Return of the Blog

I haven't written on this in a while, mainly because not much exciting has happened to me in the past few weeks. Classes are interesting, as always, and this week I get a reprieve from three of them as it's "Reading Week" in the English Department (slackers). My most intriguing class continues to be History of Modern English, where random trivia and jokes continue to rule the day:

Whilst giving a lecture, a professor noted that ever language has a construction in which two negatives make a positive. But in English, he said, there's no construction in which two positives make a negative.

From the hall came an incredulous response: "Yeah, right."

Anyway. What have I been doing with my time in England? Yesterday some friends and I wandered down to the Lancaster Maritime Museum, which has a number of boats on display, though sadly none of them are on the water. Some of the exhibits were fairly interesting, though we were pressed for time since we got there a half hour before the place closed. Other adventures these past few weekends have included attending meetings of the Lancaster Writers Guild (the only society I've joined), seeing movies at the university cinema, and going to pubs engaging in friendly social interactions with local Britons.

Things will get more exciting in a few weeks. I am trying to recruit people for a trip to the Isle of Man, which through the campus travel office will cost only £37. On February 28-March 1 I will be taking a coach trip to Bath and then Stonehenge. A game of paintball is in the works. For Spring Break I plan to travel to Nottingham and the town of Bingham, then to London, and then to France and Italy with my friend Phillip (from Beloit). Fun stuff.