Professor Ferguson...

Before going on an extended trip or journey to a new place, one of the questions that we ask ourselves is "What will the people be like?". This question is of course a very understandable one. Being from a different culture and living in a completely different part of the world it is likely that people we encounter during our travels will have different mannerisms that we Americans can't seem to understand. 

British women drinking tea...

Since I had never been to England before I could only imagine that England's people would be similar to what is portrayed to us through television and movies. The stereotypical english man or woman of course talked with the British accent -- either a proper form like the Queen or that wonderful "slang-sounding" and difficult to understand dialect of Cockney. Young men would be properly dressed like gentlemen or they could be the kind that had clearly just rolled out of a pub after watching the 'football' match, while young women would be well up on the fashion trends and all somehow look like Keira Knightley. The older generations would exude an "air" about them of proper English heritage, dressed in Tweed with the men smoking pipes and the women wearing giant sun hats and pearls, while both the men and women would partake in drinking tea and eating biscuits.  All of these attributes, along with the "English attitude", one that was proper and almost "stand-off-ish" and guarded, was what I was expecting when I landed on British soil. But I was proven quite wrong.

Once classes began, I was introduced to my Nineteenth Century British Novel teacher, Professor Moira Ferguson. Professor Ferguson, or Moira as we are accustom to calling her, was far from the British stereotype that I was expecting. Just by looking at her you can tell that she has lived a fascinating and exciting life. (Not to say that English men and woman can not live exciting lives, but what is portrayed through television and movies is a British disposition and demeanor that is more subdued, while Moira was certainly not!) Moira is a very outspoken and open person. She makes an effort in each class meeting to discuss something that is going on in her life, whether it be a movie that she went to see, a place that she visited over the weekend, or a "naughty" joke that she recently heard. As the semester continued, she began to let us (her students) into her life. We came to find out that not only was she an intelligent person, but a well traveled and cultured women. Many of the stories she tells are about her activism days (one of which involved walking beside Harvey Milk in California), stories about her wild travels with her ex-husband who was a journalist (who introduced her to Jim Morrison!), and even some interesting stories from right here in London. Daily I am fascinated by the exciting life she has lived and more often than not, cannot believe the wild life she is still currently living. Everything about her breaks the stereotype of an Englishwoman. She has a wit and sarcasm about her; she is outspoken almost to the point of being a New Yorker!; she is all about traveling and immersing herself into different cultures; she lives for a life of excitement; and she is certainly not guarded with a "cold" English front. Although she does enjoy the occasional cup of tea, she is far from what I expected out of my proper British teacher from London!