Troy (There may end up being a lot of these called this)

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So, I've got two days worth of updating to do here. Thursday I started out by setting up a bank account at HSBC and then going to see my academic advisor about the courses I should be taking. We agreed on Medicinal Chemistry, NMR Spec and Computational Chemistry. Seeing how I had already done bits of the practical course before It was suggested that I go and see a Proff. Ferris about some UG research. The work he does is similar to what I missed out on doing in Leeds over the summ, er, he looks at the polymerisation of RNA oligimers (20 to 50 units) using various clays formed from volcanic ash all over the world as catalysts - which is all of importance as it is thought that before a DNA based world, RNA was the building blocks of life.

Anyway, he agreed that I could come and work with him, as well as the two post doctoral researchers who were on his team. (One of them is English!) So, with my 3 classes and 6 hours of research a week, my timetable is pretty much Monday and Thursday 8 - 5 with a few short breaks... and that's it. 3 days of the week off. Whilst I'm happy having Friday off I may look for a course I can do Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe something that isn't Chemistry, although the courses on Tuesdays tend to have classes on Fridays as well.

After this Ted drove us up to Walmart, where I needed to buy bedding. I ended up with a sheet slightly too big for my bed despite buying the smallest size they do as well as some kitchen stuff. (Everyone else is on meal plans) The food in Walmart is terrible - they do no fresh stuff, no meat, cheese, fruit or veg... not even fridge or freezer food except for milk. It's also nearly impossible to buy something that's good for you - the idea of a healthy drink here is Iced Tea - which is as sugary as "Soda" , and has even more Caffeine in. I ended up buying complete junk like noodles and Pop Tarts but did manage to get a few nice things like tuna and pasta sauce.

Friday I got up realllllly early (7:30!) to attend the international orientation meeting, which started off with half an hour on what kind of coat I should buy, which was followed by things such as not drinking and driving, what people wear to lectures here and finally an hour talk from a "public safety officer" which gradually become more and more mumbled to the point where I couldn't really hear him.

I'd met some Danish people outside before this and went for some lunch with a guy called Jesper who is here to study Physics. The lunch options were pizza, burgers or subway-style sandwiches - with having lettuce being the healthy option, and all of the drinks contained Caffeine. I don't think I've actually had a drink since Sunday that hasn't been full of Caffeine.

After lunch I got the bus(Free for students!) up to Price Chopper with Steven which I was reliably informed was a more substantial supermarket, which it was. They had a great deli with cheap meat and even a bit of fruit and veg. It took ages to get $40 of food as I don't know any of the brands here, and they don't seem to have baked beans. I had to que up for 20 minutes to get a loyalty card that let me get all the offers I'd picked up though which was annoying. Most of the food here is really cheap, I got 600g of chicken for roughly £1.30 and Pepsi was about 60p for 2 litres. A couple of things are a little more expensive like flour, sugar, spices etc but it more than balances out.

Having rang home for a bit (Hi Mum!) I was heading back inside and bumped into the 3 other guys from Leeds coming out of my building. It turns out Tom is staying on the top floor of North Hall, and they invited me down into Troy (I hadn't been by this point) to go to the community welcoming event for RPI and Russell Sage Colleges. The amount of community spirit here is ridiculous - everyone wears the RPI clothing, the first years were all chanting about the college yesterday, American flags are everywhere, and the whole town seemed to be at the welcoming event.

We had a look round the various things going on and had a chat with some first years at RPI before deciding to go to the pub. As we were going Denmark appeared so I invited them to the pub with us (about 8 of them) and we went and had a few drinks and decided to form a football team called Denland. The bar we went to was huge and brewed all of it's own beer, which was really good as well. Me and Dom were only 20 so had to get Simon and Tom to buy us drinks but no one noticed.

Today I said I'd go downtown with Steven to look round (Which I'm late for!) and then have a kick about with Denmark and the other English guys before going to the welcome picnic for international students with them. I'm too busy - by Monday I need to pick another class and read all of the papers that the research group I'm working with have published!

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