An Overview of Londonlife
The sad time has come for me to change the “Lives in” on my Facebook page from “London, United Kingdom” to regular old “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I will pull myself from the depths of sadness, though, to offer an overview of what studying in London through Temple is like. Keep in mind that Temple doesn’t technically have its own campus in the UK; it works with a program called Foundation for International Education, or FIE, that provides the housing, internships, and support.
Classes:
This is the Temple program that specializes in the School of Communications and Theater, so if you’re planning to go as a non-SCT major, expect to get lots of elective credit done that semester. London offers at least one class for every SCT major. I took British Mass Media, which satisfies the International/Intercultural Media Issues Requirement; Travel Writing; an internship seminar; and a Special Topics course taught by the Temple faculty member who came with us, called “Visual Communication in London.” That last one was especially great because it incorporated field trips to places that I wouldn’t have thought to go on my own, like to the Imperial War Museum and 7 July Memorial in Hyde Park.
Classes are held once a week. The internship seminar, if you choose to take on an internship, is held only five times across the semester. Don’t forget: ANY for-credit study abroad program satisfies the World Society (GG) GenEd!
Housing:
FIE housing is located in Kensington, which is in the Royal Borough, a.k.a. “Right Down the Street from Where Will and Kate Live.” FIE offers multiple flats in the area, but I can only speak for Metrogate, which is fabulously located near the FIE classroom building and Gloucester Road tube stop. My entire floor in the flat was filled with Temple kids, which fostered a sense of family despite our distance from the real ones. (Awww!)
Work:
London is one of Temple’s only study away programs that offers an internship option. That is, FIE will find you an internship. Yes. Let that sink in. I didn’t realize how magical that was until I began searching for a summer internship on my own, because they are ridiculously difficult to score. To qualify for the internship, you need to write a separate essay explaining what you want to get out of one, what you ultimately want to do in your field, etc. and submit your resume (called a CV – curriculum vitae – in the UK) to FIE. They then do the tough stuff of matching you up with a company that fits your field. Heads up, visas are wickedly expensive.
It takes a while for FIE to confirm the internships, so you won’t find out what yours is until you arrive in London. Once you’re there, you’ll have an “interview” with the company that is usually just a get-to-know-you sesh, and then you officially begin the work during the second full week of the program. The internship requires two full work days every week except during spring/fall break, when classes are cancelled as well.
I got to work for an international entertainment trade magazine because I indicated in my application that I wanted writing experience and to “understand the inner-workings of a media company.” Done. Other people worked for production houses, public relations firms, theatre companies, record labels, advertising agencies, local newspapers, etc. etc. etc. … Not everyone had a great placement, but I rationalize that by remembering that no internship promises to be glamorous.*
So that’s that! There’s so much more to talk about it, but by golly, gee willikers, dang nabbit, you’re just going to have to go to find out for yourself what else there is!
*However, many of them DID turn out to be glamorous – at least on some days. One person sat in on a recording session of Colin Firth. One attended London Fashion Week. I covered the BRIT Awards and Hunger Games premiere. Just sayin’.
We hung out.
Greetings from London!
Hello, Philadelphians! I write to you from the confined quarters of my Kensington flat. No, not that Kensington. The one in the Royal Borough of London, United Kingdom! Surprise.
Obviously, I can make no comment on the current state of the PEX Pass, though I’m sure it is doing quite fabulously in providing you with cheap access to fun stuff in Philly. But I can say that studying abroad has been an incredible exercise in cultural communication. Over here, not only am I taking classes and living in the busiest English-speaking city in Europe, I’m also interning at an international entertainment industry trade magazine that gives me tasks like, Hey, go to the British version of the Grammys and report on the event and, oh yeah, go to the after party where Florence Welch and will.i.am are DJing. Rough life, right?
