University of Sunderland Housing, Part 1: in the States

The process of becoming a full-time student at Sunderland is more complex than I remember it being at Whitworth. Of course, I don't actually remember what all I had to do, and they were sending me emails and reminder postcards by the dozen. Sunderland assumes that I'm a big girl and can figure out what to do from the email that they sent me.

So Whitworth had at least three websites to register for before showing up on campus: email, Whitnet, and Blackboard. Blackboard was actually after classes start, but still. 

Sunderland has at least three: the housing application, the "MySunderland" homepage, "enrolment" (because they only use one L in "enroll" – yet another charming surprise of the British version of the English language. I fervently hope that my papers aren't graded for spelling...), and probably more that I have yet to encounter. I'm betting on an email sign up by August. 

MySunderland is quite useful for checking out what campus life might be like. It can be personalised to include various kinds of useful information, although it's not really relevant yet because I'm... Well, I'm still here in Spokane instead of in England, and I will be here for another three months. And five days. 

I can't actually access my enrolment stuff, so that was frustrating but slightly relaxing. 

Housing is actually simpler than at Whitworth. I found the application website with relative ease, and decided to get my application going before finals hit. There are, I believe, six student residence hall-like things: Precinct, Panns Bank, All Saints, Scotia Quay, and Forge Village - UStudent.

The names are as incomprehensible as Whitworth's were before I got here. Warren? MacMillan? Du- what? (Duvall! Sorry. They've taken up chanting again) With any luck the names will sound as familiar to me as East and Arend by the time I leave. 

I looked at the information for the various "dorms" (whether or not they are actually classified as dormitory buildings, that's what I'm going to call them for now) and decided that I had no idea what I was doing. Sue Jackson had mentioned that all the Whitworth internationals had lived in Clanny House, so I decided that I would just go with that. Besides, half the other dorms had electricity excluded from their "rent" and I felt that this could complicate things. So, I hit the "Apply Online" link in the "How to Apply" section and got started. 

First, I had to register to use the site, hosted by "iPams Live" by getting a validation code emailed to me. I put in my Whitworth email. 

Once I had the code, I logged in, filled out some personal information (name, birthday, gender, etc.) and my Sunderland student ID. I'm registering for enough sites that I almost have the darn thing memorised. 

After that, I started my application. I was expecting to be confronted by as many options as I saw at Whitworth: pick your top seven dorms! I think Whitworth even left Mac and Ballard in there for both genders. I remember being confused, in any case. 

Step one: Accommodation Options. From a drop-down menu, I selected "Exchange student Autumn session" based on idea that I was in the ISEP Exchange program. Turns out, I was right! The "Contract Length" selection then automatically selected Clanny House for "Location" and put "17/09/2011 - 28/01/2012" for my start and end dates. I selected "Inclusive of electricity" for "Price Category" and "2 Single Beds, Shared Twin Room" under "Accommodation Type". 

Next, I filled out the "Personal Preferences" Page. Female, no early arrival, no health issues, no accessibility issues, agreed to the University No Smoking Policy (by selecting "You must agree to the University No Smoking Policy" from the drop-down menu), and "I agree to the diversity and ethics policy" that I didn't read. 

The last question asked if I wanted to buy a bedding pack from the university store. I quibbled internally over that, then emailed a current Whitworth student who is, at this moment, living in Clanny House. In fact, she's probably sleeping there right now. 

Actually, probably not. It's only 11 PM over there. 

Anyway, she said that having the cruddy little set that costs £20 was nice for a few days while getting all set up and orienting oneself in the town and school, so I clicked the little check box for "Yes, please purchase a bedding set from the University Store". 

I had already clicked "no", however, and clicking "yes" didn't remove the "no" checkmark. We'll see how this ends up turning out later.

I clicked "continue", reviewed it, clicked "save", agreed to the submission guidelines, clicked "Yes" when asked if I wanted to submit my application, and then settled down to write this post. 

Reflections -- 22 February 2012 (slash 25 July 2012)

I wrote this a few months ago (in february, in fact, and it is now july) and then forgot about it. I just got turned into an "ISEP Ambassador" (in something of a fit of irony, given the issues a bunch of us had with ISEP) which reminded me of this, and I also have to resit an exam which is making me think about having studied abroad again. So here's my reflections from just a month after having studied abroad.


