And if you're reading this, my guess is you did too!
In 5 days I will be leaving London and returning to the United States. I am so excited to get home. A year is a very long time. In the meantime, though, I have 5 days to finish studying, take my London in Literature exam, and pack everything up into 2 suitcases and a carry-on, and make sure that neither suitcase weighs more than 50 pounds. I'll also be donating everything that doesn't fit into the suitcases or that I don't want to keep.
It's been a very long year and I'm so excited to get back to the United States (and especially to my beloved New Orleans!). I am now able to read Chaucer in the original middle English and analyze it, although I'm not sure why you'd ever want to do that. I also know my way around a pretty good portion of London and apparently look British enough for people to stop me and ask for directions All.The.Time. Seriously, when Jerome visited, he said it was like I had "tour guide" written on my forehead. I got to travel and see Copenhagen, Prague, Paris (twice!), Edinburgh, and Berlin. Oh, and I can communicate with Parisians in French!
Not much left to do here. I'll be eating last meals at a couple of my favorite places and on Thursday, I'm picking up some macarons from La Duree for my flight back to Chicago. Yes, I'm going to eat macarons on my flight. It's an 8 hour flight, I deserve some awesome sugary-ness :).
If anything particularly interesting happens, I'll update, but as of now, you can consider this my last post on the blog. 5 days until Chicago and 24 days until I head to NOLA!
Love,
Princess Emily <3
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Halfway There
I am officially halfway done with my exams. Exactly two weeks until my last exam, 15 days until I leave for Chicago, and 34 days until I'm back in New Orleans (and staying there for the foreseeable future!). Today was the 6-hour Chaucer exam. Yes, you heard that right. 6. Hours. Long. On the plus side, though, if you had told me a year ago that I would be able to analyze Chaucer in the original middle English, I never would have believed you. Granted, I still couldn't tell you WHY I would ever want to be able to do that, but that's not really the point now, is it?
So, here is just a sample of what I spent the last 6 hours doing. I kept the camera pretty far away since I wasn't sure if I'm allowed to put the exam online yet.
Just two exams left. I have Modern English Language in the morning, which means that as soon as I am done taking a break/eating dinner, I need to get back to studying. Hopefully, my brain will have resumed functioning by that point. And then, I have two weeks until my last exam, London in Literature. For now, though, I am going to wander around online and not think for a little bit :)
In other news, I finally managed to go on a Jack the Ripper tour last weekend! I've been attempting to go on one all year, and things kept getting in the way, but I finally made it happen. And it was pretty awesome. It was so cool to be in the same places where all of it happened. Yes, I know that's a little morbid, but I can't help being fascinated by it.
Alright, my brief period of functioning has just ended. I cannot think of anything else to write, so I'm just going to stop here. Have a great afternoon/night/whatever time of day it is where you are when you're reading this. I'm going to go read about pretty dresses and makeup and anything that doesn't require brainpower.
Emily
So, here is just a sample of what I spent the last 6 hours doing. I kept the camera pretty far away since I wasn't sure if I'm allowed to put the exam online yet.
Just two exams left. I have Modern English Language in the morning, which means that as soon as I am done taking a break/eating dinner, I need to get back to studying. Hopefully, my brain will have resumed functioning by that point. And then, I have two weeks until my last exam, London in Literature. For now, though, I am going to wander around online and not think for a little bit :)
In other news, I finally managed to go on a Jack the Ripper tour last weekend! I've been attempting to go on one all year, and things kept getting in the way, but I finally made it happen. And it was pretty awesome. It was so cool to be in the same places where all of it happened. Yes, I know that's a little morbid, but I can't help being fascinated by it.
Alright, my brief period of functioning has just ended. I cannot think of anything else to write, so I'm just going to stop here. Have a great afternoon/night/whatever time of day it is where you are when you're reading this. I'm going to go read about pretty dresses and makeup and anything that doesn't require brainpower.
