Mom visiting and a lack of internet connection over the past week has made me fall extremeley far behind with these, so there is going to be a lot of backtracking. Hopefully I can remember most of what happened, and I did keep track in a notebook, so it shouldn't be too bad.
The first week of integral was like having regular classes at Elmhurst again, which was rather nice. Get up in the morning, have breakfast, play on Facebook for a little bit and then spend the rest of the morning listening to lectures and taking notes. Unfortunately we have the rest of the day to ourselves, and being me, so much free time has meant I have not been very productive and not done any of the extra work we are supposed to. Really need to get started on those readings, especially since the next few weeks are going to be busier (were, at this point, and yes, now I have a ton of backed up work and pressure. Woohoo procrastinatoin!).
As far as lectures go, I generally like them, but my feelings vary depending on the subject and the lecturer. For instance, there was one lady who was so scatterbrained that she was very difficult to follow, and she assumed we knew quite a bit about Renaissance art, which most of us did not, me included, as this was a subject that I really didn't care all that much for. Anyway, my notes from it are a mess, full of my comments, and after about 3/4 of a page I just wrote "I Quit" and stopped really paying attention, just stared at the pretty pictures. But then there was another lecture on Erasmus that I found fascinating, and I took over 3 pages of notes for that lecutre. It just depends on your interests, and then how the lecturer presents it. By the way, in a week and a half I burned through a new pen, to show how much I've been writing.
Wednesday was our 2nd field trip, this time to Hampton Court Palace. It was a massive and gourgeous building. It is hard to picture people actually living in such a place. There was beautiful architecture and some magnificent paintings. It was really cool. The stairs and hallways are massive, and what they deemed closets would really make my Dad jealous. And then it is difficult for me to comprehend that so many large rooms belonged to one person and they actually lived there. Not really sure I would want to. Again though, it was a little hard to picture exactly what the place would have been like in the Middle Ages, with so much meant for tourists and so many people milling about with cameras (myself included, of course). Still, a really cool place, and somehow I also managed to learn a few things about Henry VIII, the palace, and some of the other monarchs who had resided there.
Of course, one of my favorite parts of the palace was the gardens and grounds. There were so many, and so massive. They were gorgeous, with carefully cultivated landscaping in a huge expanse of green. And since it was so warm and sunny, we spent a good deal of our time outside just basking in the sun. When I learned it was snowing in Illinois at the same time later, it made it all the sweeter. I spent our time there with both Laurens, Brenna, Katie, Pilar, Claire, and for a while Jason and Shannon were with us a good deal of the time, though they eventually disappeared. We did the maze, which was supposed to be really famous. Took us like 2 minutes to reach the center, especially since we were running and chasing each other like little kids. Kind of found the center by accident. Then there are a lot of pictures of us outside. Overall, one of my favorite days in England.
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