I'm going to go ahead and label today as "inspiring," although it didn't begin in an obviously inspiring way.

I woke up late, shuffled to class without showering, spent two hours in my film class, then went back to bed and took a three hour nap. I got up for a quick shower before heading down to a film showing. Thursday afternoons I have a film showing for my film history class, and this afternoon the chosen film was the 1926 black and white film, Metropolis. It lasted for 2 and a half hours. And did I mention it's a silent film? Yikes. Interesting movie, but really, after 2 plus hours of exaggerated acting that could have been condensed into 45 minutes without losing anything, I was getting a little annoyed. Sorry Fritz Lang. And the music sounded like a musical jewelry box on repeat and just about lulled me into sleep. Despite all this, I felt mildly accomplished for finally watching a German expressionism movie, and mildly inspired.

Anyways, after the lovely experience that is Metropolis, Janie (one of my Eau Claire friends) and I went over the the Student Union building to hear a discussion called "The Real Cost of Coffee – Fairtrade farmers raise awareness at the University of Winchester." Back in Eau Claire, I remember just beginning to become aware of what Fairtrade meant, but here Fairtrade is a much greater interest of the nation. In fact, the University of Winchester has been Fairtrade for 14 years. That means they are at least 14 years ahead of UWEC in that respect. They had a speaker from England, Uganda and Mexico (with a translator) to speak, and it was truly inspiring. Janie, a journalism student who worked for the Spectator (the UWEC newspaper), borrowed my paper and pen to scribble down some notes and plans on writing an article and sending it to the Spectator back home. On a related note, Janie and I, frustrated about the lack of recycling bins here, have started collecting the bottles and cans from our neighbors and friends to make sure that they get recycled. Pretty excited about all of this.

Oh, and yesterday, first rugby game, should probably mention that. First game went okay--not great, but not horrible. We didn't lose by too much, but we've got a lot to work on. I did manage to score a conversion kick though, acquire a couple more sweet bruises, and get thoroughly scolded for accidentally high tackling a short girl around the neck. Woops. =)



Anyways, I'm off to Janie's room to plan a possible trip to France tomorrow with Hillary and Karen (two other EC girls). Pretty excited about that. =)