Leigh livin the SLC Life

So Lillie and I were planning on getting up early again today and go for a run, but it looks as if my sore throat has come back. its not as bad as last time cause i feel fine, but it hurts and is really dry, so i dont want to do anything to active in case that makes it worse. so today i got up and got ready for class and luckily had no problems like burning my hair or anything, like i have in the past. Class was more boring today because we started class studying dialects. which sounds super interesting but its just so complicated. we are looking mostly at 5 different varieties of english-- northern and southern britain, irish, scottish and welsh. and instead of covering each dialect separately we go over them all at the same time. so it makes it more complicated and i cant keep all of the information straight. i cant remember what differentiates each dialect and its just all over my head. my mind just doesnt work in a way for me to comprehend all of things i am being taught. all i get is that british people speak different than us, and i just cant seem to figure out how. but then in the last hour of class we got to the history part of it. which the more i learn about it the more it fascinates me. we are going over basically medieval history but how the english language has evolved during that period and how certain events have affected the language. lately we have been discussing the norman invasion of britain. and because the normans are french speaking people a lot of words in the english language have french origins due to the normans taking power. and today we talked about how even though the normans invaded the english language was still dominant and become the dominant language and not french. so its really interesting, i like to see that the history of europe from the english language perspective. i think its something that i would definitely want to mention in a world history class that i am teaching some day.

after class we (M'kynzi, Cathy, Lillie and I) came back to the apartment to eat lunch and figure out exactly what we wanted to do for the day. we decided to go to leicester square and head over to the National Portrait Gallery because it is an elective site that we need to visit. but before we went into the gallery we walked through trafalgar square which was really fun! i hadnt been there yet and im glad i finally made it over there. it was fun just cause tons of people were there. and in the middle of the place there was a bed set up with a british flag as the comforter. we were really confused as why there was a bed in the middle of trafalgar square. so we went over there and there was a lady sitting in bed who informed us that it was for a tv show that was starting up about sex education. well cathy got in the bed just to take a picture, but then the lady started interviewing her for tv and they recorded it and everything. so cathy proclaimed to the british world that she is a virgin and waiting for marriage. --which the lady was pretty shocked about. but we were proud of cathy for her good answers. and now we are convinced that cathy will be a famous british star--something to add to her list of accomplishments. then it was off to the gallery.

the part of the gallery that we need to visit for class was looking at portraits of kings and queens from british history. and i decided that i really dont like portraits from this era because they are just creepy. the eyes on every single picture just seem to stare at you no matter where you are positioned. i got really close to one of the paintings to examine it better and i just had an odd feeling that the man in the picture was going to like jump out at me or something. i think i have read too many harry potter books to think that the pictures come to life. after looking at the things for class we headed to the BP Award gallery--an exhibit of contemporary portraits that have been submitted for an award competition. utterly amazing. i have never been into art but these portraits were so amazing that most of them looked like photographs until you went up for a closer look. i was just so astonished how perfect they were. there was one of people in a swimming pool that i really thought was a picture. i just dont get how someone can paint a swimming pool. it was unbelievable and i thoroughly enjoyed that. then we headed back out to leicester square because the european premiere of batman was tonight. so they had it all set up for the movie stars to show up. we decided to hang out there for a bit and see if we could catch a glimpse of christian bale, but it was super crowded and we picked a bad spot. so we decided to leave and we went in the direction of where the stars get out of their car and right when we got there is when christian bale came out. so i think i saw the back of his head. but im not sure. it was cool to be at the premiere. all of these years of living in LA and i have never been to a movie premier. kinda pathetic.

we came back home and had a man from one of the london wards come to our flat and give us a presentation about growing up in london during WWII. it was really interesting. i feel like i have been in WWII mode since i also just went to the churchill museum. i really liked hearing more about actually living in an area that was affected by the war. i also kept thinking about grandma and grandpa svendsens experiences living in denmark during the war. i wish i knew more about that. i have barely ever heard any stories. mom, do you know anything? after the presentation Lillie, Cathy and I tried to go to a pub near by to get some sticky toffee pudding, but every place we went to their kitchen was closed. so we ended up just walking around kensington until we found gelatto which lillie and i split for a pound each. it was pretty sweet. so it was a really good day and it was beautiful out! it was really warm, which doesnt happen very often. i felt like it was a really productive day which was great.