Tuesday was the "be helpful" day. I started off by turning the bin back over after SOMEONE (flo, conor, felicity, and maybe adam) turned everything in the kitchen over. Chairs? Check. Stools? Check. Theme night bottles on the windowsill? Check. Speakers? Check. Microwave? Check. Coffee table? Check. Toaster? Check. Electric kettle? Check. Bin? Check. Recycling bag? Check. All the papers on the bulletin board? Check. The random hairspray bottle we have on the counter? Check. The basil and parsley plants? Check. My cup of dried out, perfectly good white tea leaves and a tea ball? Check.
I was impressed, if peeved. I turned the bin over, since I had to throw my teabag away.
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| Chairs and coffee table. Bob, significantly, was not turned upside down. |
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| Stools. |
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| Speakers, and the weird Christmas moose. |
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| Microwave, kettle, toaster. The kettle still had water in it... |
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| The bin hadn't been turned over yet when I took the pictures. |
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| They had only turned one paper over, but all the others got turned over when they got back. |
We actually had someone come in from the office and ask us to turn our furniture back over. Apparently it's a safety hazard.
Since it was raining in an irritably misty fashion, I decided that I needed a head covering. The high volume of practicing muslims on campus makes me leery of wrapping a scarf around my head, I didn't feel like wearing the hat I did bring, and I don't have anything with a hood that I would wear outside my own flat. Besides, hoods are difficult with my hair. They just don't like each other. I had planned to meet Freya, the girl who I'd helped monday, on tuesday afternoon, so I went to the library, got a book to read for history seminar, perfected my lab report, and went to H&M for a hat, all between 10:30 and 12:00.
I got a call from Freya (the lab report girl) as I was heading back from H&M. The guy with the neckbeard from biochem's computer had crashed, and could I email him a word document so he could redo his entire lab report? Thanks.
I would never leave a fellow biochemist in the lurch, especially one who is as baffled by the lack of mathematical education in this country as I am, and especially one with such an impressive neckbeard.
History lecture was the most boring thing. Usually, there's something that can be concluded from the historical records. Today? Nothing. We could only conclude that we really don't know what went on with literacy and education in early modern england, but first we had to go over what we might possibly conclude, and why it was wrong.
The high point was when a random australian who sounded oddly american came in and excitedly told us about a "summer abroad volunteer" thing. Delphine, the french lecturer who is also the least annoying lecturer I've had so far, looked a little peeved when she poked her head into the room, but allowed her to come in and bounce off the walls. There was a theory that she was some random street person who made up some fliers and put on an australian accent to mess with people.
The afternoon was consumed by biochemistry. Freya had just had a death in the family, so she decided to push her due date back while getting as much done as possible, but I had to figure out the library turn-in system. It was pretty easy; you just need your name, student number, module leader's name, date the assignment is due, date it was assigned, module name, module code, and the assignment title. I still felt pretty accomplished when I turned it in.
When I got home, I made crepes. I will never let a crepe tuesday pass me by. I still haven't quite figured out the way that the hob (stove) heats, because sometimes, 6 isn't hot enough, and other times, 4 is too hot. Whatever. The crepes were pretty good; I suspect that the few that Jessi didn't eat have either been hidden or devoured by the party downstairs.
I've been having trouble getting to sleep because there's literature assignment all over my bed making me feel guilty and there's thumping music downstairs.
Funny story. I got an email from whitworth a while ago with the registration schedule. I was all set to register at 3PM Wednesday, when I remembered the time zone thing. Panicked, I tried to remember when 3 PM pacific time was in london time, and convinced myself that it was at crazy early in the morning. No, it's not. It's at 11PM london time. I reset my google calendar, discovering a cool time zone feature along the way.
