Birthday Surprises!

Note: I wrote this yesterday, but because i ran out of bandwidth...i had to post it at school this morning. SO lame.

Mhmm, it's very strange being home in the middle of the day. Today i decided to take my 2 1/2 hour break and go home. It's relaxing but i keep thinking i'm skipping class...even though i know i'm not!

Thought i'd take my spare time and finish up my little update. Monday wasn't too exciting. Twas busy as always! But when we got back from classes Sinead and I got dressed up and went to Ben's Thai (the one above the pub) and had a nice little dinner! It's such a great little place and it's SO GOOD. I'm so happy it's close by! We had lots of fun! It took us FOREVER to choose what to eat because everything is so good! But we finally did, and i got lemon cheese cake for dessert! yum yum!

Then Tuesday, aka the big bday! I can't believe i'm 20. Seriously, it's so strange. Anyway, so we had gotten this message monday night that said there was a mandatory meeting in the lounge after class (which was 12:45). We filed in and everyone seemed to think it was some serious meeting. We'd all been discussing it, and then Kate and Sabina walk in with mean faces...which immediately break into laughter and EVERYONE starts singing happy birthday as Aylia and Sienna walk in with this CAKE BOX! It was SO sweet! I was totally shocked!

The fun thing, is it's not just my birthday but also Kate and Ian's! We're ALL turning twenty! Crazy huh? So the cake was for the 3 of us! It was the sweetest gesture! I couldn't get over it <3 And the cake was beautiful! It's from the tart place we went to last week! Delicious!

Publish Post

yum yum!<3

The new 20 year olds!

Just some silliness!

Then we headed off to the British Museum because it's our cultural outing day! :D It was really interesting. I had most fun in Parthenon section, where they had lots of panels from the original Parthenon! There was SO much there! It's crazy, and it's all FREE! So i'm sure we'll go back, although this weekend i'd very much like to head over to the British Library!

The Rosetta Stone! (they also had a fake one you could touch!)

This is supposedly what inspired Keats to write "Ode to a Grecian Urn"

The Enlightenment Room

I just loved this, it's amazing the grace one can convey through stone...

It was all very beautiful. I mean, i'm not a HUGE historical museum person, but i really did love seeing all the statues. It's interesting to think that this museum has so many artifacts from all over the world!

Then Sinead and i headed out over to the south bank for some dinner before seeing Mother Courage at the Nation. We ended up meeting up with Aylia, Sienna and Geoff too! It was great fun and we ate at this lovely pizza place along the south bank.

At the Mother Courage theatre just getting out was a talk Michael Palin was having! HOW COOL! He was there signing his book! I really wante to get in line to meet him but mother courage was starting. SO LAME. But i did get a shot of him :D

This is really for Dad, i couldn't believe he was there. All i could think about was the dead parrot sketch. ;)

And then. Mother Courage. Oh dear.

Well...Lets just say that Richard left extremely upset at the interval, which was 2 hours and 10 minutes into the show. It was honestly, not great. I like moments, and i loved Swiss Cheese. But the music was TERRIBLE and you could hardly understand anyone. For me, because i've never seen mother courage...i think it was a different experience. I didn't really go in with high expectations so it was better than I thought it was going to be...and i mean it is mother courage--the story is brilliant. But, the production itself was just extremely disappointing. I couldn't believe how upset Richard was. The next day we had a discussion about it and he said It was one of the worst things he's ever seen...and thats saying alot since he's seen (not exaggerating) MILLIONS of plays. ;)

All in all it was a very lovely birthday :)

Happy Twednsday!

I love this picture. From one of my favorite blogs: Nicole Hill {A Little Sussy}

It makes me happy, but also makes me miss my polaroids. I still only have one left and i'm not sure what to do with it. I keep thinking maybe i should just get some more off ebay. But. We shall see.

Anyways, it's been a nice but busy week so far. Monday nothing too exciting. Long day, had fun at stage combat, which is such a wonderful class. Movement is honestly going to kill us all...although i know in the end i'm going to feel soooo good about all the crazy stuff i can do. It's just right now i'm just getting used to being sore all the time ;)

