The day started off in British Media and Society. Admittedly, the class has interesting content but the professor nearly bored me to sleep. He is very knowledgeable, but he often went off on tangents that I couldn't follow or didn't understand how they were relevant to British media or society. He switched from rambling to swearing and speaking in a different accent every few minutes and it just was very strange. My grade is based almost entirely on these "Letters to America" we're writing, culminating in one big paper discussing a certain part of British society. For our outing, we went to the British Museum and looked at the sections on the early Americas, Africa, and Greece. It was really quite cool the things we got to see, particularly parts taken from the Parthenon. This week's lesson was supposed to be focused on oral communication, but I didn't really understand how any of what we saw related to this; it felt more like a history lesson than a media lesson. I loved visiting the museum, though, and it seems like we have some really cool outings for this class. Overall, I'm underwhelmed by the class.
The British Museum
After class, Kara (my roommate) and I went back to our flat and had some lunch before our next class. This was when the day REALLY got good. My class on Tuesday afternoons is Culture by Design, and I LOVE it. My professor prefaced the course by saying that he doesn't plan on lecturing too much (just so we get the basic information), but instead wants to take us out into London. Jay's course description is pretty much "Looking closely at stuff." He even said that some of the things we'll do are dangerous and not quite legal. Not ominous at all...Regardless, the class sounds so interesting. I'm not really SMAD-minded, so it may be a bit difficult for me (our first assignment is a media analysis...uh...), but I'm excited to stretch my mind. After about an hour of lecture, we took the tube to Camden Town. Definitely the best first outing of any of my classes this week. At first when we got off the tube, I was a bit intimidated. In the least offensive way, Camden is like the Hot Topic of London. It's filled with cool and interesting people, but it's a bit intimidating for someone like me. After a few minutes of walking around, I was really able to enjoy the town. As we walked along the street right off the tube, we were all impressed by the cool shops, but we hadn't seen ANYTHING yet. Kara and I branched off for our assignment and entered the labyrinth that is the Camden Market. It's like nothing I've ever seen in the best possible way. There are rows upon rows of vendors, selling everything from food to souvenirs to clothing.
The area used to be stables, so some parts of the market had wood floors and statues of horses. We wandered around the market for about an hour. I think we saw about half of the market; we found out after our wandering that there was another side of the market on the other side of the street! It was just so cool. I was able to buy a Union Jack sweater for half the price the vendor was asking for, which was awesome! It was bitterly cold and windy, and I didn't realize we would be essentially going shopping so I didn't bring money, so we all decided we're definitely coming back to Camden.
After we met back up with Jay to talk about our experience, we were given about an hour before we had to be at the Roundhouse, a venue about a ten minute walk from Camden. A group of us went to a pub right across from the Roundhouse and got a pint of cider. I've finally gone to a traditional English pub: wood floors, dim lighting, and a fire place roaring.
After finishing our pints, we headed over to the Roundhouse for Fuerzabruta. Let me just say, Tuesday was full of things I've never experienced in the best way possible. I don't even know how to even describe what Fuerzabruta is.Well, it's performance art. It was in Spanish (what little talking there was), and I don't really understand how any of what happened was connected. The show started with a group of people singing (yelling) in Spanish and beating drums. At one point a man was running on a treadmill and got "shot"; during this time, the audience had to keep shifting around to accommodate the treadmill. There were strobe lights and loud dubstep music throughout the show. My favorite part by far was when three girls were sliding around on a sheet of plastic with water on top inches from the audience. They ran around and slid and would even touch the hands of the audience beneath them. I also loved the audience participation in the show. The performers came into the audience a few times and danced with us. All in all, it was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.
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