Wednesday, I really didn't want to go to class. I got to bed late on tuesday night (stupid lit assignment), and I had slept well but short. It was freezing outside my covers because I think Jessi opened the window when she got home, why I don't know. In any case, she didn't close it. After closing the window around 7, I went back to sleep until 7:45, when my first alarm went off. I then slept intermittently around my alarms, which I only seem to be able to turn all the way off when I'm still asleep. I seriously considered sleeping through my seminar, seeing as the sky looked bleak. It sounded like a good idea, and a perfectly valid reason, until I considered the fact that my professor can actually tell if I skip that class. I regretfully dragged myself out of bed.
After class, I helped Freya (whose name is actually spelled Freeha, but she hates that spelling and tells everyone "Freya" to simplify things, which sounds like my "I'm from oregon" modus operandi for identification here) with her lab report. I was starting to feel a bit used, but in the long run I'd rather feel used than mean.
I won at registration, and I got into almost everything that I'd planned to take. I resigned myself to intro to public speaking instead of interpersonal comm, and got a fitness-wellness gen-ed in the form of water aerobics (held monday, wednesday, and friday at 8). My next MWF class is core 250 at 10:25, so I'll have time to change and such. Win! I also got both of my 3rd year chemistry classes and their labs at reasonable times, and I think my core d-group is with a cool leader. I also have karate 2, which claims to have Sensei Canon (instead of the new guy that he called on to take over so he could get a new job that he liked better). I'm not getting my hopes up, but it would be awesome if he was back.
Thursday I skipped my 0900 lecture. I looked outside and it was all grey... I couldn't make myself get up. I did go to the noon part of the lecture, which was kind of interesting. I had a nerd freakout, though, when I was thinking about how small molecules of water and air are to fit inside cells and capillary electrophoresis tubes and that sort of thing. I was actually briefly claustrophobic because I was thinking about all the molecules that were completely filling the room and smashing into everything. I was in a huge room that wasn't stuffy or even that warm, with no one sitting right next to me. It was really weird.
Between seminar and lab, I called this haircut place called Sherlocks, mostly to see if they were walk-in or appointment, since I had a coupon and needed a haircut. They took walk-ins but preferred appointments, so I made one for Friday at 13:00 (1PM). The connection wasn't good, so I ended up giving my name as Anne because Raeann would have been too hard to spell. I may have also given my last name as Hudson by accident. I ended up nearly gaining a northern accent when I was giving my mobile number, the last three digits of which are 116. For some reason, my pronunciation was confusing, so I slipped from my fairly broad uh (wuhn) to more of an oo (woon). I hope I'll be able to pull this off in America. It will be nice being able to say "Washington" and having most people know that we're either there already or that I'm not talking about the capitol of the country. I'm tempted to switch to Anne anyway, just because of the wide range of spellings that I get for Raeann in America. I'll respond to it, so...
Lab was... pointless. There were only enough gels for 8 groups, which meant that one person got all the experience. Also, no one got all seven bands that we were supposed to get. Fail. I had odd flashbacks from senior year at PNNL, since that was my project for the last few weeks. I didn't actually learn to read the gels, but I was pretty good at preparing and running them.
While waiting for the gels to run (90 minutes), Freya and I went for coffee. Neckbeard tagged along, and I discovered his latent veronica capabilities. He doesn't seem to be able to stand silence. I also came up against the strangest instance of cultural insensitivity that I've ever witnessed. This could be because most white americans, especially in a study abroad situation or a university setting, tend to be really cautious about offending. Even if you think someone is dead wrong, chances are that you won't say a word.
A small amount of backstory is required for this to make sense: 1. Everyone in england smokes. Not everyone, but pretty close. There are cigarette butts everywhere.
2. Freya is pakistani, which I don't consider asian, as such, but I guess it really is. I think of asians as eastern asians (oriental is a type of rug).
Freya also smokes, and she did so on the walk to starbucks, which is right by an entrance to the bridges (so fairly visible). She commented on how awkward she feels smoking in public, because there is apparently an asian social stigma against asian girls who smoke in public. It's not considered a very, um, moral thing to do. Neckbeard, who is bulgarian, flipped out. He thought it was ridiculous, which it kind of is (let's face it, every culture has something that another culture considers ridiculous embedded in it), but he also thought that it was somehow offensive, and kept insisting that she didn't have to be sneaky about smoking. She obviously didn't want to be seen as a person of loose character by other asians, and kept trying to change the subject while maintaining that she doesn't like smoking in public.
