Fortunately we got to sleep in today as we had a late start. Besides tomorrow when we start an hour later than normal, this is our last partially free day for a while. I can’t say I’m particularly complaining but things are certainly about to pick up.

I had a leisurely morning which included sleeping in and slowly getting ready for the day. Then I went to Waitrose (our local grocery shop) to get some, you guessed it, groceries. That was fun (sarcasm) because I recognized none of the brands so it took me twice the time it would have at home (#definitionofAmericanstudyabroadproblems). I managed to find all the staple food items I wanted although their produce expires so fast that I skipped some things because I knew I wouldn’t eat them by tomorrow. (Yes, tomorrow. That’s when the lettuce expired. So weird…) All in all, though, I was pleased with my grocery shopping experience. I even got some Digestives. (Thank you, Amy, for getting me hooked on those last year.)

Dropping off my groceries at home, I decided I still had so much more time before I needed to be at school so I grabbed a book and my bag and headed to the local coffee shop. I got some tea and just sat, reading my book (Ok, ok, I’ll admit it. It was a Shakespeare play. But I needed to re-read this one because I’m working on a monologue from it). It was lovely. Some tea, a good play, and a bit of time to myself.

Arriving at LAMDA around 2:00, we spent the afternoon with Debbie. Debbie is a warm, soft-spoken, kind woman. We will have her for acting classes about once a week from now on. She will work with us on mostly Michael Chekhov techniques which I am anxious to begin because I have a bit of background with those concepts and look forward to expanding my knowledge base. She is a maternal woman and I think I can comfortably make the claim that many of us see her as our LAMDA mom figure. She’s made it clear her door is always open if we need to talk and it’s obvious she loves to meet with students even if it’s just to chat. While kind and caring, she is clearly brilliant and knows her stuff. We did many exercises today with the whole group which included some partner work. One partner exercise had one person being a piece of seaweed and the other the ocean current. The seaweed swayed back and forth in the tide while the current could brush past an arm, leg, shoulder, or knee which would affect the movement of the seaweed. Ok… Dad I can see you rolling your eyes. Yes, on paper is sounds really silly. But it was one of the most relaxing and centering exercises I’ve ever done. We also did an exercise Bekah had shown me and Josh while working on her directing project this past semester. (I felt like a such a pro but I was just as bad at it today as when Bekah, Josh, and I tried to do it last semester.) We continued doing exercises and playing some more get-to-know-you games before going over the LAMDA student handbook. The handbook includes detailed descriptions of all the classes we will take. As if I needed more to fuel my excitement fire…

After class, Claire, Megan, Hannah, Alex, and I went to Covent Garden to find our rehearsal skirts as well as some dance shoes for some of them. We then all had dinner together. The area of Covent Garden is a bit touristy but really, really beautiful. We will have to go back in the daylight because we all quite enjoyed ourselves.

This morning, I came across one of my fellow student’s own study abroad blog. He’s a really great writer and had a wonderful description of Rodney I wanted to share with you all:

“Our tutor for the afternoon was the Head of Drama at LAMDA, a cheeky, cherubic man named Rodney whose love for a good sodomy joke is second alone to that of a clever insult of the French. He’s devilishly irreverent and he clearly enjoys his exhilarating command of the room.”

Ok I think that’s it for now.

Until next time!

Cheers!