Cmtillotson

Christopher Tillotson

Overview

The paragraph should give a three to five sentence abstract about your entire London HUA experience including 1) a summary of the aims of your project, 2) your prior experience with humanities and arts courses and disciplines, and 3) your major takeaways from the experience.

Milestone 1

Impact of Winston Churchill's WWII Era Speeches
Objective: How did Winston Churchill's famous World War Two speeches impact impact the course of the war?

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Milestone 2

Origin Of Stonehenge Material
Objective: What does Stonehenge's material reveal about who built it and what it's purpose was?

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Milestone 3

History and Influence of Football's Commercialization in England (Capstone)
Objective: What economic, cultural, and social impacts has the commercialization of Football had in England?

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Activity Journal

The activity journal represents an ongoing log of reflections gained through each and every project activity on the calendar.

Leave the above sentence in place exactly as it is, delete this sentence, and add a new activity journal entry for each major trip or activity in which you participate (museum visit, cultural experience, etc.).

Activity #1 Westminster Abbey and Tower of London

May 8th, 2017

First today we visited Westminster Abbey. Before I arrived at the Abbey I was mildly interested, but I left feeling like it was very worthwhile for me! The first thing that really caught my interest was the tomb of the unknown warrior. I had been to Arlington before, and was surprised to find out that Westminster had a similar memorial. It was moving to be reminded of the sacrifices of those brave men that fought for the betterment of the world. The second thing to catch my interest was seeing the tomb of Issac Newton. This was really cool to me because he is regarded as the father of modern physics, and being a WPI student I had learned all about his works. The fourth thing was the tomb of Bloody Mary, this is an interesting topic for me because I am a Catholic and it is always amazing how far we have come in the way of religious tolerance. I also was very moved by the painting of Saint Christopher because this is who my parents named me after because they loved to travel and he is the patron saint of travel. The only tie in to my milestones was the memorial to Winston Churchill in the Abbey, but it was more an indirect relation.

We also visited the Tower of London, which was also very cool. The one thing that I noticed was that a lot of the tower and surrounding vicinity was not original, however this only took away from the experience mildly. I enjoyed looking at the different weaponry that they had. The crown jewels were also very cool and I enjoyed looking at them. There was a video of the queen being crowned that I had not seen before. I did not find any major tie ins to my milestones, but there was some info on World War II, which relates to Winston Churchill of course.

Activity #2 St. Paul's Cathedral

May 9th, 2017

Today we arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral just before the opening at 8:30 AM. The outside of the Cathedral was quite stunning from the exterior due to both the shear size and intricacy. Once inside I was given a headset for the audio tour and begin to make my way through the building. First I looked around in the nave and begin to take in the combination of architecture, art, and religious symbolism. I learned about how Christopher Wren designed the Cathedral and the different religious and political reasons for why it was built the way it was. Going up to the whispering gallery and getting a view from above was beautiful.

Although I am not of the denomination St. Paul's is I was still moved by all the religious symbolism and art. I really liked "The Light of the World" painting, and I spent some time admiring it. The video display in the church of the man being buried, the woman hanging, the man sitting in fire, and the upside down man was very odd to see. I could see what the artist was trying for, but mostly I found it more distracting than moving. The memorial at the back reminded me how much the U.S. was involved in helping the UK during World War II. I thought the tribute was moving, and found it ironic that Richard Nixon was the one present at St. Paul's when it was presented.

The memorial to the members of the Antarctic expedition was also very cool, as I can remember learning about that in the past. Moving into the crypt was also a cool part of the church. I was looking for an ancestor of mine named John Tillotson who was the Archbishop of Canterbury and at one point the dean of St. Paul's who died in 1694. I did manage to find a memorial to him in the crypt, but after some research I found he was buried in a nearby church. So I decided to take a walk to St. Lawrence Jewry in order to investigate. I found out that the church was firebombed in WWII, but that his vault survived and he is still buried there today. His original memorial still stands in the corner of the church where his vault is.

Activity #3 Natural History Museum

May 10th, 2017

Today my group took the tube to the Natural History Museum, and arrived around 10 AM when the doors opened. After making it through security we were greeted with the view of a large hall with an escalator going through the center of an earth sculpture. Before making our way up we walked around looking at portholes with different fossils and rocks inside. One of the most interesting was a moon rock encapsulated inside a large glass pyramid.

We then made our way up the escalator to an exhibit on volcanoes, tectonic plates, and earthquakes. The one thing I noticed early on in the museum was the amount of interactive exhibits that engage visitors in learning. After this we entered an exhibit dealing with geologic time and different ways the earth changes over long periods of time. After we spent some time in a geology exhibit looking at various materials and precious stones.

After a short lunch break we continued on through the exhibits. We saw a gallery of taxidermy creatures, and then another of large fossilized prehistoric creatures. We also looked through a exhibit dubbed "Creepy Crawlers" that had all kinds of spiders, crabs, and lobsters. My group particularly enjoyed an exhibit that illustrated how different spiders hunt prey. My favorite exhibit was marine invertebrates, because they had a life size giant squid (which happens to be my favorite animal). The last exhibit we visited was focused on dinosaurs, and then we left around 1PM to begin work on milestones and journals.

Activity #4 National Gallery

May 11th, 2017

Today my group walked to the National Gallery and arrived around 10 AM. I was never much of a fine art fan, but I decided to enter the museum with as little reservation as possible as to what the experience would hold. One of the first things I noticed when entering the gallery was that a majority of the paintings subjects were Christian in nature.

My Complete Contributions

The journal section should end with the following link to your complete contributions (new articles, edited articles, added media, etc.); delete this sentence and replace the username Vjmanzo below with your own username: