End of Week One

It’s not every night you can say you got patted on the head by a tiger.

I have seen various people in animal costumes over the past week, including a monkey (Eugene from BB), a tiger (easy tiger safe sex and alcohol awareness), and a cow (comMOOnity action). The tiger has shown up at all the major night events, accompanied by various students in tiger face paint…I’m torn between being scared and finding it funny. Which I think probably boils down to hysterical laughter.

The beach party on Thursday was amazing. Not only was the regular hall bar open, but there was another bar set up in the JCR (junior common room), and there was proper club lighting set up and run by the student technicians. And we’re not talking amateur here, this was 100% pro club lighting. The ‘beach’ stuff originally started out as a couple of big white sheets with palm trees and beaches on them hung on the walls, but by the end of the night they had been joined by empty paddling pools, large plastic whales, and even a plastic boat that randomly ended up outside Sarah’s room this morning. To top it off, they hired one of those surfboard things that you stand on for as long as possible whilst it gets faster, and a guy to work the timer to see how long each person could stay on for. Oh, and there was kareoke as well. So as you can imagine, the more drunk everyone got, the funnier everything was. Disturbingly enough, some of the guys dressed up as women again (thongs and bikini tops…don’t ask). They even hired bouncers and a paramedic team for the party lol.

I can’t believe I wasn’t really looking forward to going because I think it’s my favourite event so far. The toga party on Friday was there were only 80 tickets, but I got Chinese in with Rachel, Nika and Richard because dinner looked a bit crap (in general the food’s not too bad, and it’s already been paid for so I may as well eat it, but I’m avoiding the meat at all costs!).

I’ve finally got my optional modules sorted out; this semester I’m doing the modern American novel and next semester I’m doing selected American novels. I really couldn’t find anything else I wanted to do that fitted in with my timetable, so it’ll do, and if there’s a bit of crossover I don’t mind because it means less to revise

The uni is very Internet orientated, which I love. It means you can get important announcements, notices about payments, news etc., as well as a classified ads section which is kind of like ebay on the student network and uni website. I can also book sessions with my tutor online and write notes on them and even look up the photos of the other people in my tutor group. They are currently trialling a new thing where you can look up your grades for the assignments that you do and even join a chat with your subject group. It’s all very cool, and I wish I could do stuff like that lol.

I had a tutorial on Friday, and we can pretty much choose to have them when we want, as I think there are only about 2 compulsory sessions throughout the whole year, which is cool. We just chatted about the course in general, and a bit about Blake and where a few of the buildings are, and I was out in probably 15 mins, which was great. Then Sarah and I went to the poster sale, and practically all the posters were 3 for £10, so I got 3 lol

I can breathe a sigh of relief because now I have my modules sorted, the paperwork completed etc., I have the rest of the week free, in theory. I’m just glad I don’t have to get up early like the people doing Medicine.

One thing I find especially funny is how people are slotted into their own little subject world. The other night I spoke to a guy called Tom, and our conversation went something like this:

Tom: So what course are you doing?
Me: English
Tom: *mock scared reaction* That’s really difficult/scary/impossible!!!
Me: *amused* Nah, it’s not! What are you doing?
Tom: Astrophysics
Me: *jaw drops* That’s really difficult/scary/impossible!!!

The thing is, I can see my point of view and not his, and vice versa. It’s pretty much the same with any Science/Maths person I talk to lol. It’s a kind of cliche heh.

On a less related note, I find it really funny when medicine students introduce themselves and say, I’m the future of the NHS!!!

Okay this blog is a bit ‘bitty’, but I wrote it a couple of days ago, so I have more to add lol. Last night was the Week One party at Rock City, a local club, and supposedly the climax of the whole week. Rooster and Body Rockers played there, and I have to admit I enjoyed it at first. But it was kind of ‘skanky’ (that really is the only word to describe it). My friend got gum stuck to her shoe twice in about 5 mins, and we were on the dance floor.. :hmm: By about 1 am, the entire place was completely trashed. My jeans and boots are pretty wrecked. And I swear there was something in the alcohol because all the guys got really drunk and were really sleazy (they hadn’t been on previous nights). Apart from Rob (the student president of our hall) and his friend, who we got a cab back with…and probably a few other guys lol, because there were thousands of people there.

So this morning I had my first lecture, in my optional American novels module. It wasn’t exactly what I expected; it seems to be using books as a springboard to discuss issues of culture and form arguments rather than a literary study, but it still sounds interesting. I might find it quite hard directing my essays and stopping myself going off on a literary tangent though We’ll see.

This afternoon I had a performance workshop for my drama module, which was actually much better than I expected. We were put into groups for the semester, and every fortnight 2 people are directors and the rest act. Only the directors get assessed as technically it’s English and not drama, which suits me fine lol.

Tonight I’ll probably chill in the bar, I’m definitely not going out again. I’m actually getting a bit sick of it to be honest lol. Tomorrow there’s a 7 legged bar crawl though, which should be good

Last night about half an hour before I was supposed to leave the halls to go out, my old friend Adam IM’ed me and asked me to proof read his essay, which I did kind of quickly, but still made some good changes The other night Tom called me at 2 am (I was asleep) to ask me about a poem. This seems even more disturbing when you take into account the facts: a) he’s not doing English b) he was entertaining his American pen pal and her friends at the time c) it was 2 am. Or maybe that’s just me being unreasonable *shrugs*