Monday

This is the first time in two weeks that I have actually been able to sit down and say that I don't have a paper that I should be writing. I handed in the final one this morning after completing the finishing touches last night at about 1am, and I am so happy to be done with papers for a while! I have developed a very persistent cough, but other than that I am feeling great! I get to student teach twice this week, tomorrow and Wednesday and then on Friday our entire program is off to Oxford for a week. I'm starting to feel relatively at home in this city, which is a very good feeling as well as a slightly scary one... so I think it will be good to have two weeks away from Bath (although I love it, don't get me wrong).

I also just opened my bedroom window for the first time since we have been here! It is about 50 degrees and gloriously sunny. This morning I had Education in England, where we talked about gender inequality in schools in England. Surprisingly, we talked more about the underachievement of boys and how to curb that than the fact that it is becoming a very large trend for schools to be completely staffed (lunch ladies, maintenance, and teachers) by women, but run exclusively by men. I am sure that it is happening in America as well, but it has become more and more apparent to me because my teaching placement school is in that position. Then I had my Jane Austen class, which went really well, considering that I don't usually enjoy myself. We did a close reading exercise called a "silent discussion," where we were in groups of three, each group picked a sentence from a specific part of Mansfield Park, and then we passed the quotes around and everyone made literary comments on them. I found it more interesting than our class has ever been before.

Then we (a few housemates and I) went grocery shopping and made lunch. It really is nice to feel as independent as we are allowed to feel over here. To go grocery shopping for the week, do laundry, clean my room, and know that I am going to be able to get up tomorrow and go to school and at the very least see a tiny glimpse of what the rest of my life might actually be like is wonderful.

To anyone who I haven't written a postcard back to yet, I'm very sorry and I promise that I'll get them out this afternoon. Thank you to everyone who has sent mail, it is so much fun to get!