The only thing I can really think to compare it to is this. It's as if someone moved to a place where general opinion was that underwear is all you need. Naturally, most (sober) people from the first world, at least, think that pants are also required. They're going to keep wearing pants because they're just not comfortable without them. Then someone who doesn't think pants are necessary comes up and belittles their insistence on wearing pants over their underwear. No one else in that society cares if they wear pants, and no one has really commented on it to date because it's not that big of a deal, but this local makes a huge deal out of it. Of course the pants-wearer is going to keep wearing pants.
Of course Freya won't just start smoking in public.
Geh. It rather soured the afternoon. Plus, neckbeard doesn't know how to shut up, seriously.
After having a frustrating discussion with the impossible little frenchman about exams, I went home and flopped into the kitchen, where I stayed for a few hours. It was very relaxing, not needing to do anything.
So, exams? Biochemistry modules all have their exams in june. Even the fall semester modules. Even the fall semester modules that end in december.
What.
And the exams are all accredited, so I can't have them just write up a slightly revised version that I can't pass along to my classmates to their benefit unless I managed to get the whole biomedical sciences department to back me on wanting exams in january.
Unlikely. And I'm probably not going to be able to just write an essay. Looks like I might have to go to a british embassy or consulate, where I am, in essence, on british soil, and sit the accredited exam five months after the course finished. I don't know what this means for my credits, and I'm not sure if I can choose to just not transfer them. I'm trying to not stress about it right now, since I still have an essay due in less than a week that I still haven't really started.
Of course, if my credits won't transfer... I have to wait until monday for a lot of things, like getting the exam schedule so I can look into going to london at the end of January, setting up a meeting with the ISEP lady here, and call iceland air to move my ticket up about a week. I'm thinking I might just go to London and leave from there, although the luggage situation would be a little tricky. I don't want to take what will likely end up being three suitcases and my bag on what will probably be the megabus, but possibly a train.
We'll see.
Friday I slept in until almost noon, for the win, and then went to get a haircut. Jessi came with me to get out of the flat and do some gift shopping, and Josie came to get a travel bag for Bob Diddyfish, who has been the subject of a few inquiries by the university. I was a little nervous about the haircut, since the plan was to get a rather dramatic shortening, but it ended well. I'm still in the confused stage between "My hair looks awesome!" and "Oh, it's so short! Where did it go?"
It's pretty short around my face, which is throwing me off when I try to move it out of the way of food or something because grabbing the ends means brushing it away from my face instead of tossing a lock over my shoulder. Lunch was around 14:30, and was obtained at Fatso's, which has jacket (baked) potatoes, soups, and salads. Possibly also sandwiches. I got a jacket potato, which sounds cooler than baked potato, with cheese and a smallish salad that came with it. We ate at Murray Library, where we ran into Flo, who'd just come from his first day at Liebherr, where he will pretty much be a translator between the Sunderland branch and the main corporation in Austria, which apparently refuses to speak english to its english branches.
When we got back, I got all my books for my lit assignment out, then fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was about to head downstairs for dinner when Jessi hurriedly informed me that Adam was about to go to Asda, and did I need anything?
Yes. I decided to use next week's food budget to stock up a bit, and as a result, I shan't be getting anything from Aldi next week. When I run out of milk, I'm out until the week after. Of course, I can just use everyone else's until then, so I'm not worried. I got lots and lots of fresh fruit, which was exciting, and a new container of flour for crepes. I may have gone overboard on the fruit juices and yogurts (sometimes pronounced yaw-gurts). I'm going to miss hazelnut yogurt a lot when I go back home.
I am a bit worried about the going back home situation, but I'm kind of trying to forget that over the weekend. I need to focus on writing that thrice-accursed assignment.
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