I have just realized that it has been nearly two weeks since my last update. Give me a week of events, and I guess time just gets away from me! *smacks wrist* bad blogger...
So on to Fresher's Week. It is, quite simply, a week after the regular move-in dates in which no classes are held. Rather, since schools here do not do online enrollments, they do in-person enrollment during that week (often requiring standing in four-hour lines), combined with various social events. Of course, these social events generally are themed parties at the pubs on campus, with drink prices greatly reduced. So essentially, if you want to participate in many of the social events during the week, you need to go clubbing. This is not me. I suppose it is fortunate, then, that all three of my roommates are. They hosted get togethers in the flat before going out at around 10:30 in the evening. So even though I am not a clubber and do not like staying out late, I still got a lot of the social activity, without the wild drunken partying.
There were a few other social events, too. Each dorm area had a BBQ meet-and-greet, and the offices for international and study abroad students hosted a couple other events. On Monday, they hosted a three-hour walking tour of central London, around Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, as well as some of St. James's Park. Afterwards, all but four of us from the tours left to go to another event at Madame Tussaud's. So the four of us, two girls from New Jersey and a girl from Bulgaria, decided that we would instead walk back to Westminster Abbey and go see the inside. It's rather strange seeing monuments or stones in the ground, and realizing that these are people's actual graves. I could hardly bring myself to even walk through some of the areas where there were many of them, with no other stones between. It is a beautiful place to visit. "Fun" would not quite be the right terminology for it, but it is a place that is well worth visiting.
On Wednesday, the Study Abroad students (and only Study Abroad students) were taken on a trip to Brighton, and old seaside resort town once favored by George IV. For most of the day, we were given the leeway to do as we pleased: chill on the beach (which was pebbles, not sand), wander across the Pier, brows through the Lanes marketplace, whatever we felt like doing. In between free times, we were given a guided tour of the Royal Pavilion. It is the former home of George IV, which began as a four-room house, and was expanded and built up over years to become a huge home (probably small given that it was the home of a British Royal), with an Indian facade outside, and a Chinese theme inside. Of course, no one who helped build it had ever been to China, so as our tour guide has said that other Chinese tourists have told her, it's more like China Disney than genuine China. I figure, for people who had never seen the country, that's about as good as we can really expect.
Once home, however, I had an unwelcome yet familiar visitor: pain. I seriously overdid it on the walking that day. I was extremely bummed, and not just for the obvious reason that I was hurting enough to use my stick just to walk around the flat. It was also because I had been doing so well since arriving, walking more in one go than I ever would have dreamed of trying in California due to the heat and constant sun. In a way, I had been able to almost forget that I have lupus for a time. I had been feeling that I could do anything, that no amount of walking would be too far here due to the coolness and milder weather. I got a very sharp (no pun intended) reminder that day, that while I may be able to do more than I used to, I still have lupus. I am still a Spoonie. I cannot do it all, indeed often cannot do what "normals" do. As much as I wish it would, and as much as it has helped, a continent and climate change cannot 100% cure me. A fact that I need to remember. I certainly hope I've learned it well. Pacing is a process not easy to learn!
Due to my "life lesson" on Wednesday, Thursday was spent chilling out and recovering; then on Friday, it was back up to C's house for the weekend. It's just under two hours on the train to get there, but at least we get to see each other on the weekends. It's a heck of a lot better than being eight time zones and 6,000 miles apart :)
So that's about my impression of Fresher's Week: Some good purposes, some fun social events, and a lot of partying. In fact, not two hours ago, I heard one of my roommates with a friend, leave his room and head out of the flat and down the path, happily and clearly drunkenly singing their way to wherever they were going.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The First Wave
Tonight the first pangs of homesickness have started. I'm guessing it's a combination of the fact that I'm the only one in the flat this evening (two others have arrived, but they're at an event that I skipped because it ran too late), and the fact that it's Thursday. At home, Thursday nights was the church college group night. So at about this hour, we'd be chilling, talking, goofing off, possibly still talking about the night's discussion subject. Granted, it won't be beginning for about five hours if you take time differences into consideration, but that's not the most helpful thought right now. I still miss it. I think tomorrow I'll start looking up churches in the area to start checking out.
One shower later, and I'm already feeling much better. The shower itself, on the other hand... it's cramped. So cramped, in fact, that you can't step out of the water slightly while you wash, so the soap is washing off the washcloth while you are still using it. Guess I'll have to get used to turning the water off while washing. Not to mention the amount of it that leaked out onto the floor. Good thing I haven't gotten rugs for it yet. If that keeps up, I won't get them at all.
