2/19 What a weird way to begin the morning. I was in early colloquy, so we all filed in right before 8:30 looking a little bit dazed. Dr. Wardwell began with announcements, and for his last announcement his face turned somber and he paused before beginning. He informed us that he and Dr. Stewart were not quite ready to deliver our paper topics to us today. (For real?!?!) Our minds all went into a slight state of panic. I began to think of each hour that was ticking away from my paper, at this point not even knowing when I’d get the assignment. He said we’d be getting them after Colloquy tomorrow, Friday. (AH!) Slowly I decided to breathe a little bit, I could still do this paper even without my day of thinking, after all I didn’t do a LOT of work Thursday anyways. He made sure to tell us that our papers would still be due Saturday, (ok, ok, this will work out…I can do it yes I can), next Saturday (I can make it, I’ll just work really hard on Friday night and then—). Silence. (Wait, what?!?) One by one the protests around the room, both internally and externally, silenced and we each gazed at Dr. Wardwell not having any concept of what he meant. (Are you serious??) He sort of chuckled and then said that he was loving the expressions on our faces at the present moment. We all sat perplexed and totally unable to conceptualize no paper this weekend. He said that they had been thinking that the Renaissance and Reformation were pretty similar time periods, and the topic would tie the two weeks together, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were two papers behind in grading. (WOOHOO!!) It finally sunk in, and oh what a grand feeling it was.
Colloquy was delightfully enjoyable after that moment. We dug into Canterbury tales and although I didn’t have a huge amount of input, I learned a lot from the experience. Dr. Wardwell drew from the prologue and made connections to each person’s individual tales, prompting us to examine the links between their characteristics and the stories they related. That’s what I love about Dr. Wardwell, is that he doesn’t tell us what to think or give us facts about the readings. Instead, he names significant issues and maybe throws in some devil’s advocate, but he lets us do the synthesizing. I pay so much more attention and come away with a better comprehension if I can reason things out with my peers rather than just being told everything. And of course Dr. Wardwell, guides conversations and throws in his opinions, but he does it in a smooth and unobtrusive manner.
Oh boy oh boy, oh Danny boy. That’s a muppet’s song that we all like to sing (or rather a muppet adaption). Our group walked up the stairs into a group of late colloquiers. Immediately Daniel burst out the good news and we all rejoiced together! I then took my leave and rushed to my room, my roommate was just coming in and so I walked in behind her, trying to suppress my grin. I asked if she’d heard our conversation down the hall, she hadn’t. She stared at me, puzzled, and asked why I was smirking. I straightened my face and related the story of the morning…exactly how Dr. Wardwell relayed it. She panicked as much as the rest of us and exclaimed that she couldn’t write a paper in 2 days! I let her go through the mental process for just a brief moment before throwing in, yeah; it’s still due Saturday…next Saturday. Wait for it….her eyes went from baffled and distressed to shock to delight! She shrieked and ran to give me a hug exclaiming the joy as I laughed.
The door burst open at that moment and Renee rushed into the room demanding to know what was wrong. We both laughed, and she joined when we told her we were rejoicing about the paper. In the middle of this celebration Nathalie rushed down the hallway asking why the commotion. We told her and she was the most excited of all, spinning us all around, running to other groups of people. Oh my, what a joyous celebration indeed.
I didn’t even open my next readings during the next hour and a half. I took a wonderfully hot shower, turned on some music, and journaled. Lovely. At lunch we took our time, because we were no longer in a hurry. The brochures came out and the internet search engines were employed as the four of us deliberated on what shows and concerts we desired to see. We looked up the locations to several box offices, and at last we set off to Trafalgar Square with several thoughts in mind. Our goal was to see a show on Saturday night, but we couldn’t decide which one to see. David voted for Les Mis, but I want to wait for that one since they have a good rush system and it’s easy to go there on the spur of the moment decision. Wicked also must wait because we’re taking Alyssa and Renee to that one, and other than that we debated between a play and the possibility of Phantom. Stopping the conversation I implored David asking if he’d made a decision on Phantom. I had made a few other comments of that nature throughout the meal, but not heard a response, so when he said that he and Daniel had both decided they’d like to go, I was shocked, but elated. Yay.
So there we had it, our first stop was Her Majesty’s Theatre, to inquire about Saturday tickets (we hadn’t even thought of that before, since we’ve got papers due Saturday nights). It turned out that they didn’t have any Saturday night tickets, but they had four tickets in the first and second rows of the balcony for Saturday Matinee. I paused, knowing that matinees aren’t fantastic performances, and then glanced at my friends before delightedly exclaiming that we’d take them. As we walked out of that building I’m not sure anything would have fazed me; my head was in the clouds.
We returned to the National Gallery and finished our assignment surprisingly quickly. In fact we even had time to return to all the paintings of yesterday and examine them again. Leaving there we trekked around the city to various concert and theatre venues where we inquired about ticket availability and prices. The only things we bought were our twenty pound phantom tickets and tickets to the Royal Opera House to see Dido and Aeneis. Still it seemed like we drained our pockets pretty quickly. Especially since we agreed to get rush tickets for Twelfth night the following morning. However, the money was well spent and we need an opera, concerts, and plays for our requirements in the course. Good excuse if you ask me.
Daniel eventually took off back to the Highbury to begin his readings and the three of us went looking for the London Phil Orchestra, which was a mistake. After an hour+ of searching, and wandering around and around (making many U-turns) we finally found the office, only to discover they had already closed. We had some good laughs though on the adventure, and David got his 10,000 steps, so we blamed the mishap on the phys ed course and claimed that we just wanted to meet a new part of London. At last we returned to the Highbury, after dinner was almost over, and were greeted with our favorite meals. It was a day of gifts! It was penne noodles, with a creamy sauce with bacon chunks throughout the dish. Ah, it’s spectacular, and it was especially well prepared tonight. Mm… Dessert was cream-filled pastries and since we were the last ones in the dining room, we discovered 9 extra dishes of dessert (4 pastries each), so Laura pilled them all on a plate, all 40/50 of them, and put all of our names on the cling film. It was quite a sight.
Alas, from that wonderful day of surprises, I went back to my room and read Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, and Erasmus’ “The Praise of Folly”. Both pieces were distinct works, with interesting messages, and after I finished the discussions had in the hallways were intense, signifying that colloquy would be interesting the next day because people had opinions on both of these pieces. Good.
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