Day 5

Well yesterday I had my first day of class, a Shakespeare tutorial with Dr. Elisabeth Dutton, an Oxford Don in Worcester College. The class system here is pretty different from ours. I only have two classes a week and they each only meet one hour. There are only 3 students per class though. So yesterday we had to cram in a whole week's worth of class in one hour, so every class period is pretty intense. Ours went pretty well though. Dr. Dutton has never taught American students over the summer like this, so it's sort of a new experience for her as well and I think she understands how different of an experience this is for everyone. We pretty much just talked about Titus Andronicus the entire hour, and I was pretty comfortable with the play and talking about it and everything, so I didn't think there were any instances where we couldn't adequately discuss the points Dr. Dutton brought up, so I think we were alright.

I heard some others weren't so lucky with their first tutorial. A few friends have said that their class was grilled pretty hard by their Don. Hopefully my next tutorial won't be like that.

Other than that, the yesterday was fairly uneventful during the day. We had a social at the UGA Center about 8 yesterday night though, hosted by the Terry College of Business students. It was pretty cool. It was sort of semi-formal and it was just like drinks and sandwiches in the garden behind the Center.

After that though, The Whigs were playing downtown. The Whigs are one of the biggest contemporary bands based out of Athens right now, so it was just a crazy coincidence that they were playing in Oxford while we're here. I had seen them on Letterman before, and I have one of their songs from an Athfest CD, but they're on tour a lot so they don't get to play in Athens a lot and I had never even seen them live before. So this was a pretty awesome thing that we all got to go see them and show some home town support. I don't think they knew we were all here so it was pretty cool. That, plus the show was amazing. Plus the show was free, even more amazing.

First we had to take a cab from the UGA Center to the Zodiac where they were playing. So first English cab ride (I'm sitting up front taking the picture). Our driver was pretty insane though. He didn't drive fast or weave in and out of traffic, but instead felt it was necessary to maintain a 4 inch following distance behind the cab in front of us, the entire way there. But between the four of us it was less than 2 pounds each for the ride, so not bad.

Then we finally got to the show and it was amazing. Unfortunately for you, my camera couldn't handle the dark-dry-ice-filled venue very well, so most of the pictures are pretty horrible. Believe it or not, these are actually some of the better pictures.




All the UGA people after the show. Kinda painful to look at it's so blurry.


After the show we all went down to the Purple Turtle. It's like a little dance club hidden in a pretty dodgy (that's what they say instead of sketchy) alley fairly close to Trinity College. I forgot to mention that in yesterday's post, but a group of us had also been there the night before with some local Oxonians we met, Ralph and Alexis (they were the ones that showed us how to find the place.) But that is where we suggested the guys of The Whigs to meet up with us after the show, and our fellow Georgians were awesome enough to come hang out with us for the rest of the night.

Chelsea, Brittany, Me, Tim Deaux--The Whigs' bass player, and Lauren
Tim was really cool, we talked to him for a little while and kindly suggested that they play in Athens more often. I also mentioned how I saw them on Letterman, so it was pretty cool to hear him describe that. He said it was one of the coolest and weirdest experiences of his life. Then he got a little antsy with talking and had to hit up the dance floor. He hit it pretty hard too haha.

And here's almost the whole gang at the Purple Turtle.


Oh, and here's The Whigs' myspace if anyone is interested in listening:
http://www.myspace.com/thewhigs


So that was yesterday. Probably won't update tomorrow since I'll be traveling to Tintern Abbey for my Romantic Lit excursion, and I don't think there will be much going on today anyway. Maybe some sort of small 4th celebration, and we're supposed to meet up with Ralph after dinner tonight. So I'll be back Sunday to recount Saturday. For now I'm off for tea time.