First Star Sighting

Danny Boyle
Academy Award Winning Director and Producer
Seen March 5, 2009 while shopping.

Thursday (Day 60): Found at the grocery store!

In the joy that followed the relative ease of our Macroeconomics exam, Tuche and I decided to head over to Oxford Street to do a little shopping at HMV. Although it’s a chain present throughout Europe, Oxford Street boasts the largest, and we were eager to do some browsing. We both made excellent purchases! I bought the Sense and Sensibility soundtrack since it was marked down, and reveled in the Alan Rickman picture featured on the insert! =)

Europe's Largest Music Store

Afterwards, we decided to run into the Marks and Spencer Food Hall to grab a quick bite to eat. As we sat at the bar, eating our sushi and reading about Gordon Brown’s trip to America in the newspaper, Tuche suddenly looked up and gasped. Before I had the chance to ask what had happened, he was whispering to me that Danny Boyle, the director that had won the Oscar two weeks earlier for Slumdog Millionaire, was in front of us looking at the juices.

Unfortunately I had left my camera on my bedside table, since I had just uploaded pictures from Krista’s birthday on to Facebook, but I was able to find a pen and rip out a page of my Jane Austen themed address book so Tuche could get an autograph.

It was a surreal experience -- forcing ourselves to approach Danny Boyle in the grocery store, but it was an experience we will never forget. After telling the story numerous times back at the flat, we turned in for the rest of the night to study for our Business Dynamics final. What a great day.

One Down - One to Go

Our strategy paid off. We're optimistic.

Week 9 - Almost Out of Time

Stress among some members of the Villanova contingent is now palpable. Perhaps some were just overwhelmed by the opportunity of being here. Others have been distracted and dulled by the night life. A few seem completely unaware that there are grades to be earned while involved in a STUDY Abroad program. Whatever the reason, procrastination has given way to panic.

One of the significant differences between our first semester at Villanova and second semester here is that there are significantly fewer graded assignments. And even in British Life and Culture, where there are several graded projects, all are due at the end of the term. So there has been very little feedback on our perfomance to date.

Although the papers requited are of manageable length, failing to pick a topic early, to engage the professor on your topic of choice and waiting til now to assemble resources does make the assignment much more intimidating.

We have two papers and two in-class exams due next week. We have been promised a review class before each exam and have been given practice tests. Members from flats 1 & 13 will join forces to prepare for the dreaded Macroeconomics exam, as well as the final for Business Dynamics.

As of this writing, I am in great shape with my journal project. I have one paper written and the second well underway. My greatest concern is in Macro. I suspect that some of the graphing required for the most difficult study questions would give an Economics major a tough time! The review in Business Dynamics will be critical since it has been so difficult to get a handle on what is important to our professor and what isn't.

The $64,000 question is: Who will press the panic button first?

Week 8 - Celebration Amidst Procrastination

Friday (Day 54): Happy Birthday, Krista!

As a short break, amidst the craziness leading up to finals week, the group got all dressed up to go out to dinner - in celebration of Krista's nineteenth bithday! We were so excited to go to Benihana, a restaurant much like the local Hibacchis at home in the US.

After having a great time dancing around the flat with Krista while getting ready to go out and giving her the pink fluffy Disney Princess crown I got her for the occasion, we met the rest of our friends in the lobby. A quick cab ride later, we were seated at our table. We ordered our food and waited for the show to begin.

We were all impressed by our chef who set the grill aflame - really AFLAME and chopped anything and everything at blinding speed.

The traditional shrimp "toss and catch" went better than I ever could have expected. For the first time, I successfully caught a piece of flying shrimp in my mouth. The girls completely dominated the event, since none of the guys caught their shrimp, while four of the girls did. The fun and games led to some absolutely delicious food! We were completely stuffed by the end of the meal, feeling as if we would need to be carted back to our flats! What a great way to celebrate Krista’s birthday!

Monday (Day 50) Procrastination Takes Its Toll

I have taken to passing Stress Reduction Kits out. Our mid week sightseeing plans have been cancelled in favor of catching up with papers, which are due next week, and trying to get a handle on what kind of preparation will be most effective for exams.

Let's hope everyone gets through next week.

Week 7 - When You Least Expect It

Friday (Day 47): Celebrating with a West End Mystery

Thursday proved to be a less than exciting day. After leaving Macroeconomics early because I wasn’t feeling well, I promptly walked back to my flat to discover that both Libby and I had caught Krista’s stomach flu.

Note to all study abroad participants: overpack on your favorite meds for such conditions.

I spent the day alternating between sleeping, watching House, and other unfortunate things that need to be done when one has the stomach flu. Meanwhile, prayer that I would be better by the next day was high on my list, since I had a ticket to see the play 39 Steps.

I had heard about the show back at home. It had done well on Broadway in New York and I was intrigued. The show is a comedic reproduction of the Alfred Hitchcock movie by the same name, with a cast of four playing over 150 characters. It has been getting great reviews on this side of the pond, and I was looking forward to seeing it. Fortunately, my stomach stabilized just in the nick of time to catch the tube to Piccadilly Circus to see the show.

I was glad my seat was in the fourth row so that I could better see the brilliance of the actors on stage. Some occasionally played three or four characters in the same scene, even having dialogue with themselves! The only downside was the voluminous amounts of stage fog, which drifted out into the first six or seven rows of the audience, causing some to cough, and all of us to smell like of a bizarre combination of maple syrup and smoke.

The show was absolutely hilarious, and I particularly enjoyed the way the actors interacted with the audience, something rare in today’s popular shows. By the end, it felt as if we knew the actors on a personal level. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and a great way to celebrate the return of my health! Now I just have get going on my school work!

Wednesday (Day 45): Our First Big Assignment

This morning’s class had us all a little nervous. It was our first day of group presentations - the first time since being here that we actually had to submit an assignment. The project was no walk in the park; we had to create a two person skit depicting a sales pitch between a seller and a consumer. It was up to us to pick a product or service to sell. We had to write a script to hand in along with an oral presentation, explaining the data on which our skit was constructed.

My group decided that I would be the owner of a West End theater, pitching my facilities to Krista, who was the writer-producer of a new production Pride and Prejudice: The Musical. (This is what actually takes place at CPT)

Unfortunately, Krista had come down with the stomach flu the night before, so Ajay stood in for her. We were the last group to “perform,” so the bar had already been set pretty high. Still, Ajay and I pulled out all the stops to make our presentation great. While our professor did find some things we could have included in addition to what we had done, on the whole we were pleased with our presentation. Hopefully our professor was as well!

Sunday (Day 42): Last Day of Peace and Quiet

I woke up this morning to go to my favorite sung Mass in Latin at the Rectory. I realized that it was my last day of quiet and freedom, before classes started again, and the comfortable silence and solitude of the weekend would be broken by the return of VU-GCPers who had traveled to Amsterdam and Spain.

When I got back to the flat I worked ahead on some class assignments and took some time out to watch one of my favorite Alan Rickman movies, before cooking dinner and going to sleep. I was awakened at 2 AM to the sound of Krista getting back in from Barcelona. I was immediately wide awake, so we discussed our adventures of the weekend.

I was shocked to hear that a member of our group had her passport stolen, but other than that, I was glad to hear that the group had a good time. I remembered the good times I had myself in Barcelona with the members of Chester County Voices Abroad during my second tour with the group. We looked at each other’s pictures and shared stories for a while longer, before finally going to sleep, ready to face yet another week of classes in London!