Sunday, September 24, 2006
Classes begin tomorrow
Well,
today is Sunday, which means that I begin classes tomorrow morning. I’m
actually quite excited, because although I’ve been having a blast hanging out
and catching up with my mates, it will be nice to actually use my brain again.
Yes, before the snide remarks begin, I do actually have a brain and sometimes I
do indeed drag it out of the cobwebs and utilize it.
I went
matriculating on Wednesday, which just means that I dragged myself out of my
warm bed and trudged to campus to register for my courses. I’ve never
experienced Fresher’s Week here before (due to the
fact that I started uni during the second semester
last year). It’s kind of crazy, but nothing like SCSU was back in the day (I’m
not even going to begin to think
about how long ago it was that I was a freshman in Saint Cloud!) It was great
in one respect: they were playing bagpipes. *sigh* Those
pipes get me every time…so it’s probably a good thing that I chose a country
where they are extensively played, no? I spent most of Wednesday waiting with
my mates for my 15 minute time slot to creep. 3:50pm FINALLY approached, and I
went into this big room that was crammed with advisors sitting in front of
computers and students literally waiting everywhere. I think I preferred the
online registration system at SCSU personally. Ah well, to each his own, I
suppose. Anyhoo, I sat down with my advisor and
showed her the schedule that I had taken the trouble to type up (I like being
organized and prepared). She was very impressed, as most students apparently
sit down not knowing anything about what they want to take. After some tedious
paperwork, I was released and allowed to collect my student ID and such. That
was pretty much it. The classes that I chose are as follows:
First Semester:
GL 1004 – The Natural Environment through Geological Time
HI 1015 – Vikings!
HI 2010 – The American Century: A History of the USA since c.1900
HI 2011 – Europe & Scotland c.1200-1500: Christendom in Crisis
Second Semester:
CU 2507 – Brains, Breeding & the Bomb: from Enlightenment to Skepticism
HI 2513 – Europe and Scotland, 1500-1750: From Reformation to Revolution
HI 2514 – Times of Trouble: Russia 1533-2005
This is
actually a pretty heavy workload, believe it or not! Most second years only
take 2 classes per semester. Difficult life, eh? Why
then, you may be asking yourself (or maybe not, but I’ll tell you anyway), have
I decided to register for so many classes? Well, the first two in the first
semester are actually first year courses. As I began in second semester last
year, I had to make up forty credits. The other two are standard issue second
year courses. I’ve decided to take three classes during the second semester
simply because otherwise I believe that I would have gotten a bit bored. See,
they don’t have homework over here, so basically all you do is attend lectures,
and then about halfway through the course you write an essay, and then have the
final exam at the end. I need constant mental stimulation, or I get very bored
with the monotony of it all, so I threw in a Cultural History course for good
measure.
You may
have noticed that I have a Geology class during first semester. Why? Because I like Geology, simply as that. It’s not part of my
degree, but I loved taking it with all the other Meteorology classes at SCSU,
and they have one of the best Geosciences departments in Europe (due in large
part to the petroleum industry just off the coast here in the North Sea) so I
wanted to take it for fun. Many people have given me disgusted looks when I
tell them that I’m taking Geology for the fun of it, but what can I say, I am a
strange person (it’s pretty much a prerequisite for being a Meteorologist!) So,
all in all, with lectures, tutorials and the three hour Geology lab, I’ll have
a pretty busy week…which is exactly what I want. I can always be a lazy blob
during the weekend.
Let’s
see, what else have I been up to? Well, yesterday I bummed around town with
some mates, and we saw The Black Dahlia at the cinema. It’s this 1940s-style murder
mystery starring Scarlett Johansson and Josh
Hartnett. It was pretty good, but sort of weird. I’ve never really seen a movie
from that genre before, so I didn’t know what to expect and it took me a little
while to decide if I liked it or not. In the end, however, I’d have to say that
yes, it was worth spending the £4.70 on. After that we went to Gill’s flat to
pick up her boyfriend Steve and headed to a pub (I forgot the name, but as
usual it was quintessentially cute and British!). After the pub, we went to a
proper chippy (or so I’m told). A chippy
is just slang for a chipshop that sells (can anyone
guess?) chips. Usually fish as well. Actually, it sells pretty much anything,
as long as it’s deep fried and preferably made of meat or blood (sound appetizing?).
With my extreme dislike of seafood (the same with my mate Ross), I/we ordered a
sausage and chips. It was the first time that I’d ever eaten a deep-fried
sausage, but it was quite delicious. I can see, however, why high cholesterol
and heart attacks are rampant here in Great Britain, with almost all food being
deep-fried. We went back to Gill’s and watched Men in Black on the telly. After that we watched a brilliant political comedy,
although I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it. Saturday was
apparently a night of firsts…my first chippy, my
first 1940s-style movie, and I saw my first slug (not a terribly exotic event,
but it was a first nonetheless).
So
that’s about all I’ve done in the last week…oh yes, except for also watching
(via the internet unfortunately) my beloved Minnesota Vikings lose to the
Chicago Bears today. I’m so sad… any team but the Bears. My stepdad will be
dancing in the flat back in MN. Ah well, there’s always next Sunday. The great
thing, however, is that Gill’s boyfriend Steve is a Green Bay Packers fan, so
every time they lose and the Vikings win (basically the entire last fortnight!)
I get to rub it in his face. Also, we’ve decided that when they play each
other, depending if it gets played on the telly over
here or not, we have to watch it together and berate the other team
incessantly. Ah, sounds like good clean fun…I can’t wait.
Alright,
well it’s about 11pm and as I have to actually get up at a certain time
tomorrow (no more sleeping ‘til noon for me *tear*) I’m going to bugger off and
try to actually get to sleep before 3am. I shall bid you all ado…