Days 49, 50, 51, and 52

Day 49 - After arriving home the day before, I spent the day lounging around, finishing Hamlet and not doing anything in particular. I did go to Primark, though, to acquire a pair of boots. Primark was absolutely insane; it was two o' clock on a Monday, and the store was still full of people rushing back and forth, trying on clothes and flinging them away, yanking shoes onto their feet and then kicking them off, and so on and so forth. I found myself wondering if any of these people had jobs or a school to go to. Some of them were probably playing truant; there are signs all over London warning kids of the dangers of truancy. Anyway, I escaped, shoes in hand, and returned to the flat for dinner, homework, and sleep.

Day 50 - Again, not much of interest happened on this day. I spent it pottering around being sickeningly domestic and gender-stereotypical: doing my laundry, hanging up my clothes, doing the dishes, et cetera. At least I didn't sing while doing so.

Day 51 - After class, I went to the British Museum and hung around in the Iron Age and Medieval Britain section. Lindow Man (one of the most famous bog bodies in the world) was hidden in a corner, and I went and stared at him for a bit. I have to admit in being a bit disappointed in his condition, although it's silly to be so since the only reason we ever found him is because the plow dragged him out of the bog and cut him in half. Lindow Man consists of a torso, an arm, and a head, but the head has been so deformed that no features are recognizable. In all honesty, he looks like someone tried to make a saddlebag and failed miserably. There were some cool things in the different sections, though, such as the helmet and shield from the Sutton Hoo ship burial and a small cloak made out of gold beaten into a paper-thin sheet. Then I went on through the Museum into the clock section.

I can now say that I have seen enough clocks to last me a lifetime. The only memorable thing I remember is a clockwork battleship that would trundle down the table at royal dinners, firing its little cannons and spewing fire. Today OSHA would come down like a sack of bricks on anyone thinking to display such a thing at dinner, but back in medieval times people were less discerning and presumably less flammable.

Day 52 - The only thing of excitement on this day was that I got an A on my first Shakespeare paper: one out of two for the entire class. Whoop whoop! I analyzed Hotspur's famous monologue in Henry IV, Part 1 for well over a thousand words. That's the major skill of English majors, you see: kicking brevity in the teeth and using ten words to say what could be expressed in one.

Tomorrow, details on our weekend expedition to Dartmoor!