Meetings and Thoughts

I think one of the things I love about England is the immediacy of the past. Today I went on the BBC website and one of the first boxes that pop up on the site is how to make a 'Victorian Christmas'. Obviously I'm a sucker for anything Victorian at this point, but the fact remains that history is a part of the everyday consciousness in a way that I just don't see in the US. Anyway. Did you know that Christmas cards were invented in Victorian Britain? FYI. Fun times with the BBC is what's on the agenda for me tonight, apparently.

Had my meeting with Richard Salmon today, and he seems like a really nice and easygoing guy. From what I've heard (hilariously, through my very gossipy seminar buddies) he doesn't really care for loud people, so we both sort of murmured our way through the meeting quite comfortably. He seemed to like my topic a lot, and we briefly discussed what sort of primary sources I'd like to concentrate on, and it looks like narrowing those down will be my main task for the winter break. I've amassed a lot of secondary reading so far, so as of now, I'll be starting off by checking out Samuel Butler's utopian satire Erewhon, which I had never heard of until my Brontes professor mentioned it to me the other day, but apparently has lots to say about machinery and it's potential uncanniness. So that's a start, and it's not even Dickens! Although Hard Times might be making an appearance too. Good thing I actually read that on my own a while ago. So overall, I'm apparently not in bad shape. Win! I have a limit of six hours total meeting time with Dr. Salmon, so hopefully by the time I get back on campus, I'll be able to use that time wisely.

And now, classes are officially done! I sort of don't know what to do with myself, except that I totally do have things that need to be done. They're just schedule-less, which is rather disconcerting. But with any luck/proper work ethic, I'll be able to make dent in the next few days before break in the essays I'll be needing to finish for January. This has all gone down way too fast holy crap.

Fun fact: While my student visa was not checked a single time during the process of actually getting into the country, it is checked with infinite care every time I buy a bottle of wine at the supermarket. Oh, England.

Grammar rant, ahoy!

Last week of classes! I'm reading Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte, and Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, which looks like a ton of fun. Apparently he wrote it on a bet with his brother that he could write a better book than Treasure Island. I don't know whether he succeeds or not yet, but I am always up for adventure novels a la Stevenson.

I've also set up a meeting with Dr. Salmon on Friday, which I have to prepare for, so there's much reading to do this week. I also ought to decide what my final paper for my Victorian module should be on--I'm leaning towards A Tale of Two Cities, but it might also be useful to look at the working class poetry in relation to Marx. The latter could probably serve as some preliminary research towards my dissertation, so perhaps I should do that. Then again, there are elements to A Tale of Two Cities that could also be mined for dissertation stuff, so...I'm torn. Time to go and download some critical articles or something.

In other news, I ended up having to help Erin grade some freshman papers because some of her fellow classics scholars bailed on her, and all I have to say is: Who is teaching these people before they get here?? The lack of grammatical coherence in a frightening number of those papers was just reprehensible. With some I couldn't even tell what they were trying to say enough to know what was wrong with it. And just to check that I wasn't being overly judgmental, I went home straight after and reread some of my essays from high school, and while that was a fairly shaming experience, I definitely could at least structure my thoughts more coherently at that point than what I was reading from Erin's kids. Run-on sentences, lack of basic things like apostrophes and even a semblance of effort towards proper citation...I could go on. It was rather distressing, to say the least. I think I liked maybe three out of the ten or so I ended up grading.

Luckily, while I felt like screaming by the time we were done, I also had an overwhelming urge to become a tutor just to prevent these types of things from happening. So, I guess I'm entering into the right profession. Man, I really didn't think I was much of a grammar nazi, because I know I make lots of mistakes myself and do grammar entirely by ear and not by rule. And I'm definitely not picky when it comes to proper formatting and bibliographies, because I know just as everyone else does that getting those things right is a pain, but...jeez. It was out of control. Be prepared to endure further yelling when you actually see me in person.

Sorted!

I have a dissertation adviser! His name is Dr. Richard Salmon, and was actually the person I first emailed about my topic, which I'm taking as a good omen, particularly since his interests, as stated on the web, were the most closely related to my own out of the faculty. I've only seen him briefly in lecture, but he reminds me a bit of Tom Sauer in his manner, which would be fantastic, really. Hopefully we'll be able to create a good working relationship, particularly since I have him for both coming semesters while some other people are switching it up. Anyway, I'll be meeting him some time before break, so we'll see how it goes! Also, I need to do more reading for that. Yeah, I'll go and do that, then.

Life Decisions, Seminars, and Other General Mishaps

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! Sorry I wasn't around family this year. I had seminar instead.