Tomorrow, I'll have been back for a whole month. It's kind of crazy.
I'm already so absorbed by school that I have a hard time sitting down and thinking about England. Fortunately, I have a lot of homework to avoid, so it happens more than it should. Right now, for instance, I should be thinking about inorganic chemistry.
So.
I was pretty close on my "what I won't miss, what I will miss" predictions. I really miss the people; I get excited when I hear australian accents before remembering that Josie is in Leicester, and it's weird being on facebook and seeing people from Sunderland friend people that I don't know and go places I'll probably never be.
And, yeah, I miss the easy Sunderland workload (but not the work itself) and cheese and onion pasties. I miss being somewhere where people know what a pasty is... and how to pronounce it. It is fun to explain the "putting stuff in pastry" phenomenon, though. Also, the "irish" pub that moved in across from Whitworth is reported to sell at least meat pasties, so I'll be checking that out sometime.
I don't miss the exchange rate at all, but I'm still confused when I cross the road. I have to think about where I would be sitting if I was driving, and where the center line would be, and therefore where a car will come from when it hits me. Ah, it'll be from behind. Better get on the grass, just in case they aren't paying attention. Note: this is only on campus. I'm very careful when I cross the street from my house to the Whitworth side.
I'm doing pretty good on the "not talking about England ad nauseum" thing, except when I get together with other long term study abroad-ers, and then none of us want to shut up. I found one girl who went to australia and knows the university that Josie and James went to, which was amazingly exciting, although it would have been cooler had she gone to their uni. I also met a girl who went to Northern Ireland (and who confirmed my suspicion that the northern accent is much easier to understand than the republic's), and who shared my frustrations over "I'm from Washington. No, not DC. Yes, there is a state called Washington. Where is it? Um, it's by California." conversations as well as my longing for pasties.
I've stopped saying "uni" so naturally and dropped back into "college", even though I use uni as a texting abbreviation.
I do miss being able to say "chips" and have people think "delicious, deep fried, soft, thick potatoes" instead of "crispy potato slices".
On the other hand, I've settled back into Whitworth pretty well. I've made new friends, even.
I blame my newfound gregariousness on having been somewhere where no one knew me. For the first time ever, there was no familiar face, no one I knew from church or liberty or whitworth, and I think I branched out without knowing it. If I wanted a familiar face, I had to get to know people. So I did. It helped that everyone else was dealing with the same sort of thing, and so were more willing to share my effort, but I could have made no friends. I know people who did just that, and I'm ridiculously proud to say that I'm a successful human being now. Last year, in Duvall, I did not make a single friend in my dorm.
This year, in England, I made several.
Of course, it's still hard for me to just strike up a conversation with someone, but I've definitely made strides in the "being able to function in the real world" department.

Monday 23 January -- On the edge of sunset

After something of a mad dash to the tube that included running down to Twinings, being late for my taxi, and struggling through King's Cross with four items of luggage, one of which doesn't like to balance nicely, I finally ended up lounging on an impressively long train ride to zone six. Fortunately, the fact that I'd bought a zone 1-2 daypass to get to Twinings didn't end up costing me more money; an airport employee saw my luggage and used his card to help me through the barrier. I found the trolleys (carts in american), which were free (shocking), and took a circuitous route to bypass the elevators. Once I reached icelandair's checkin, my bags turned out to be underweight enough for me to actually unload some stuff from my carryons into them, which was a pleasant surprise.
As always, my liquid baggie got tested during my journey through security, but that was it. I had to wait about half an hour for my flight to start boarding, so I felt that I had timed things rather well.

Mine!

The weather was about the same when I left as when I got to England.

Flying!

I was hoping to enjoy iceland, or at least the keflavik airport, a little more than last time, but my flight was actually on last call by the time I got there.
Eight hours is a long time to be in the air.
It was dark when we set out from iceland, but once we got above the cloudcover, we flew in the dark for about an hour before we hit sunset.
 

If you embiggen the picture (and the next one), you may be able to see that I was trying to take a picture of the icelandic coast.

Atlantic ocean and also Iceland.

It was really weird, and I couldn't sleep (although I blame the fact that WE'RE FLYING! more than the light, because I could have shut the window if I hadn't been so darn excited. I was feeling especially poetical as I watched us flying backwards through the day, from night to sunset to daylight before circling above seattle through sunset until it was night again, and dubbed it "flying on the edge of sunset".
It was also pretty, but not like sunsets are on the ground. I think because we were so high, the sunset just kind of lurked around the horizon instead of dominating the sky, but I could see all the colours concentrated in a deep pink band that sometimes fuzzed into a really pretty purple.
Customs and baggage claim was really smooth, rather smoother than getting into England (probably because I wasn't wearing fancy, foreign-looking clothes, my suitcases are as cheap as I could manage, and I'm returning to my own country instead of being a slightly disreputable-looking person trying to get into another country that has some impressive immigration issues of its own). Even though I started off on a bad foot with the passport inspector by texting in line (in my defense, I didn't see the sign and it's never been a concern before), she warmed up to me by the time I was done being inspected. All my luggage came through, and I kept all my forms in reasonably decent order, at least for my first time solo through american customs and with four bags.
It was incredibly good to actually see my family in person. I kind of did the whole England thing on my own, and it was good to be allowed to let someone else support me (emotionally, that is).

