Routine

It's now week 4 of my second semester abroad. Life has slowly settled back into some semblance of routine--I go to class, run errands in town, pretend to do my homework, and so on. There is one significant difference: I have been doing something interesting every weekend so far. Liz came down, I went up to visit Allie in Sheffield, and I went to London. Next weekend, I'm going to Bath and Salisbury with my friend Whitney, currently studying in Lancaster.

Classes have been going well. I have much less work this semester, due to the lack of a third-year course. It's so nice! I'm taking Austen and the Brontes: Reading the Romance, Romanticism, and Norman and Plantagenet England. I've read everything we've looked at so far in my two lit classes before, which is also really nice. Not only do I get to take a bit of a break, but I don't have to pay such close attention to generic details and can get more specific. My Austen and the Brontes class is composed entirely of girls. This is strange to me. However, it doesn't make me any more comfortable participating in general class discussions. I love my instructor for Norman and Plantagenet England--he's constantly making really random statements that have only tenuous relations to the subject at hand. He doesn't seem to be a huge fan of undergrads, though.

Hopefully, in a few weeks, I'll get to go on a Host UK weekend. I've sent in my application, and I'm just ironing out the details before they process my application entirely. Host UK is a program where volunteers host international students for the weekend and show the students around their towns. I don't know yet where I'll go, but I'm really excited!

Other than that, I don't have much more to say. Hopefully, I'll put up accounts of the past few weekends soon, and I really need to get working on putting pictures up. I'm busier now than I ever have been before, and it's taking a toll on me. I barely get a chance to recover during the week before I'm gone again! So we'll see.