Fresher Twice Removed

You know, I've yet to understand the functional purpose of fresher's (frosh/orientation/welcome/intro) week. Not only does the residence not plan any organized or formal events (with minor exception), the university itself is so very quite unorganized. The social scene is mainly organized by bars, clubs (which there are soooooooo many of), and of course, parties everywhere. Today I went to the electives fair as I thought I was supposed to sign up for my courses there. Here they expect you to take courses mainly within your own department. HOwever, since Steph and I are from arts and science, and therefor don't really have much use for a parent faculty, we hopped around between departments trying to sign up for our courses. After we realized that the fair was only for first year electives (probably because there are no prerequisite issues, we signed up for buddhism through eastern thought, and literature through the gorgeous English department. I tried to sign up for creative writing next semester but it is full as there are 40 spots, and only 3 of these for international students. I will attend the class anyways and hope/intend to convince the professor to let me in. I am as well considering taking basic chemistry (just in case...here we go again- just to see what it's like, maybe then I'll decide about potentially going to medical school), and will probably sign up for it in the meantime. I may only have three courses this semester (a full year of chem is compressed into a semester here), chem, literature, and environment and society- not bad.

I went on a trek again today with Steph and David trying to find staples which ended up being sooooo far away, while walking on my bad foot. I didn't buy much because I found the store to be rather expensive. Otherwise, despite the currency conversion rates (it's about 2.1 pounds to the American dollar), I find that things aren't that considerably more expensive here. If you shop reasonably, things are only slightly more expensive if you keep an eye out for what you buy.

I bought a phone card today, made some calls, of course no one picked up hehe, but that's ok I'll call again. We missed our residence meeting which was "mandatory" because of our staples escapades but apparently it wasn't all that relevant.

Tonight I invited a couple of people over to my flat to make some dinner. Somehow our kitchen became standing room only and when the party moved to my own room I fell asleep on my bed. I am not all that surprised considering that I intended to go home early last night and instead went to the pub for a couple drinks (we got 2 pitchers for 8 dollars or so, Canadian- wow), don't worry mom I didn't drink it all myself. Instead of going home then, I hung out at Steph's flat with the international's and ended up going to bed after 2 to wake up for 7 today when we intended to survey and organize our courses. But alas, all that is well ends well and once again, these 2 days have proved themsleves absent of any true course or direction; they have been full of spontanaeity (excuse the spelling if it's wrong), which is nice for a change, especially when school comes around next week.

I am hoping to head out to London Thursday and Friday before things get hectic, and maybe get a handle on the British accent and perhaps do a better job of impressing my flatmates with my phony accent, hehe.

By the way, I must give Anna a special mention. She read my blog and was not too impressed that I referred to her in the context of "we get along quite well", so I am making amends for one of my best friends here!

Quote of the Day: "THe mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one"
- J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

And now marks my exit and my cue to go pass out!! Good night!