First Days of School!

Hey Everyone!!!
Everything is going well here! Things have calmed down a little, what with the excitement of living in a new place finally starting to wear off. We've been doing a lot more hanging out in our flats, rather than going out all the time, which I have to say has been quite a nice change of pace. On Sunday, a group of friends and I went to a bar called "Wahoo" (yes, that's the name of the bar...) downtown to watch the Superbowl. It was so weird, because the game didn't start until 11:30 pm our time! I only watched about half of the game, because I had class the next morning, but we had a great time! Seeing the game reminded me of home, and it was the first time I have felt a pang of homesickness since I've been here. This is part of the reason why I was NOT happy with Christina Aguilera  for messing up the National Anthem (grrrrrr...)! But we watched the game, and had a friendly competition going between most of the American students about which team they were rooting for. We had a great time!

The next morning, I had my very first English class, Creative Writing! I was really nervous before class, just because I was the only American and didn't know anyone. I got a little worried when I arrived 15 minutes before class started and the room was dark and empty. But I knew I was in the right place, so I walked around for 5 minutes or so and then came back. We got into the classroom, and I noticed how different it was from the classrooms at home. There were two rows of chairs, situated in a semi-circle looking towards the front of the room. The class only has 20 people or so, so everyone knew each other. I was really nervous and wasn't talking to anyone (Totally out of character, right?). But when class started, my teacher (or tutor as they call them here) had us introduce ourselves to the person next to us and then introduce that person to the rest of the class. As soon as it came out that I was from California, people started to ask me questions. I made a few friends, and two of the girls even invited me to go out with them and their friends sometime! I feel really cool now that I have an English person's phone number in my phone :)

I had my Critical Psychology class today, which was very different from my Creative Writing class. This classroom seats about 150 or so, and we have a 2 hour lecture in there, followed by smaller breakout groups called "seminars" where the teacher goes over things in more detail and you have more of a collaborative class session with only about 20 people.

So far, I really like all of my classes! I have tomorrow off (yay!) and then class again on Thursday. Tonight, a couple of friends and I are going to go to the drama club meeting on campus, and then meet up with the rest of the group for karaoke at one of our favourite little pubs! I'm very excited! Other than that, there's not much really going on. Just getting into the routine of classes and whatnot.

Things I'm Loving: Making English friends, the sunshine today (yaaaaaay, vitamin D!), starting to settle down into a schedule, actually getting a decent amount of sleep every night!

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: Not having my class schedule nailed down completely, the gross tasting tap water, having to wear so many clothes every time I leave the house.

Things I'm Learning: No one shows up early to class, and if you do, do NOT go in early (you will walk in on some other class and have to endure awkward stares from the professor as you quickly back-peddle out the door), British people think our accent is cool, and apparently, if I'm from California, I must live somewhere near Laguna Beach.

Hope everything is going well at home! I miss you all!!

Love,
Jenn