This semester has apparently gone by obscenely fast--I had my last Research Methods lecture last Monday, and it managed to send everyone into a complete panic. The focus of the lecture was basically a PhD information session, which I apparently have to think about now. There are deadlines for scholarships in January, along with some for PhD programs, so I have to start consulting people about my thesis proposal. Consider that my agenda for the coming week, since my reading load is a bit light for now. I'd like to apply to Leeds again, since I like it here, but I'll be looking at some other places as well. More generally though, I think I'd like to stay in the UK. It's been a rather wonderful few months so far, and I'm getting the sense that a single year is just not enough time for me to live here. So in addition to planning where I'm going to be in a year or so, I'll be looking at jobs accordingly, and accommodation. To be honest, accommodation is a bit more pressing, because while I don't necessarily have to start my PhD in the fall, I definitely do need a place to live. Argh. These things are not sorting themselves well in my brain yet. I am trying, though. A real estate catalog got pushed through everyone's mailboxes the other day, so if I end up staying in Leeds that's at least one place to start.

What's up with this being a real person deal? I so do not feel old enough to be dealing with apartment hunting and year-ahead planning.

Other news: I met with my Brontës professor about my essay, which basically confirmed the written feedback I'd gotten from her earlier. It was gratifying to hear that my writing style is up to the task of addressing all the complex ideas I want to convey, and we were in agreement over what needed to be changed and fleshed out. With twice as much space to work with this time around (the unassessed essay was limited to 2,000 words, the assessed version can be 4,000), I feel fairly confident that I can do the work required. Also, I apparently was channeling Edward Said through the whole thing, though on a less colonialist scale. So he'll be making an appearance in the next draft.

Additionally, I managed to do a presentation for this same seminar last Thursday, which went quite well considering I had to present about the Brontë's poetry, and I am terrible at poetry. Thank God for helpful critical articles. It's quite funny--I feel like the Brontës are often generally lumped together as one singular writing force, but when one reads not only their novels, but particularly their poetry, it's clear that this isn't the case at all. Branwell's the obvious outsider, seeing as he was male, a dissipated alcoholic, and never actually wrote a published novel. But more than that, he's adamantly Byronic, whereas his sisters took Byronic forms and then twisted and reformed them, often to a less Romantic aesthetic. Wordsworth made an appearance in their pieces, too. Emily is by far the most skilled poet, not afraid to embrace simplicity while Charlotte tended to overwork her verse. Meanwhile Anne was surprisingly compelling, but remained the most straightforwardly religious of the siblings. It seems to me that the only similarities that show are ones born of a shared upbringing; the rest is all quite different. That's not what I actually wrote about in my presentation--instead, I talked about functions of recollection versus remembrance and had a bizarre nervous attack while reading it to the class which was clearly stage fright not over my presenting to the class but presenting my writing to the class, and which turned out to be a completely unfounded anxiety as everyone really liked my writing style. Again. So nice to hear that even when I am not sure whether I'm making sense, I can at least get my intended points across fairly clearly and elegantly!

Finally, and on a much lighter note, der ist ein Weihnachtsmarkt at the Millennium Centre in Leeds! In other words, a German Christmas Market. Apparently they're very common in England as well as Germany, stemming from German immigrants bringing their traditions over a couple of centuries ago, or something like that. In any case, there's a large complex of stall shops set up in the plaza, selling crafts and gifts and German food and mulled wine, and it's all quite charming. Well, apart from the giant beer tent in the middle of it, topped with giant statues of ponies and men hauling barrels of ale. That's less charming, and more hilarious, but I suppose this is to be expected given, you know, it's a German market. In conclusion, I got all of my Christmas shopping done. Win!

This entry is overblown and overlong. I suppose that's what I get for not updating for over a week.

Dissertation: Consider yourself proposed.

Right! The proposal has been emailed. I feel pretty good about it, especially since my annotated bibliography is shaping up rather nicely with between eleven and thirteen sources from which to start from. I talked to some of the other students in my Bronte seminar today, and people seemed to like the sound of my topic as well, which was definitely good to hear. So now it's legit: I'm writing about machinery and the Gothic. It couldn't be more like me if I tried. I feel good about it too, better than I did about Middlemarch last year, which in retrospect was mostly me trying too hard. This topic feels less forced, more aligned with my interests and my mind.

I've begun getting lunch with some of the girls from the Bronte seminar after our class, which has been quite nice. One of them works for the English department in administration as well, so we get faculty gossip, which is very entertaining. It's a nice cap to the afternoon, and I think we're probably going to try to absorb the whole class into it some time or another.

We also got our unassessed essays back, and to my relief the reception of mine was fairly positive. My professor's main critique was a request for greater specificity, which is exactly what I wanted to do with it but didn't have sufficient room for this time around, so I think that's a good sign. Overall, she said she liked my prose style and thought it conveyed my ideas well, and pointed out some places where I needed to clarify my points. So all in all, feedback that I can definitely work with.

The only thing I'm really not looking forward to will be switching citation schemes--MLA is popular in the States, but not over here, and since I was never really taught MLA properly in the first place and as a consequence developed some bad habits about it, I'm just scrapping it completely and starting over with MHRA style, hopefully done properly. I can already tell that it is going to drive me nuts, but it's an improvement over getting accused of plagiarism or something. Also, I hear that Harvard system is way more annoying, so I'm avoiding it.

