The Sick Week — Monday 10 October to Thursday 13 October

So I spent the whole weekend inside because I had a cold. I drank about thirty cups of tea and watched way too much TV. I still have a bit of a cold, but I think it's getting better.

Monday I explored the Murray Library (the city campus library, and the main library for the university) and discovered that it employs the most irritating, convoluted, and confusing organisational system known to man. It has three levels- ground, upper, and lower- with mostly informational kiosks and short-term loan (three hour) books on the ground floor. The subject I wanted was on the upper floor, but the book from that subject that I ended up with was actually on the lower floor. It took me about an hour to find it, and my search included three different catalogue searches and a total of three trips up and down both flights of stairs.
I didn't even like the book.
Today also marked the first time I've seen the metro inspectors, who were up to this point something of a mythical threat to encourage people to buy tickets. There's a £20 fee for riding without valid fare, which costs £1.50 for the average trip.
A lot of students buy the £40 year pass for our zone, which is worthwhile if you take the metro more than 27 times. Probably more students just kind of ride without fare, for reasons like a lack of change or time to pay or simply an unwillingness to pay.
English Literature 1700-1789 was as boring as last time. We discussed a rather dry not-a-novel (it would seem that we're entering the age of the novel, but Journal of the Plague Year is really not very novel-y. It's more like a fictional autobiography, a category that drives me slightly up the wall. I'm not a huge fan of Daniel Defoe, but I guess he's not too bad. I did enjoy what I read of Journal, and Robinson Crusoe wouldn't be so popular if there was nothing good about it— I just remembered Twilight. Never mind.
Thomas was actually there this time, and so available to defend me against serial killers and rapists that could have been lurking in the shadows as I walked to the bus stop. He did just get off crutches from knee surgery, so he was less useful than he might have been, but I feel that the fact that he's at least 2 metres (over 6 feet) tall and fairly athletic should deter all but the most intrepid serial killer. Also, I haven't heard of any serial killers or rapists lurking about the main campus of the University of Sunderland, so Mom, Dad, it's okay.

Tuesday involved my really cute pair of red wedge heels and not much else. I did walk to the rowland's (down the road from Clanny House) to get cough drops (pastilles, which are squishy and last about an hour, and lozenges which are hard and last about five minutes — I looked up the definitions to find the pronunciations, which have long eluded me). It turns out that Throaties are the best thing ever, although it took me a bit to get over the licorice taste.

Pastilles all seem to come in these little bubble packages.

Lozenges just come in bags. These taste like menthol-y blackcurrant (tastes kind of like purple fruit, sort of like blackberry; is a huge deal here, like grape, cherry, and orange in candy; strawberry in jams and jellies; and apple, cranberry, and grape in juice) candy.

They clear out my nose and throat so well that it's worth it. I think I drank lots of tea as well. Not much happened tuesday, really.

Wednesday, I discovered that my pastilles are basically cough medicine mixed with old-fashioned candy... and beeswax. I don't let it get to me; they're still really awesome. I can get them for way cheaper at green's than at rowland's, but green's doesn't have cheap nighttime cold medicine, so I'm out of cash and can't get Throaties. It's time to make a move on the cash machine in the library, which is swamped with people as I write this during my lunch break thursday.
I decided to take the evening off, so I snuggled up in my bed with Gulliver's Travels for my lit class, my computer, my Throaties, and some menthol-infused kleenexes that Jessi gave me.
Gulliver's Travels is the most blatantly political book that's ever been labeled a children's book. It's so transparent. I ended up getting a lot done on the blog because I couldn't keep reading. Oh, my. Apparently, Swift is mocking Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, with his odd attention to detail. I didn't really find Defoe's detail obsession irritating in Journal of the Plague Year, but Swift drove me crazy. Do not like. I eased my mind by blogging, and then by reading hyperbole and a half for about an hour after I looked up the "clean all the things" picture for the Clanny House post.

