London Study Tour: Day Four

Day Four: Tuesday, March 26

Scene from the park (I will describe this later) 

8-9am: Breakfast at the hotel
9:10am: Leave for morning visit
10am-12:30pm: Group Visit-- Positive Psychology Coach 
At this visit, we met with a coach who talked about relationships and positive psychology. We developed interventions to help struggling couples that focused on identifying strengths and a bunch of other principles we've learned about over the course of the semester.
The second part of the lecture was devoted to a talk about sex and positive psychology. There were several hilarious moments (that I need not go into on this blog). I was impressed by our class' overall level of maturity though. ;-)

12:30pm: Lunch on own to discuss Random Acts of Kindness Activity
Lunch ended up being incredibly stressful. The idea was that we would discuss the way to spend the 10 pounds that each group had been given to do random acts of kindness. I ate with enough people to form three groups, and though we had started already divided, over the course of the lunch hour, the groups were changed several times as everyone shouted out different ideas and disagreed about what we should do and who we should do it with. By the time we split off about 45 minutes later, I was not feeling very randomly kind.

12:30-4:30pm: Random Acts of Kindness Activity 
However, despite the sour taste left in my mouth after our frustrating lunch, my group (Evan, Helen, and I) managed to rally and came up with a bunch of ideas of ways to be randomly kind.
With our 10 pounds we purchased pads of colorful stickynotes and several candy bars. We thought we had an excellent plan, but unfortunately things didn't work out exactly as we had hoped.

We wanted to give candy bars to public officials doing jobs for which they are rarely thanked (i.e. the man we saw sweeping trash on the street). However, by the time we bought candy bars and ran outside to find him, he had disappeared. We then found two police officers who looked very unsure (and rather ungrateful) to receive our thank you treat. I tried not to get discouraged and decided to take a break with something else. We went off in search of a bookstore to carry out part 2 of our plan, but on the way came across a figure of great inspiration: the father of random acts of kindness, Ghandi!

Evan and I are reflecting

One of the most relaxing and centering moments of the trip: Sitting at Ghandi's feet, talking about giving back and reaching out 

We found our bookstore, which happened to be one that was having a closeout sale to prepare for renovation (perfect for our plan). We looked around, were inspired by themes, and then went on to a cafe. We ordered hot drinks and got to work!

Helen and me writing notes

Our plan was to write inspirational quotes and encouraging notes to be left inside books for future readers to find.

Our notes read things like, "Keep pursuing your passions," which we placed inside a cooking book. "You are a remarkable parent," inside a baby book. "Never never never give up," inside a self-help book. You get the idea. We also wrote a note that we left on the mailbox door of the ambulance house/station thanking the ambulance drivers for helping to keep the city safe. 

Leaving the notes was a lot of fun. We were especially happy knowing that the bookstore was getting rid of all its contents relatively quickly because that meant that the notes would be found equally quickly. Sadly, we had several frustrating experiences trying to give away our final candy bars on the way to tea. Evan went to purchase a candy bar from a story and tried to give an extra one back to the cashier (as had been our idea) who blatantly refused and looked very uncomfortable. A mother hurried her two daughters away from me when I gently asked whether she thought her daughters would like the candy bars (note that they were clearly unopened) that were left over from our school project. By the time that we arrived at tea, I was exhausted and very upset: what kind of world do we live in where people feel threatened and like something must be wrong when someone tries to do a selfless deed?

Our server explaining the various cakes and sandwiches

4:30-6:00pm: Afternoon Tea and Chesterfield Mayfair 
Tea was delicious and warmed me right up. Unfortunately, tea time conversation (when combined with my frustration/exhaustion) left me in tears. I felt ridiculous and quietly excused myself from the table. Mads (who had been at my table) followed me to chat for a bit, and I left tea arm and arm with Becca feeling a lot better.

Rest of evening on own
The end of my evening was one that I will probably always remember. Becca had arranged for those of us who were Jewish and/or interested in attending a Seder to go to the Rabi's house for the second night seder! Rest be assured I'd never been to a Seder at a Rabi's house and certainly not one in London. The whole thing could deserve its own post, but I'll just say that my overall experience was a positive one. I did not agree with some of the very defined gender roles/discrimination that I witnessed (i.e. where the father and sons were seated at the table in comparison to where the mother and daughters sat; the "role" of the woman in the exodus from Egypt as described by the Rabi; etc), but I was very impressed by the loving nature of the family, both parents' clear investment in their children's understanding of their faith and traditions, and the instant community that was offered to us (and to a Singaporean family who was also in attendance). We didn't eat until after midnight so the three glasses of wine during the pre-meal part of the Seder left me a little loopy. The whole thing was very cool and I thank Becca greatly for arranging it all for us.

Needless to say, I fell happily into bed and fell soundly asleep once we arrived home just around 1am.