Week Two Highlights

(1) First guest lecture for my Creative Writing Supervision.  The lecturer was Graham Joyce, and he spoke about narrative structure.  (Interesting note: Joyce compared developing plot to an archeological excavation, which is the same metaphor Stephen King uses in On Writing.  In my experience, writers often describe their process in uncannily similar ways.)

(2)  Walking along the Cam.  The scenery is beautiful, and in some places you would never guess that you were at the edge of a city.

(3) Lecture on “What Makes Cambridge Unique” by Jonathan Steinberg, who has taught both at Cambridge and in the United States.  His perspective was interesting, and I learned about some differences between the educational systems.  For instance, students in the U.S. have lots of freedom to take courses outside of their majors, whereas students in the U.K. have a more focused set of courses.

(4) The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.  My favorite object was a stone coffin containing the skeleton of a Roman woman—Sylvia Plath came to see it once, and it inspired her to write a poem.  A close second was a beautiful “snakes and ladders” board from India.

(5) Pub quiz night set up by the Programme Assistants (PAs).  Topics included various types of British slang.  Can you decipher the phrase “I fell down the apples while running to answer the dog and bone?”*

But my proudest moment of the week was when some tourists asked me for directions.  I must be assimilating well!

Today I’m off to visit family and celebrate my great uncle’s birthday.

*Answer: “I fell down the stairs while running to answer the phone.”  It comes from Cockney rhyming slang—“apples” is short for “apples and pears.”