But seriously, I’ve learned how to integrate myself into a foreign land and new situations in a way that’s comparable to that first semester of college when you’re wondering why your roommate’s boyfriend has become a permanent, awkward fixture in your room. My inherent Americanism was not something that I’d ever had to question before coming here. I had never traveled outside of the continental United States. No one in my life hails from a different country, except for my paternal grandfather, who rarely talks about the days he spent running from the Nazis in World War II-era Poland. This was exactly why I needed to study abroad, though! There are about 6,840,507,000 people and 196 countries in the world, and I had met only a few of them and only lived in one. There was literally a world out there that I’d only seen in the media. I knew how my part of the globe operated, but I had no idea what else I was missing.
I can’t help perceiving my world from the perspective of my own culture, my own experiences, because they’re all I’ve ever known. But I can combat ethnocentrism by opening my mind to others’ ideas and lifestyles. I’m not saying that you need to go thousands of miles from home to figure out your place in the world, but learning to navigate the Tube and visiting places like Parliament and Westminster Abbey are good reminders of how teeny-tiny I am in comparison to everything else, and how far I have to go to understand THE TRUE MEANING OF LIFE.
And on top of all of this, studying abroad and earning credit for it waives GenEd students’ World Society requirement! Best part.
Kensington Gardens. Typical.
Student Voices at the Wilma Theater
You know what’s cool about high school? Not that much. You’re angsty, your parents don’t understand you, your friends are doing stupid things, you’re not technically old enough to do a lot of what you want to do (legally), and you don’t know what the heck to do with your life, except that you’re supposed to go to college. Lame.
“Student Voices,” written and largely performed by high schoolers, negated that stereotype by acknowledging issues of more substance on December 2nd. The evening was divided into three parts.
The first featured a monologue by Haley Gordon of Cheltenham High School and starred Brian Cowden. Gordon’s monologue appeared as the winner of the 2011 Young Voices Monologue Festival. “Thoughts Can Fly” described a young man’s frustration with humans’ burning need to outdo every other species. The character paced back and forth on a bare stage, pondering aloud, “What is our ‘est?’” meaning, what do we do better than anything else, and why does that make us Homo sapiens fit to rule the world? It is a dilemma that many adolescents can relate to: what is my place in the world? Why do people act the way they do? How can everyone else seem so sure of themselves? The thought-provoking piece was expertly performed by Cowden, who clearly knows his angst.
The second part featured the one-act play “On the Way,” winner of the 2010 Annual Playwriting Festival, by Upper Darby High School student Lyn Huong Nguyen. The heart of the story is a distraught family that has been torn apart by the Vietnam War. Teenage Thuy has been waiting many years for her father to return from the war even while her mother seems to have given up hope that he will ever come back. When he finally does appear, though, he is not the man that they remember. With the help of a great supporting cast and impressive rotating set complete with a straw hut and backyard swing, “On the Way” affected all who have experienced war or heartache.
The third part featured a collaborative effort by students of South Philadelphia High School. Written by about forty students and performed by thirteen current seniors of the school, the show described the school’s daily life, history, and current racial tensions in a series of vignettes. South Philly High is a multiethnic school whose troubles have brought national attention to it, most notably for a day in 2009 when Asian American students at the school were terrorized by groups of African American students; the play was written as a response to that event. For more information about this piece, go here: http://www.metro.us/philadelphia/entertainment/article/1037289–south-philly-high-don-t-write-them-off
It should be stated that I actually had a very nice high school experience, overall – partly because I had theater and writing as creative outlets. And if I had known about Student Voices Center Stage and Philadelphia Young Playwrights four years ago, believe me, I would have been all over them. Sounds like a fantastic deal: write your own play or monologue, get feedback on it from theater professionals, potentially have your work performed on the Avenue of the Arts in Center City? Um, yes. I have infinite respect for these young playwrights and imagine nothing but bright futures for all of them.
Located between Locust and Spruce on Broad, the Wilma is easily accessible by the Southbound Orange Line, and at $5 for a student (PEX-discounted) ticket, it’s also ridiculously cheap. Oh, and the interior of the theater is stunning. GOOOOOOO!!!!!
http://www.wilmatheater.org/
www.phillyyoungplaywrights.org
It’s a good thing I didn’t bring my pet hamster …
You probably don’t think of Northern Philadelphia as a mecca for science. You probably think that your school is the only academia-oriented attraction. Well GUESS WHAT, TEMPLE KIDS?!?! … NO! Stop being so narrow-minded! Gosh!!!!!
