Day 13, 20 Jan: Convenient Coincidences and The White Lion

Norfolk Terrace, Day 13. Convenient Coincidences and The White Lion

Party nights always cause delays in these blogs, my apologies.

The day started at 8:50, silently cursing my strangely passive £2.95 phone. I had expressly set the alarm for 8:30 so that I could have breakfast before my 9 a.m. seminar! Bugger. Oh well, hopped into some clothes, and more clothes, and then walked briskly for 400 meters until I came to the ARTS building. I spotted my peers first, seeing that the classroom was still empty. Ha! I beat the tutor (seminar teacher) and woke up less than ten minutes ago! But the victory was small, as my empty stomach made clear to me.

            The Romanticism seminar was fantastic: I love when teachers know the philosophy of why they’re teaching and so plan to educate the students in an insightful way. In this case, the tutor emphasized the arbitrariness and misleading-ness attached to time periods. “Romanticism” can be defined between 1789 and 1832, surely, but there are books written after that could be Romantic and there are plenty of characteristics of Romanticism (the emphasis on feeling, as a part of its character in literary history) even back into the Enlightenment. Plus, the canon of English literature depends upon an authoritative community, namely anyone but not everyone, that changes with the times.

            Afterwards, I switched my American Gothic to Nineteenth Century [British] Writing. I finally met Kate, just outside the ARTS a few minutes later, who is Dodo’s friend (Dodo is currently a UEA student studying abroad at UC Berkeley, and I met him last semester; we share the same scholarship but in different directions). And Kate brought me into Blend, the café with packaged sandwiches and apparently good coffee (didn’t have any—just bottled water, thanks), and I finally met Stef (Kate’s best—and also Dodo’s—friend; also facebook friends before arrival at UEA) and her friend James. Now here comes a convenient coincidence: both Stef and James had both been in my Romanticism seminar AND were also both in my Nineteenth Century Writing module! Needless to say, I swapped notes from missed lecture in each. Cheers.

            I knew that today was my only day of the week that I could go to the 7-piano practice rooms of the music hall at UEA (every day but Friday is closed off to non-majors), but I learned of Dan’s successful purchase of an acoustic guitar and quickly realized that maybe I’ll practice that while here in Norwich. I may still pay the ridiculous fee of £3 for one hour of practicing on a campus piano, but only when I get more desperate and crave it. I do wish I was better at consistent practice in music, mostly singing and piano, but I do what I can. Thinking of next year back at my home uni, I still don’t know what I shall do activity-wise, besides Running Club. I need some artistic flavoring in my schedule, but writing groups get too invested and I can only take so much reading a semester…beatboxing and/or introductory guitar decal? That might work. Sorry, random tangent. Moving on…

The rest of the day is unimportant so…skipping to the night, it was my flatmate Matt’s birthday and our flat celebrated at The White Lion, a traditional pub in the city with an odd game called Billiards Bar (analogy: the mini-golf of billiards) along with dozens of board games and even darts (btw, John, you can stand closer to the dart board by a foot. At least, that’s how this one was set up). Matt definitely yet gradually lost disorientation, along with a few glass pints, in the night, but he had fun and so did we. Vinny’s game of chess with Laura’s boyfriend Chris was intense—just when Vinny’s king was cornered, he made a move that neither I (as an observer) nor Chris foresaw: he simply took the pawn next to him and got in the clear. Brilliant. Later there were a few games of mini-Jenga and a good dinner—but as for the ciders and beers, there was a perpetual flatness to the drinks that turned me off to them.

            A lot of us (a few taxi-ed home) managed to walk all the way to Project, a modern club with a £5 entry fee and lines at every bar in the place that made drinks impossible to get. Dancing was fun but more fun was the endless migrations our group went into: somehow a small group of us would get lost, then find the others, then move everyone to dance floor 2, then to the platform. Steff (not to be confused by “Stef” Kate’s friend; this is Steff, the honorary flatmate and Jenny’s bf) put on some moves and at some point I climbed on top of Vinny and Charlie’s shoulders for a moment of amusement.

            The taste of a meaty burger, twenty-five minutes later; the eight-person taxi, forty-five minutes later; home and asleep, an hour and a half later.