gabs

My first morning at breakfast, I sat with girls from Slovakia, Lithuania, Virginia, Germany, and England. I then walked to our orientation session with the Lithuanian, a Korean, and a Mongolian. The girls on my floor are from Spain, England, Korea, China, Kenya, Romania, and Kuwait. 

How amazing is that?

I'm in one of the most international halls here and that makes the atmosphere around here all the better. It's just incredible to be able to turn to the person next to you and realize they come from the other side of the world, speak a completely different language, have an entirely new cultural background. I love being in the middle of it all.

So someone wants proof that I have friends?

Aimee! From Korea via Kenya (she went to high school in Kenya), chemical engineering. She was my first friend :]

Becca, from Widnes, England, life sciences. I knocked on her door and said, Becca, my friends want proof that I have friends. And then she posed, laughed, and I took this picture. She is an avid Dr Who fan, lover of David Tennant (Ten-inch), and all things dinosaur. And whenever I am with her, neither of us stops laughing. We never really get anything done together and we have the most random conversations in the middle of lectures and lab inductions. We've already scared several onlookers but that's a story for another time.

Aamna (on the left), from Leicester, England, computer science with business. Aamna and I are pretty sure we are the same person with different accents. Plus, we're both supposed to be brown but we are not (she's Indian, can't you tell?). Our conversations always include at least one moment of us staring at each other in awe before yelling, "ME TOO!!" She tells me to get my own life daily. And I tell her to get out of my brain. And now she's stealing all my friends on facebook so that's cool. She is also my sarcasm, Office, and 'that's what she said' joke appreciation buddy. And she gives into my peer pressure so easily that I can pretty much convince her to do anything with me. That's how we've already had an adventure and several future dates planned. By me. She's also coming to Oxford with me. Just because. Basically, we're married now. Just ask her, it's true.

And this is Kat, from Liverpool, England, biology with Mandarin. She's a Liverpuddlian. That was repetitive but I really just wanted to say 'Liverpuddlian' because that's the best word in the world. She's very cool and nerdtastic and likes good music and enjoys being high on life. And she goes to museums with me whenever we feel like it.

My friends are the coolest people in the world. They are all proud nerds but definitely the cool and awesome kind. (There's a difference. We went to a Sci-Fi society meeting and our mere presence definitely upped the cool factor.) And we are lucky enough to all be on the same floor, in the basement, which is now the hippest place to be, duh. And by hippest, I meant most closely resembling an insane asylum because we are convinced that is how we all got chosen to be down here. We invite ourselves over into each other's rooms, bombard video chats, knock on doors as we're walking in, already borrow clothes, and we stay up late having the best kitchen talks ever. During which we just sit around the kitchen table laughing it up till 2am, talking about postosuchuses (postosuchii?), dates gone awry, and how generally awesome we are. 

We are very territorial over our kitchen. Once half of China (sorry that's not meant to be racist or offensive but it's true) took over our kitchen and decided to cook up a storm. Turns out the girls weren't even on our floor. It happened again a week later with the other half of China and this time, some of our spoons and bowls went missing. So that was great. We put up a sign on the kitchen door that said in anger: "If you do not live here, do not use our kitchen. PS I want my spoons back. PPS I want my bowls and spoon back too." The next day, our stuff was back, piled neatly on the counter. That was very encouraging so a couple nights later, we sat around the kitchen table making random signs. Mainly just because we had the paper and the colo(u)red pencils. Becca made a sign that said, "WARNING*: MEAT CLEAVER INSIDE. *may cause loss of limbs." Because after the first half of China left, there was a giant meat cleaver in one of the drawers. It's quite terrifying, actually. And then Sorina made a very colo(u)rful one that said: "CAUTION: Sticking head in oven can cause an EXPLOSION." And we stuck it on the oven. Then Aamna suggests we put a sign on the front door saying, "CONGRATULATIONS! You are the millionth visitor to the basement!" And Becca, in her delirious state, adds, "But will you be the first to leave?" 

So now there's a sign on the door into the basement that says just that. I love living here.