7/1/08 Tuesday

Today was the last day of class-how sad. We finished up discussing the book. By 12:30pm, the Jaehnes took us all out to lunch at a Chinese Buffet Restaurant. The Jaehnes are really generous in this way-at least 11 of us. The food was really delicious but the Jell-O (or what passed for Jell-O) sucked-it was way too sweet and had practically no flavor. We returned to their flat by 2pm to continue class. The "final" was to draw a map of our mental maps of the city to compare it to the first one we did earlier in the trip. My second map was more filled in than my first but not as substantially as everyone else's. I just didn't do as much touring of the city either in a group or on my own (but I have no regrets). I noticed that as I drew my "final" map, that I was able to draw the streets around certain landmarks in Bath (for example the Hobgoblin Pub, The Odeon, or The Podium shopping center). It's easier for me to learn my way around based on where landmarks are and not just by where the streets are.

At 3:30pm, class was dismissed so I went over to Sainsbury (similar to Safeway) to but the Guardian and the Sun. This is for preparation for my paper that's due when I get back from Europe. I tell you, I had the hardest time deciding if I was going to write it or not. I didn't turn in my contract until three days before class ended...that's because of all the trouble I had in deciding if I would write the thing or not. Everyone else had submitted a contract, so I finally decided to write the paper.

Dennis introduced the concept of learning and what it means and how it applies to class five days into the trip. He wanted contracts from us stating what we were going to write in our papers. I want to do a compare/contrast of media newsprint in the US and England. In order to do this, I collected the UK papers, and mom collected the US papers (during the hottest heat wave of the summer--thanks mom!) By the time I got home (the US), I had a week's worth of four different papers.

I got back to Stephanie's by 4:30pm and did my packing. I just have a few more things to add, but I'm essentially done. Stephanie's daughter Jessie and Jessie's friends Kate and Sam came over for dinner. Actually, they made dinner-all the food was great. One of the things I wasn't used to was when Sam asked me what I wanted to drink with dinner. All the beverages had some measure of alcohol in it...wine, beer, etc. I just chalked it up to 'it's a British culture thing!' Jessie did most of the talking, but she had such a strong accent that I couldn't understand much of what she was saying. I just sat there and quietly listened to all the stories. Apparently they were funny, because everyone laughed a lot. I remember thinking that this was the type of interaction I was hoping for during my visit--too bad it finally happened on the last night here.

It’s so unreal that this experience is over!