A weekend of talks and music. And blanket forts.

Conference weekend:  random stuff happening.

For starters, I woke up to discover that the center had been covered in yarn that was all stringing to the parlour--we pretty much had a spider's web going on.  And in said parlour--all the furniture and one or two other things had been turned into a rather large blanket fort.  More yarn all over the room, small toys everywhere, and poems about childhood.  It was an installation project from some of the girls to remind us to play, and to remember childhood, basically.

We also got an awesome breakfast.  When you consider that breakfast every day is cold cereal, yogurt, juice, and toast, having a hot breakfast is quite a treat.  We had pancakes, English bacon, scrambled eggs, and potatoes.  Delicious stuff.  I like hot breakfasts and hadn't had pancakes in a while and missed them.

That evening, we went to a classical music concert.  Can't remember where at present; I'll get back to you on that one.  Conference was scheduled to start at 5, I believe, but we were leaving for the concert at about 5:30 or so.  (I did find out before leaving that the Provo Tabernacle was being rebuilt and was very excited to hear that--jumping up and down excited.)  The concert was very nice.  I believe it was the royal orchestra--again, I'll get back with the details later, hopefully.  The concert hall was pretty cool, also--there were funny square balconies sticking out on the sides.  We weren't in those, we were in the center at about mid-back.  I still think I like being closer to the music.

That finished, and several of us went out to the other end of town where Emily Brown had gotten a chance to play at a local venue--we were in what one of the girls called "the indie part of town."  First gig like that I've ever been to.  It was fun; there were about 10 or so of us and probably another 10 to 15 people in the room, and we all liked Emily's music quite a bit.  See also:  http://thisgoeswithus.com/music.php .  She's also got music on Spotify, if you use that.

Got back and tried to listen to some conference but I was tired and drifted off about an hour into the first session, so I gave up and went to sleep, then listened the next morning.  That meant that with another 4 hours in the evening up in the classroom, I got 6-7 hours of conference in in one day.  That's kind of a lot.  We had conference streamed to a laptop connected to the big-screen TV in the classroom, and it worked very well except for the not-so-infrequent pauses which could get frustrating.  (We also got cookies/biscuits and milk between sessions, which was rather fun.  Big, chewy cookies which I haven't seen a lot of around here.  Tasty.)  I thought it was kind of amusing that last conference was "Get married!"  and this one is "Have kids!"  Good stuff, though--I always like conference.

There's a sketch of the weekend.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Don't know about the world, but the Globe--yeah, that's a stage.

After classes ended the next day, Friday, we were sent to Borough Market for lunch.  Never been to/heard of Borough Market?  Let me tell you something.  FOOD PARADISE.  Seriously.  They've got breads, rolls, tarts, all sorts of baked goods, sweets, nuts, an abundance of fruits and vegetables, food from all over the world, meats, cheeses, oils and vinegars, chutneys, dips and sauces--you get the general idea.  It was overwhelming.  People everywhere, of course, but hey, great food!  And there are quite a few samples.  I picked up some seafood paella, which is some of the best stuff I've eaten in a good while, added a pippin apple to that, and a bit of Belgian chocolate tart to round it all off.  May I just say...yum.  Incredible.  The paella was from a curry stand where they also had a seafood curry and another dish that wasn't familiar cooking beside the paella in three huge metal pans over some burners.  I didn't go to/see the exotic meat section, but some people apparently got some (either zebra or ostrich) burgers there.

Deliciousness obtained, it was a quick jaunt by the Thames to the Globe Theatre.  This is, of course, the re-built theatre, and on the far side of the river from its original location.  All the same, though...I was at the GLOBE THEATRE watching a performance of Much Ado About Nothing!  

We showed our tickets to get in the gate, then they checked them again before letting us in the theatre.  We were groundlings, of course, and what better seats in the house?  The stage came up to just below my chin--yes, I was in the front row.  Well, to be perfectly honest, I was in the first-and-a-half and then squeezed between my friends to be up next to it.  Incredible play.  Wow.  Memorable things: 

Claudio (on learning they'd be staying and he'd be able to see Hero):  *throws both arms in the air* YES!  *Arms back down, looks slightly embarrassed*  (Repeated/imitated/mocked several times throughout the play and by us after.)

