Even more...

I think we have made it to Wednesday the 18th. I went to the Tate Modern to meet up with my Creating Writing in London class. I met up with a guy named Mike who was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt with a florescent orange down puffy vest, jeans, and neon Adidas high tops--he wants to be comedian, lol. He is really cool actually. We had an assignment the week before to come up with 6 word stories.
Mine was:
He dribbles, he shoots, we lose.
(oh how optimistic of me)

His were:
Met some cannibals in the jungle.
AND
I died alone, surrounded by friends.

It was a fun assignment. Try it. It is tough.


Uh, anyway, met up with him at Blackfriars tube station so we could walk along the river to the Tate. It was cool, we walked along the Thames path and over a modern bridge to get there. Once we did, and got together with our class, our assignment was to go into 3 different rooms in the Tate and write a love story influenced by the three rooms, art pieces, or sights. Honestly, I didn't finish the assignment, but the experience was cool.

I walked into a dark part of a giant room and heard water dripping and rain and lightning, so I started my story there. After that I went upstairs, into this very graphic room that had some pretty disturbing images--I will spare you the details of the pictures, but it quite turned me off to a love story. I moved on to the impressionistic part of the museum, which inspired me to write another component of my story. It was a piece that was a collage of papers painted black and neon. It reminded me of a city, somehow. Finally, I went to the surrealist portion of the museum, a floor up and was quite surprised what I saw. Not really graphic in a bad way...just strange...manipulated, hard to interpret. I was told modern art is really quite hard to like from my friends. But I found it was actually quite easy. It isn't so much about a story or a message, even though a lot of them included these, it is more about emotion--the impression you get when you initially see it. I had quite an experience at the Tate, because I am so affected. But some feelings were better than others. Personally, I found that I really enjoyed impressionism and realism--not so much surrealism. I had a great time.

After, I walked down with a group of guys and had lunch at EAT. From there I walked back with one of them, a guy from the Jersey Shore...enough said...and headed home for the day. (He was actually quite nice, superficial, but nice)

Saturday, Julia and I were going to meet and go to Borough market--the large food market in London. Well, me not paying attention to the tube line closures realized I was stuck at the Embankment station--right in front of the London Eye. I ended up walking down the Thames South Bank for 45 minutes to get to where Julia was. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought though. I got to walk to my destination as opposed to just showing up in front of it, which made me stop and see where everything was. It made me realize how close everything really was.

When Jules and I finally met, we headed to Borough market to pick up some food for Sunday's brunch at Speakers corner. I am not gonna lie. It was pretty miserable. The place was packed. And even though there was so much to do and try, once I got there, I wanted to get out, lol. Regardless of my insomnia, we did walk around a bit and see and experience some new types of food. There were different cheeses, artisan breads, baked goods, olives, salami's, indian food, middle eastern food, hummus, vegi burgers, oysters, seafood, meat, smoothies..anything you could ever want.
It was pretty cool. Jules and I walked out with bread, cheese, and olives.

Later that night Julia, Clif, and I meet up to see Taming of the Shrew at Novello Theatre. It was not what I was expecting at all. Seeing the modern interpretations of it clouded the entire misogynistic message. Men ARE the superior species.

KATHARINA

Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.


Yeah. I tend to disagree with this interpretation. Tend to. Anyway...Sunday.

I met up with Clifton and Julia in front of Marble Arch and there we saw a man standing on a stool behind layers of books placed in a pattern on the ground before him. He called: "Calling all Women....Calling all Women." I looked over. Julia looked over. "Calling all Women, Go BACK TO YOUR KITCHENS, tend the fire, and listen to man, as he is your savior."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Clifton laughed. I laughed. Ignorant man. That is all you can really do.

We walked over to a bench in Hyde Park and ate our humble meal of bread, cheese, olives, and Clif's contribution, jam. I looked out onto the park where guys were playing football. I felt sad. :(

It was a rather nasty day. Saturday, I could have worn short sleeves it was like 58 or something. Sunday, it was like 38 or so. Windy, gray, and cold. When we finished our lunch we went over to listen to the speaker--which wasn't really speaking. He brought up a topic--Creationism, I believe, and some guy in the audience was supporting evolution. He must have been a science teacher because he was rambling on about genes and cell development to prove his point. It was more the audience talking than the actual speaker. We didn't stay long because it was cold.

When I got home that day, I worked on a paper for class due that week and that was about it. Another busy weekend.