Ending the Program

We had a sort of goodbye ceremony last night for the end of the summer school program. There was champagne (I stuck with sparkling water), and there were many toasts to the professors, the students, the conference, and then back around to the students and the professors. We're all so glad to have been a part of something like this, and many of us agreed last night that it's the best course we've taken.
Andy and Anthony, our British professors, gave each of us a certificate of completion of the course, a little UCL graduate bear (which I'm calling the Anthony Bear), and a UCL pin (which I've put on the bear, so I won't lose it). It was such a nice thing for them to do, I think, and they really didn't need to. It just goes to show what kind and generous professors we had for this course.

Andy sang us a parody of an old English folk song called "The Bold Librarian." We were all laughing out loud through the whole song. I won't post the whole thing here, but I'll give you the first verse.

Oh, some, they like the sailor man
When he comes back to shore,
And some they like the beggar man
That begs from door to door,
And some, they like the soldier man
With his musket and his can,
But my delight can read and write,
He's the bold librarian.

I've made some great friends on this trip, and I sincerely hope we'll be able to stay a part of each other's lives. From left to right, we have Laura, me, Barbara, Monica, and Mia.

It's class picture time! On the top row, there's Diana, Tim, Dahlia (who grew up in Arizona!) David, Phil, Terrence, Sam, Becky, and Anthony. Sitting in the middle row is Monica, Denise, Renee, Barbara, Ilaria, Laura, and Tula Gianini, the dean of Pratt Institute's School of Information and Library Science. And sitting on the floor, there's Lucy, Mia, me, Nanci, and Luz. A great group, and I'm glad to know them all.

Loo of the Year

In case you didn't already know, "loo" is British slang for bathroom. Yesterday, I had the great honor of using the Loo of the Year, which is located at the British National Archives. They had a sign and everything. Ironically, one of the toilets in the Loo of the Year was out of order.

The government offices

I don't have any pictures for this post, because I wasn't allowed to take any while I was inside the Cabinet building. That's right, I was in the Cabinet building. I was only a short underground tunnel away from Tony Blair as he left 10 Downing Street to go resign as Britain's Prime Minister.

I also got to watch the changing of the guard from a window in the conference room right next door to the office of a junior minister. I've never been in such an important location in my life. It was fantastic!

Cambridge Day

On Tuesday, we took the coach (bus) to Cambridge for the day. I didn't take very many pictures, because I was preoccupied with being the coldest I've ever been in my life. But here are a few fun ones.

My first time in a real English pub! With me is my friend Laura and my professor Andy. The fish & chips made a really yummy lunch.

Here's the Cambridge University Library. It's not as pretty as the Bodleian, but then, few buildings are.

Here's the King's College chapel, which is one of the more famous buildings in Cambridge.

The British Library

The British Library is quite an interesting place. They've got some of the Beatles' early song manuscripts on display next to Handel's Messiah, which is quite interesting. They also had an exhibit called "Sacred," which is a display of very early Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts. I didn't have enough time to go to that one, but I may try to go back before I head home.

Here's the grand entryway. I quite like it.

This is my favorite piece of art in the library. It's a bench, and it's titled "Sitting on History."

You can't tell from the photograph, but this painting is actually done on a 3-D, oddly shaped surface. It's designed so that when you lean from one side to the other, the bookshelves turn. So very cool.

This is one of the largest books in the world. It's an atlas, and it's so old that California is depicted as an island. This book is actually available for use, so if anyone requests it, it takes three people to use. Two people hold the book open from either side and the third person turns the pages. The last person who used the book wanted to take photographs, so they had to build a special scaffold so he could get high enough above the book to get a shot of the whole page.

And here's the bust of King George III. Those books behind him are his personal collection. It's a tower that's about 30-40 feet square, and six stories high. Those books are available for use as well, so whenever anyone asks for one, a library assistant has to go inside the tower on an elevator to find it.

Such cool stuff!

Future Plans

On my way back from the Tower of London today, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next Saturday, before my flight home on Sunday. I've already seen the major historical sights I wanted to see, and I think I've had about all the museums I can stand for one trip, so I was at a loss to decide on what I should do. But as I was riding the escalator back up to the street level from the tube, I was looking at all the advertising posters they have hanging up for plays in the West End. That gave me my idea!

