And now for the students...

This post will have to be quick as I am A) constantly interrupted, B) in need of course prep time that is not at 2am and C) totally exhausted! So much for my delightful days of wandering around London on my own. I'm in House mode right now, and while so far has been good, it's been very draining. Such is to be expected with 18 new roommates getting used to an old home, new foods, new rules, and no sense of direction.

So before the students got in, I managed to get to see the West End production of 'Chicago' with Amy, a friend-of-a-friend-of a-friend who was in town for an interview at an International School. She was delightful and full of energy, and was excited to see Chicago too even though she had seen it before. We got half price tickets from the TKTS booth (like the one they have in NYC) and we were in the 4th row. On the very side, granted, but generally it worked out great. Holy crap, watching the dancers up close were amazing. Both the men and the women have INCREDIBLE bodies and are totally insanely sexy and intense. I mean, seriously, if you are woman and want to be in 'Chicago' you better be prepared to wear a full-body fishnet suit (with small bra and basically a thong underneath). Hard core. Needless to say, these folks inspired me to get to the gym ASAP (well, once I *find* the gym, that is!). Anyway, Amy and I had a delightful time out but then I had to get back at a semi reasonable hour...

...because my other 18 roommates began to arrive on Sunday morning. My first one arrived at 8:20am, the last was around 2pm. Sounds like few of them had any sort of major drama--a couple of flight delays, some lost folks on the trains, and the pair whose taxi driver got in a minor accident up the street from us, you know, the usual. The last few days have been a complete and total blur of learning how to do things, where things are, what NOT to do (ahem, the student who plugged in a power strip and blew the outlet out completely), where to go, how to get there, etc. While I am trying to answer everyone's questions as best I can, I have to remind them often that I'm learning/figuring out London myself now too, so just be patient! And for the most part, I will say, they have been great. Probably the hardest part of dealing with the house is that students have to do set up and clean-up of our two meals, breakfast and dinner. In this way, I feel like a manager of a restaurant or a MOM...it's a lot of "this is how you load a dishwasher" to "remember to wipe down the tables!" to "do you really HAVE to take a new glass out for everytime you need a drink of water"???? If this is how being a mom is...I may have to rethink that. Then again, if I have kids I can tell you, vow on a Bible in fact, that I will never, never, have 18 children. I'll leave that to Michelle Duggar, for crying out loud.

So classes got started today, beginning with Muir Morton, the fabulous Politics professor who has done just about everything, it seems...served 30 years in some police force here, served several years as a British consultant for the FBI in Quantico, and had some job in Parliament (I think it was a job, not an elected official, but he showed me some cool pics of him wearing a cool outfit!). He is great, and plans to take the students to Parliament and out to his 'country house with the thatched roof' and I guess I get to tag along too. Sweet!

Other classes continue on later today, then mine are tomorrow and Thursday. Too much to do, let alone head out and about in London. That will have to wait for the weekend, as will (finally) uploading some pics, I swear. Once my head stops spinning, I will, which hopefully will be soon.