Thursday started out pretty well. I woke up on time, remembered my wallet, caught the bus, and made it to class early. This was an improvement over last week, when I woke up early but forgot my wallet, missed the bus, and only just made it to class on time by speed-walking all the way to campus in about ten minutes. So this week, I started my day tired, sick, and grumpy but not exhausted, overheated, and soaking wet.
Then we got into real science instead of quality control crap. It was a little irritating because the lecturer was the lady who talks like we're in kindergarten again, but I still like her better than the impossible little frenchman.
I was overjoyed when we started using equations. We derived a bit of a monster, but I'd seen the variables before and it was strictly algebraic. I can't imagine what this group would do if faced with calculus.
There I was, sitting in a stuff lecture theatre with a bunch of tittering morons trying to figure out "where k2 went" (it was there all along, didn't they see the bit where Vmax = k2[E0]? The equals sign means that they're the same thing, guys...), and all I could think of was how beautiful the derivation and equation were. I was actually in awe of it. I'm still kind of in awe half an hour later, to be honest. It's incredible, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and people think it could have happened just by chance.
**Also, Andrew, brother mine, mathematical adept: When did you learn to expand bracketed expressions? I can't remember the exact phrase that I learned the concept under, but it means that A(B+C) = AB + AC. I feel certain that I'd learned it by 9th grade (geometry for me), but I can't remember exactly because it's so idiotically simple that I feel like I've always known it. So please try to remember when you learned it and let me know in comments or by texting my google voice number. Comments might be more efficient. Mom and Dad have my number, and it might also be on the blog or on facebook in one of my posts. If you don't answer this within the week, I'll post this question on your facebook wall, possibly to the point of spamming you, and then I'll start bombarding your mobile with texts about it.
I'm wondering about when I learned that A(B+C) = AB + AC because the algebraic morons in my class (oh, yes, they've been upgraded from idiots to morons) could not for the life of them figure that out. Luckily, the kid sitting next to me, who I believe is british (unrelatedly, he has a neckbeard that could rival that of George Whitworth), was as in awe of their inability to get this fairly simple concept as I was. There is hope for the british educational system, maybe!
Also, I drew a picture of a pastille.

Sorry about the blurriness. There's an arrow pointing to the roundish blob inside the splashy squiggle, and the words underneath are "unadulterated awesomeness". The roundish thing is a pastille. 

A real pastille to show you what it actually looks like. That's a terrible picture.

Now I'm sitting in the library, which just kicked me off its reading list page when I was trying to print the list of books I need to read for my presentation in history. These hour-long breaks are kind of annoying- not really enough time to go home, too much time to sit around without a long book or a computer. However, I think that having to lug my computer around is a fair price to pay to make thursdays less sucky.
Lab turned out to be pretty good. I've joined up with a group of people who may or may not be drunk and/or high at any given point, but they don't giggle and they didn't reject me when I was forcibly placed with them. This makes me seem like I have really low self esteem, which is not necessarily true, but it kind of is when I'm trying to join a group. I still get nervous when I'm with close friends; imagine total strangers! My first impressions of my lab group were less than favourable, but they're nice enough, and not just to the slightly awkward american, that I'm becoming rather attached to them as a lab group. I rather doubt that I'll spend any time with them outside of lab, but this is a good start for me.
Mike looks like Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers (with messier hair than in that wikipedia picture), and Adam (not the fount of all knowledge from my flat, although he's pretty good a biochem lab procedures) resembles Wade, the TA from Plant Bio. Joe is lab partners and, apparently, good friends with Mike, "Jedward", whose real name I learned last week and promptly forgot (it might be Edward, but it might also be Richard), partners with Adam, and Robyn, who is slightly intimidating but good natured enough to forgive my head cold-induced deafness, was partners with me. Last week, we were all kind of a large globby group who stole each others results because Adam and Robyn got in late.
After lab, I barely caught the bus and got off at Green's, where I triumphantly purchased two packages of Throaties (blackcurrant and original- we'll see how the blackcurrant compares to the awesomeness that is the original) before heading home.

I believe this bag is from the pharmacy suppliers, also known as chemists. It tickles me to be told to go to the chemist's, although the signs are all for "pharmacy"

*Cue angelic choir*

I ended up exploring. There's a huge methodist church across the street from the catholic church on the street that runs by the hospital, and there's practically nothing further down the street that Clanny's on. There is, however, plenty down the street just after Clanny. I didn't have the time or money to act on my explorations, but I did buy a personal pizza to justify wandering aimlessly around a grocery store.
Update- I burnt my pizza by forgetting about it. But it was still really delicious.
Then, I did, like, all the dishes. Because I'm awesome.
I suspect that my blog for today will keep being more and more hyperbolic (in the literary sense, not the geometric sense).
Also, I figured out why today was less awful than last week: I wore rainbow socks.

