From 11 Jan -- Well,

From 11 Jan --

Well, I just found out that students can smoke in our kitchens, which isn't good news. I just guess things are different here. I think there may be only one girl who does it, but there may be more. I registered for my classes yesterday, and I have to take a lot more than I thought I would. I'm taking 5 4-credit classes, each for 2 hours a week, meaning that 10 hours of class, and all of them involve me reading a ton for each one. Some have seminars, which is like a smaller group of 6-8 students where we meet once a week and talk with the professor about the topics we are covering, I think it will be neat, but very different. All they do is give us a list of books and chapters that are suggested reading for the week in the course, and we are just supposed to learn what we need to by June when we have our test. One test and one paper for all of my classes. I think all the papers are due on March 7th, and the tests are sometime during summer break.�

I finally got an adapter for my laptop, the girl who lives next to me, Natalie, was nice enough to pick one up for me when she went into town. I also had her get me a hairdryer, which I needed. It's amazing how much reading one can do when there is no TV or computer. Well, now I have computer, but there are still huge gaps were TV used to be in my life, I don't know how I'll survive. I finished both the About a Boy and the Election book in the last two days, which was good. Maybe I'll read more in the UK. I think I may have to buy a radio out here because they generally play pretty good stuff. I plugged in the digicam, so I'll spend a few minutes, and put pictures of my dorm on the site. They are both featured to the right, I hope they convey that my room is a lot like a prison cell, but I like it, only one person and the bed isn't lofted, talk about civilized. I have to go through 4 doors to get to the bathroom, but I don't really mind. I need to buy speakers because the speakers on the laptop aren't that great unless I turn the music down, and it is fine for playing music at a low level, but that isn't how music is supposed to be played, is it? I guess the pictures that I took aren't up to date. I have everything unpacked, and I moved the bed to the same wall as the desk when I discovered that I really couldn't get up from the desk because the bed was blocking the way. Perhaps I will move my bed later so that I have a better view of the other dorm and parking lot outside my window. Oh, and there's a street lamp directly out the window, I'm on the second floor, so it adds a nice yellow glow to my room, which if you can't tell by the pictures, is also painted yellow. I really don't mind, stucco is a move up from cinder block. I also like having the sink in the room, I've already had more water to drink in the past 4 days that I've been here than all of last semester, so that's an improvement.�
I'll try to take some pictures of campus, it is quite cool, but it is a long walk to get to the south part. I am way north, and there was a little lack of planning when they were building Lancaster U, but I still like it.
I found out that is a lot like Eau Claire, about the same sized city, same sized school, and everybody seems to be dim... Juuust kidding, Brits aren't nearly as slow as people from Wisco. The only thing that is different is that the parties start and end later here than in Eau Claire. A typical Friday night starts at 9 PM at UWEC and ends at 10:30. Here the bars and clubs don't even open until 10, and people don't even start showing up until 11, leaving at God knows what time. But if you need to drink before that, you can always go to the bar directly below my dorm room. Yeah, I just figured out yesterday that my room is directly over the actual bar, but I can't hear the last call bell or anything like that, but it is cool to know.
I'm in the dorm where they put about half of the exchange students, probably because it is so far away that regular students want nothing to do with it. So far, the only food that I've made for myself was sandwiches, with a really good salami, mayo and a really spicy mustard, and I learned after my first one that you can only put a tiny amount on or I'd kill my tastebuds.�
There is a coach (bus) trip tomorrow to some town a couple of hours from here, and I think I'm gonna go, even though I forgot to sign up, although it shant be a problem.�
Since I have the pleasure of having a parking lot view, I've noticed that aside from students, most people in Lancaster have rather new, rather nice cars. I wonder why because anywhere in America you go you are bound to see that most people have cars that I'd never want to drive, but about 90% of them here look really cool.