I love Cambridge! It is one of the coolest places I have ever been. The trees and flowers are gorgeous, the buildings are so ancient and beautiful, and the mom and pop sandwich store down the road sells filled baguettes for £2.65.
It's called Sam Smiley's and it's tiny. It's so small, in fact, that they don't accept credit cards for anything that costs less than £5. Nevertheless, it's a wonderful little shop. Every day I'm there, I see something that wasn't there the day before. Sam Smiley's is going to have one steady customer this month.
Peterhouse's Senior Bursar spoke to us yesterday, and I cracked up. Every few minutes, he would push his glasses further up the bridge of his nose! It was like some kind of nervous tic! Every time he did it, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I really hope he thought I was quivering in anticipation.
My creative writing teacher is absolutely fantastic. Today we played 'Sonnet Consequences.' Everyone starts off with a line in iambic pentameter that rhymes with a designated sound. Then we pass it on two the person on our left, who writes the next line, and so on until the sonnet is finished. The only problem is, you're not allowed to read the lines before yours. The resulting hodgepodge of endings is fantastically surreal.
We also had a guest speaker come in and talk about a Walt Whitman poem with us. Did you know he was educated in Cambridge?
No minor today. I was kind of sad about that, but it gave me a whole ton of free time. Some of the group went down to see the varsity cricket match between Cambridge and Oxford, but I chose not to go. Instead I went down to a store and bought myself a pad of paper and some calligraphy pens. (They were really cheap, Mom! Only £6.29. Similar quality pens in the USA cost about fifteen dollars!)
I decided to hang out in the Program Office, because the directors here are really nice and sitting in there made me feel connected. One of the teachers at the program saw me doing calligraphy and asked if I could make a sign for her! So my sign will be hanging around Peterhouse.
A ladybug followed me around today. When I was writing in a notebook, it started crawling on my knee. I let it keep on crawling and stood up nearly twenty minutes later, thinking it haf gone off. Nearly half an hour later, I saw it crawling on my jacket in the bathroom. I then lost it again until it showed up on my purse in the program office.
It's been wonderful here, and I'd just like to say I wish you were all here with me!!!
God Bless,
Erienne
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Thanks for sharing your blog with us Erienne. It sounds as if you're really enjoying Cambridge. We're so happy that you are settling in so well, as we were worried for you when you sounded so unhappy on your first day.
ReplyDeleteYour course sounds very interesting. I wish I could have gone on something like that when I was your age. I didn't start writing with any passion until I retired and even now there are always 'house jobs' to do!
I entered a writing competition on Tuesday for 'The Guardian' newspaper, which is a broadsheet serious paper as opposed to a tabloids, which focus on sensation, half truths, and dubious quality.
It's the first time I have exposed my work since I had a rejection from the BBC for a sitcom I wrote a few years ago. The paper has acknowledged receipt, so it's just a matter of wait and see.
It's only 2000 words, so if you are interested I could email you a copy.
Take care.
Love you too.
Bill.
Fun to hear about the corner store! How much is a pound in dollars? tk
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