Benedick and Beatrice fighting--they got some real zingers off on each other, and the reactions of the actors were superb

Before the play started, some musicians came out to entertain us and the oboe player and the...I don't know what it was called, but it had a tuba pitch and was shaped like two stacked S's--anyway, the two of them had a bit of a showing-off competition, which they also kept up a good bit

Who can forget the two hecklers hearing professions of the other's love from their friends?  Benedick was in the orchard, waiting for a servant to bring him his book, and on overhearing something of the conversation, picked up a rake and a straw hat to inconspicuously draw nearer, darted around pillars, and eventually ended up in a tree (pillar in costume) and was still there when the gardeners took the ladder away, dangling halfway out of the tree holding a pulley.  Beatrice was told the two in the garden hanging laundry were talking about her, and they pretended not to notice as their sheet moved up and down the line following them.  Or avoiding, as necessary.  And both of them utterly astonished, and suddenly full of passion for each other as opposed to against.  (Oh, and after Benedick managed to get out of the tree, and told the audience what a wonderful thing love is and how he'd never scorn Beatrice again, she came out to fetch him to dinner, rang a bell excessively in his ear and said "I am sent to tell you to come eat or there won't be any."  He responded in a somewhat sweet manner which earned him an odd look as she left somewhat hurriedly, and he said "Look how she tries to hide it!  Ah, alas for the poor maid" or something along those lines.  [Hey, I don't have the text and I'm not looking it up for you.  You can do that yourself.])

Along the same lines, they seized papers of the other's affection at the end after they'd quarreled again, ran after each other trying to get them back, finally shoved the fact that they had the papers in each other's faces, read them on opposite sides of the stage, laughed at the writing, then finally looked up with puppy-dog eyes at each other.  Good times, good times.

The rest of the staging was excellent, as well.  They did make use of walking through the audience, notably as Hero came to get married and they threw small circles of paper from the top balcony that drifted down for a good while.  Also, Beatrice spoke of love to two of my friends because they happened to be front and center.  And called one of the guys nearby either ugly or fat, I don't remember which.  

Overall, I give the experience 5 of 5 stars.  Highly recommended.

Oh, forgive me, I forgot to tell of Dogberry the constable whose every misspoken sentence, malaprop, and comedic flub was accompanied by a strange pause of speech accompanied by a ridiculous motion.  His friend the very tall fellow was very fond of his lantern and both of them vied for the bigger lamp.  The clown and comedic relief in a comedy.  

Uni-ception

The day after St. Paul's saw us boarding a coach and shipping to Cambridge.  First thing we did on arrival was get lost.  Okay, we were supposed to go to one punting push-off and ended up at the wrong one.

Having hiked across Cambridge to the proper place, we got on our punts.  They're square-bottomed gondolas and the puntier (I mean, it is a gondolier, so it makes sense) stands on the back and pushes with a pole.  Our puntier was David (there are so many Davids in the world, although I may be prejudiced towards one; namely my dad) who was a history major from a different university and punting as a summer job.  As such, he was well prepared to tell us the history of various places.  For example, the Bridge of Sighs (see?  We were in Venice!), or rather, one of the four.  The original one in Venice was copied in Cambridge, Oxford, and...guess where!  Las Vegas!  (Go figure.)  Or the chapel in Kings College, which was built slowly as construction was interrupted by lack of money due to the War of the Roses.  It was also amusing to hear him tell us "This is the new part of the university.  It was built in [don't know precise year but it was early 1800s]."  Yeaaah...our school wasn't founded yet...  Not the newest buildings, I'll grant, but I guess it was the newest college.  The first woman's college was in Cambridge, also--one of the rich nobility folks decided she wanted an education and since that generally wasn't done, she bought one.  Bought a college, had personal professors, all that good stuff.  Of course, with a student body of 18,396 and a student-faculty ratio of 6:1 with no more than 15 people per class, it wasn't so extraordinarily different from modern Cambridge.  The punting tour was wonderful (although I felt kind of bad for David when all the BYU girls in two boats started asking him about his dating life, including why he hadn't proposed yet...poor guy) and I think having a university on a river is kind of an excellent idea.

