See, I'm keeping up with American news... I thought I should at least mention the election today, since it is Super Tuesday. As of right now, Clinton has 241 delegates and Obama has 169. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
aaand back to me
I had my first cinema experience today. I told myself I wouldn't spend any money on films, but the mystery of "Cloverfield" drew me in. The cinema was interesting - there wasn't stadium seating, and the screen was much smaller than we're used to. That I could deal with. The thirty minutes of television commercials was what I had a problem with. They just kept going! Be happy, people of America, that you only have 15 minutes of movie trailers. The movie was awesome though, so it kind of made up for the ridiculous amount of adverts, as they say.
After that Amanda and I went to the Hampstead library to hear a lecture about a children's story character from 1908. Why, you ask? Because we had nothing better to do. We started talking about the character in my Brit Lit class, so Amanda and I decided to go with our prof to the lecture. I thought it was really kind of interesting - the speaker was a biographer of the author, so she was really knowledgeable about the subject. It would have been really cool if we had had any idea who the character was. Apparently it's a big thing here.
The library we went to was really small, probably about half the size of a small gymnasium, if that helps at all. The place was packed, though, with members of the library and fans of the stories. We were definitely the youngest in the crowd by a lot: nearly everyone was over 60. Looking around, I'm not sure it was obvious these people were actually British. They were just people... maybe a little better dressed (there were a few men with ties), but, for the most part, just people. There wasn't much diversity, which isn't really typical for London, but wasn't surprising considering the neighborhood we were in was a pretty upper-class area. Our prof told us it's where a lot of writers move once they make it big.
Here are a few observations that I remember, since I didn't have any paper or a pen to take my anthropological notes.
- Class is still a major issue. We've talked about it in my British Life and Culture class, but I didn't quite believe it. Today someone asked a question specifically about class relating to the readership of the newspaper; that's something I would never have even considered.
- French is much more integrated into the common language. During the author's speech, she used French phrases at least three times. I'm not sure if this is a common thing, but no one in the audience seemed phased.
- There is always a guy who thinks he's hilarious. This is true everywhere.
Cheers!
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