fresher's week & cacti sales

So let's get the random, boring, formal stuff out of the way.

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.

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.

down south

On Saturday, we went on a trip to London to visit my dad's distant family so that I could get to know them better and just know that I had people to call nearby if I ever needed it. And I get to visit them on long weekends! In London! GAH.

The train ride down to London was about 3 hours because on the weekend the train goes slower? On the way back it took FOUR hours, which I just thought was ridiculous, but anyways. I love London and everything about it and I really hope I get to go back soon. 

Here is England from my window:

And just a few pictures more:

London Euston tube station after the long train ride.

One of my favo(u)rite activities.

Blurry London houses.

Aunt/cousin/third cousin/relative of some sort driving us (on the British side!) back to the station for our departure. 

orientation

On Thursday morning, I woke up bright and early, showered (in the shower smaller than a phonebooth with a showerhead that, I swear, is actually a million little firehoses stabbing you at once), flitted around my room and then got ready to leave for International Orientation. When I got to reception, Alex was there and happy to see me since another international student had arrived last night and wanted a friend to attend orientation with. And thus, in true FSHA upbringing, my first friend was a very sweet Korean girl named Aimee. She has a Korean name too but I've no idea how to spell it. So off we went.

Orientation is a series of seminars and lectures, etc to get to know the city and the school. There was also a city tour which we took all around Manchester, and Greater Manchester, which is the surrounding region outside the city centre (yeah, 're', got a problem?). Manchester is such an industrial city that has an incredible amount of old brick factories and little roads. It's so grimy and dirty that I just want to go up to all the buildings and give them a good scrubbing but then I really wouldn't want to because that'll ruin the whole of its character.

I really enjoyed some of the seminars we had. "Getting to Know the British" was definitely a highlight. The guy was hilarious and fun and just all around awesome. For his explanation on personal space, he asked a Purple Person (the leading people of the Orientation program) to help him out. So he stood at one end of the stage and the Purple Person stood at the other end, and the guy told the Purple person to come closer and closer and for the audience to yell out 'stop' whenever we thought he was comfortably close enough for a British person. Before the Purple guy even started moving, someone in the back yells "STOP." aahahahahaha. I was amused.

Then we had a presentation on health and safety (which I then saw another 3 times for various introductory things. Yeah.) and the cop who talked to us was very kind and straight to the point while being very approachable too. And here's a gem from his talk about illegal drugs: "You'd think you can just smoke one joint and no one'll notice, turn off the smoke alarms, but you can't just sit in your back yard smoking pot, unfortunately .... *we laugh, he puts his head down embarrassed* .. uh, I didn't mean to say that, that came out wrong." So we applauded him.

And I bet you our sex education talk was better than any other uni's could have been. That woman just took it all in stride, she was great.

After all that, we used the amazing public transport to get around most of the city and if not, we just walked. After the day's seminars were over, my dad and I went to the city centre to buy me a sim card and check out the shops and hub of the city. 

Now this story is for Amanda: When we went to buy the sim card, the guy who helped us out was POLISH and he gave us all the ins and outs of contracts and phones and cards and blahblah. And then when he found out I didn't have a bank account yet, he gave us this knowing smile and started scribbling away on his notepad. He ripped off the page and gave it to us, saying, "This guys is a friend of mine, he works at Lloyds TSB (a bank). Tell him you're my friend and he'll open an account for you for free." Honestly, how much sketchier can you get in a cell (mobile) phone store? I laughed a lot in my head. We didn't go to the bank. We didn't get a sim card from that store either. 

Over the next couple days, my dad and I went to orientation seminars and bought random things I might need for my room like desklamps, a giant dresser (apparently necessary ... ?), some converters, a good pillow, sheets, and a mattress pad because I can feel every spring in my mattress. On the Monday after, my dad went on a shopping spree EXTRAVAGANZA at Ikea. And by extravaganza, I mean serious full on buy everything you can reach. He bought me pots and pans, a giant stack of napkins, a bathrobe, a full set of cutlery, a knife, cutting boards, hotplates, potholders, dishtowels, plastic cups, a tool box, plates, bowls, mugs, tupperware, hangers, storage boxes, file holder things, a bulletin board, a surge protector, other kitchen utensils, a place mat, an ICE CREAM SCOOP, batteries, ... I can't even remember what else. oh AND the BAG that all the stuff came in. I own a giant plastic blue Ikea bag now. So that's great. At least I'll have it when I need it, I guess.

