Life in the Fast Lane

9 July 2013

I love Cambridge! It is such a great place and I am so blessed to be here. My classes are great and I have learned so much already. I visited the Kings Library to study for the first time and it was such a neat experience. The books smell so old, it automatically makes you feel like you are the next Albert Einstein.

My official Kings College Student Access card…Pretty Legit.

Yesterday, I went to my first class in The Marriage of Spirit and Matter (Cambridge’s way of saying Art Class) and it was fabulous! Professor Newbolt talked about how our perspective is all that we need to develop to be a great artist. The way we interpret what we see and how well we convey those emotions to others are the means to creating art. Class was four hours long and we spent the first two analyzing how our preconceived notions determine what will end up on our paper, and two hours trying to delete them from our minds entirely and draw a bottle that was sitting on a table. I know you are thinking that this sounds extremely boring, but in actuality it was my favorite four hours that I have had in Cambridge thus far. Professor Newbolt is the most quirky and awkward man I have ever met and I love it. He fidgets his hands, pushes up his glasses, and looks down at the floor often, but he KNOWS HIS STUFF. He has been teaching classes in London and Cambridge for 30 years to some of the best artists in Europe and I trust him. If you want a little narrative or visual image of what he is like read or watch the scenes in Harry Potter that involve professor Trelawney. I think that she and Professor Newbolt are siblings.

When I forget to take pictures during the day, I result to snapping a photo of my evening snack.  Greek Yogurt and fruit have been my go to lately.

Professor Steinburg is a genius. He teaches full time at Penn State during the regular semesters but finds excuses to come back to his Alma Mater as often as possible. He graduated and taught at Cambridge for many years before returning to the states to teach, and he has written many books on European history in the meanwhile. One of his books on Bismarck during WW1 even made the Amazon top 25 best selling list, and it was a history textbook. THAT NEVER HAPPENS!