And the weeks fly by

My semester in the UK is almost over, and my one regret is that my British accent is still as bad as ever.  Oh well.

As my departure date gets closer and closer, I try to fit more and more British activities into my schedule such as...

...performing in an almost entirely improvised dance piece

...going to see Billy Elliot

...and eating Sheperd's pie.

This week, my fellow course-mates and I put on the dance festival that we'd been working on all term.  My group performed an African-inspired piece choreographed by Denise Rowe.  The piece is very different from any other piece I've ever worked on.  It was 30 minutes long and almost completely improvised.  Everyone in the group knew what the basic structure of the piece was, but, aside from three short phrases, all of the movement was improvised.  Another cool aspect of the piece was that we got to work with a live musician.  I'm pretty sure this guy can play every instrument on the planet.  For our piece alone, he played some kind of bell thing, the kalimba, and the guitar.  It was really fun to work with him.  Our company performed on Tuesday and Friday, and the other two groups performed on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  It was a good experience, but I have to admit that I'm relieved for the stress of it to be over.  I have a viva (a spoken presentation final) this coming week, and, then, I'll be completely finished school-wise for the term.

Yesterday, I took another day trip to London to see Billy Elliot.  Great dancing, great music.  I loved it all!  I'm glad I went to see it nearer to the end of the term rather than the beginning, because I think it would have been harder for me at the beginning of the term to understand the Scottish accents and the jokes about the accents.  Now that I'm a proper Brit (haha, not quite), I easily understood what was going on.  There was a big group of 13-year-old girls who obviously knew "Billy," because they kept screaming for him throughout the show.  I like to think that I'm a patient person, but I think I may have audibly muttered "shut it" at one point during the show.  Oops!  I hope the people next to me didn't hear.  Not one of my finer moments.  Regardless, I was really into the show.  I laughed; I cried (seriously, I did); I enjoyed.  I'll be going to see my last London show on Tuesday, but I'll fill you in on that later.

There is no story to go along with the Shepherd's pie.  I was just eating it while I wrote this and feeling very British for doing so.

At this time one week from now, where I'll be in the world is Faith Lutheran in J'ville.  I'll be sad to leave Coventry, but that last sentence sounds pretty darn good to say.

Laura