Usually, if I want to see my colleagues face-to-face, I have to jump on a plane. But this past week I was happy to see some of them in my own country.
It began with a trip up to Manchester to see David Z whose musical Yank! is having its European premier in the north of England. The Hope Mill Theatre is a small gem of a theatre, and I was so excited to arrive there and find David. I was lucky enough to get a front row seat and was enthralled by the performance. This wartime love story is compelling and shows life through the eyes of the characters of Stu and Mitch, who fell in love but were constrained by the prejudices towards gay people at that time, making me wonder how far we have really come today. With a message that is still relevant, this musical became all the more powerful. Beautiful music, entertaining dancing, great energy from the actors, I had an awesome evening and enjoyed spending time with David after the show. I was so pleased to see that it received great reviews in the UK too, notably in the celebrated Guardian newspaper!
Helen and David at Yank!
Next, Jesse arrived in Oxford with Sean, a former LogicPrep student, who is now at Yale. Sean is a recipient of the Truman Scholarship and came to visit Oxford and Cambridge to choose where he will study for a Masters in Criminology in the fall. He visited Clare College, Cambridge and Lincoln and Brasenose Colleges in Oxford. Sean will be on the blog soon spotlighting the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is worth saying that the weather was uncharacteristically warm and sunny in the UK, while in New York there was a snow storm going on and the office had to be closed!
Radcliffe Camera
The other reason for Jesse’s UK trip was to visit LogicPrep’s Tech Team in a city called Bath. Bath is a beautiful historic Roman town with natural hot springs. There are many famous buildings to be found there, such as the Royal Crescent, dating from the 18th century. But we didn’t have much time for exploring the sights during this visit. We had a couple of full days planned with an exciting agenda discussing the upcoming features we will be adding to LogicPrep’s proprietary software. We have plans to further expand it, and notably to allow our families to interact more with it. These meetings were important planning sessions for the coming months and much was achieved.
Royal Crescent, Bath, by Xiquinhosilva
But that's not all! I was excited when Adam O dropped me an email to tell me he would be in Oxford on Sunday. We met up and I gave him a tour of some of Oxford’s best-known sights: Christ Church meadow (a beautiful open expanse of green next to the river where the Oxford rowers train), the Radcliffe Camera, the Bridge of Sighs, Jesus College chapel… We stopped off at the Weston Library, the new extension to the famous Bodleian Library and saw some treasures from their collection: a manuscript of the "Messiah” with pages in Handel’s own hand, the Magna Carta, dating from 1217, and Shakespeare’s first folio, to name just a few.
Adam and Helen tour Oxford together
A great end to a beautiful British week!