Syllabus Week

“You can’t buy happiness but you can buy food and that is pretty much the same thing.” – Unknown

Hello everyone and greetings from London. After various twitter polls, I came to the conclusion that syllabus week is almost every college student’s favorite time of year. This week was my syllabus week and it was going great until my teachers hit me with all the assignments that are due in the upcoming weeks including a 3-page ethnographic task report due next Monday and an assignment due during our first class outing this Friday…fun times.

In my previous blog, I mentioned the Borough Market is one of the oldest and largest whole foods markets in London. I also mentioned that there were several foods in the market that were calling my name when I first walked through the market. Well, thanks to my Food, Society and Culture class I had the opportunity to go back and answer the calls of those foods. The purpose of my trip to Borough Market was to conduct an ethnographic task report. Ethnography is the study of people in their own environment through the use of methods such as participant observation and face-to-face interviewing. So basically, we had to observe the people in the market as well as the type of products sold at the market and interpret our findings. My first visit to the Borough was short lived so it was nice to have had the chance to spend more time there and absorb everything that it had to offer aka good fooood. The market had several vendors selling products that were locally farmed and internationally imported and the best part was that everything was fresh, natural and healthy…on one side of the market. On the other side, the Green Market, the food was still fresh and natural but it probably wasn’t as healthy. The Green Market had a lot more ethnically diverse food ranging from Thai coconut pancakes to a Unicorn Burger (aka a sandwich with pulled pork with mac and cheese). I tried said unicorn burger and it was a smiley face with smiley eyes emoji, 9/10. I did also try something from the healthy side of the market (have to keep up this summer body); it was a ginger, lemon and apple juice with a shot of wheatgrass. It was actually pretty good and I couldn’t really taste the grass, which has several health benefits that I didn’t know of until I tried it. I gathered, with my partner, gathered a lot of information for our report…hopefully, we get high marks.🙏

To end syllabus week, my History of Design class had the chance to visit The Design Museum. Our instructor allowed us one hour to walk around the museum, alone, and observe the Designer Maker User collection. The Design Museum is a museum which covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In Paris, I went to several different art museums, and I loved every single one of them, but it was nice to observe a different kind of art, one that impacts our everyday lives. The collection demonstrates that design is a process carried out by three key people, the designer, the maker and the user and allows the public to explore design from all three perspectives. It was very informative and even though I high-key had an assignment due during my visit, I still enjoyed it and want to go back so I can see the rest of the collection in a more relaxed state.

That ends this blog and my syllabus week but all endings are really just some other beginning. So, I’m off the begin my syllabus weekend and my ethnographic report.

Until next, xoxo Joella.