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Published: September 28th 2008
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The Square at UEA
right in the middle of campus, this is where everyone sits to chill out (as you can see, there is concrete - everywhere) Wednesday night, UEA's International Students Society (ISS for short) hosted an enormous party at a club called "Indulge" in the heart of Norwich. At first, I was under the impression that this would be a small/maybe medium-sized gathering of study abroad students. No, sir. There were
hundreds of students; it was crazy and so fun!
We met in The Square on campus (see photo) and took numerous buses together to Norwich. When my friends and I got to The Square, I was like, "Okay...let's find the ISS group." Turns out that
everyone in The Square was there for the ISS party. In the midst of the hundreds of people, I lost my orientation-group friends, but it turned out to be really cool because I met some really interesting people from around the world. We also played a game in which, before entering the club, we put our names and country of origin on labels and in return, we were randomly given someone elses' name/country label to wear. The object of the game was to find the person whose label we received. And, of course, being in England the prize was a free shot. So, in theory, two free shots were
the Union Pub
close-up of UEA's very own pub to be had - one for finding your person and another for having someone else find you.
It was one of the coolest parties I had ever attended. Simply by turning my head one way or the other, I would meet someone from a different country. In a way, it was a lot like being at Macalester again, where everyone comes from a different background. The only minor difference was...I was at a club. In England. Looking at the picture of the crowd again, it's neat to think that in that one place that night, there were literally hundreds of countries and cultures represented. And despite our differences in background, all of us had such a terrific time together. I know this is starting to sound really cheesy and overly reflective, but seriously - it was really amazing, like a small world in one room. I had such a blast.
I also went to UEA's SocMart this past week, which is a gigantic gathering of all the clubs and societies on campus. Turns out that the ISS is the largest group on campus (go figure). There were quite a few things I really wanted to join, like BioSociety
ISS at Indulge
this is only one side of one room (there were three levels to the club!) and the orchestra, but I decided against putting my name on every list because I want to have a lot of free time to travel without commitments and responsibilities to groups. I did sign up for try-outs for the HipHop/Jazz dance combo, though, which is the stuff I did in high school, so I am looking forward to possibly dancing and performing again. I've gotten messages from my dance friends at Mac saying that dance has started back home, and I think I would miss it too much to not do it here, so hopefully it will all work out.
Classes are now in full swing. The schedules here are really all over the place. Instead of set hours for Monday/Wednesday/Friday lectures and Tuesday/Thursday labs, I have practicals, seminars, and lectures on a different day at a different hour every week. I've realized how much I love stability and organization, so I've been going kind of insane trying to get used to this system. I'm so afraid of missing a random lecture, or worse yet a whole lab, that I basically went through my planner and wrote down every single thing I need to attend every day for the
cheers!
my new friends... Ruth from Northern Ireland and Smita from Mauritius whole semester. I keep thinking, there has to be a better way to do this....
My Biochemistry professor is such a sweet man. He reminds me of my science profs back home - really sincerely passionate about science and kind of disheveled-looking all the time like he literally stayed up all night working in his lab. I'm also really excited about my Human Physiology class. The professor is really no-nonsense and kind of intimidating, but he does try to make jokes during lectures, which I always appreciate. They are really bad jokes, though, and coming from someone who is queen of bad jokes...you can sort of guess how bad his jokes are. But I'm really looking forward to this class because finally I will be able to apply all of the basic chemistry and biology classes taken in the past into learning how the human body actually functions. And from the descriptions of the labs, they're going to be really fun too. There is a whole unit on the eye mid- to late-October, which will be such a fantastic follow-up to my summer job, so to all from Associated Eye Care who are reading, I will definitely be keeping
in touch about that!
I had a really relaxing weekend. Friday night, my friends and I went to a hip-hop themed night on campus, which was fun. It also featured some up-and-coming r&b artists from the UK. The rest of the weekend, I had a date with my textbooks! Don't get me wrong, it was a really great first couple of weeks - I had so much fun exploring the nightlife - but this weekend, I just settled into bed with my laptop and books, and it felt so good to be productive again. It's funny, though...in the middle of reading, every now and then I catch myself narrating the text in my head in a British accent. It has only been two weeks! Also, I watched the first presidential debate live on Friday after the hip-hop dance (it was already about 2 am here, but I still caught it!), and the whole time I kept thinking that it was sort of strange but kind of comforting - almost like I was home again - to hear American accents.
Next weekend, I am traveling to Peterborough to do "a homestay weekend with a real English family!" (as advertised
USA, Wales, China, Ireland
(Peter from China was one of my name-tag buddies! =) on the brochure). There really is no 'typical' English family since there are so many kinds of people living in the country (kind of like the US, I suppose), so I'm excited to meet my family and see what they are like. So far, I have been told that my family consists of a mother and three children of various ages, but that is all I know right now! I am also really looking forward to seeing another part of England. It's kind of like America, really, where different areas, despite being only an hour or two away from each other, can be completely different.
I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!
As always, wishing you good health and happiness.
xxx <-- this is how all my British friends sign off on texts and online messages =)
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Zach
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Nice post...I was interested in one thing in particular, as you can imagine. Seems nice enough, I guess, though I'm not sold yet...:-) Somebody misses you and Adele...