Just kidding. If you’ve ever walked down Montgomery from Broad (which you have, because you got lost on your way to a lot of frat parties during your freshman year), you’ve probably noticed 1. the police station, 2. that fantastic mural of the smoking man at 16th, and 3. the Wagner Free Institute of Science, located at 17th and Montgomery. It’s a lovely building, albeit out of place in the neighborhoods that surround it.
Here are some things that I saw/learned during my visit:
- A preserved rat split open with it’s organs on display
- Stuffed animals galore (not the Build-A-Bear kind) like a kiwi, a porcupine, a porcupine fish, etc.
- Rocks! Lots and lots of rocks!
- The word “taxidermy” is Greek for “to arrange skin.” (Does that mean that plastic surgery is technically taxidermy? Hmm …)
- Elephant and capybara skulls! D’aww
- A giant English draft horse skeleton that the Institute bought for ten bucks in 1889 – snagged it!
- So many rodents! My hamster, Charlie, might’ve had a great time hanging out with them. However, it might also have freaked him out that all of his friends were dead.
- Native American artifacts
- Bones of a Brontosaurus “thunder lizard” excelsus
- Fish look as gross when preserved with marble eyes and mounted on a wall as they do on my dinner plate.
All of these could be found in a single room, which is located on the second level of the Wagner. On the main floor there was also a gorgeous lecture hall that seemed more old-school Harvard than Nor’Philly with its cherry wooden seats and a presenter’s desk laden with sculpted busts and what can only be described as “specimens.”
The Wagner is a good place to visit even if you’re not a science person. I certainly don’t subscribe to any bio monthlies, but I still enjoyed checking out the displays. It’s easy to get to, it’s a nice break from typical city scenery, and it might bring you back to elementary school days when museums were a fun break from regular school. It’s also a reminder that we Homo sapiens share the earth with a lot of other creatures – and that nothing is permanent, as evidenced by all of the skulls lying around.
The Wagner Free Institute of Science is open M-F 9-4 … and yeah, it’s pretty free.
It's lovely, right?
Theater on Campus! Part II
Hello again, PEXers! (I’m still working on the name.) So, I’ve been attending many cultural events and have thus been too busy to post about them. But I return now with suggestions galore.
This and my previous post are entitled “Theater on Campus” Parts I & II because they both describe opportunities to be theatrically enriched without traveling farther than this end of Broad Street. The first was provided by a student organization that specializes in getting YOU involved with your favorite form of entertainment (and it is your favorite, obviously. I’m not projecting at all).
This opportunity comes from our own Baptist Temple that isn’t really a religious meetinghouse anymore, but a gorgeous performing arts center that holds plays, orchestras, dance, student activities, and the like. Last Thursday evening, it hosted a performance of “The Rivalry” by Norman Corwin which brought to life the pre-Gettsyburg speeches of Abraham Lincoln and his rival, Stephen Douglas. The show, which has been performed on Broadway, was a stop on the tour of L.A. Theatre Works and starred Robert Parsons as Lincoln, Josh Clark as Douglas, and Rebecca Mozo as Adele, Douglas’s young wife and the occasional narrator. There was a fourth character, played by Dian Adair, that served many purposes yet never quite moved the plot along in any noticeable way.
Despite a ridiculously low turnout – come on, Temple, the PEX Pass listed it specifically! – the small cast put on an enthusiastic performance and communicated the story well. The show achieved both education and entertainment by turning something as dry as Civil War-era speeches into a bittersweet political dramedy. Its most poignant moments were Lincoln and Adele’s few interactions. The two weren’t meant to get along, as Adele’s husband was Lincoln’s political enemy, but these small conversations revealed each character’s most pleasant and human sides. Their camaraderie, as well as Douglas’s eventual dedication to Lincoln in order to help keep the Union together, can be a lesson to modern politicians that bipartisanship is possible and something to strive for.