We got our official timetables for classes today after the international student orientation. According to how it currently is set up, I will be spending less than half the time in class than I would at home. On the other hand, I will be expected to do about twice as much work outside the classroom as I would be expected to by any California school. Three of my classes have one-hour lectures, followed by one-hour discussion seminars either immediately following or later in the week. That is shockingly little time in class when compared to California schools. The irony being, I have at least one class every day of the week, but Monday, Tuesday, and Friday I will only be spending one hour in any form of class.
Tomorrow morning will be spent running a few errands, getting things that I either forgot about or hadn't thought of earlier, and then the International Cafe, another social event put together to meet people.
And apparently the pope will be somewhere just across the river tomorrow. I knew he was visiting the UK thanks to the news over the last couple days and his remarks earlier about atheism, just had no idea he'd be that close. Actually, the only reason I know that is because one staff member commented that it was close enough that Kingston will be getting much heavier traffic! But I'm not too worried about that, I'm just using the bus. But in the meantime, I've taken a sleeping pill and it's kicking in, so it's time to sign off. Goodnight, readers.
One shower later, and I'm already feeling much better. The shower itself, on the other hand... it's cramped. So cramped, in fact, that you can't step out of the water slightly while you wash, so the soap is washing off the washcloth while you are still using it. Guess I'll have to get used to turning the water off while washing. Not to mention the amount of it that leaked out onto the floor. Good thing I haven't gotten rugs for it yet. If that keeps up, I won't get them at all.
We got our official timetables for classes today after the international student orientation. According to how it currently is set up, I will be spending less than half the time in class than I would at home. On the other hand, I will be expected to do about twice as much work outside the classroom as I would be expected to by any California school. Three of my classes have one-hour lectures, followed by one-hour discussion seminars either immediately following or later in the week. That is shockingly little time in class when compared to California schools. The irony being, I have at least one class every day of the week, but Monday, Tuesday, and Friday I will only be spending one hour in any form of class.
Tomorrow morning will be spent running a few errands, getting things that I either forgot about or hadn't thought of earlier, and then the International Cafe, another social event put together to meet people.
And apparently the pope will be somewhere just across the river tomorrow. I knew he was visiting the UK thanks to the news over the last couple days and his remarks earlier about atheism, just had no idea he'd be that close. Actually, the only reason I know that is because one staff member commented that it was close enough that Kingston will be getting much heavier traffic! But I'm not too worried about that, I'm just using the bus. But in the meantime, I've taken a sleeping pill and it's kicking in, so it's time to sign off. Goodnight, readers.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Britain: Where Even the Birds Are Polite
On Friday C and I went down to the open-air market to do some of my dorm shopping. Everything there was a fantastic bargain, so we got quite a lot of what I'll need for much less than I had thought it would be. We got lunch from one of the stands, but it wasn't very good, even for food coming from what was about the equivalent of a lunch truck. So we ate enough to tide us over and spent quite a while tossing the rest to the birds. Which was also a different experience to California birds. In Cali, when one bird grabs something and flies off, the others will fly after it and keep trying to steal it. And birds will get aggressive about wanting your food, trying to steal it off your plate or out of your hands. Here? Not so much. Even the birds were almost polite. When one got a bit of food and flew off, the others just let it go, then turned back to us and waited patiently. It was a little bit surreal. I've never seen birds behave with what might be called manners before.
Another interesting observation: The English are not extremely patriotic, at least not as openly and obviously as the Americans are. No flags outside houses or anything. Even C admits, they are basically not patriotic. Except, as it turns out, when it comes to their food. Imagine my surprise when, after hearing him talk about lack of patriotism, we walk into the nearby Tesco's and absolutely everything is labelled as "British salad" or "British minced beef" or "British juice drink", of course with the flag printed next to it. So they are not very patriotic... until it comes to their food. Apparently this is leftover food security from the mad cow outbreak several years back.
We'll be heading out in a few minutes, but later tonight I'll post a few pictures.
Another interesting observation: The English are not extremely patriotic, at least not as openly and obviously as the Americans are. No flags outside houses or anything. Even C admits, they are basically not patriotic. Except, as it turns out, when it comes to their food. Imagine my surprise when, after hearing him talk about lack of patriotism, we walk into the nearby Tesco's and absolutely everything is labelled as "British salad" or "British minced beef" or "British juice drink", of course with the flag printed next to it. So they are not very patriotic... until it comes to their food. Apparently this is leftover food security from the mad cow outbreak several years back.
We'll be heading out in a few minutes, but later tonight I'll post a few pictures.
Friday, September 10, 2010
A Visit to London, and Charity Shops
(Begun approximately 11pm, Thursday, September 9)
C and I went down to visit our mutual friend, D, in London yesterday. Now keep in mind that this is someone I have been IM'ing for round about five or six years, yet never actually spoken to IRL until yesterday. So on Tuesday, I made C call him to try to set up a time. He only managed to get ahold of D in the evening, about dinnertime. Of course they decided on the next morning, so we had a very quickly-planned trip, beginning with hitching a ride to the train station with C's dad on his way to golf.