Oh, I am also now the owner of a bag of assorted cheeses and some plain greek yoghurt. Always handy.

manchester, england

The University is lined down Oxford Road, which is apparently one of the longest roads in Europe as I think it pretty much runs the whole of England. Almost all the main buildings are on either side of this road, which is called South Campus. North Campus is the engineering/mechanical bit which used to be UMIST (Univ of Manchester Institute of Science and Tech) which is where my mom went to school. UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester combined in 2004 to make what is now called The University of Manchester, but the logo still claims "Est. 1824."

I like campuses to be more situated in a clump of buildings, perhaps surrounding a quad, but at least I'll get a ton of exercise out of this, walking up and down Oxford Rd all day. (I wish we had a quad somewhere. I like quads.)

My dad and I roamed around just to see the city, take pictures, talk to the financial officer about my loans, etc. My hall is in Victoria Park, along with several other halls which are much larger than ours and also the only other single sex hall, the all-boys' hall St Anselm's (Slems). Right at the end of my hall's road begins Rusholme, the Curry Mile, a giant line of Indian/Pakistani restaurants, "halal" food markets, Arabic stores, and other such establishments of awesome. The GP (General Practitioner = Doctor) with whom we are all encouraged to register is situated on a street in Rusholme. 

In the other direction is Oxford Rd with all the main university buildings. Around the corner are some small supermarkets, cafes, and a post office which is extremely convenient. And further down the road is a dark redbrick hospital, which looks old and grimy and lovely. 

There is also a beautifully old and gothic Catholic church that I get to walk by every day to get to main campus. 


And this next picture I only took because it had the Manchester logo on it but as we kept walking to the front of the building, I realized it was Stopford building, where many of my classes and I think all of my labs will be held. 

On the sign on the short wall it says, The Medical School: Stopford Building. I feel special. This is where several of my Freshers Week lectures were held.

And above is only a small part of a giant old building that probably used to play a much bigger role in the University before it developed into the hugeness of what it is now. It's mostly official business in there now and the Manchester Museum, which of course I visited the first weekend I was here. 

This building is a giant rectangle outlining a quad of sorts. From the inside, I saw this building: 

which easily became one of my favorite buildings to look at, not only for its ancient architecture, but also for this wonderfully colorful display of fall. I love overgrown buildings. Sadly, the leaves have already begun to fall off in the prospects of winter but it was nice while it lasted.

After walking around a bit and doing some business, we stopped at University Place, which is a new building that was just completed this summer. It's big and round and silver and fancy looking and it houses some lecture theatre, several offices, and a refectory (cafeteria) plus seating area. 

While sitting in here around noon, I started succumbing to the powerful pull of jetlag and my head drooped onto the table. So after we went to our meeting with the finance guy, we went directly back to my hall and my dad left to his hotel. I decided to stay awake as long as possible so I sat in the reception and talked to the people coming in and out. There weren't too many but Alex, the warden, was there the whole time so I got to talk to her some more. I literally did not move at all from my spot on the couch and after a couple hours or so, my eyelids started feeling ridiculously heavy and I went off to bed, around 5pm. 

And I did not wake up until 7am the next morning.

home sweet home

St Gabriel's Hall is gorgeous. It's wonderfully old and small and adorable. I can't believe I get to live in a building that looks like this for the next year, at least.

We arrived one day earlier than the residence contract starts so there wasn't much going on. I didn't mind so much because that meant I could get to know the hall on my own before being overwhelmed with waves of unfamiliar faces and the chaos of new names to attach to said faces. My dad and I lugged my giant suitcases into reception, which is a small warm room furnished with unbelievably comfortable brown leather couches and a fish tank. One of the girls from the Hall committee was there, probably to help out the earlier arrivals like myself. So I gave her my contract and one of the tutors came out to give me my keys and all that good stuff. I got room MB (Main Building) 1, which the girl exclaimed, was in the basement. The basement?

Yeah, the basement. If you look in the next picture, on the bottom-most row of windows, the one right behind the car is my window. Yeah. I have the most glorious view of feet and a parking lot. And I have to look UP to see that. It's only slightly disappointing. Plus I get to hear all the drunk kids stumbling home at 3am. And that's always nice.

As for my actual room, it's itty bitty. And I don't mind that at all, it just feels sort of cramped and sad. I'll get over it soon enough, put some pictures on the wall, a houseplant or two. The ceilings are really high and while that is often desired in fancy homes back in LA, here it makes me feel like I'm at the very bottom of something, like a little box. Or dungeon. My window adds to that as it's very high up and I have to stand on my bed to open or close it. And it has bars on it. Their thin iron selves make me feel safe, like all the bad things in the world waiting for me directly outside my window cannot reach me. Ha.

