Alright, here goes my first real blog. It’s going to be long…maybe…but worth the read…I hope.
Anyway, I am in London studying at Queen Mary, University of London for the fall term. I am having an absolute blast! I got here on September 9...wow I can’t believe it’s already been a month. Well, I won’t write down everything that I have done since being here…that would be too much work to type it all out and too many little letters for my poor reader…if there is a reader. However, I will write about some significant things that have happened thus far.
My classes…wow, I love my classes…well all but one. It’s not that I don’t love it, it’s just that it is really easy…hasn’t gotten terribly interesting yet either…patience Alina, patience. Queen Mary has one of the top ten English/Literature programs in the UK…that’s precisely why I chose it. Anyway, I am taking a Shakespeare class…I had to since I am in London…and I LOVE it. We just finished covering Romeo and Juliet…now it is on to Henry V. By the way…here is a fun fact to know and tell: the way in which an audience would emotionally respond to a sonnet in Elizabethan times is the same emotional reaction we have to the modern musical ballad (i.e. that cheesy medley of love songs in the movie Moulin Rouge which makes us feel all giddy…ya, you know what I mean!). Anyway, another of my classes is Postcolonial Literatures in English. This is a really powerful class. Just last week, we had a visit from the man who is considered the “father of the African novel.” He was truly inspiring…he wrote his first novel over 50 years ago…he didn’t know what he was doing…and he became the father of a whole new genre…just amazing. His name is Chinua Achebe…read his novel Things Fall Apart sometime. One of the most incredible moments of the lecture was when he read the most powerful part of Things Fall Apart in Ibo, his native tongue. It was stunning and musical. Later on in the term, we will be having other author visits…I’ll be sure to post highlights. My next class is European Novel: Readers and Rogues…haha…it’s fantastic! We just started reading Don Quixote which is terribly funny. We have a special lecturer for this text…he has the most unique mustacheI have ever seen. It reaches all the way down to the sides of his chin and is quite thick…imagine chops, but as a mustache…just don’t think on that too long. Anyway, my normal lecturer looks like Dr. Green from ER…the resemblance is crazy. My last class is the one that is really easy. It’s called European Culture and Society. It basically asks the questions “What is Europe?” and “How can Europe be defined?”. I’m sure it will get better.
Well, how about that, I have only written about my classes and have filled up all this space. You, my poor reader, are probably begging me to lay my fingers to rest. I will do exactlythat…for now. But don’t think that I won’t be back with some more witty and interesting thoughts to share with you. I hope that you at least enjoyed somewhat the things I have penned …I mean typed…here.
Side note: I apologize to the grammarians who will read this…I know, I should be ashamed of my lack of grammatical correctness -- especially considering the fact that I am an English major. Well, fortunately for me, a whole genre of writing has developed in which punctuation is no longer used for semantic and syntactic clarity, but as a means of expression through which the writer may establish his or her own style and meaning. Hence, you will see a lot of ellipses (…) these guys…for the grammatically challenged…which I am rather fond of...in order to establish my own style. Please accept my apology also, for not writing on a wider range of subjects this time. I will, from here, do my best to not take up a whole blog just on my classes.
Alright then, having all formalities dealt with, I will say goodnight and goodbye. And in the words of Cervantes: “…having said this, may God grant you health and not forget me. Vale.”

Word of the day: ellipsis 1 a : the omission of one or more words that are obviously understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete b : a sudden leap from one topic to another2 : marks or a mark (as ... or · or --) indicating an omission (as of words) or a pause
(definition courtesy of www.m-w.com/)
Spoonerism of the day: Diccapilly Circus for Piccadilly Circus…that one made me laugh! I will try to add any spoonerisms that happen to fly out of my mouth when they are noteworthy.