I came back to my room and started looking up shows on the Internet to see which ones were offering reasonable prices. As it happens, the best price was offered by my very favorite play, Wicked. The wireless Internet connection I'm using is unsecured, so I didn't want to order my ticket online, and the phone in my room can't make calls outside the building. So I gathered up my change, wrote down the number for Ticketmaster, and went down to the phone box on the corner. I ordered my ticket, which I'll pick up at the box office on Saturday, and came back upstairs to map out my route to the theatre. As it happens, the theatre is three tube stops away on the line I've used most often, and it's right across the street from the station. It should be an easy trip, and a great show!

The Tower of London

It was raining today, but I went to see the Tower of London anyway. My umbrella has become my new best friend, and I have to say, it's really not easy to walk on wet cobblestones.


This is the Tower Bridge, which I had to cross on my way from the tube station to the Tower. There was a museum in the bridge as well, but by the time I was finished with the tower I was too wet, cold, tired, and hungry to be interested in another museum.

I had intended to go to Sunday services at the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London, but two of the tube lines were closed for engineering this weekend, so I couldn't use the station nearest to my residence hall, or the one closest to the Tower. With all the extra walking, the crowds, the rain, and trying to find the chapel on those giant maps like the ones in the mall, services were nearly over by the time I got there. But I did get to go inside afterward and have a look around. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but trust me, it's beautiful.

This is the White Tower, which was used as the armory. There were suits of armor, cannon displays, and lots and lots of guns. The exhibit on horse armor was particularly interesting.

This is the Jewel Tower, my very favorite part. I saw the largest diamond in the world (531 carats) and several different versions of royal crests and crowns and scepters, as well as some very interesting jeweled swords. This was another place where I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but it was great fun all the same.

The Star Wars Museum!

Hands down, best museum I've ever been to. My friend Monica and I were walking across the Westminster Bridge on our way to the London Eye when we saw this banner: I've always been a big Star Wars fan, and so has Monica, so we followed the arrows and went in. It's truly an amazing exhibit. Everything on display has been specially chosen from the Lucasfilm archive, so we saw a lot of the actual props, costumes, and models that were used in making the movies.
This is a speeder-bike from my favorite sequence in Return of the Jedi. I really wanted to touch it, but I wasn't allowed.
And here's an Ewok. I love the ewoks, they're so cute!

I would have loved to take more pictures, but my camera batteries died just after we entered the museum.

One of my favorite parts of this exhibit was the concept art. Hanging on the walls of every corridor between the exhibition rooms were the original pages used in designing the look of Star Wars. There were paintings by Ralph McQuarrie, who designed the look of Darth Vader and C-3PO. There were sketches from the costume department. There were storyboards of various action sequences, with handwritten notes about what would take place during the scene.

Several times during the day, there's a performance called "Jedi School." The lights go down, the theme music plays, and like the opening of the Star Wars movies, there's a rolling explanation of where we are in the story. The premise of Jedi School is that The Emperor and Darth Vader have wiped out most of the Jedi, and two remaining Jedi have come to train young Padawans in the ways of the Force. Two actors in Jedi robes came out at that point twirling lightsabers, and they chose six little boys to go through Jedi training. They taught the boys some lightsaber moves, and then Darth Vader came in through the back doors. Each little boy got a turn to fight Vader, and then they all worked together to beat him. It was a funny little show, and the little boys were so cute learning how to use their lightsabers.

This was seriously my favorite museum ever, and well worth the price of admission!

Buckingham Palace and the other sights

Today is Saturday, so it seemed like a good day to go visit the Palace! It turns out I'm only two stops away on the underground, so the trip didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.

This is Green Park, where I got off the tube. It's right across the street from Buckingham Palace, and it's absolutley gorgeous.

Buckingham Palace, at last! The flag is flying, which means the Queen was there today. We arrived early enough in the morning that the crowds were pretty light, and we could move around fairly easily and take pictures.