The source of my power. Awesome socks, awesome day.
Also, terrible shot of my leg. It's just perspective making my calf look bigger than my shoe.

The day ended with Jessi and I taking in Bob Diddyfish, the goldfishfish that we're technically not allowed to keep in the flat and who belongs to Josie, the australian girl. She's going to London to take her brother sightseeing for a few days, and then going to germany to see her mom and family for most of a week, so we're fish-sitting Bob for a week until Conor, the guy who lives on the same floor as Josie and who took care of Bob last time she was away, gets back. 

The post didn't get more hyperbolic, I just noticed. Sorry. I picked it back up after four or five hours, and look what happened.

After settling Bob in on my dresser, Jessi and I talked for about two hours. We also fixed the heater.

Because we're AWESOME.

Success, Views on the World, and I Don't Like Thursday — Tuesday 4 October to Thursday 6 October

Tuesday saw an interesting development in my viewing of the world, yet again. Up to this point, I was under the impression that Americans were the only people group that exhibited the "ugly American syndrome", but, in retrospect, I think we may have inherited it from the British. When I thought about it a little, I remembered that the British colonised, and made multiple attempts to civilise the savage, heathen corners of the earth. Remember the British Empire? Yeah. My new acquaintance had this to say about the rest of the world: "Yeah, France is nice except that it's full of French people. Germany would be okay too, but there's so many Germans... And I bet America is quite nice, but you'd have to put up with all the Americans, begging your pardon. Yep, this is the best place in the world with the best people in the world." He also recommended Idiot Abroad, a TV show about a british guy that gets taken to various countries around the world. Apparently, the star of the show shares the sentiments of my history class companions.
History class also brought me into contact with the Veronica White of Sunderland. Apparently there are two of her, since I hear there's an art major like her as well. She's the sort of person who, once she starts talking, doesn't know how to shut up. Not that I claim to be much better, but in class I do tend to keep quiet. Not so for the Veronicas of the world. I believe that the original Veronica at Whitworth was unaware that she was doing anything wrong or impolite, and I think that it's the case with these two as well. Unfortunately for my conscience, I'm not a nice enough person to befriend them and do them the kindness of helping them out with their social skills. Quite frankly, I can't stand people like that. This is probably indicative of some awful traits that can be found in me, but some people get under my skin.

Wednesday was a successful day. I successfully contributed to the discussion in history seminar, which may well have prevented me from embarrassing myself by being asked what book I read (because I didn't read). Success!
After class I sat down in the library cafe to determine the plot of The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope's mock-epic monster. I was determined to sit there and write down every plot point until I made sense of the whole thing. Unfortunately, the library had a fire alarm, so I picked a new location (City Space, the building which houses the cafeteria and the gymnasium) to occupy until I defeated Pope.
Success came, but not without much grumbling and several notes in my plot outline regarding the pointlessness of the whole thing. I believe that this may have been Pope's point in writing it, actually, since he was writing in an epic fashion about a stupid trivial thing that was treated as something incredibly serious. I don't dislike him any less, and I don't think that he was really all that great, but he wasn't too bad. It was still a bit of a crabbed number, but it was less unmanageable when I worked at it.
I also succeeded at biochemistry calculations while ensconced in City Space.
After my wild academic successes, I decided not to take the metro back, since I would have to wait longer than it would take me to walk. I ended up taking a back way, which is regrettably not faster than the normal way. There's a little street that curves around behind the Royal Hospital (across the street from Clanny), and it's probably one of the most british places in Sunderland. There's a post office, and several little tea rooms, bakeries, and grocery stores, as well as no fewer than four fruit and veg stores and two pharmacies. I'll have pictures tomorrow, since I plan on mailing the postcards I've done so far.
I decided, as I was walking, that I want to move Whitworth to Sunderland. I want my professors and my three-minute walk to class and my friends and Whitworth's lack of administrative nightmares, but I really love this place. I'm not sure that my Whitworth friends and Sunderland friends would mesh very well, though.
I watched How to Train Your Dragon, which has been highly recommended to me. It was pretty good, although the vikings are scottish and Gerard Butler. Hmm. The story is mostly cute, with some impressive cultural messages and some rather serious plot twists. The soundtrack is good, and I discovered that it was composed by John Powell, who did the Bourne trilogy and has worked extensively with Hans Zimmer, who seems to be the John Williams of the last decade or so. The dragon is adorable. D'awwww... The most scottish viking, voiced by Craig Ferguson of late night talk show fame, has a great line about trolls: "They EXIST! They steal your socks! Only the left ones, though..." I maintain that the trolls work with the car key gnomes, and that they've been hanging about the Clanny laundry room, since I just lost a sock.

