Nott What You'd Expected...

Run Far, Ark Bar, Goose Fa(i)r

Yesterday was tiring. Both mentally and physically. First day of classes, first meet, first social, and first mindnumbingly upsetting experience with the public transit system in Notts.

My day started easily enough... Brandon and I had to run a bit, but we caught the bus and managed to make it to American Lit early (the bus only comes on the half hour, so we have to get up at 7:30....maybe 7:15 next time..... in order to make our 9am class). The class, it turns out, is a bit of a joke. The professor was awesome, but said several times "this is a class for those of you who are not interested in lit, but need it to fulfill your American Studies degree". Brandon was upset, and I was a little nervous, but as a 10 credit class, it's the only one we could fit into our schedules. So bring on the slave narrative and Huckleberry Finn...It also turns out that we will write zero essays, and are required to drop our seminar session (seminar is only for the 20 credit class).
Two hours of sitting around campus later, Islamic Traditions started. In a very strange fashion, the class consists of two different classes. Both credits (10 and 20) of the same class meet for two lectures a week, but the 20 credit kids are required to take an additional weekly seminar and are required to read and write more.... it was odd to be sandwiched between two 20 credit-takers while basking in the laziness of my 10 credit class...

So all in all, University just got a whole lot easier. Which is good, because if all goes to plan, I'll be able to focus more on exploring the city/day tripping across the contintent/doing my Paidiea and IS135 HW instead of worrying about other things, like Islam...... eh, i dunno, i guess i'll havea better idea later....
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The Crosscountry meet (Fresher's Relays) was different. Relays in crosscountry just doesn't quite sit well with me, although it fits well with my like of shorter distances, something about handing off/tagging another runner while no one else is in sight, after having run only 2K is strange. The team met at the Sportscentre and headed to Wollaton Park, an amazing park about 5 miles in circumfrance just north of campus. We warmed up by running the course, and were broken up into teams. Girls ran the A leg, slow guys ran the B leg, and needless to say, horses like myself ran the C leg. I was nervous, as some of the guys who were assigned the C leg were pretty fast...(Tom runs a 3:53 FAT 1500, while Chris ran a 1:53 800 back in secondary school, and tall Ichabod Crane-eque guy on Hilary's team runs the 3k in under 850...) But all went well, as my lead leg and second leg managed to get us into second, and I held on for the win with my blazing 7:10 2k.....whatever, it was hard to run alone.

Again, it was great to meet new people, and I was pumped for the social later at night-- most of the guys were first years, but there were a surprising amount of people who had signed up in years past but never really decided to run... I met a kid from Manchester (Big United fan), a kid from London (told us about cheap train tix and bumping up to first class for under 10 pounds), and some guys from Birmingham and a kid from Ireland....

Afterwards, Hil and I took the bus back to the flat to get ready for the social held about 3 hours later..... Being a girl, Hilary took forever to get ready, and we made it to the bus stop at 7pm, about 15 minutes before we were told to show up 'fashionably late'. So the first bus stop didn't pan out, and a creepy toothless bum chugging STRONGER beer/cider told me about his cousin who lives in Winnepeg.... kinda like "Oh, you're from North America? Do you know Steve?"
So we gave up on the 77 and walked past the flat in the opposite direction only to see the bus we were waiting for fly by....
The 77 finally came at 730, and we waited through stops about every 200 meters until we made it downtown. Then the real challenge. During the day, it is possible to take the 53 right to campus. After 6, you have to take a bus to the city centre before getting another bus over to near the QMC (Queen's Medical Centre). So we began our search for a bus. We walked around for roughly 15 minutes, and finally found a bus which promptly stopped for 10 minutes to change a driver and stopped again at every stop along the way so that the OCD bus driver could change his mirrors.

Long story short (not so much short, i'm just tired of typing) We made it to the on-campus bar at 820, only about an hour later than when we began. Sweet. And the best part? The social was mildly lame. We arrived to a packed Ark Bar, and actually saw Brandon with all of his Crew buddies (and their matching Tshirts) before making it to the back room where our friends were. We walked in to find about 20 people in a room that could fit about 200. Very chill, very relaxed, they were sitting around talking like civilized people, not rowdy drunk University students that you often find in the UK.

It was a great chance to meet new people, and I had a great time explaining the US to two very confused girls and Nick from Manchester. They were saying hilarious things like "I really really want to go to America- it's soo cool there- why would you want to be here?" or "I hear that the streets are really really wide, and the high schools are huge there- like thousands of kids"..... it was awesome. I had a great time explaining the War in Iraq, the general feeling of the public on George Bush, and about how liberal the media in the UK was in comparison to the FOX NEWS's of the US. I also met a guy who was offered a scholarship at Iowa State, and asked me if it was a good school..... of course I gave him the "Have you ever heard of Kiel Uhl" speech followed by ".....and we have season tickets for pretty much every sport.....my twin goes there......." spiel.

We enjoyed boat races, penalties, and random conversation until it was decided that we needed to catch our bus to ISIS, another club downtown. Hil and I weren't really feeling it, so despite all of our friends from the team ditching us in taxis, we attempted to walk to the city center. (Only about a 15 minute walk, claimed James the website designer for the team) 30 minutes later, Hilary holding her shoes in her hands, we arrived in the city center unscathed and managed to catch a tram to make it home before 12....
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The rest of the night was spent watching a creepy movie on TV4 (it had Boone from LOST and Jessica Beil as a crack addict) and Arrested Development Season 1, and catching up on Brandon and Mary and Emily's nights....

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Today I need to write a 4 page paper for the Muggli's, make fortune cookies for our Chinese dinner, and probobly go downtown to check out the Goose Fair? Wales trip starts tomorrow, so pics will be up by monday.....

Kevin

posted by Kevin @ 10:33 AM