From there we went to the Fitzwilliam art museum.  It was a smaller museum than we've been going to but it was still quite nice.  They had a lot of pottery, some glass, Italian and Dutch Ren galleries, and...I may have spent most of my time in the armory... But they had swords and armor and swords and all sorts of cool stuff!  And swords.  Apparently, there were a few centuries where the making of artificial limbs was relegated to blacksmiths and other armor makers because they'd had the experience with reticulated limb-shaped pieces of metal.  The example in the museum had an arm with a button on the palm area which, when pushed, closed the fingers around whatever was in the hand.  Oh, also, some people got kicked out/not let in because the museum staff was shocked at the number of people coming in and decided they weren't letting the group in anymore--the curates apparently got peeved on learning this, but we now caution people about going places in large groups so people don't "pull a Cambridge" on us.

After that, we were released to wander.  I did my group-hopping number, following one group until I couldn't/didn't want to/they started spending money (I was in one of my NOT SPENDING ANYTHING days that day--rather, I'd brought 10 pounds and used it for a cd of the Kings College Choir because we didn't get to hear their Evensong and besides I wanted a cd of theirs) so I wandered around Kings College, down the street for a while, helped a lady (Lili from New York) unload her books, that kind of stuff.  Also, there's a store there that sells ice cream that they make there--I've heard good things about the flavor and got a sample of the blood orange sorbet that was pretty much amazing.

That's about that; again, ask questions and more information will be dispensed.  But no one asks questions, so I don't know why I say this.

Stupid Pigeons--they can find their own food

I reference, of course, this movie.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic  Which, I'm sure, leads you to understand exactly where we went on our next walks class.  St. Paul's!  Yay!  We got the guided tour--we started in a side chapel where we saw the coats of arms of the members of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, then went through the nave and saw the incredible work they'd done.  Christopher Wren was the chief architect after the original burned down in the Fire.  He'd wanted to make a classical cathedral, but the city officials wanted it Gothic, so he was trying to make compromises to them until he ended up with an ugly combination of both that they accepted and told him he could "make any modifications he deemed necessary" at which point he ceased keeping notes on paper, kept the whole thing hidden, and when he finally unveiled it, the officials found something nothing like the Gothic cathedral they'd wanted--especially not that dome up top.  And Wren got the last laugh.  Or so he thought; the Victorians redid the front section.  When you see mosaics from St. Paul's, that's all the Victorian's doing.  Further down, a good bit of it got destroyed during the bombing when a nice little shell dropped straight through the ceiling and managed by a miracle or several to not hurt anyone, but that part was redone again, and there's a memorial at the end to the American servicemen who died in the UK--there are 3 stained-glass windows with the state seals on them, and in the carvings you can find homages to the air force, the army, and one fish for the military and even a rocket (hidden in a classical-looking carving very cunningly).  We sat in the seats in the quire as we looked at the mosaics and our guide told us about the large organ they have--I forgot the number, but there were several thousand.  We kind of had a "we're happy for you" reaction to that, thinking of the Tabernacle Organ of 11,623 pipes.  It was fun, though, to hear about the new trumpets that had been put in and were played as the queen was entering and startled her so much she almost fell down, so now they are only played after she sits down.  We also went down to the crypts where they've buried tons of people.  (Wow!  Really?  Yeah, really!)  Okay, so they're important people.  Like Caldecott, and quite several famous authors, as well as Nelson and I believe Wellington.  (I love it when I remember things right.)

After we finished admiring the dead guys, we went on quite a hike.  Up to the Whispering Gallery, up long winding shallow and suddenly narrower and steeper spiral stairs.  Quite a place, quite a view.  And I didn't hear anyone whispering anything particular, because there were quite a few people and quite a few of them were talking.  From there, up more stairs and steeper to the Stone Gallery, on the outside at the base of the dome visible from the outside, which is quite high up there, I must say.  Up again, on ridiculously steep mostly steel spiral staircase along the inner dome to the Golden Gallery which is waaaay up top and throat-clenchingly high.  And not very big.  I think that's the staircase that's pretty difficult to go up if you're a few inches taller or broader-shouldered than I am, especially both at once because the doors get very very narrow and short.