Thursday has been a bit of a trial. I don't like thursdays, since I have class 9-5 with two 1-hour breaks, and I have to deal with the impossible little french biochemist who can't explain things very well in english.
First, I found out that Steve Jobs had died about ten minutes before I ended up having to leave for the bus. I think that Joy of Tech has one of the best memorials. Gizmodo has published several pieces as well.
I also received some unfortunate news about my grandpa's health.
Then, I forgot my wallet and ended up missing the bus and walking to class in the cold wind (although I walked so fast to keep from being late that I eventually took off my coat). I just made it on time to biochem.
We had a new prof, who is easier to understand because she's british, but she talks like the class is comprised of first graders. Also, the subject of the two-hour session was quality control and SOPs, followed by a one-hour session that was on calculations instead of spectrophotometry.
Bleh. What it all comes down to, to borrow her favourite expression, is that I signed up to learn about biochemistry, not about being a biochemist.
Lab was okay, although the impossible frenchman was back. We were doing a protein assay, and I was excited to recognise several terms and concepts from my internship at PNNL. The Bradford reagent, for the Coomassie protein assay, was as brown as ever, and it turned a familiar blue in the presence of protein. We used BSA standards, and made curves. It was all so familiar... My group and I forgot that we were diluting our standard by another 10x, so we had a failure of a standard curve. Sad day. Luckily, we did one run with the 100x diluted standards, and the results were much less awful.
When I got home, I discovered the ginger Clanny House cat outside the flat drinking milk. He's so friendly, which is good because I needed a kitty snuggle. He's got this incredible long fur, and I suspect that someone brushes it. In any case, he submitted pretty readily to snuggles as long as I didn't take too long.
It was a pretty exhausting day. As soon as I got inside, I went to bed and slept for about three hours before venturing downstairs to eat dinner at around 8 (20:00). I ended up staying in the kitchen and watching a few episodes of Downton Abbey, a british TV show that Conor introduced to Josie, Jessi, and me (Flo and Micha are too busy, Thomas is still gone, and Adam already knew about it).
Now it's time for me to go to bed again. I have a lot of sleeping planned for tomorrow morning, in the absence of any classes. Also, I think my typing might keep Jessi up. Sorry, roommate!

Orientation Day 3, Metrocentre, Birthday — Wed 21 September

Today began with a frantic search to find my alarm, which was neither under my pillow nor coming from my computer. I eventually found it under my bed. Fortunately, the adrenaline was an effective way to wake up before the skype call planned with my family. I got to see yet another sunrise, much to my chagrin. Beautiful as they are, I hate sunrises.

The call went well, and it was nice to see everyone even if they did call ten minutes early. After the call, I went back to bed for half an hour.
Quick note: "module" means "class/course". This threw me off to no end before I figured it out.
Jessi, Josie, Flo, and I had the same advisor meeting at 9:30, and we were hoping to be out before the coach to the Metrocentre left at 12:30. Unfortunately, the advisor was half an hour late and talked for an hour about the online systems (that mostly don't work for study abroad, as it turned out). 12 o'clock came around without me seeing the advisor, and I managed to arrange for more of an independent online module-code-finding adventure before a physical meeting the next day. It wouldn't have been such an issue if the physical module lists had included biomedical/pharmaceutical sciences...