Sunday 22 January -- Mostly a pictures post

For a pretty good description of what I did Sunday, see this post that I actually wrote that night. This post that you're reading is mostly pictures.
These pictures are actually from when I got back from Bath, but that post already had like 50 pictures, so...

I think this is the Charing Cross thing, but I'm really not sure.

I certainly don't see the however many crosses there were supposed to be or whatever.

Ah! Twinings! I found it!

Ye Olde Cock Tavern. Established in 15 forty-something.

St Pauls!

Either clever or just wrong.

 Okay, now it's Sunday pictures. I saw this while making my way to St Paul's half an hour late for the service, box of Kleenex under my arm, chips on the mind.

The sunrise... It was pretty, but I still hate sunrises.

I thought this was a real bird and that it was just really windy six stories up, but no. It's kind of windy up there, but that's not a real bird.

Statues outside St Pauls.

Another shot of St Pauls. It's really pretty.

Dome.

Also, random spiky thing.

I think this is a routemaster bus.

They're the super old double decker buses that are immortalised as coin banks and pencil sharpeners around the world.

 This next section is from the Harry Potter tour that I went on with Megan and Gina after mass at Westminster.

Joke from the Arts in Christianity study tour (Megan and Gina's group): It's cigar shaped!
Because their tour guide book always said that everything was cigar shaped when telling them where to look.

This is a cool place in its own right, but it also featured in the first Harry Potter movie.

This was also in Harry Potter movies, but I really like it that the curved side has the door.

Ah! The great fire of 1666 monument! Allegedly the tallest freestanding column in at least europe at 222 feet. 

Tower Bridge from the London Bridge.

Shakespeare's brother is buried somewhere in here. It's been a site of worship since pretty much forever, but it would get burned down or rebuilt and all the graves got kind of shuffled around and the markers were lost. 

Bangers are sausages. But this is still hilarious because I am five.

The big London Dragon! I tried to take a picture of it on New Year's Eve, but the bus was moving.

I appreciate the tube escalators when I look at this picture. Otherwise, I'd have been walking all those stairs and probably falling.

This is the second attempt to get into Twinings. The light was better, so I took more pictures.

It's older than America! And I drink that tea...

And they have a crest.

That is the royal courts of justice. As it says in the picture below. But this is a magnificent building.

There we go.

After this round of pictures, we went to Moot, then to Blackfriars Tavern.

This picture, I actually took Monday morning. I was so ticked by the fact that I couldn't get to Twinings and I'd been in the same city for a week that I decided to try to get there about the same time that it opened (8:30) and back before my taxi was scheduled (9:00). Getting there was no problem, but the tube runs differently back, and I ended up waiting fifteen minutes before my line came and got out at King's Cross (and into cell reception so that I could call the taxi service, apologise, and ask for a reschedule) at 9:15. They were not amused, but the driver didn't overcharge. Which was good, since I only had one £10 note anyway.

I hadn't noticed this mosaic in the entry before.

I would do more narration, but I feel that being removed from the situation by over two weeks, my commentary is less valid. The commentary from the post I linked at the beginning is pretty good, and I stand by it. I'll do some reflecting in the post for the trip back. Which should go up soon. If not tonight, then it'll be up this weekend (homework is going to be intense in the next three days; I don't have my books yet, so I'm a bit limited in how much I can be responsible right now. It's really annoying, since I'm totally in the mood for spec and inorganic homework, and I am literally unable to do it.

Bath, this time with pictures -- Saturday 21 January

Due to the stress of the laptop theft, I was really grateful to be getting out of London. Unfortunately, I'm no good at timetables and ended up on the train an hour later than I'd scheduled. 

So, no walking tour. 

Still, there were things I needed to do. My cheap brick phone's battery had died in the hostel, so I had attempted to switch SIM cards in my flip phone from the states. Unfortunately, it refused to accept the card, so I decided to seek out one of the slightly sketchy "phone repair and unlocking" stores that seem to be everywhere. Luckily, I happened across one in Bath while searching for the Jane Austen Centre. I got my phone unlocked for just £10 and found a 4GB SD chip for a whopping £8, which was ridiculously exciting. My 1 GB chip holds exactly 40 pictures, and I had used them up. And Bath was beautiful and very deserving of photography.

An abbey tower of some sort.

