had seen in the papers an ad for "free tickets to a taping of "Golden Balls" which is a television game show. Chelsea e-mailed them and got 4 tickets to the show. So, we figure out where we need to go and head to the tube stop to hop on. After waiting for 10 minutes to finally get the train we hop on, sit there for like another 5 waiting for it to take off and then we hear a voice over the speaker system. "Ladies and gentlemen this train has been taken off of service, please clear the train. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Well, we're already pushing time as it is, its around 5:40 and our seats were only guaranteed until 6:15, then they'd give them away. So, we finally catch another train that would take us to the next stop, where we could switch lines and get on the circle line, which would take us up to "notting hill gate" where we could switch off again to get on the "central" line which would finally take us to our destination. So, we get to High St. Kensington and the circle line train is PACKED and we definitally couldn't fit on. BUT luckily, a minute later a train showed up that would take us to notting hill. We jump on there and get to Notting hill fine and then switch lines and we were a okay. Turns out we ended up being fine on time and we got there at like 6.

But it just reminds me about how lame the tubes can be sometime. ESPECIALLY the stupid district line, it is officially my least favorite line. It's always slow,really bumpy and had all sorts of issues.

But, we go the show and it was alot of fun. It was most definitally interesting to see how a game show is taped and how NOT SMOOTH its actually taped. There are lots of stops and starts and etc. They had a "warm up guy" who kept us entertained and told us the worst one-liners ever. It was also funny to see how perverted the brits are. There were alot of dirty jokes/comments made by the warm up guy and a few by the contestants. Of course, I took no offense and it found it entertaining.

Anyway, the gameshow was called "Golden Balls" and it was sort of like a game of poker with different amounts of money, and you vote eachother off like on "Weakest Link". Its really hard to describe and so I won't even waste your or my time. BUT it comes down to the end and you have these two people trying to build up this "jackpot" with all the money they've collected throughout the show and they dont want to get any "killers" because they take off alot of money. WELL, at the end they had like 26,500 pounds in their jackpot...then the big moment comes. The contestants can either choose to split the money or steal the money and thats the trick. If both people chose split, they split the money. If one person chooses split and the other steal, the person who chose steal the money gets it all and the person who chose spilt gets zilch and then if they both choose steal, everyone loses. So, they get to the end. Its this old guy, a retired taxi driver and this mom in her 50's. The mom pretty much dominated and won them a majority of the moment and they were both like. LETS SPLIT THE MONEY and etc. So, it comes time to reveal their decisions and the jerky old guy chose steal and the lady chose split and so she lost and I felt really bad for her :(

After the show,we hopped on the tube (no issues this time ) and got back home . I did my english homework, talked about more weekend trip plans, ate and now im writing this blog.

SO, yea that catches you up on whats been going on.

The weather is getting colder here and its starting get a little lame :(

BUT, I need to hurry up and publish this post before my computer dies ,which its about ready to do.

Hope all is well.

Cheers
Drew