"That was wwwicked!!!"

"I have been changed.... for good!!" My life might seriously be considered complete, as I have finally seen WICKED on broadway. And I'll never ever forget how good it was. We walked around for about an hour tonight, looking to see Phantom initially, then Les Mis when Phantom was sold out, then we thought we'd try Wicked in the last attempt of the night when Les Mis was completely full. Little did we know that when we arrived at the Wicked box office two minutes before the start of the show, we'd be offered fourth row seats for only 28 pounds!! I really can't stop thinking about how much I loved it, and how much I can't wait to see the next musical here. Matilda tomorrow, and Les Mis this Thursday! I'm in heaven!

As a large group, we visited both the British Library and the British Museum earlier today. I enjoyed both! I have to admit, I'm not naturally a huge museum person, but I'm trying to become one. Kind of like I'm trying to become passionate about Shakespeare while I'm here. It's starting to work... at least a little bit. Making progress. At the Library, it was fun to see some original lyrics (scribbles) of a few of the Beatles songs, including their hit Yesterday. I also saw Beethoven's tuning fork, the Magna Carter, and a few other favorite things which I can't remember at the moment. Maybe they weren't such favorites after all. I enjoyed the British Museum much more than I thought I would, all because of my Music Civ class. Never thought I'd say it, but that class paid off. I was able to see the Egypt exhibit, along with the Greek and Roman exhibits. I loved looking at the Greek and Roman sculptures! Some of them are definitely strange, but now that I know a bit of history behind them, they've become especially interesting.

(There's a man that draws these flags in front of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square almost every day... I think it's super cool.)

Maybe more than any other lesson, I'm learning the importance of being educated. There are so many people here who know what it means to appreciate literature and to understand history and to embrace different cultures. Although I'm learning rapidly, I'm also rapidly learning how much I have yet to learn. I wish I could go back to every history class I've ever taken and work ten times harder at not just  memorizing the facts but really learning them and keeping them in my brain. I feel like I have a whole lot of homework to do on a whole lot of people and dates and events. I know I don't have to learn it all at once, but I've really been inspired while I've been here (over the the course of the last week going on two months) to take advantage of every opportunity to learn. I'm also discovering that I can change the way I think. Before this year, my brain wasn't wired to do statistics. Now that I've worked long and hard in a stats class, it is. And I figure that it's possible for the same thing to happen with history, Shakespeare, or whatever else I'd like to master. Time to get to work, baby.

-Cass