Set my alarm super early to get a head start and be an overachiever....didn't happen. Got up 6 minutes before I had to leave to make it to class and ran out the door! First class was British Youth Culture 10-12:30, which I was skeptical about, but no longer am. The professor, who prefers to be called Richard, is going to discuss the difference between American and British youth culture bringing everything into account from the Beatles (mostly) to Vivenne Westwood and Mic Jagger - it was such an awesome class and Richard is a very cool and as well as the others entertaining. There's a lot of analysis and critical thinking and discussion that goes on in the class, but it is going to be a blast to analyze and compare the different cultures in the many different forms it has. After that Madeline, myself, and a few other girls went to find the street with all of the bookstores, again no luck, and I headed back for my last class 1:30-4 which was Management in a Multi-Cultural Environment. The first half of the class she did lots of ice breakers, discussed the course and herself - she's from Bulgaria, has lived in over 9 countries and speaks God knows how many languages. She will actually be co-teaching the course with an American lady who has lived in London over 15 years. They both own a business in which they deal with large corporations entering or expanding in the international, global spectrum and they help them make that transition; therefore, they are probably well qualified to be teaching this class. The second part of us, she divided us up into 2 groups and sent one out into the hall telling them that they were supposed to act as IES Abroad ambassadors who are coming over to Morania (made up country) in hopes of building an academic center for students. People left in the room (I was one of them) were going to be the Moranians. We were given rules that our culture has to play our role. We think firm hand shakes are a sign of aggression so we shake very softly, if someone is wearing black or has glasses they are considered to be the boss/head of things so you can't look them in the eye, we believe in processing thoughts before speaking so we count to 5 before we speak, we also believe in building a relationship before talking business so we answer no business questions (respond I'm sorry) until they get to know you personally, we also believe in personal space so if someone gets to close you back away, etc. You get the point. So the other half of the class came in, individually split up among the rest of us, and started asking questions about our economy, student life, how we feel about them opening a center, etc. If you can imagine, I waited 5 seconds before speaking, said 'I'm sorry,' backed up constantly, etc. The exercise was actually really fun and pretty eye opening. Turns out the 'Americans/IES people' thought things went great and that building the center would be a go; whereas, we felt disrespected, pushed, didn't trust them, and every other negative adjective so that was interesting and clearly showed how careful a business has to be when entering other cultures.
On to the fun stuff! The IES student assistants set up a social at 8pm that night for us to go to a pub situated on the River Thames. A long tube ride and plenty of walking later we walked over one of the main bridges over the Thames (which was beautiful!) and got into the very swank, British filled pub with every beer on tap known to man. It was a very fancy, fancy restaurant and definitely not what I would call a pub, but it was beautiful and it's views even more so, so I wasn't complaining. Each beer was about 4.44 pounds roughly which is $7.00. We were there about 2 hours or so, I had 3 beers (spent $20) and a group of us took the bus home. Side note: do you have any idea how much and how many beers you can buy with $20 in the states???? A. LOT.
Anywho, I got back to find out that a girl I've gotten pretty close to is leaving tomorrow. :(!!! Her name is Carly, she goes to Indiana University, and is also the girl who almost got left behind at Windsor Castle with me. She's amazing to say the least and I hate she's leaving. Her Mom has a serious case of cancer right now and is at the peak of treatments, etc and I personally as well couldn't imagine going through that or being able to have any sort of fun here with that going on so I don't blame her a bit. It's only been about 7 days here, but I will miss her so so so so so so much! Carly I'll be thinking about you and your family. <3
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