I love theater. I really do. It’s a form of art that’s seeped in self-expression and the expression of circumstances that reveals something about reality as it is portrayed. One of my professors told us this quote: “A story is a record of pressure and response.” To me, there is no form of storytelling that shows pressure and response more explicitly, nor one more tangible, than this.
… And the next time PEX offers you a free ticket to a one-night engagement of a former Broadway show right on campus, please, please use it. Cool? Cool.
Theater on Campus! Part I
Hello, PEX Passians! (Passengers? Passers? Meh.) Many apologies for waiting so long to post my next post. Hopefully the delight that you will receive from reading this and thus being inspired to break forth into the world of live performance will quiet the pain you have felt without the sweet comfort of my artfully crafted words. And stuff.
My greatest sadness of freshman year was the apparent lack of theatrical outlets for non-theater majors at Temple. The shows in Tomlinson were always fantastic, but sadly, my former high school drama geek-ness did not prepare me for such quality. Upon this realization, part of my soul was promptly crushed. It stayed that way until roughly April of my sophomore year. (Yes, it is possible to survive for that long with a crushed soul. WebMD has a tips page about it.*)
Then, though, I discovered my savior: Insomnia Theater! Insomnia specializes in creating and performing several short plays within 24 hours, all written, directed, and acted by Temple students. The process starts the week before with sign-ups, where you indicate what role you’d like (i.e. writer, director, actor). On the Friday night before Saturday’s show, everyone gathers for the actors’ auditions. However, “auditions” is a loose term because anyone who wants to participate can be in the show. After that, the writer and their directors (usually 3-5 groups in all) get together to select their casts and hear the motif for the show, the motif being a one-word prompt to be interpreted any way and incorporated into each play’s plot. Next, the writers stay up through the wee hours of the night writing their scripts based on the given motif. In the morning, everyone gathers again to go over the scripts, and then the writers leave and the actors spend all day learning the plays while the directors direct them. That night – BAM! Showtime. The plays, performed in the Underground of the SAC, are super cheap to attend and open to the Temple community/general public.
It’s hectic, but it’s very, very fun. It’s also a great opportunity for amateur theater enthusiasts to engage in the creative play-making process. Shows usually take months to get going, and here we are with a finished product in one day! The last show of this semester, held last Saturday the 12th, featured the motif of “right/write/Wright/rite” in every capacity. The resulting plays ranged in topic from sorority pledging to a presidential mishap to a deranged Survivor-style detention – and all were quite hilarious.
You’re probably wondering if I’m involved with Insomnia, and if this post is a plug to get more people involved. Answer: YEAH! I’ve acted in two shows and wrote for the last one. But if theater is your thing and if you are hopelessly lost without it, as I was, ignore the shameless promotion and get involved. Insomnia holds two shows per semester, so gethyca butt to next year’s auditions and act it up!
From "Failing Detention," performed in last week's show (Photo credit: Chris Adair)
*No it doesn’t.
Institute of Contemporary Art
I was a good artist in fifth grade. Really. That’s when I won my class’s cartoon contest and had my work displayed in the cafeteria with the other grades’ winners. Since then, though, I haven’t gotten to explore art as much as I would like to. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan of art. I check out the PMA at least once a year (on Free Museum Days, exclusively), and whenever my photography-major roommate needs a model, I’m there for her. And, yeah, I’ve collected a couple paintings for my bedroom wall. Otherwise, though, my life is not nearly as art-filled as I would like it to be.
As an advocate of exploration, I must insist that you check out the Institute of Contemporary Art, as I did in my quest for artistic inspiration. The ICA seems to specialize in unique exhibits that challenge the typical perception of “art.” It’s a cool space – sparse and somewhat industrial with its concrete floor and its white pipes running along the high ceiling, yet also pure-looking in its bare whiteness. There are two floors, but I’ve only ventured through the first, where the single-artist installations are held.
