Helpful Teachers

I discovered my physics class, Electricity and Magnetism, which I thought was going to be taught by a David Berman, a very intelligent, accomplished man, will actually be taught by a tedious, dim-witted young man who lectured about vectors today about as well as I could have, which is to say very poorly. We had a conversation after class:

“Hi, my name’s Kevin. I’m an associate student.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, I’m new.”

“Well I’m from the United States.”

“Oh, how wonderful!”

A pause.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. When and where are lectures held?”

“Oh! Well there are three lectures held in three different rooms throughout the week. I would tell you where and when they are, but I enjoy being vague, ambiguous and unhelpful about essential details regarding your education here, just like all the other administrative faculty at this university. It will be much more fun to wait and see if you can find the lectures by yourself than for me to tell you anything about them.”

Another pause.

“Thank you for your help.”

“Oh jolly good, ‘twas nothing, cheerio!”

Another pause.

“Ok. Goodbye.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how the conversation went.

As seems to be the trend these days, I started having a much better time after my classes may or may not have been over. Tonight I was supposed to meet some friends under the Tower of London, but we didn’t connect, so I ended up strolling through the streets of London unabated for a couple of hours. I got completely lost in a seedy neighborhood, so I grabbed a bus to a stop which had a tube station, hopped onto the subway and ended up right back in my neighborhood. It was amazing, and I think I’ll do it again. I loved the feeling of arriving at an intersection and not caring which direction I walked. It was exploration at its finest.

For the past five days, I’ve worn the same pair of jeans and at least three layers. Usually four.

I haven’t seen a drop of rain since I’ve been here. I’ve seen evidence of rain, but no actual rain.