Amusings

My time spent studying abroad resulted in a vast repository of events… Many of these events are interesting and worthwhile stories.  But, for the current topic, I will only be covering a specific path of experiences.  Other stories will need to remain for future writings.   

Later in the spring, when I officially found out that I would be spending the next academic year in England… I was electric with anticipation.  For someone who thrived on new learning experiences, this appeared to be a limitless opportunity.

I needed to choose my classes for next year… And this provided me with a unique opportunity… To take classes that I could not take at my home university.  You have to understand that classes in some of the academic disciplines at my home university were not allowed to be taken by non-majors.  

I was a psychology major… But my major personal interests revolved around art and music.  The reluctance of those academic departments to allow non-major students in their classes was the possibility that their classes would fill up with non-majors and not allow enough class room for the dedicated students of the discipline.  

But, this would not be a problem for me.  All I had to do was find a class in England that I wanted to take… And then find a somewhat equivalent class at my home university.  Knowing that I would not be taking their precious classroom space, all of the professors signed off on the classes that I wanted to take while studying abroad.

Let’s see… 

Imaginary Psychology?  A course exploring the psychology of imagination… That sounds much more interesting than the electives at my school… 

An American Studies class on the Vietnam War?  They don’t even offer such a thing at my school…

Wait… They offer two semesters of film theory classes… We’ll definitely need that…

A sculpture class?  Well, I’ve never had a sculpture class… Or, even an art class beyond elementary school… It’s a senior-level art class… Let’s do it!

***  

In retrospect… Many of the classes I took abroad contributed more to my future academic pursuits than any of the classes that I took at my home university.

Also, in looking back… The study abroad experience provided me with a fantastic group of weirdo friends… But, they weren’t weird in the traditional sense… Because we were all weird in the ‘fish out of water’ sense. 

A great example of being a ‘fish out of water’ came from my Imaginary Psychology class.  Class consisted mostly of the time being divided between guided meditation led by the professor… And a group discussion about our experiences.  There were no notes to take or study… And class grades were determined by a single term paper and an essay exam at the end of the semester.

After guided meditation during class one day, we were discussing our experiences.  The meditation that day consisted of packing for a trip.  Where were we headed on our trip?  What would we take with us?  What would we pack in our bag?  What did our bag look like?  So on and so forth.

I volunteered to share my experience with the rest of the class…

My bag was a weathered leather weekend bag… Similar to what Indiana Jones would have used.  I packed shirts and pants…    

Snickers erupted from the other students… I was not aware that ‘pants’ is a term equivalent to ‘underwear’ in British vernacular.  The professor kindly cleared up my confusion… And everyone in class had a good laugh.

I have a friend (a very close friend still today) who was taking an advanced math course at the time… And he was terribly confused as the professor illustrated a story on the whiteboard about ‘lorries’ during class… He raised his hand to ask what a ‘lorry’ was… The rest of the class started laughing… A ‘lorry’ is what would be called a ‘truck’ in American colloquial speech.

We’re all weird here.

***

The first day of sculpture class… I sat in a darkened classroom reviewing projected slides of well known sculptures.  The slide that caught my attention was Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913).  

It turns out that the sculpture… Which consists of a wooden stool with a front fork and bicycle wheel mounted upside down on top of it… Was meant to ask the question ‘what is art?’  

My fellow students, who were in their final year as art majors at university, had plenty of comments on the piece of work.  Thank God Marcel Duchamp meant to ask the question ‘what is art?’ with the piece… Because, as I sat there, I too wondered ‘what is art?’  And I began to wonder if I had gotten in over my head by taking this class.

***

I believe that the entire grade for that sculpture class revolved around each student’s final project… No pressure for someone who hadn’t participated in an art class since grade school.  All of the projects would be displayed at the end of the semester to be viewed by the entire art department.

Throughout that semester, I contemplated a thousand and one ideas for my final sculpture project… And ended up submitting three works for my final project.  While they were all interesting, there was one that stole the show… The flag.