The first time I visited the ICA was actually last semester when I saw a fantastically interesting fibers exhibit: floor-to-ceiling woven threads in the vague look of carpets, but much more whimsical and abstract. This time, though, the work of German artist Charline von Heyl was being featured. The artist is quoted in an ICA pamphlet as saying,
“It is about the feeling that a painting, or any work of art, can give – when you can’t stop looking because there is something that you want to find out, that you want to understand … Good paintings have this tantalizing quality. And once you turn around, you absolutely cannot recapture them. They leave a hole in the mind, a longing.”
This pretty much sums up the exhibit. I didn’t understand her work, and many of the paintings were very, very … weird. But as I stated before, though I have not studied art, I have an open mind, which is all you need to at least appreciate it. Her use of color and odd shapes captivated, forced me to stare at until I could feel something. No two paintings were alike. Each was far detached from conscious reality and any concrete object. And they had titles like “Poodle Pit” and “Lazybone Shuffle,” which alone should be enough to pique your interest.
The Institute for Contemporary Art is located on UPenn’s campus at 118 South 36th Street. Because the ICA is small, I’d recommend stopping by if you already happen to be in University City. It’s closed on Mondays and Tuesday but open every other day:
W 11-8
R/F 11-6
S/S 11-5
Oh, and admission is FREE!
http://icaphila.org/
Above painting: “Igitur,” Charline von Heyl, 2008. Her work will be featured at the ICA from now until February 19th.
Mistakes Were Made
As an actor, I am in complete awe of anyone who can memorize large bulks of text and perform them without faltering. That’s why one-man shows are so impressive to me. One actor has to carry the entire play, and if they forget a line? No cues to help them out. Another thing that gets me about one-man shows is the energy the actor needs to last for an hour and a half straight – like in Mistakes Were Made, which required Scott Greer to constantly pace his office and often scream into his headset while popping pills as if he were about to explode at any moment.
This enthusiastic commitment to the character was the highlight of “Mistakes Were Made,” currently running at the Play & Players Theater with 1812 Productions through October 30th. The show documents a hectic hour-and-a-half in the work-life of Felix Artifex (Greer), a harried wannabe-Broadway producer with a habit of biting off more than he can chew. Felix’s story is told through long-winded, turbo-charged phone conversations with his clients, wife, secretary, and investors – who, by the way, are being held captive by flamethrower-wielding terrorists in a foreign country – as well as through a few musings to his gargantuan fish, Denise.
The most impressive aspect of a one-man show is also what makes it most at risk for being redundant. If you’re going to see this play, be aware that not much happens. There is one set, three characters (if you count the fish), and not much of a plot. I’ll also admit that I didn’t know what was going on with the investors until the second act of the play, and that the ending felt a bit rushed. But Mistakes Were Made mostly avoids redundancy with incredible acting and a good amount of character development. The best moments are when Felix steps back from his job and finally talks to the estranged wife that he’s been trying to get a hold of all day, because in these moments, he is not a wannabe-Broadway producer, but a real human being with a real, sad past.
I applaud the use of an over-fed fish and an over-medicated character to symbolize Felix’s addiction to wanting more, more, more in his career, which inevitably leads to a loss in other parts of his life. The set was extremely convincing as a snazzy high-rise Manhattan office, with its theatrical posters and windows that showed the passing of day through changes in light. I loved the theater itself, too. I’d been there before, for “Any Given Monday” two years ago as well as for a burlesque show last summer, and each time I feel like I’ve stepped a few years into the past.
If you’re interested in seeing a very different kind of play and don’t mind watching one man yell at unseen people through a phone for an hour and a half, see Mistakes Were Made at the Play & Players Theater.
Thanks to Alex Wright, my co-critic.
What is Blini?
Blini! (from travelswise.com)
Blini is a Russian pastry made of sweet dough that’s wrapped like a crepe and holds a rich cheese filling. It is often eaten with powdered sugar sprinkled on top and dipped in sour cream.
This I learned at the St. Michael’s 35th Annual Russian Festival last weekend. Held at St. Michael’s Orthodox Church at 4th & Fairmount in Northern Liberties, the weekend-long event celebrated all things Russian and invited the whole Philadelphia community to their party for free. Besides blini, there were “Imports from the Old Country” like nesting dolls and painted eggs; live Russian folk music in the form of an accordion player; tours of the gorgeous church by a priest who loved to talk about how gorgeous the church is; and a full room of archives of Russian history and culture.
