Richmond's Own (but unowned) Website

 
 
Today was pretty fun as well. We woke up early and went to breakfast – they didn’t have the chocolate rolls today! But on the other hand, the hot chocolate was pretty good. We had our academic induction, in our classroom, and meeting some of our academic professors and tutors. We went over the schedule and class assessments. After that, we had a library induction, where we learned about the library services and got our library/ID cards. The books at Roehampton are self checked in and out – it’s a pretty cool system! Also, the library was a lot larger than I had imagined it to be! One thing I’ve seen from the buildings that we’ve been in here so far, is that they have a lot of little narrow and winding hallways and staircases. It’s quite nice, and an interesting use of the space, though sometimes confusing to walk in! But I think it’s much more fun to walk through than buildings with a single hallway straight down the middle.

For lunch, I had the vegetarian option today, I forgot the name of the dish, but I believe Sophia said that it was Greek. It was alright – not quite what I expected, but it was pretty good. After lunch, we had a lesson on the online computer systems, moodle and mahara, so that we can use the blogs. I think from a technical end, moodle is very user friendly, and it has a much cleaner interface and better functionality than the blackboard service my school has in the US (from what I’ve seen – I know blackboard has a new version out, but I haven’t seen it yet).  We also were showed how to import videos from our Flip cameras, as well as use Windows Movie Maker. I know a lot of people tend to bag on Movie Maker (including me sometimes), but I enjoy it a lot – it’s sure a whole lot better than the new Live Movie Maker on Windows machines. It has much more functionality. And I edited this video on there too - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZbciyckDyk !

We came back and some of us started our reading for session 1 – Politics and Participation, reading about thoughts on the referendum, and statistics about UK political engagement. I read out in the hall by the couch with some other people which was nice, because we could discuss things as we went along. Sometimes I wish I roomed with people taking the same classes as me at school so that we could do the same thing – it’s a lot more fun to do reading that way! We also popped in to see Talah and Valarie to get some recommendations about places to go out to – both around here in Putney and Richmond, as well as out in London.

Picture
Dinner! And the mystery juice! (to be explained in another entry! - it's not bad, in fact it's pretty good - but a mystery nevertheless)
For dinner, there was a lot of food! There was a fried chicken with some sort of stuffing, or herbal spices inserted in, chips (though the lady said fries when we approached – I guess we’re easily identifiable as Americans. And there seem to be potatoes at every meal – staple food perhaps?), peas and carrots, pasta, and an apple crisp with custard (according to Brendan). We split up afterwards – part of the group went to Richmond (and had an exciting time navigating the bus system or so I hear), and I went with Brendan, Alexis, Tom, and Ahren to watch the play “Stags and Hens” – set in the ladies and mens room at a 70s dance club in England, which was quite an interesting play. It was interesting in some of the ideas about differences, class, and it was also funny. It was also interesting to see how certain choice words are pronounced differently! There were some jokes though, that I didn't understand, because I didn't know what the words they were saying meant! I enjoyed the second half more – I found it funnier, but that was probably also because I started getting used to the accents and was able to understand more of what the actors and actresses were saying! But it was good fun.

Picture
Tomorrow is going to be an early start – visiting the Houses of Parliament! I’ve done my reading on that, and now most people are going around trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow!

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.