Lunch was at the base of the tower.  Have I mentioned before how extremely bold the pigeons are around here?  I've seen them fly on to people to get at food.  Well, I found out that the squirrels are no better.  One of them was wandering between us trying to get food.  It put its paw on one girl's leg and jumped on my lap for a second.  Yeah, brazen as brass.

After that we took a quick wander around town and found our way back to the center.

Skipping and Snogging.

So...the Wednesday after returning from the trip, we were going to Kew Gardens.  It's huge.  Really huge.  It's on the outer part of London, and it's big partly due to the mere fact that it's got some specimen of 1/8th of the plants in the world.  Plants, seeds, dried specimens, you name it.  There's a seed bank there, some lily gardens and other habitat kind of areas.  Someone said it was like a zoo for plants.  But this is all hearsay.

Because I never made it in.

See, I left around the middle of people leaving but for no particularly good reason, I ended up going out on my own.  I knew where to go, but there was a long line for one station, so I went to the next, got a train to Central, tried to get the train I wanted, switched, missed a train, switched again, got stuck, and got to the garden entrance about half an hour after the time they were giving people to get there.  ...yeah...  So I went to Portobello Road instead and found myself with a pocket watch.  I wouldn't say it's a good trade, but I do like the watch.  But I'd been planning on getting one anyway, so basically it just ended up being disappointing.

Anyway, on to the snogging, because I'm sure you all want to know about it if you don't already.  On the following Monday, a few of us who didn't have FHE groups that day got together to go Snogging.  In other words, we went to get frozen yogurt at a place called Snog.  They have fun with the name.  The yogurt is sugar free, fat free, etc, and sweetened with acai.  They have vanilla/plain, chocolate, green tea, and guava (?), which you can top with a variety of fruits, nuts, and free-trade chocolate.  My opinion--if you like the slightly-sour taste of yogurt (yoghurt?), you'll like Snog, but if you don't, don't try it.  I thought it was pretty good.  I got chocolate, of course, with some raspberries and chocolate bits.  They also had some funny pictures on the walls, and we had a great evening.

That's that story, and it's fun times.

Hodge Podge Mishmash Stuffness

So, I'm catching up and I will just go ahead and say now that unless something happened, I'm going to skip detailing most of my days.  If I don't talk about 'em, here's what's going on--Monday and Thursdays are English classes; we're dashing through English literary history at a breakneck pace, then there's an hour break while the 218 class goes before my 317 essay class--we're writing essays.  There's some entertaining prompts, I'll say that.  Tuesdays and Fridays are art.  My class is the 101 Intro to Drawing.  We've done blind and normal contour drawings, negative space, value, and composition exercises, mostly made up of styrofoam boxes and styrofoam cups.  Might be getting a bit dull...  Don't get me wrong, I love drawing, but I'm tired of sketching the same things, or just sketching.  But it is good to be able to have museums around where we go on occasion.  Wednesdays are Walks classes, so I'll have something to say about most Wednesdays.  After classes, we have free time.  So plenty of time to explore, which I should take advantage of more often.