Tuesday was the fun day. As you know we moved Tarts to Wednesday (Twednesday if you will) so we didn't have that but it was still a very fun day. Tuesdays are cultural outings, and today we all went to Westminster Abbey together! It's such a huge and awe-inspiring place. There are so many people buried there, including Elizabeth the first to Charles Darwin to Charles Dickens. There was a plaque dedicated to Keats but he's not buried there. It made me wonder where he is indeed buried. I assume somewhere in ireland. I recently have become very interested in Keats, i bought a book of his poetry and letters. He's such a lovely author. Later i promise to gush about my new interest in him but back to Westminster.  Of course Michael Winter gave us the tour, he is so brilliant and seriously knows everything about anything. It was such a beautiful place, but i must say it is very strange to walk around and realize you're standing on someones grave stone. Also, if you know anything about Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre you may have heard of Ben Jonson. He's also buried there (Vertically because he couldn't afford anything else) and his name is in three different places. ALL spelled incorrectly (Johnson)! Anyway, we couldn't take pictures inside, but here is what i did get! :)

Ps. Ok, so i just looked it up, Keats is buried in Rome? Yeah. Good thing i'm going to Rome ;) Well, i guess it will be nice to see Rachel too! hehe.

The Abbey

Sinead, Clare, Caitlin

Just some silliness (Sinead, Anne, Aylia and Geoff)

We got special buttons :D

hehe, this may be the greatest photo ever. I love Michael's face :) Oh Steph!

Sinead and Me

You could dress up as a Monk. I smell halloween costume! ;)

After Westminster (I actually had to run back to LDA because i was dumb and left my Ticket) we saw All's Well That Ends Well at the National. We had a little bit of time before hand so we walked up the southbank. And honestly, i must tell you, (This is the same walk i made with Sarah this past weekend) it is just so beautiful. I loved it. I could just walk up and down and always find something new to look at. But eventually we got to the National.

It really wasn't good. Troiuls and Cressida had some critical moments, but i was at least engaged with the story. But with All's well, i actually found myself drifting off, looking at other things because they weren't captivating. I wasn't invested in the scenes. And that's NEVER happened to me at a theatrical production before. Almost every scene was like that. Their concept didn't work either. They tried to make it like a faerie tale...but...it's not at all...so it didn't work. The set was beautiful, but also didn't work. It was the perfect set for Hamlet, or a dark but...not Ends Well. Also, the lighting was so very dark. It was just not put together well. And it was also not played very well. The threw in so many gags because it felt like they didn't think the language could carry it. IT'S SHAKESPEARE. HELLO. And the audience obviously didn't get it because they would only laugh at the Physical Gags. But it was hard, you really had to work to understand the story. Very unlike As You Like It (which i'm seeing again with Aylia and Sienna tomorrow!!)

All in All, it wasn't great. Which is really too bad. I did love the guy who played the fool. He was nice. And the Countess was good, so was the king (sometimes). But helena took very strange pauses, especially in the beginning that made me think she had forgotten her lines. At least the second act was a little more engaging. But thats not saying much. One girl i over heard as i was leaving during the interim said the show had been "painful" to watch. Egads.

Today, wednesday, was a really good day for me. We had a masterclass with a Theatre Critic, which was very interesting. And then we had TWEDNESDAY! Sinead, Sienna and Aylia got the Apple tart and i got the raspberry! We went to this new place, but next week we're going back to the french place because it's just SO GOOD.

Raspberry!

Apple

Both were very good. I believe apple got an overal 8.3 and Raspberry (graded by me) got a 7. Only because in the center was this pudding that was so thick it was very difficult to finish. But the raspberries were lovely.

Then we had acting. We were suppose to find a picture, and create a character and background. From that, in today's class we would become that character and basically have everyone else in the class ask us questions as the character. It was very fun, but very scary. This is why. I chose this painting:

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So this was done in 1775, thus i had to play the character from that time period. I was just very nervous because, although i know a lot about that period (thanks Jane Austen) i don't know THAT MUCH. I did some research and obviously created a character but i was just really really really nervous about the whole thing (big surprise there). BUt it actually went really well.

I was so impressed with everyone today, and it was lots of fun. They were so natural, it felt like they were telling you about their own lives. Seriously, so impressed. It was a great exercise. And isn't that such a cute picture. I love it. I love that they are sneaking a little kiss

Anyway, I went last, (we still have three more to go next week) and my professor said some very nice things. But what made me happiest is that she was impressed by my accent. I was the only one to choose to play a character english, and she said aside from one or two odd words it was really good. Yay! I'm learning. She also said i did a lovely job and she said it was very good work. SO yay! But it was reallyf un once you fell into character. Everyone asked really helpful fun questions so it was really great. But honestly, everyone did such great job!. ;)

We had wanted to see a concert tonight, but it was rather a mess. It was a cancelled show. Lame lame. But at least i got to get some work done.

This weekend should be pretty eventful! Lots of shows to see! :)

Long post, but fun busy week! Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all so so much!

Cheers and Love, T