Week 5 | The Buddha of Suburbia

During our last week, we thought about our study abroad experience as a whole, and what it truly means to be a global citizen. Between packing to return to the States and working on our film, I began to feel bittersweet about leaving, but found comfort in the fact that I would never forget this experience and how it changed me.


Our first excursion was to the Museum of London, where we explored how the working class made it's wages over time, and the disadvantages that came with it. This helped us mull over how Karim in The Buddha of Suburbia might have faced difficult lower-middle class problems when it came to work, until he found his acting career.


That evening, we went to a cat cafe to relax from the stresses of our homework! While not necessarily relating to our novel, it is interesting to note that cat cafes are 'global,' haha!


Wednesday, we went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A Museum to explore the changing political climate in London in the 1970's. This led us to a better understanding of Karim's world, as well as what challenges it presented when it came to growing up as a mixed race teen.


Thursday we went to the London Eye, and got a humbling bird's eye view of the Thames and many hot spots in London. While this day was more for ending our course on a high note, I still found myself feeling at home and even more worldly as I looked out across the cityscape. The US might be my permanent residence, but London will always have a piece of my heart.


Growing up as a global citizen, to me, means that you can find a home in any place, and come to both understand and celebrate the differences throughout the world. While I have only barely scratched the surface of this planet, I feel I have already grown and been changed by this beautiful city!


Of course, even after everything, I was delighted to return home to my family, and my sweet baby bird. I will likely continue to tell the tales of my adventure for many years to come!


Comments

  1. Professor SteeleAugust 9, 2017 at 5:06 AM

    I like how your blog takes us full circle: from your introductory post that introduced us to Pixel to a final image of his fetching profile upon return. Thanks for your buoyant, fun spirit and consistent intellectual curiousity.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 3 | A Room with a View

Image
Week three took us back to analyzing art, relics, and surprisingly, tourist attractions! The focus was on growing up as a traveller, and with this came many intriguing realizations that not only applied to Lucy in A Room with a View,  but also to all of us as students and young adults. Our first venture took us to Soane's collection, which was only a 15 minute walk from our flats! While no photography was allowed, I was able to capture just a few pieces of the seemingly endless collection of artifacts through sketch. The focus on Greek, Egyptian, and Italian art throughout the collection exhibited the appreciation tourists, especially the British, had for those cultures in particular, and what they deemed the 'essential' parts of a country when touring it. For instance, even Soane's wife's tomb has elements of Greek architecture in its design, which is notable because even a great collector and connessuier of the arts will draw from pieces he fancies
Read more

About Me

Image
Hello everyone! My name is Mackenzie Malpass. I'm from Missouri City, Texas, but I've lived all over the U.S.! I love my family, companion animals, friends, food, music, video games/movies/television, and being artistic! I'm a rising sophomore, and a Pre-Graphic Design major. Creating and designing beautiful things is pretty much my whole life-- I'm a self taught illustrator and contemporary artist, a rather talented violinist, and craftswoman! My favorite things to craft are costumes of fictional characters-- I love to wear them to 'geek' conventions to show them off. Some of the most elaborate involve lights, speakers, body paint, and even prosthetics! As for the more traditional side of art, I love drawing and illustrating in particular. I have a drawing tablet that I use to create digital works, which I love especially due to their vibrancy that you usually can't get with traditional media. My favorite subjects to work on are animals and fan
Read more

Week 2 | Brideshead Revisited

Image
Week two has been full of exciting excursions! This week's focus revolved around growing up as a skeptic, and what that can mean based on all the different features of buildings from varying eras, and how religion does/does not play a role in each. At Christ Church in Oxford, we saw where Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited would have lived during university, and the significant impact Catholicism had on the schematics of the college and what went on within it. The cathedral embedded in Christ Church, naturally, had more imagery in the stained glass and relics around the corridors that relayed the history of the religion with the college. The difference between Tudor/Gothic styles and Baroque at Eltham Palace provided a deeper understanding for how styles evolved in places of high class and/or royalty. At the Hampton Court palace, the gorgeous frescoes and oil paintings throughout lend themselves to religious subjects, but instead show the political figu
Read more