Springy Summer Term

Easter holidays ended April 27th. That weekend students were returning to their accommodation and I was beginning to miss having the flat to myself.
In the third term, there are no actual lectures at the Uni's. The summer term (they call it) is devoted to revision (studying) and exams.

As a drama student, I have no exams- only papers which I turned in April 28th and 29th. The week we got back, all the drama students had tech and dress rehearsals for the final scene performances for our Theatre Praxis class in which we applied theories of multiple theatre practitioners to a scene of our choice. We'd been rehearsing these scenes all Spring term. I mentioned before that my group was doing a scene from a play called Independence which UC Santa Barbara had put on last year.

Monday and Tuesday (28th and 29th) were our tech and dress rehearsals while the 30th and 1st of May were our final performances.


Here are two members of my group, Helen (seated) and Emma (on the floor) backstage waiting our turn to go on. Helen played my elder sister and Emma played our mother.

The evening of our last performance on Thursday, we thought it'd be nice to go out and celebrate the end of our assessments. We did this at a club called Mechu. A small group of us went out earlier to have dinner at the bar before it opened for clubbing.


Lydia was also in my group and played my younger sister. The resemblance is uncanny, I know.

It was quite the night. Although we have no exams, the rest of the drama students aren't entirely free as they have their technical theatre allocations in which they help out on the crew of the performances of some of the third years. As a California exchange student, I was not allowed to take any of the technical theatre courses in preparation for this (for some odd reason) so I am basically more free than my fellow drama students. I am hated a lot for it. :)

After our theatre praxis assessments we were required to turn in a paper two weeks afterwards explaining what theories of which practitioner we employed. It was a measly 2,000 words so naturally I procrastinated a bit and enjoyed the spring-time atmosphere and sunshine that had imbued England these last couple of weeks.


On campus

Later that week Paul and I went into town.



This is the symphony hall where I saw Rufus Wainwright perform last year.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous lately (not typical English weather at all). And with my school work ending the earliest it ever has, it feels like my summer vacation has already begun.


View from my flatmate, Candy's, room; Maple Bank at it's best


One of the hottest days on the Vale lake