Saturdays and Sundays are good days, too.  Saturdays are completely ours (normally) which normally means sleeping in, because breakfast isn't at 7:30 but whenever we get our own.  Sundays--I try to make breakfast but don't always.  Our group of 4 leaves for church at 8:30, 8:45, and take the Central line on the Tube from Queensway, switch to the Victoria for one jump, then to the Northern line for a while, hop off, grab a bus and take it to church, and arrive just on time at 10:00.  Sacrament meeting is first, which I honestly prefer, and the ward is great--small, but great.  They just called the second councilor, finishing the bishopric switch.  The new councilor has four kids who are all smart, great kids.  And make up a third or a quarter of the primary, depending on the day.  There's about 5, 10 minutes of break before Sunday School starts, in the chapel.  It's an interesting room, really--the biggest in the church, with the stand behind a curtain and the pews on wheels so they can be easily rolled to the side, which we did for the munch and mingle/break the fast a few Sundays back.  Our Sunday School teacher is great.  He really prepares, you can tell, and combines the history of the lesson, the doctrine involved, and relates it to our lives and to other scriptures.  If I teach again, I hope I can do that rather than my hurried preparation of freshman year.  I leave a little bit early to get to the primary room just before the kids gather for sharing time, and hopefully have time to run through a song or two before they get there.  They consider it a large primary with 12 or 13, and I'm used to having three or four times that, so it's kind of odd for me.  They have quite the mix, though--loud, energetic, knowledgeable, goofy, quiet, obedient, stubborn, they've got the gambit.  It's still kind of rough playing, because I still don't know the songs too well and I am still very, very rusty at playing, but they don't always follow the piano, so it works out somewhere, I think.  It's hardest when the teacher decides to have the song speed up in the middle... *fingers fly off hand as brain splits while trying to keep up* 

On our off days, or even during down time, one thing people like doing is finding and playing a movie.  In fact, there have been days where there were at least 3 movies on at once, and it's kind of fun to movie-skip.  Then again, movies in the servery have a tendency to be drowned out easily when anyone starts talking and some people like talking during movies, so the servery is not ideal.  (Actually, at present, Despicable Me is on in the Servery and some people are watching the long version of Pride and Prejudice right on the other side of the dining room.)

That's my mismatch of info.  Again, questions and comments welcome!

Unto This Post

The namesake of this post, Unto This Last, is a book written by a fellow named John Ruskin.  Guess whose house we visited the next day.

Ruskin was a contemporary of Adam Smith, I think...in any case, Unto This Last was a response to the Invisible Hand idea.  His thought was this:  Adam Smith and others of that ilk said that they should eliminate inconstants and determine the formula of market theory--you know the Invisible Hand principle, so you get the idea.  But, said Ruskin, that's like coming to understand pure nitrogen and deciding it's stable, but having to deal in practice with chloride.  "And this, the moment we touch it on our established principles, sends us and our apparatus through the ceiling."  His chloride, here, is the human soul.  Basically, Ruskin argued for the soul and for the worth of man.  Which was, of course, dismissed as "twaddle" at the time but eventually took hold.

Ruskin was a renaissance man.  He drew, painted, was an accomplished scientist and naturalist, wrote, became a renowned art critic, read, and more. There was a xylophone modeled on one he'd made that was made of different stones, using their natural stones.  It was really rather impressive.  They'd made a smaller one hooked to a digitalizer for the entertainment of all, called the iRock.  I may have spent a good while entertaining myself with that.

Ruskin had larger gardens, even, than Wordsworth, but I was fascinated by the house (and it was raining and my shoes were my less durable pair) so I stayed indoors.  They also had a piano open for guests and some of our extremely talented members played some music.  Beautiful music.  I could have stayed and listened for hours, many more than we spent.  Probably longer than they would have wanted to play, really...

Another note about the Lake District (where we still were, just a slightly different part)--there are blackberry bushes all over.  So if you read Peter Rabbit about Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail going to pick blackberries, it's hardly a surprise.

Overall, I'd say you should look up Ruskin.  He was a neat guy.

We arrived back at the centre that evening and I realized that I've forgotten to tell you about another thing in Ambleside.  At about the most inconvenient time possible--I was about to fall asleep--the fire alarm went off. Some of us trudged reluctantly outside.  Yeah, there's a possibility that the building is burning down and we go stand right next to it, moving slowly and worrying about our stuff.  Yup.  Safe, eh?  Well, turns out it was a malfunction.  As was the next time it went off.  And the next.  And the last that I didn't hear, and our poor hostel manager didn't get to sleep until 3 trying to fix it.  And the day we got home, or rather 2 in the morning the next day, the alarm went off in the London Centre.  So we milled about and fewer of us left than before, and that went off again at 7.  Yay, fire alarms.  I think there was a poltergeist.  But that's me.