The plans and purpose for the trip

---

I feel that this blog should begin with an explanation of the origins of this trip. I have been fascinated with the United Kingdom and Ireland for as long as I can remember. I think that it has something to do with my heritage, but for whatever reason I have always been so excited to hear about this area, even before I had visited it. I finally visited England and Scotland my Junior year in High School as a trip with my theatre group to perform at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. I quickly fell in love with Europe and decided that there would be a day where I would live there. As soon as I found out that I would have the opportunity to study in the UK during college, I knew that I would have to take that chance. I feel that it is extremely important to be put outside of your comfort zone at some point in your life, and living in a foreign country is the best way to do this. Freshman year, I went into the Office of International Education to begin preparations. I looked at tons of books about schools in the area and tried to narrow it down. The first schools I was looking at were Edge Hill University (Ormskirk, UK), Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) and a few others in London, Dublin, and Northern Ireland. I decided that the areas that I would like to focus on were Dublin and London. I began to research schools that had good theatre programs, because I wanted to continue pursuing my acting career while living abroad. Long story short, I considered money, application processes and personal recommendations to make my final choices. I have decided that I will attend Edge Hill University in Ormskirk for the Fall 2009 Semester and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in London for the Spring 2009 Semester.

I decided to start with EHU in Ormskirk (near Manchester and Liverpool) because it had a very well-developed study abroad program that would allow me to make a nice, supportive transition between the US and the UK. It would be too extreme to move straight to London. Also, living in that major city is something that I can look forward to and build up to. I will go from Ormskirk, which is, from what I understand, a small farming town that is not on most major maps, to one of the largest cities in the world. I am very excited to be able to experience such different aspects of one country. I feel that this is a great way for me to truly get an idea of what this country is all about.

I have not finalized my classes yet, but so far I will be taking one or two theatre classes, a literature course, and a history course at EHU. LAMDA has a program that is set up where everyone takes the same classes. There are about 30-45 students in the program and it is 100% performing arts. The program I will be attending is the Spring Semester Classical Acting Study Abroad Program, focusing on Shakespeare and Restoration theatre. Both schools will provide me with credits that are good for my BFA Acting degree at OCU.

I leave OKC for Denver on Wednesday, September 9th... a week from today. Then my parents and I will travel to the UK on Thursday, September 10th and we finally arrive in London on Friday, September 11th. There is even an extra airfare charge for flying on September 11th... if you can believe it. Then we will take a train to Edinburgh, fly to Dublin and then finally arrive at EHU September 18th. There I will attend orientation and meet with department heads to finalize my course schedule. I have no idea what awaits me after that.

---