Emily
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Some good news!
First up, I am now a member not only of the class of 2012, but also of the class of 2013! I have been accepted to the 4+1 Masters program in English at the best university ever, my beloved Tulane :) It's a little crazy to think about, as I don't feel like I'm old enough to be getting an M.A., but I'm so excited and I get to spend another year studying literature at Tulane, and graduate two years in a row lol.
In other news, I finished my first final exam here in the UK. One thing that is annoying is that you can't just leave when you're finished, the way you do in the United States. Instead, they make you stay for the entire three hour exam period, and then collect all the exams exactly at one and THEN you can leave. I've always been really fast as taking exams, and so it's really annoying to me to sit there and wait for the exam period to actually end before I can go. Oh well, there's only a few more. Chaucer is going to be death, though, seeing as they're doing it the same way and that's a 6 hour exam.
My first exam was Modern Period I, which meant I got to write all on authors I'm obsessed with: Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wrote about forms of pleasure in Wilde's work, complex interrelations of everyday life for Woolf, and the way that narrators perform character analysis in Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I'm pretty happy with my essays, but I have no idea how hard they grade here, so we'll see. I can only hope for the best. But I've already been accepted to grad school, so my future plans are set anyway, which is awesome :)
Next exam is on Thursday, and it's the evil 6-hour Chaucer exam. Then on Friday, I have Modern English Language, and then a two week break to study for my last exam, London in Literature on the 26th.
Wish me luck!
Emily
In other news, I finished my first final exam here in the UK. One thing that is annoying is that you can't just leave when you're finished, the way you do in the United States. Instead, they make you stay for the entire three hour exam period, and then collect all the exams exactly at one and THEN you can leave. I've always been really fast as taking exams, and so it's really annoying to me to sit there and wait for the exam period to actually end before I can go. Oh well, there's only a few more. Chaucer is going to be death, though, seeing as they're doing it the same way and that's a 6 hour exam.
My first exam was Modern Period I, which meant I got to write all on authors I'm obsessed with: Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wrote about forms of pleasure in Wilde's work, complex interrelations of everyday life for Woolf, and the way that narrators perform character analysis in Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I'm pretty happy with my essays, but I have no idea how hard they grade here, so we'll see. I can only hope for the best. But I've already been accepted to grad school, so my future plans are set anyway, which is awesome :)
Next exam is on Thursday, and it's the evil 6-hour Chaucer exam. Then on Friday, I have Modern English Language, and then a two week break to study for my last exam, London in Literature on the 26th.
Wish me luck!
Emily
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
A Future Trip
"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I woudl lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life." --Basil Hallward (The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde)
Oscar Wilde is always good for a little inspiration :) Someday, I want to follow Basil's advice, and take a trip without telling anyone where I'm going (of course, I'll tell someone where I am, just for safety reasons, but other than that, it'll be a secret). That would be such an interesting sensation to be somewhere, and yet no one else knows where you are.
I have a few places on my list (all US locations), but revealing those would ruin the whole fun, wouldn't it? And so I'll return to studying. It's Virginia Woolf today, and I've become slightly obsessed with her since getting here, so a whole day devoted to her is pretty exciting :) But before I go, I'll just leave you with a travel-themed poster that I've fallen in love with recently. Have a great week!
Oscar Wilde is always good for a little inspiration :) Someday, I want to follow Basil's advice, and take a trip without telling anyone where I'm going (of course, I'll tell someone where I am, just for safety reasons, but other than that, it'll be a secret). That would be such an interesting sensation to be somewhere, and yet no one else knows where you are.
I have a few places on my list (all US locations), but revealing those would ruin the whole fun, wouldn't it? And so I'll return to studying. It's Virginia Woolf today, and I've become slightly obsessed with her since getting here, so a whole day devoted to her is pretty exciting :) But before I go, I'll just leave you with a travel-themed poster that I've fallen in love with recently. Have a great week!
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