Thursdays should be my least favorite day
On Thursdays, I have lectures from 9:30 until 1, and the first one is on one end of town, the second one on the other, and the third one back at the first place, so I have to run back and forth a lot. And it takes up so much time to go to lectures. I know they help me, but last year, I just got to read all the time and this year, I always feel underprepared because there is no way I can get all the reading done. Also on Thursdays, I get my marked work back from my econ tutor. This week, it wasn’t so good. I don’t know that I really answered the question, and I don’t think anything I said was wrong, but he wants me to change how I write my essays. American essays are completely different. We focus a lot on the style of the writing as well as the facts, trying to make everything flow. He told me I should have subheadings and clearer breaks between paragraphs for the visual effect. And to state “This essay will.” I don’t know that I have ever written in a paper or essay, “This paper will do this, this, and this,” but I guess that’s what I am supposed to do now. There were some other things too. We’ll see if I can improve it for next week’s essay.
There are some redeeming factors to my Thursdays though. I get to go to Mass after all my lectures, which takes up more time, but I really enjoy it. It helps me focus and take a break from everything else. Then I have a good lunch for really cheap. Also, I think my three favorite lectures are those on Thursdays: international econ, competition policy, and British politics and government. I’m still not sure about the BPG tutorial, but I love the lectures. The history is so interesting.
And for the past two Thursdays, I have done something fun in the evening. Last week, Ula, Ashley, Katy, and I went to a Tapas Bar, which was a lot of fun and good food. And this week, Ashley invited me to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra, which was awesome. The director, Ray McVay, was sort of crazy and the audience wasn’t very responsive and didn’t really know that you always clap after a solo. Or at least I always do. Towards the end, others on the stage were sort of directing the audience to clap. But the music was wonderful and entertaining. There was an old guy sitting next to me, who was a little big, not really big, but the seats were pretty small, so I had to sort of lean towards Ashley the whole show. But during the intermission, he asked me how I liked the show and if I had seen them before. I told him I hadn’t but my friend had invited me because she had seen them in the states. He said he saw the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the original one, in Paris during or after the war (I couldn’t understand which he said). I was amazed. We talked a little about me being at the university and we said bye at the end of the show. Not a huge conversation, but it was neat. As we were walking out, another old man said, “It’s nice to see some younger faces here too.” I think the three of us were some of the youngest people there. It was great.
So we’ll see how next Thursday goes. Maybe another adventure for that night too.