May Days

The following is a work in progress. Consider it a teaser of what happened during my last month to be elaborated on later. If you're still reading then...

This will likely be a long post as it's meant to discuss essentially the last month of my stay in Bath. A lot happened, clearly. First of all, after returning from spring break, the time just flew by. We had our second round of papers due, and I was working furiously on my dissertation for my tutorial. So, April ended in a jiffy and suddenly it was May. I won't necessarily explain chronologically since it's all kind of muddled.

First: Stratford, again. We went during the first week of May for a few days with the entire program, staying at different B&Bs all around town. The two plays we saw were As You Like It and The Winter's Tale. The latter was a much more successful production.

Second: The dissertation. Titled: The Quest for Totality: An Investigation of Multiplicity and Infinity in the Postmodern Novel. You know you're fascinated.

Next: Visitors. May was a busy month with visitors to Bath. My friend Clay, who is at Uni, in Manchester, came down for an afternoon. That was so much fun considering I hadn't seen him in several years since his departure from the States. It was a glorious reunion to say the least. Despite my best efforts, I didn't make it up to Manchester. Quite disappointing actually as I didn't see that part of England at all. Next up was Jo Pang, who flew in from Milan; she was already in London so it wasn't too out of her way. Our adventure for the day consisted of walking around Bath looking for sheep. Bath is marked by several crescents, and one happened to have a little field that four sheep happily inhabited. Needless, to say that was a highlight, especially for Josie. She had full conversations with our fuzzy friends. Cristin arrived merely hours after Jo's departure. She'd studied in Bath last summer so there was no real need to entertain. While I was studying for finals she visited old places and faces before jetting back to Spain the next night. And lastly, and most importantly, Mom arrived just this past Thursday morning. We were both impressed that she made it to Bath on time without getting lost. My program ended on Friday, so that Saturday, we hopped on the train to the southern coast of England. Because we didn't really plan until she got here, it was a bit hectic, especially considering it was a Bank Holiday on Monday. This meant practically every hostel and/or B&B was booked. We avoided disaster, though. Our first night was spent in St Ives, a coastal, artist community. I think we both thought the Barbara Hepworth Museum was the highlight of the trip. This was also the only day we had sun, and I managed to look like a lobster after a matter of hours just from walking around. From St Ives, it was just a short bus ride to Penzance, where we spent the next three nights at a B&B on the coast. Penzance is a harbor town so had a much different feel than St Ives. We took one day trip to Land's End. Very touristy. The only reason really to go is because it's the western most point. The countryside was beautiful, but they built up all this tacky stuff around which is just unfortunate.

The Last: Goodbyes and such. I suck at these.