First London Snow

I am not a morning person.  I hate alarm clocks.  I am not happy or perky even if I am well rested, and that sentiment rapidly turns worse and worse with the less sleep I get.  Therefore, my morning routine does not include opening my curtains, because that would mean I'd let the happy, bright, "let's get going" attitude known as the sun beat unwantedly into my room.  So I usually don't really know what to expect of the weather when I leave my flat, but since this is London I've become accustomed to rain.  But, this morning, when I walked through the 3 sets of double doors to get outside, instead of the flat wet drops of foggy precipitation plopping on my head, dampened white flakes were gently falling.  It was snowing! 

Now, because I live on what seems to be one of the busiest streets in central London, the city doesn't allow snow to stay on the ground.  Grit has been scattered across the sidewalks for weeks now in anticipation for any kind of icy liability.  But, I could still see it falling, polka-dotting my blue peacoat.  After a while, I didn't really care that it wasn't sticking to the ground. The air has that universal crisp snowy taste in it--that means Christmas is coming!  There are only three weeks left in the semester--I will be on my way home the morning of December 18th.  And I am exciting!  Knowing that I still have another full semester, I don't really feel any sense of sadness about leaving London yet.  I know I'll be back.  And I get to be home for Christmas.  I can't really ask for much more.

But in order to get home, I need to finish up this semester and only three papers stand in my way.  Slowly but surely I plod along.  The expected writing style here is slightly different.  Alma English papers tend to emphasize original, independent thought--not relying on others critiques to form your own opinion.  But here, being aware and able to reference others' work is important--the notion of being well-read must be present in addition to your opinion to support it.  We view these as two separate entities, the first being a critical textual anaylsis paper, the second a critical research analysis paper.  But here, research is a given, the first form doesn't exist as much.  I think both skills are valuable.  Though there is, of course, always room for improvement, I feel like I have at some level mastered the first way.  I can form an opinion and use a literary text to back it up.  I can take text and dissect it.  I can look at form and function, symbolism and poetic asthetics, and comment on their use, effectiveness, and meaning.  My writing skills definitely have been challenged while working on the second way of writing.  And though at first, I was overwhelmed with the concept of doing research in addition of such an in-depth analysis, I am finding that the extra reading, the extra hunting is often rewarding because it tends to help me clarify my own thoughts in different ways.  It also sometimes ignites different ideas that aren't readily apparent in just the literary text alone.  And I'm discovering that reading others' opinions doesn't really shape or influence mine as much as I thought it would.  Instead, it adds more layers and prompts more discussion.  My goal isn't to read and absorb--it is to read and digest.  It is very rare that I am aware of a time when I am learning and compounding skills, but this is one of those times where I can actually feel myself making new connections that I know will impact what I do in the future.  It is kind of rewarding to be able to know the end benefits while going through the struggling part--makes it more manageable. 

Speaking of this learning process, I have taken enough of a break from my American Lit. paper.  So for now I'll stop writing here, and start writing in a Word document again.  :)