They followed London in the old-stuff trend. Roman stuff was everywhere in the city centre.

Also in the "Let's call in the oldest" thing; this house was on the site of some stuff, I guess.

I never tried the Sally Lunn Bun, but I've heard they're delicious.

I just took this picture because I love the way the tree is framed by the buildings.

That's the oldest house in Bath, sort of . I guess there was a roman thing there and then a house and no one really knows which one is the very oldest, but this one's close enough. I like how different the levels are between the two houses.

I'm always impressed by how spiky old churches are.

I think that was the bath. There's a bunch of roman statues, anyway.

Hey! A thing was here in 1091! But now it's gone.

The view was gorgeous. 

That's right, the british don't need no stinkin' crosswalks.

I don't know how old the buildings are, but they look pretty.

I really liked this church tower. I was also impressed by how all the historic sites are right in the middle of everything, but I hear that the east coast of the US is like that. Over here, historic-y stuff kind of gets cordoned off.

It's just so tall and spiky!

There was a museum there, I believe. It was closed.

I'm curious about how old that lettering is. The chapel is 11 years older than the US as a sovereign nation, but I seriously doubt that the concrete is that old. Darn.

Museum! Just a little ways away from that was a sign that said that it was closed until, like, march. Rude.

I think fly tipping actually means littering, but I prefer to think of it as sneaking up on sleeping insects and knocking them over. 

Found it! Yeah, all the other pictures were discovered on the hunt for this. None of them are actually on a direct route.

So! The Jane Austen Centre. I was enormously pleased by it. I got into it for less than the Sherlock Holmes thing, the merchandise was reasonably priced and actually relevant to the venue, and the whole thing was very informative. There was a presentation of Jane Austen's life, regarding family, siblings, family situation, and life-and-times stuff. Then we were set loose in the exhibit, which was very nicely done with items that were authentic, thoughtfully-reproduced, or actual Austen family possessions. After this, I decided that the Sherlock Holmes museum would have been better as an Arthur Conan Doyle museum with an understandable focus on Sherlock Holmes, or at least a Sherlock Holmes museum with more informative staff and exhibits. You kind of had to figure things out for yourself, and, honestly, how many visitors have read all the short stories and novels?

I miss having this sort of view. Eastern Washington houses are so spread out and have no chimney pipes.

I love those chimney pipes.

So, this is one of the places where Jane Austen actually lived, just up the street from the Jane Austen Centre. This is a dentist's office now, and I suspect that the centre doesn't have the funding to buy them out.

This is the fancy-schmancy part of Bath, where the fancy-schmancy rich people lived. I don't know who lives here now, but this is the Circus (like picadilly and oxford, it's just latin for circle, not signifying big round tents with elephants). 

This is a crazy old-looking thing that didn't explain itself. I think there were signs for a salon of some sort, though.

Chimney pipes! I want them. They became the new wall.

Until I found this wall, which had weird little doors all over the place.

I believe this was outside a club or theatre, but I'm not really sure.

Al Falafel? I like to eat falafel, but I doubt this place sold them.

I have no idea what that says, I just like the idea of greek letters on a roman building.

Roman thing. Middle of shopping district. Okay, then.

Yay statues! I don't think the fountain was running, but it was winter. 

Why?

It's even more confusing in its locational context.

I wanted to take pictures of all the things inside, but I felt weird enough just taking the teapot picture (below).

I ordered a cup of tea. I got two cups of tea out of this. HUGE cups, like at least 1.5 normal tea cups.

Another spiky church.

The river was pretty.

I really like this view, because you get the pretty river, a pretty bridge, that cool rounded building, and a pretty cityscape in the background.

I think that was either a saxophone shop or a construction contractor. There were two, and I can't read the writing on the doors. 

I mostly crossed the river because I had an hour to kill after the centre and I saw that tower and had to find it.

I think this is where people with money live, because those yards are huge even for the tri cities.

And the cool old buildings that people live in. 

There keep being these massive garden plots that can't belong to just one person, but they never have signs or markers or anything.

Also, I like the trees on top of that hill at the back.

I never figured out how to get into this park, but it abuts that pink house from earlier.

This was outside a perfectly normal-looking house. I don't know why.

MOAR SPIKY CHURCHES

And a baptist church? Lookin' fancy.

This is a bookbinder/seller's shop. Luckily it was closed.

My fingers were itching for more books.

Such a cool set-up! Gah!

This is the railway station.

Looks a lot like the pacific northwest, except for the station and also that small tower in the background...

So, Bath. It was nice, and it was really great to be out of London and also get my phone unlocked. This is the kind of sightseeing I like, just me and my camera and some tea shops along the way.