See above? That's my bed, peach marble comforter. Delightful, isn't it? And you can't even see the bottom of the window. The whole room consists of a bed, a small dresser (which you can see by the bed), a desk, a deskchair, a random other chair, a wardrobe, a bookshelf that is bolted to the wall, and a washbasin (!!!!!). Since then, my dad has added a giant dresser that he thought I needed? I only wanted a small shelf. Ah, well. And a desk hutch, which is really lovely and covers up some of the empty wall space. And now that my suitcases are gone and/or put away, there's more floor space which makes the room feel bigger. So while at first, my room was huge disappointment (the fact that it's in the basement is still rather unfortunate), the more I settle in, the better it gets and the more I like it. Plus, down here in the basement, we've got the biggest kitchen and the best showers. And all my closest friends are on the basement too. I don't know if we all became friends because we are on the basement but it's nice that they're here, either way. My parents both want me to try and move up to a different floor but I think I'll stick it out. I'll survive :)

I got a tour of Gabs a bit later on. We have a nice JCR (junior common room) fit with a television with Sky TV (which is equivalent to cable as in we have a zillion channels from all over the world), a ping pong table, a pool table, several small seating areas, and a bar. Yeah. This hall was founded by some nuns in the 1920s (ha doesn't that story sound familiar?) as a girls boarding house and now, to hono(u)r their founders, the residents have named the BAR, THE BAR, after one of the nuns. So reverence is obviously way up there on the priority list. We have a dining hall but it doesn't have long benches which is saddening. I like dining hall benches. They make me feel like I'm at Hogwarts (I bet you saw that coming). We also have a small library, a gym, and a laundry room. I think the laundry is on every floor? Or not. No idea.

I also got to meet the warden, who is so sweet and awesome and I liked her immediately. She and my dad chatted a bit before my dad and I went out to see the city and explore.

arrival

In traditional UK fashion, it was drizzly and wet when we landed in Manchester early Wednesday morning. My first glimpse of the area was of lush green fields through transparent grey fog. And all the fields looked so smooth like they were patches of frosting on a cake, lined with dark green circles of trees and bushes. Of course, that's only out in the country. But that's just a short ride away...

The flight to Chicago was uneventful and I slept through most of it. OH haha, before we boarded the plane, I noticed some nice-looking-handsome-enough guys about to board too. And as we got on the plane, they went into the right side, and I to the left. But when I saw them up ahead, I noticed they'd turned into the aisle I was headed for and in my head I laughed. Because this kind of thing only happens in movie magic where you end up sitting next to cute guys on a plane at random. Lo and behold. There he was, 35D, and there I was, 35E. That's when I actually smiled because I'd beaten Hollywood. I'd turned movie magic into reality! But Hollywood struck back. My dad started talking to the guy next to him who turned out to be a really nice British guy. And when my dad told him I was his daughter, the nice guy offered to switch seats with me so I'd have the window and be next to my dad. And so once again, I was not seated next to an interesting, young person who I could talk to and chat with. Alas. I survived. When we got to O'Hare, I tried getting online via their wi-fi but although my laptop picked up the connection, it wouldn't let me do anything. So that was lame. On the way to Manchester, I tried to sleep as much as possible but my insomnia kicked in. I listened to four whole albums on my iPod willing myself to fall asleep. But I couldn't. So that flight felt really really long.

When we finally landed in Manchester, it took forever to taxi to the gate and wait for another plane to get out of the way and let us through. But I was happily surprised to find that just at the end of the hall after getting off the plane was immigration! At Heathrow it would have taken hours to line up and get through immigration and security. In Manchester, it was really small and the baggage turny-thing (wow, that was eloquently put. forgive me, it's ten till 3am) was right down the stairs and when we walked out the door, taxis were lined up waiting for us. It was all very simple and quick and easy which was nice after such a long flight.

Now most importantly, my first official act in Manchester was ... to pee about a gallon in the Manchester airport. I just thought I should let you know because that's all I could think about in the process (of bladding) was that I couldn't believe this was the first thing I was doing on official Mancunian land. Anyways.

So then we began our taxi ride to my residence hall, St Gabriel's Hall, 1 Oxford Place. Needless to say, I was excited beyong reason. I sat starting out the window, camera in hand, lens poised for anything that looked interesting. And, in my excited euphoria, by 'anything' I definitely meant 'everything.'

My dad in a British cab.

I took wayyyy too many pictures, but I really couldn't help it.

British cars

British houses

Blurry dead British people (it's a cemetery)

And a giant M with 'Manchester' written on the side, to welcome me, yes me, into the city.