Let's Get Serious

Well, summer has officially come to an end. It has been awesome to spend the last two weeks in England without any obligations other than visiting amazing English cities, towns and attractions. But now I need to get serious. It's that time when I have to do what I actually came here to do--study. I mean, it is called study abroad, right? It will be hard to get back into classroom mode after my 5 month summer vacation, but I'm definitely ready to be intellectually stimulated again. However, it seems that the University gods are going easy on me this week because already one of my lectures tomorrow and one of my seminars on Wednesday have been cancelled. So, I won't really know the hecticness of my schedule until next week.

I'm pretty excited for all of my classes. I am taking three classes through Oxford Brookes University for credit, one class with our OBU liaison Peter Forsaith not for credit, and one class taught by the HPU professor staying here in Oxford with us. My classes, for those of you who are interested are as follows:

• Listening to Music History
• Understanding Media
• Understanding Society: Differences and Divisions
• Creative Writing for Nonfiction--Travel Writing
• British Culture and Heritage (not for credit)

I am a little bit worried that my American-ness (I know that's not a word, but bear with me) will be a disadvantage in some of my classes, specifically my communication and sociology classes. I'm just worried that we'll talk about British media outlets or British society/culture and I won't truly understand everything they're talking about because I didn't grow up in Britain. Or rather, that there will be things that it is assumed that we know because it's common sense but I'll be behind because it's not common sense to me. However, there's no point in worrying about it because I'll know better what I'm facing after my first classes this and next week. And I'm sure I can find people to explain things if I'm feeling confused--I just have to have the guts to ask questions if I don't understand things..

Well, that's all for now. Cheers.