...braiiiiins

Today, got up late, latelatelate. Blame it on BBC who showed the original Dawn of the Dead movie from 1978 when I got home yesterday. Just couldn't switch off...the amusing zombies (those with mint green face paint and that slow walk) and incredible illogical storyline (Swiss plot! More holes than you can stomach!) just were hilarious. Also, realised that the only things that have gotten better in the newer movies are the special effects. Otherwise- still the same strange plots, still the same bad acting, still the same senseless endings.

But enough of zombies, back to real life.

The course yesterday was good fun. It is held in Jebb Auditorium, a beautiful room set between two student residences, with window walls on both sides, so to the left I could see school kids playing football while on the right there were students walking past. We were first introduced to the basics- how the course is going to work, how we will be assessed, what we will have to read- and then took a look at illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood to see what they could tell us about notions of gender etc. Usually, there should be a lecture part and then a seminar part, but when we had walked across to the room used for the seminar part, there was another group of people, all of whom had missed the lecture part! Well, that meant an early end for me, since the main important points had to be repeated for the other group.

Supremely motivated as I was, I set myself on getting the Reading Pack (no joke..the name is quite fitting!) as soon as possible and found out just how time-saving a lack of central organisation can be sometimes. Back at home, I simply walk into the secretary's office, pay my money and get my set of texts. Here, I had to go to the secretary, fill out a form, take that form to Finance (which meant 20 mins walk in total), pay there, receive a receipt, walk back to the secretary and finally get that big bunch of paper. Wow. I'm now hoping the other two courses won't send me out for Reading Packs again...just in case, I'll wait until Friday if the Thursday course requires one.

What I'm especially proud of is that I started reading and taking notes right away.
There are two parts of assessment: An essay (like a term paper I suppose) and a logbook. Thankfully I've already encountered both of these things before. The essay, no problem, it doesn't have to be very long for this course, and I've had to do them every six months for 4 years anyway. The logbook is supposed to be like a study diary where I put in anything that I can think about in conjunction with the last lesson, questions I have, stories I have to tell etc. We can also put in pictures and other stuff...it should be interesting and record our progress throughout the course. I've only had to do something like this two or three times before, but I'm sure there will be no problem (started on this right away as well).

As for today, there won't be happening much I suspect. I did some essential cleaning up at home (and, as I said, got up quite late, past 10am) and am now back at doing stuff I have on my to do list (which I also revived yesterday because I got nothing much done before that).

Also, don't think I mentioned the Dance Society before. They offer noon and evening lessons in aerobics, yoga, pilates and who knows what else. Nice thing is, I can either join them for 20 pounds for the whole year, or just pay a small amount per lesson I visit. I hope they put out their timetable soon so I can see what neat classes I could take.

About the other societies...well, the Creative Writing Society is now actually called the Poetry Society and they haven't really got themselves organised yet, so more about them later. Haven't contacted the Japanese Culture Society yet but it's on my list for today. Just want to find out what they actually do when they meet- if they just drink sake and watch hentai anime until the wee hours, it just might not be the thing for me. :D