First Day

Well, I guess had to come sooner or later. Today, was finally the first day of class. My nearly two week vacation and UK travels without worrying about school work or opening a book (that I had to read) are now over. I guess five months was long enough for summer.

My first class, Urban Form and Formation, seems pretty simple and easy. Its 4 projects (2 group, 2 individual) that focus on a book called A Pattern Language. Its a "do-it-yourself" guide on the so-called proper way of aspects of city-planning, building and construction. The book, by Christopher Alexander (a prof at UC Berkley), gives 253 rules to follow. I will let you know how the class goes.

My next class (another city-planning course) is about politics and environmental issues. Today in class we had a little debate role-playing businesses, government and residents about the expansion of Heathrow Airport (London's main airport). This seems a little harder with one large paper (2,500 words) and a group presentation at the end of the term. We also picked our group for that end of the term presentation. Somehow, in our group of 5, we have two Americans (me and Rachel), a 3rd-year student from Sweden, another affiliate student from Australia and a girl from Italy. I only mention the composition of our rag-tag crew as we are learning/studying about the Politics of Britain, of which no one of us is truly familiar with the system here.

Since I mentioned her before I guess I should go into further detail about my study-buddy/park-sitter friend Rachel. Rachel, look below as she is the one pretending she is a lion, is in those two classes previously mentioned and another one that I have Wednesday (History- Britain and the Wider World). I thought I would give her a shout out as we are in 3/4 of the same classes and we are going on nearly all the trips together (including Oktoberfest this weekend and Amsterdam the following weekend). She is from the D.C. area and is basically on the same track as me (URBS Major and HIST minor at PENN). Although she is a quite better speller.

I shall mention other people as they naturally come up in my adventures. Until then, cheers.