Seven Times Seven--Day 49

As you may have surmised from the title, today marks my 49th day in London, which adds up to seven weeks in this beautiful city! In just three weeks' time, I will be making preparations to head home. I could not have asked for a better seven weeks. Anyway, nothing very exciting happened today. I started off the day by watching a broadcast of a talk given by Alton Brown, which is available to me through the National Society of Leadership and Success, which I am completing requirements for so that I can be inducted as an official member. A lot of the requirements are on-campus, so I can't complete them yet, but there are some things (like my orientation and possibly some speaker broadcasts) that I can complete while I am here. Even if the speaker broadcasts that I am able to access online don't count toward my membership, they are still highly useful because all of the speakers have talks centered around success and leadership, which are two things that I am very committed to as a student and a person. The broadcast was very funny, and it was a great way to begin the day.

Next on the docket (and I'm sorry if these little details are boring you) was reading an article on the Kray Twins for my British Politics class. They have a really fascinating story because they were identical twins involved in the world of crime and gangs, and they have achieved almost celebrity status in the annals of history. The article is particularly interesting because my professor co-authored it! The Kray Twins are his specific area of study. I always find it so cool to read something professional that my own professors have written--it makes me respect them so much more (which is actually saying a lot because I have a great deal of respect for the vast majority of my professors), and it gives me a little insight into their academic personalities and their personal interests and projects.

The afternoon was mostly consumed by attending History of London. I got my paper about the Great Fire of London back, and I earned an A-. which isn't half bad. I also found out that I got a B+ on my presentation. I'm not particularly satisfied with myself for that, but when I average the three grades that I have for that class so far (the test, the paper, and the presentation), I am still getting an A- in the class. Overall, that makes me pretty happy, especially considering that history has never been my strong suit, that we have not had much time to go over the material as in depth as I might like (which would help me learn it better), and that the subject of London's history is kind of a complex thing. In general, then, I'm not too worried about the class. I just have to do well on the final, and I'm all set! In class, we listened to more student presentations, then we watched a super interesting video about the Blitz. This video only solidified for me how much I enjoy learning about World War II (I really like the American Civil War, too). I wish we could have watched a longer video--this one was only 20 minutes long. I'll just have to look for stuff on my own and look forward to visiting the Imperial War Museum sometime next week.

Tomorrow I don't have much to do, so I might go explore Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, which I really haven't done yet. I'm looking forward to taking some beautiful pictures for you guys, especially since I've been a little lax in the picture department these past couple of days. Until tomorrow!