Day 4 - 5/27/2012
Friday was our last day of orientation. I manged to pull myself out of bed and make it down for another series of lectures around 9am. Again the first lecturer was fairly dull (though I managed to stay awake this time) and she went on and on in the hot room about various parts of the architecture prevalent here. I did manage to get a few points from the talk though. A cool thing she mentioned is the fact that all the museums in London are free to go to. I'd already planned to go to the British Museum and I've now added the Imperial War Museum to the list. If you have other suggestions please comment on the bottom of this post as I'm always happy to go check out free forms of entertainment(London is very expensive).
Again the second lecturer was excellent. The topic was the transition from the British Empire to the sorta half membership to the European Union. One of the funniest points of the lecture was a point similar to the topic two days before. He was speaking about how one of the most difficult tasks he has every semester is trying to explain the idea of a constitution to his British students. He says that in the UK they don't see a need for a constitution because Parliament has supreme power and they elect Parliament. The students ask why Congress is limited in their action and he responds well there's a constitution that prohibits them from doing certain things. So then the students reply well why don't they pass a law changing that at which he replies well then it would be taken to court and overturned. The confused students then ask why Congress doesn't tell the courts what to pass and he replies well you see there's this constitution that says the courts have a check on Congress. They reply well why don't they change the Constitution to which he states well you need to have 3/4 of the states and yada yada to change it. The students then are thoroughly confused and are like well how the heck do they get anything done? to which the professor replies, "Well I suppose they don't really."
Another funny story is the trip he usually takes his students on to the national archives here. One thing they look at is the Declaration of Independence... You know the real one that they sent to the King. I was shocked that I never really thought about what actually happened to the Declaration of Independence that the Continental Congress sent the King. I mean it was a letter but you never really think about it being sent. He says its quite funny that over in the States our copy is contained in a bullet proof glass case but here you open up a file cabinet unroll the thing and put a stone on each corner. You can touch it, hold it, and on the bottom there's just one word written, "Rejected." I feel I must make a trip over the archives at some point to see this for myself.
The final funny bit I'll tell you about was in regards to borders and Independence Days. The prof made the point that the Brits don't have an independence day and apparently a few years ago a few people tried to get one passed. The idea didn't have much traction as who are the Brits gonna celebrate Independence from. England's borders have been intact since the 11th century very different from most of Europe which was formed post WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. His final line was, "What do you do on that day anyway drink beer and eat? You call that an Independence Day we call it Friday."
Actually had a small amount of free time Friday afternoon. Used it to go grab my textbooks along with a few other errands. Friday night we went over to Imperial again. Most of the kids are finishing up finals and we ran into a funny tradition. Apparently upon finishing their last year at Imperial seniors or whatever they call them dress up in full on drag, (dresses, whigs, etc.) and get drunk to the point where their English is indecipherable. It was pretty funny to watch a bunch of them causing chaos across the pub for awhile. After Imperial we attempted to go to a bar nearby but found them already at last call so we just headed back to the Crofton.
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