Once we finally arrived, we had some drama trying to find D in the tube station, mostly due to us arriving in a different section, and lots of people causing us to miss each other. We spent a lot of time on the Tube, bouncing around the city. First place we went was Hamley's, which is, according to the guys, the biggest toy store in the world. And it is massive, six floors plus basement. But the toys were also massively overpriced, so only spent maybe an hour wandering through there.
After lunch, we hit the Tube again, this time going to the Natural History Museum. We spent several hours wandering through there and still only managed to cover half of it. The place is huge. At some point during our visit, we joked that D was our adopted child, since he is high energy and was bouncing around for most of the day.
(Continued Friday, September 10, approx 10:30am)
I was so exhausted last night, I couldn't think straight enough to finish my post. Such is the result of such a long day in London combined with lupus. I used up so many spoons that day, I didn't have very many left by the end of last night.
Anyways, to finish about London. After we got through half of the Natural History Museum, we walked around essentially to behind it, to the science museum. Unfortunately we only had about 45 minutes there before it closed, so didn't get to see too terribly much, but we did get to find out who the original Doctor Who was: the dialysis machine. Yes you read that right. The first woman to invent and use the dialysis machine named it Doctor Who. There is your trivia for the day.
When we finally got kicked out at closing time, we couldn't really travel anywhere. We had all bought off-peak travel cards for the day, and they got blocked off for two hours during what we in California would call rush hour. So instead we walked a couple blocks down to Royal Albert Hall and a corner of Hyde Park, with the Prince Albert Monument. Or Memorial. I can't remember which one it was right this minute. Chilled and goofed off there for maybe an hour, then started the walk down to the tube station to head home. Which was a lot longer than it looked like on C's iPhone map, but oh well. By the time we got there, we were allowed to travel again, so we rode together for a bit, then parted ways with D at his stop to head home. Took the tube back up to our stop to catch the train. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the train home, which I so rarely do in any form of moving vehicle.
We finally got home about 9pm, and I spent a good bit of the evening soaking in the bath and resting, trying to prevent a pain flare-up for the next day. And it worked, I was only moderately achy. C's parents drove us down to Bletchley, where most of the charity shops are, to see what shopping I could get done for the dorms. For my US readers, that's a thrift shop. We only ended up going through two of them due to time, but got some good deals on cups and gloves. And, best of all, I found one of those boxes of ten puzzles for just over £3. Box is pretty beat up, but now I just get to work them and find out if any pieces are missing. I'm excited, normally you can't get even one puzzle for that little.
We'll be heading uptown in a bit to do some shopping. I move into the dorms on Weds. so there's a decent amount to get and do. But I will have time to settle in and get necessities before class, so at least it's not a major rush. In the meantime, I should finish getting ready to head out. Until next time!
C and I went down to visit our mutual friend, D, in London yesterday. Now keep in mind that this is someone I have been IM'ing for round about five or six years, yet never actually spoken to IRL until yesterday. So on Tuesday, I made C call him to try to set up a time. He only managed to get ahold of D in the evening, about dinnertime. Of course they decided on the next morning, so we had a very quickly-planned trip, beginning with hitching a ride to the train station with C's dad on his way to golf.
Once we finally arrived, we had some drama trying to find D in the tube station, mostly due to us arriving in a different section, and lots of people causing us to miss each other. We spent a lot of time on the Tube, bouncing around the city. First place we went was Hamley's, which is, according to the guys, the biggest toy store in the world. And it is massive, six floors plus basement. But the toys were also massively overpriced, so only spent maybe an hour wandering through there.
After lunch, we hit the Tube again, this time going to the Natural History Museum. We spent several hours wandering through there and still only managed to cover half of it. The place is huge. At some point during our visit, we joked that D was our adopted child, since he is high energy and was bouncing around for most of the day.
(Continued Friday, September 10, approx 10:30am)
I was so exhausted last night, I couldn't think straight enough to finish my post. Such is the result of such a long day in London combined with lupus. I used up so many spoons that day, I didn't have very many left by the end of last night.
Anyways, to finish about London. After we got through half of the Natural History Museum, we walked around essentially to behind it, to the science museum. Unfortunately we only had about 45 minutes there before it closed, so didn't get to see too terribly much, but we did get to find out who the original Doctor Who was: the dialysis machine. Yes you read that right. The first woman to invent and use the dialysis machine named it Doctor Who. There is your trivia for the day.
