On the 22nd of September began what's called Fresher's Week, during which thousands of people shove flyers in your face, hand you free stuff, entice you to buy notfree stuff, and loud obnoxious weirdos blare out all the many ways you can get entirely trashed for the next three years.
There's a Fresher's Fair where you can sign up for clubs (known as societies) and find some sort of niche where you might fit in. Sadly, despite being called Fresher's WEEK, the fair ended on Wednesday. No one informed me and I had planned to go Thursday. So that was nice. Luckily, Aamna had gone earlier and texted me that she'd signed us up for Action Palestine and the Arab Society. She's not Arab. Nor is she Pakistani but that didn't stop her from joining that society either. Later online, I also signed up for the Fine Arts and Photography Society.
There were some random sales around too, two in particular being a poster sale and a houseplant sale. I bought a poster of the map of the world (because I am a nerd) and a copy of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. And a really nice Arctic Monkeys poster. And at the houseplant sale, I met my soulmates, Dwight and Phyllis. Yes, they are named after "The Office" characters. Yes, I am a weirdo. Yes, I am also ridiculously awesome.
Dwight and Phyllis are cacti. I spent ages looking for the right couple, the best complementary pair of cacti. In the process, I stabbed myself several times on various spiky and vicious plants, meet a second year French guy doing aerospace engineering and a sweet girl from London in her first year. I have seen neither since. Anyways. I water Dwight and Phyllis every Thursday and then they sit loftily on my desk hutch for the rest of the week. I don't think they get enough sunlight. They must really need to photosynthesize. I should get on that.
The same night as the cacti/poster sale, my hall of residence hosted a "Villians/Fancy Dress Party." Yes, they actually do say fancy dress for costume party. Being the last minute person that I am, I had no clue what to be ... but I was too cheap to pay £1 to get in. So I recycled and modified a previous Halloween costume: I went as British Weather. I wore dark grey sweatpants, a dark grey baggy sweatshirt, and draped an English flag over my shoulders, and of course the necessary spray bottle with which I attacked people's faces. Everyone loved it and thought I was a genius. I try, I try.
Also during Fresher's Week, we (my small group of friends) discovered the joy that is Slems' Quiz Night. Slems is the nearby (nearby is a relative term here because it's definitely a fifteen minute walk) all-boy's hall. Every Tuesday night, they host a pub quiz and so far it's been a weekly gathering for us. It's a lot of fun and we get really into it and we never ever win. Once we came second and won a bottle of wine. We were called Team Noor that night. Oh, the irony.
The rest of Freshers was filled with introductory lectures, mini tours, safety talks (including the infamous one during which I officially met Aamna and bonded with her and we laughed wayyyyy too much), and meeting new people.
We had some meetings with our course (= major) group so I met several neuroscientists out of about 25-30 of us, the first being Laura who is now my permanent lab partner. Then there's Bernard who is an amazing musician and we got to see him play at the Student Talent Show. Ainkaran (we call him Mo ... it's a long story) who is really cool and -- get this -- doing a BSc in Neuroscience IN BETWEEN his medical degree. Just for fun. What?! Seriously. And Matt, Lucien, Ali, Harry, Rachael, Simmi, Chris, etc etc are all pretty dang cool too. We had a Neuroscientists Curry Night just to bond with our neurogeek buddies and we're planning a Christmas outing too which should be fun!
Otherwise, I don't get to spend that much time with the Neurogeeks because we have lectures with all the life sciences first years making each of my lectures well above 400 students. They're so huge and intimidating that it's hard to just randomly get to know people unless you know someone who knows someone and that's how you meet. Usually, it's just me and Becca and Kat walking to and from lectures together, sitting together, killing time between class together. I always have a friend in my lectures but I didn't have that whole whirlwind of meeting new people that I expected so I felt like I kind of didn't meet anyone. Like I need to branch out more. I feel like I've gone back to sitting quietly in the background, easily blending in because there are so many faces to blend into. It's easier, but not as fun.
Although Becca and I have enough fun during lectures you'd wonder if we actually did any learning.
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