Here's Big Ben. It doesn't actually lean like that, turns out I'm not so steady with a camera.

They have a statue of Abraham Lincoln out in front of Westminster Abbey. I'm not sure why, but Lincoln's one of my favorite historical people, so I was pretty excited to see him there.

Westminster Abbey is quite pretty, isn't it?

Explosion update

By popular demand, I've posted a picture of what the carpet in my dorm room looks like now that my hair dryer has exploded on it. The two little silverish circles are pieces of the heating coil from what used to be my hair dryer. They've completely melted into the carpet. I tried to pull them out, but it wouldn't work. I suppose they'll be here until the next time the school decides to replace the carpet. On a related note, when I started washing my hair Wednesday night, a chunk fell out, all burned and crunchy. Not a huge chunk, but enough to freak me out a little bit. Thankfully, it's the bottom layer of hair, closest to my neck, so you don't really notice that it's missing. The hair I have left in that area is still a little scorched, but I don't want to cut it or pull it out, because I'm afraid my head will look lopsided.

If you don't know what on earth I'm talking about, scroll down to my previous entry: Stop, Drop, and Roll.

Here's the carpet photo:

The London Zoo

I walked over to the London Zoo this afternoon, and I had a really great time wandering around. Here are some of the animals I saw.


This is the baby giraffe. He was out with his parents. Those doors behind him lead to a barn-like building where they can go inside if the weather gets bad.

Yes, that is a live animal sitting on the rail outside the cages. One of the tamarins got free somehow, and a zoo-keeper was trying to lure him back to his enclosure. There was a little one year old boy next to me who started waving at it saying, "Hi monkey!"

They have this incredible inflatable enclosure where they butterflies just roam around free. One landed on my shoulder, but I couldn't get the right angle to take a picture.

The poor camels had a very small enclosure, but they seemed to be enjoying their afternoon in the sprinkling rain.

Gorillas weigh 175 kilograms. I have no idea what that works out to in pounds. I weigh 78 kilograms, which makes a nice comparison, I think. I didn't get a picture of the gorilla, though. He was being shy.

The British Museum

One of the best things about where I'm staying in London is that it's within walking distance of practically everything. Yesterday my friend Monica and I walked over to the British Museum to have a look around, and we saw some pretty incredible stuff.
There I am, out in front of the museum. I love those columns.

These pots were in one of the Mesopotamian rooms. They were excavated from what used to be Judea. I can't remember when.

These are dice from a display of Greek toys. There were also marbles and jointed dolls.

Here I am next to the Rosetta Stone, which was carved in Egypt in 196 BC, and found in 1799.

There were a lot of other amazing things in the museum, but that darn photo restriction is getting in my way again!

Oxford

As promised, here are a few more pictures from my trip to Oxford. Sadly, there's a limit to how many pictures I can put in one post, so I'm just giving you a select few. If you want to see more later, let me know.

This is an old case that printers in the 16th and 17th centuries used to keep their letters in. Incidentally, the capital letters are kept in the "upper case" and the small letters are kept in the "lower case."

I got to try out the printing press! That thing is harder to use than it looks. Printers in the olden days must have had some pretty big muscles! (Check out the red spots on the back of my neck. Those are some of my hair-dryer-explosion burns.)

That's the original printing plate that was used to print a specially designed page of Alice in Wonderland.

This is the monument built to honor the martyrs who were killed during the Protestant Reformation.

And this is the outside of the old Bodleian Library at Oxford. It's been in use since the 16th century. I wish I could show you some of the very cool things inside, but I wasn't allowed to take my camera with me on the tour.

A Tolkien Day

I went to Oxford yesterday, and I had a really amazing time. Here are a few of my pictures, with some details. This is from the Oxford University Press Museum. It took 70 years to compile the entire Oxford English Dictionary. The last volume they completed was W, because they couldn't find anyone with the right expertise. The W volume was eventually done by J.R.R. Tolkien, because of his great knowledge as a linguist. This is a blow-up photocopy of a page of his work, in his own handwriting. Sorry it's a bit blurry, I was excited.

This is a letter Tolkien wrote explaining the evolution of the word "hobbit," including the other words he used to influence the language of Middle Earth.