I was impressed to find people who were both so in tune with their heritage and so willing to share it with those unfamiliar to it. Parishioners greeted everyone at the door, and though my friend and I were not of the church, we felt instantly welcomed. At every table that we visited, someone was there to tell us all about the objects’ significance to Russian culture. And the priest was very patient in answering our questions about the differences between Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism. (Point 1: priests can marry.)
All of the food was made by someone at the church. There were some foods I’d never heard of – holubtsi, halushky, kapusta? Alas, I must admit that I was not a huge fan of the aforementioned blini. However, the pierogies and tea cakes were fantastic.
You may be wondering why I’ve described a Russian festival that is now over and has nothing to do with Temple’s PEX Pass. Well … YOU’RE WRONG, because it DOES have something to do with the PEX Pass. Indirectly, of course, because there are no coupons for attending any church services, as those as usually free. Still, the point of PEX is to encourage students to get into Philly and check out stuff that they normally wouldn’t, stuff that’s outside of their comfort zone. I am not Russian in the least. Polish, but more on the southern side. But that’s exactly why I went!
Also, I found out about this event through a Temple News article, “Under the Radar.” Information about random but cool events can be found in surprising places. Pay attention to signs, fliers, newspaper ads. Or flip through your PEX Pass and pick out a place that you’ve never even heard of. You never know what fancy new pastries you’ll get to try as a result!
Butterflies and Dinosaurs and Moose, Oh My!
The Academy of Natural Sciences is a standard enough education and tourist destination that I’m sure that a) most people already visited it with their fourth grade class, or b) another PEX correspondent has written about it before. Still, because it’s so standard, I might as well remind you to get there if you haven’t yet!
This place has it all, in terms of … well, natural science. The first thing you see upon entering is a huge, hanging, intact dinosaur skeleton. (It looks like it’s waving at you. Aww!) To your right is Dinosaur Hall, which is filled with life-size skeletons and tons of facts about the animals that they once filled. There’s also a separate room for watching professionals scrape newly-unearthed bones out of rock. Not just demonstrations. Actual experts working on actual dinosaur bones. Cool, right?
Upstairs has a section filled with glass cases that hold stuffed animals – stuffed like taxidermy – in replicas of their natural environments. My favorites were the really big, scary-looking ones like the bison and polar bear. There is also a sign next to every case that describes that animal and its home. Fun fact: “Moose are the giant vegetarians of the northern forests.” Did you know that? I didn’t!
What sets the Academy apart from your average museum, though, is the butterfly exhibit. This is your chance to get up close and personal with some really beautiful creatures. The room is filled with tropical plants in order to mimic the insects’ natural habitats, and because they’re at face level, you can watch a butterfly extract nectar from a flower from just a few inches away. There are always 20-40 different types flying around and new ones are shipped in every week from all around the world, so you’ll never see the same thing twice – not that that would be a letdown at all, considering how lovely they are.
The butterfly room is pretty small; ten minutes is all you need to really appreciate it. But it’s such a rarity to be able to get so close to something so exotic. And some people do get really close: I have a friend who used to volunteer in the exhibit, and she said that butterflies would fly down and chill on her shoulders as she worked. Seeing them costs an extra two bucks, but you also get to hang out in an 80-degree room for a few minutes, which will be nice if you go during the winter.
The Academy is located on the Parkway right next to Logan Circle, the Franklin Institute, and the Free Library. It’s just a few blocks away from the City Hall/15th Street subway stop if you head past Love Park and toward the PMA. I didn’t see many options for parking, so public trans is probably the way to go. A swoop of the whole museum wouldn’t take more than an hour, so plan it as part of a full sightseeing day.
Here’s the best part of : with your PEX Pass discount, entry to the museum is FREE!
http://www.ansp.org/
Beware of flying dinosaurs! (Just kidding, this guy looks like a swimmer)
Tropical butterfly paradise
