Norfolk Terrace, Day 39. [0:13] The Luncheon and Art Nouveau
I cut my fries with a knife. I then proceeded to drink my tea and loosen my tie a bit in the course of the lunch. The meal was quite splendid, sitting at the Modern Art Café with eight respectable individuals from different positions of power and privilege. A list of names would be unnecessary—let me colour the individuals with my own perception. The one I shall name is the organizer: Mrs. Jill Buch, the one responsible for my study abroad scholarship at UEA. With her passionate complexion and golden hair, she holds herself with an inborn elegance, cultivated well over her life and supplemented with her noble pursuit of international student relations.
My scholarship is specific to Berkeley and UEA students who study abroad at each other’s universities—remember Stef? And Kate? Abs might’ve been mentioned once or twice too. They are all friends of Dodo—a UEA second-year studying abroad at Berkeley this year who I got the opportunity to meet at the Mrs. Buch luncheon in Berkeley last semester. He facebooked me their names and here I am.
To continue the list, there were two gentlemen (one in the bloom of a young family at home in the making, the other rather older with a sincere look of trust about him) and the rest were ladies of differing mien: from the middle-aged youthful spirit to the dark auburn-haired young facilitator; the more established-in-life study abroad authority figure to the blonde and pale blue-eyed UC programme officer situated in London; and finally Sierra, my year at Berkeley.
The conversation tended towards the problem of building up financial support from donors and alumni for universities, especially in the UK, and it was interesting hearing one of the men explain how of the five billionaire donors to one university (he covers more than UEA for his position), four of them were foreigners—Italian, Portuguese, etc.
Sierra and I provided the student voice on the difference of academic study here and back home, how we like it here (I told them about how my flatmates here read my blog as a daily newspaper—they were touched, but also politely teased me for preparing the statement), and why there are so many more Americans going for half-year abroad instead of a full one. The British educational system is more relaxed in some ways—American institutions only offer some classes a certain semester, tuition increases are accelerating upwards to the point where finishing in 3 years or less is the goal and where study abroad is an utter luxury.
After a few members of our luncheon left, of which all of us stood up in a very dignified manner each time, a few of us were left to go on the tour upstairs of the Art Nouveau exhibit. The one-floor offered me than I expected, largely attributed to the finesse of the curator’s delivery and solid grounding in the art period. 1890 to 1914 is the period—some vases, floating just behind the glass in even spaces from each other, appeared in the guise of artistic form and shape. The more right a person walked down the glass wall, the more geometric and less nature-inspired the vases were. Other areas presented chairs and tables, decorated in a way that looked as if they were being pressed down (as the curator described) and flattened even more so in their two-dimensional surface than normal. What was really fascinating was the mention of an apparent “high tension” between the table top and the ground, caused by the angled and oddly supporting table legs. Oh, also I finally learned something about “art deco” (which is a term my mom has used throughout my life and I really have not had a true grasp of its meaning): after Art Nouveau declined at the onset of the Great War (WWI), artists of this movement went in either of two directions. There was the geometric path, shaping things more firmly in lines and fixedness; and there was art deco, providing decoration to objects still.
After this delightful half to my day (oh, I did forget to mention that I did four circuits around the lake this morning [NO SNOW AT ALL! YES!] and gave myself enough time to get ready entirely without being late (which I wasn’t—John, remember this. Write it down: I was on time. Yes, dammit, the museum/Modern Art Café is 100 metres away from Norfolk Terrace, but I was on time nevertheless.), I left the Sainsbury Center of Visual Arts and dragged through a bit of my day online searching flights, trains, buses, attractions, and all to this conclusion: Edinburgh is not a place for a two-day weekend, nor is the flight worth two days there only. It’s a four-day place, at least. They have ghost tours and The Scotch Whiskey Experience. And the Edinburgh castle and Royal Mile. I’ve already said enough (after the second thing…) to convince myself I need to go in May. I’ll have to settle with closer trips in the meantime.
I met with Anna, Marika, and Haley at the Blue Bar in the midst of crowds flocking around football on the pub’s numerous flatscreens. We left undecided on a trip in the near future. It will just formulate somehow. Anyway, I’m proud of my act of whizzing through Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre—100 pages in! And considering how little I devoted to it today (started it in the late—early—hours of this day), I’m content for now. Discussion’s only at 11 tomorrow. (Oh well, I’ll finish it after…)
Oh, I’ll end with this dialogue I savoured:
“Are you going to make dinner?” Marie.
“Already did. I just made a quick 5-minute meal.” Me.
“Oh, like beans and sausages?”
“No, a vegetable stir-fry with turkey slices.” Whaaa-poosh!
Actually, no, I’m going to end with the very, very striking observation that Lithuanian Laura and Marie literally just came up to my window at the time I’m writing this and asked if I was skyping Katya and wanted to see her. If I wasn’t so creeped out by the ominous silhouettes (only computer light on at this hour—Vinnie’s sleeping! …or was. Oops.), I would’ve found it endearing. No, it’s still endearing. But I wonder what on earth they are doing frolicking around outside and asking why I’m still inside. Well, there’s my bed…my answer.
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