This is a pub in Oxford called The Eagle and Child, sometimes also called The Bird and Baby. This is where Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis used to meet with their other author friends to discuss what they were working on.

I've got a load of other pictures (about 50) that I still want to post, but I haven't got time right now. Look for more later.

Stop, drop, and roll

I have stopped, dropped, and rolled for the first time in my life. My heart's just starting to slow down.

My hair dryer exploded this morning. The heat coil inside it blew into a hundred tiny pieces that landed all over me and the carpet of my room. There's nothing I can do about the carpet, it's just going to have little bits of metal embedded in it forever. I, on the other hand, have three cigarette sized burns on my neck and back, and a little bit of singed hair. It's not so comfortable, but I'll live. Ah, adventures!

I'm going to Oxford today, so there should be a few more pictures on here tonight or tomorrow.

An interesting tale

Yesterday was the first day of my summer program at University College London. One of the first things our professor had planned was a tour of the campus, including a visit to Jeremy Bentham. He died in 1832, and left quite a bit of money to UCL in his will on the condition that his body be preserved at kept at the University. They keep him in a cupboard just down the hall from the main library.

The head in this picture is a wax replica, since Jeremy's real head is kept in the school safe. Andy, one of our professors, told us that rival universities used to steal the head as a prank, so they locked it up. It's morbid, and it's creepy, but it's fascinating.

At night, they close the doors of his cupboard, presumably so he can get some sleep. We giggled a bit every time we walked past him yesterday.

Sometimes, the truth really is stranger than fiction!

The Calm Before the Storm

Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about my trip. I'm more than halfway packed, I have step by step directions for how to get from the airport to my dorm, courtesy of one of the organizers of the program (who, I have to say, has just become one of my favorite people in the whole world, because I was totally freaking out about that part of the expedition), and I've decided that no matter how much I worry, it's not going to change what I have to do, so I might as well just calm down. Best decision I've ever made.

I don't know why, but it still doesn't feel real. Of course, it was that way with China too. One day was "tra-la-la, I'm in my nice comfy regular world," and the next was, "Oh my word, I'm walking down the street in Shanghai! How on earth did that happen?" I'm guessing this will be the same way.

I still have a few things I need to do to be ready for this, but I think I'm in a pretty good place right now. The one thing I'll ask you to do is pray that I'll keep this calm I've got going. I know God's the one who provided me with it in the first place, so I'm just praying that He'll let me hold onto it for a while longer, say, until my return flight touches down at Sky Harbor.

Much Love,
~Beth

Under a week

We're under a week until D-Day--departure day, that is. I've got a million things still on my to-do list (that may be an exaggeration, but it certainly feels that way), and I'm running out of time to do it in. High on the list is to decide which suitcases I'm taking, and figure out how to fit everything I need into them.

This was much simpler when I was going to China as a college student, and I didn't feel any need to worry about my appearance. This is about making contacts in my career field, and I really don't want to do that looking like a rumpled girl with uncontrollable hair. So I have to pack all of my hair appliances (and adaptors so I can plug them into British plugs), makeup, contacts, downy spray to keep my clothes from getting wrinkled, shout wipes to keep me from looking like I'm too uncoordinated to get food from my fork to my mouth (which I am, but there's no reason for the big-wigs at Oxford to know that), and my pretty clothes. I'm discovering that it's more difficult to pack pretty clothes than jeans and t-shirts.

It's complicated, but I'm not too worried. I will figure this out, and I like to think I'm creative enough to come up with a solution if I get to London and figure out I've forgotten something. But as more days tick by, I can't help feeling a little nervous about the idea of getting off the plane in a foreign country and having to navigate the place on my own. Thank goodness there's not much of a language difference between here and England, so I can ask for help if I need it.

Okay, I'm going back to my list-making!

10 days and counting

In 10 days, I'll be boarding a plane to London. I still have so much to do, but I'm getting more excited every day. While I'm away, I'll be making posts to this blog, and putting up as many pictures as I can. So check in every once in a while, and see what I'm up to. Leave a comment, and I'll try to answer it.