Finally got my internet connected in my room yesterday after having to live without it since arriving here on Sunday... you can only connect once you've registered with the University and they give you a day on which you have to do that - in my case it was Thursday. I'm loving having it, I didn't realise how much I used it until I didn't have it :) I think most people are sorted with it now... everyone pretty much that I've spoken to was also missing it hehe.
I've been up to lots since getting here... the physics department has had a very full schedule it seems, much more that some of the other departments. Maybe it's because they think we physics students will need all the help we can get making friends and meeting people... lol. We've also had stuff going on in halls.
On the first night there was a welcome party in Fairfield Hall which is opposite my Hall... so not far away. They're about 4 halls we can get into with our swipe cards which is cool. (Speaking of getting into places, we have so many keys to get into our flat... there's the swipe card for downstairs, the flat key, my room key, a key for the filing cabinet, a key for the post box, one for the window lock abd possibly another which I haven't found a lock for yet lol). A few of us from my flat went to the welcome party together... Mairead, Jenny, Hannah and Mike. They're all lovely. In my flat there's also: Sam, who we haven't seen that much of, he's friends with the people in the next flat already so he spends a lot of time with them....we've met them too and they seem cool, Zeus, who I have only seen about twice...he also has friends u here who he spends a lot of time with, and Abdula (I hope I've spelt that right...) who again, we haven't seen much of - he's redoing his 2nd year so knows people and seems a bit older...when we first saw him we thought he was someones dad...whoops :-S .... and then there's an empty room. At first we thought it was just an extra elusive flat mate but we found out when we had a flat meeting with our flat tutor that it's actually empty. Also the letter about the flat meeting never moved from underneath the door lol. So, we should be getting another flat mate at some point. Apparently someone will be moving into it at some point.
On Monday at the physics intro lecture I managed to find a girl (Katie) who is both doing my course and in Lambert Hall (my hall) which is pretty impressuve given that there are only about 9 of us doing Physics with Philosophy. As it turns out, she will also be my lab partner which is good. I think they try and pair girls with each other which is pretty funny...but probably quite good. We also found out our maths and physics tutor groups and tutors today and had to arrange when they are. I'm in a group of 4 and we're all physics with philosophy which is good. We also have a mentor who's a second year and helps us with a project we have to do on "special topics" which I think is research the University is doing so all interesting stuff and new stuff.
I'm now getting to know the University campus a bit better after getting a little lost on the first day but still managing to arrive at the Lecture Theatre at 9.59 for a 10 o clock start... fantastic :) It's about a 15-20 minute walk from halls to the lecture theatre where pretty much all my lectures (physics lectures at least) are. Today I discovered (not entirely intentionally, but usefully) that by gettin up at 9 for a 9.30 lecture, I get there (slightly late) about 9.35am but I still think that's pretty good and should mean that I could get up at 8.25 for my 9 o' clock lectures (of which I have 2 in a week). I am impressed by that since at Sixth Form for a 9 o' clock start I have to LEAVE THE HOUSE at about 7.45 hehehe.
I have also been to the Fresher's Fair which is a bit scary, full of people trying to get you to join their societies. I went with a girl called Tash from Physics who is lovely (everyone here is lovely ;) and we've signed up to be emailed by countless numbers of the societies... including the indie society, the wine tasting society, the german society, the photography society... some of them you need to pay to sign up and by this time (having joined the dance society and bought a yellow card) we were running out of money so at some point we may join more.
I need to go through all the stuff I collected and see which ones I might actually want to join and see how much crap I have brought back. Lots of free stuff though. lol.
Last night was the Physics Society pub crawl. Was pretty good, the organised pub crawls are good for finding out where pubs are, which ones are nice, worth going to and meeting lots of people. One of the pubs we went to last night sells goldfish bowls (yes proper sized ones) of drink which is pretty funny, we didn't buy one last night, but there's plenty of opportunity for that :) We also saw the Wetherspoons here... the Paramount which is cool. One thing which is quite strange is that there seem to be two of some of the bars and pubs... like there's a ScuBar and a Scu2Bar and also a KroBar and a Kro2Bar... I must just come from too small a town for that lol. The Physics Society had had t-shirts made with our route on the back... and of course we did actually wear them :) again, pretty funny.
Anyway, there's sure to be lots of stuff I've missed out (like the trip to Jodrell Bank (picture of the Lovell telescope on flickr), the Philosophy First Year party where we just talked to the Physics with Philosophy people...they all seem nice, the ones that turned up anyway lol, and exploring the Arndale with Tash, the food, the poster sale (I now havea nice new Amelie poster to balance out the black and white ones) and probably more stuff I haven't even mentioned here but there's just so much to do... it'll be nice to have the weekend (despite the fresher's ball tomorrow :) to have even a little bit of time to sort out my room...which incidentally isn't doing too well on the tidy front...to sort stuff out sleep lots and go into Manchester. I've decided I need a throw (apparently £5 from Primark) for the floor and possibly a full length mirror....lol.