When we finally got kicked out at closing time, we couldn't really travel anywhere. We had all bought off-peak travel cards for the day, and they got blocked off for two hours during what we in California would call rush hour. So instead we walked a couple blocks down to Royal Albert Hall and a corner of Hyde Park, with the Prince Albert Monument. Or Memorial. I can't remember which one it was right this minute. Chilled and goofed off there for maybe an hour, then started the walk down to the tube station to head home. Which was a lot longer than it looked like on C's iPhone map, but oh well. By the time we got there, we were allowed to travel again, so we rode together for a bit, then parted ways with D at his stop to head home. Took the tube back up to our stop to catch the train. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the train home, which I so rarely do in any form of moving vehicle.
We finally got home about 9pm, and I spent a good bit of the evening soaking in the bath and resting, trying to prevent a pain flare-up for the next day. And it worked, I was only moderately achy. C's parents drove us down to Bletchley, where most of the charity shops are, to see what shopping I could get done for the dorms. For my US readers, that's a thrift shop. We only ended up going through two of them due to time, but got some good deals on cups and gloves. And, best of all, I found one of those boxes of ten puzzles for just over £3. Box is pretty beat up, but now I just get to work them and find out if any pieces are missing. I'm excited, normally you can't get even one puzzle for that little.
We'll be heading uptown in a bit to do some shopping. I move into the dorms on Weds. so there's a decent amount to get and do. But I will have time to settle in and get necessities before class, so at least it's not a major rush. In the meantime, I should finish getting ready to head out. Until next time!
Monday, September 6, 2010
I Made It
I'm here, safe and sound and all in one piece. The jet lag has been actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I've been mostly okay during the days, but getting wiped at nights. It's improving though. The last few days have been spent just chilling and meeting C's friends.
But strangely enough, I don't feel like I've moved to a mostly foreign country at all. I feel natural here. Like I belong. Granted, it is strange not being able to drive, but overall it's not that different. Or at least it doesn't feel that different. So far, anyways.
There's a few interesting differences that I have noticed though. Besides the obvious driving on the opposite side of the road and accents and such. Like:
-Cabs don't take credit/debit cards. Technichally they're not cabs specifically, just any regular car with a meter added. But they're cash only. At least here in MK they are.
-Lack of toilet seat covers in public restrooms. Now, this might bother quite a few girls that I know/have come across in Cali. But I've had to get used to using public restrooms in Mexico before, and not in the nicer areas either. So it's not a big deal, just interesting that they aren't offered.
-Bathroom sinks. In homes, the sinks in the bathroom have two separate faucets, one for hot water and one for cold. In kitchens, it's one faucet for both the hot and cold knobs. Bathrooms though, either freeze your hands or wash them fast so they don't burn.
So not a lot that's a huge difference, at least not that anyone would immediately think about. Just a quite a few little things making me go "hey, that's different". But so far no huge shocks. It's been a fun few days, so am really looking forward to the next week or so, and then move in day on the 15th. Wishing everyone the best.
But strangely enough, I don't feel like I've moved to a mostly foreign country at all. I feel natural here. Like I belong. Granted, it is strange not being able to drive, but overall it's not that different. Or at least it doesn't feel that different. So far, anyways.
There's a few interesting differences that I have noticed though. Besides the obvious driving on the opposite side of the road and accents and such. Like:
-Cabs don't take credit/debit cards. Technichally they're not cabs specifically, just any regular car with a meter added. But they're cash only. At least here in MK they are.
-Lack of toilet seat covers in public restrooms. Now, this might bother quite a few girls that I know/have come across in Cali. But I've had to get used to using public restrooms in Mexico before, and not in the nicer areas either. So it's not a big deal, just interesting that they aren't offered.
-Bathroom sinks. In homes, the sinks in the bathroom have two separate faucets, one for hot water and one for cold. In kitchens, it's one faucet for both the hot and cold knobs. Bathrooms though, either freeze your hands or wash them fast so they don't burn.
So not a lot that's a huge difference, at least not that anyone would immediately think about. Just a quite a few little things making me go "hey, that's different". But so far no huge shocks. It's been a fun few days, so am really looking forward to the next week or so, and then move in day on the 15th. Wishing everyone the best.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Off To The Airport
I am officially leaving.
It is strange. I'm thrilled, obviously. The butterflies started about two hours ago. I won't be here again until January. I'm not sure what to make of this.
I have spent the last few days in a frenzy of packing, meeting friends, and visiting both grandmothers. And now the frenzy is coming to an end. I will have two glorious weeks to spend with my boyfriend's family before moving down to the dorms. And I am more than ready.
But it's now time to go. My dad is loading my suitcases into the car. So long, California. I'll miss you.
It is strange. I'm thrilled, obviously. The butterflies started about two hours ago. I won't be here again until January. I'm not sure what to make of this.
I have spent the last few days in a frenzy of packing, meeting friends, and visiting both grandmothers. And now the frenzy is coming to an end. I will have two glorious weeks to spend with my boyfriend's family before moving down to the dorms. And I am more than ready.
But it's now time to go. My dad is loading my suitcases into the car. So long, California. I'll miss you.
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