In any case, we all got to the coach (which is just a big bus, like LCS used for away games) on time. I was looking forward to more of england in the daylight, but I don't have any pictures from the way over because I was extremely carsick. I thought it was just me, but Jessi had the same problem. I resolved to remember my dramamine on the York trip friday.
After what felt like several hours but was in fact about half an hour, we arrived. My group included Jessi, Kari (Jessi's friend from Germany who's studying here, too), Josie, Conor, and, briefly, Scott from Colorado and a girl who might be from Whitworth, but I never caught her name. I don't actually know her, so...
We ate at Nando's, which is a mostly chicken restaurant. I got chips (fries in American) and ratatouille. It was okay, but a little heavy on the onions. After that, Scott and mystery girl split, and the rest of us went to Primark for cheap clothes. I wanted jeans, but there were none in my size. At all. In the end, I got a longsleeve t-shirt for a few pounds, a duvet cover and pillow case, and some hangers. Jessi, a goddess among women, held my place in the massively long queue so I could get the hangers.

No clashing!

By the time I got out of the store, everyone else was gone. I decided that I would go to one of the two Orange stores to see if I couldn't get my mobile up and running. I found it after about an hour of wandering, and finally got it registered. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my £10 voucher for the pay card, so I tried to top it up at a "cash point" (ATM). I need to look that up online, because I have no idea how it's suppose to work. I ended up going to the other Orange store to have them either explain it or top it up for me.
It worked out, and I wandered the mall in a good mood until I got to a stationary store and tried to buy a binder and some paper.
My wallet was not in my bag. It wasn't in my shopping bag. It wasn't in my jacket pocket. It still wasn't in any of my bags or pockets after three searches. The cashier was very sympathetic, and offered to hold my stuff until I came back with my wallet.
This was pretty devastating. While I only had £15 in cash, I had all my cards and pictures of friends in the wallet. I also didn't want to have to buy another wallet, cancel my debit card, and get a new drivers' license, Whitworth ID, debit card, and library card. I was also mad at myself for losing yet another wallet (lost my first one a few weeks into my freshman year at Whitworth), and so soon into the trip. I would have to rely on the goodwill of my friends for food and transportation until the debit card company sent me a new card.
In spite of my troubles, I held it together pretty well. I remembered exactly where I'd been, and suspected that I'd left the wallet right in the Orange store. Still, I walked back through all the stores, up and down stairs and escalators, until I returned to the Orange store. After what seemed like a very long wait in a very warm store, I was directed to the help desk just outside the store.
They had my wallet! I was walking on air. All my cards, all my cash, all my pictures, right there in my hands again when I  thought I'd never see them again.
I thanked God sincerely for the unexpected birthday gift.
I used my phone to call Jessi and find out where anybody else was, and found them successfully. We all kind of showed off our loot, then headed back to the meeting point at about 17:15 before waiting about an hour for the coach to show up. Josie had bought a huge cookie from a cookie store in the mall, and was asked repeatedly who it was for. Apparently, she was planning on eating cookie for about a month.
I sat much closer to the front, and it took at least fifteen minutes for the carsickness to kick in. I got some pictures during that time.

Spire! Steeple! Thing!

Countryside. About how I saw it by that time, actually... 

Practically home.

Jessi and I hypothesized that it's the road, not the driver or the bus. I think that bumps and any other types of sudden motion (like the terrible shifting in the first bus) jerk us around too much and shock our brains into thinking that we need to be nauseated.
When we got back to Clanny, it was decided that we should go to an Indian takeout place along Hylton Street (runs along one side of Clanny House). Once Flo finally finished doing his registration stuff on Conor's laptop, we collected Kari and set off. Adam and Michaela pled full stomachs and didn't come.
On the way, we met the Ginger Clanny House Cat, a huge long-haired orange tabby who has his own facebook page.
Once we reached Curry Express, we sat down in the hotel registration-like front room of the restaurant and read the menu. Flo read it out loud, and "Tikka Chicken Chom Chom" became an inside joke. Picture it said with a sleazy eyebrow wiggle... In any case, I got Vegetable Biryani and an order of garlic naan.
Remember the cookie that Josie bought? It was actually my "cake". It said "Happy Birthday, Raeann" (spelled correctly!) and had a card signed by everybody in the flat. Josie got some pictures of it, and I intend to get them onto the blog ASAP.
That night, there was a "nerd" themed party at a Uni bar, which was interpreted by most girls as "slutty school girl uniform". This meant that there were people in the kitchen in varying states of drunkenness, and I hung around for a while before deciding that beer smells really gross in a warm kitchen full of people drinking beer. I went upstairs, killed the spider above the bathroom door for Jessi, and updated the blog before I went to sleep.
It was a good birthday.