Other small and/or random observations:
-Taps here are extremely finicky. It takes a while to actually get steady water pressure in most sinks, and cold water takes a while to appear, which is totally backwards from what I'm used to.
-I'm pretty sure wellies are used even less here than in the States despite there being more rain. Maybe it's just because I'm in a city, but I think since the rain tends to come and go more often but also more quickly, people don't bother and just carry umbrellas all the time instead. Luckily, with my giant purse I can do the same.
-It is 4:00 PM and the sun has set. It is taking me a while to get used to this.
-The Dewey Decimal System is not in effect! I don't even know what library organization style is used here, but it's definitely different. I honestly don't have a preference, but it was a little odd at first.
-Of all the little cultural differences floating around, I am having the hardest time getting over how the first floor is not the ground floor. Don't know why, that's just the one thing I can't reconcile my brain with.
-I've started watching a BBC drama called 'Garrow's Law' which has just begun broadcasting. It's concerned with William Garrow, who apparently had a large hand in reforming the justice system in the 18th century by actually giving a proper defense to the prosecuted and addressing the jury directly. Pretty enjoyable so far.

Okay, I think that's it. I have to give a presentation on Bronte poetry for next week, so that's the project for this coming weekend.

Artistic Distraction!

So, I am apparently back into the swing of things--reading week is over, and classes have returned. We had some good discussion on Daniel Deronda yesterday, and now I'm reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for tomorrow. It's a vast improvement over Agnes Grey in terms of actually entertaining me, but it's also much longer. But that's okay--substance is good!

I also declare my thesis topic tomorrow, which will be tons of fun--I have to reduce my explanation to 50 words, so we'll see how that goes. I'm also accumulating an ever growing stack of books from which to research, as well as lots of online articles that I need to read, which is somewhat overwhelming but mostly reassuring that I'm not just pulling ideas out of thin air.

On a side note, I have discovered that not only is the Middle Eastern grocery much much closer to my house than the big supermarket, but it is also much cheaper, and carries most of the basic things I need for every day meals. It's a hole the wall, but they sell two litres of milk for a pound, and various fruits and vegetables of enormous size, which is basically excellent. I'll be going there as much as possible.

Also, I'm finally getting in some practice time! Georgia arranged it so that I can call her in the morning on the day I want to practice, and she signs me up for a room and lets me into the building. It's sort of a pain for her, but since the music department isn't willing to give me a passcode or key fob or something to get in, we don't really have too many options. It does, however, have the distinct advantage for me of actually making me deliberately take the time to practice, and then use the time wisely. I generally do two hour sessions now, and its quite nice--in addition to a Rachmaninov etude, I'm trying to resuscitate Ravel's Sonatine, which I think I learned when I was 14? 15? Anyway, I'm actually up to the technical challenges this time around, and I like it a lot, so it'll be nice to have in my working repertoire. Vassar sort of spoiled me with all of their lovely Steinways, but the facilities here are fine. The building itself is rather labyrinthine, so I'm glad I have Georgia leading me about.

And finally, I got bored last night, so I did some random steampunk photoshopping. The result? New desktop wallpaper!
Basically made entirely from pictures of pocketwatches and Victorian stock graphics. Fun times!

No seriously, I do work here.

Nothing's happened. I am just compelled to entertain.

It's reading week! And I am reading. Mostly articles for my dissertation--and you know, I'm not actually finding all that much about my topic. At least, not in any specific capacity. Do you know what this means? It means I've found a niche! An unexplored niche! SO. EXCITED. This also means, however, that finding 10-12 sources for my bibliography may be a bit of a challenge. But it's okay! Excited anyway.

Also I just need to get it out there that I got sidetracked into reading a critique of Frederic Jameson, which was rather interesting until the critic decided to noun-ify the word "problematic", and now I cannot take anything else he says seriously. Noun-ifying adjectives is all very well and good when in the service of comical neologisms and/or Calvin and Hobbes, and I can sort of sense that there may be a precedent for it in this particular case, but I do not like when the resulting sentence sounds like the author just forgot a word at the end and slapped a period on anyway. It's stupid, and could easily be avoided. Is "problem" too simple a word? Maybe I should be relieved he didn't go for the even more superfluous "problematical". Grrr.

Can you tell that I had really strong coffee this morning? Because I did. I'm bad at measuring precisely how much instant needs to be put in the mug. Thus, I sort of overdid it. And now want to do about twelve things at once. Thus, the blogging in addition to looking for sources online and in the library catalogue. I'll go over there once I've accumulated a list of stuff to pick up, and then I'm going to Marta's to help her edit an essay and then grab some dinner. Productivity all around!

This was a totally pointless entry. I'm posting it anyway because people should share in my overcaffeinated madness. Also, the whole noun-ifying incident needed to be expressed, and I don't think my flatmates would appreciate me yelling about grammar. So yeah. I'll go back to work now.

Woo I'm twenty-two...

...and it was Guy Fawkes day here in the north of England, which made it rather more fun than usual. The first half of yesterday was all work, however--I finished my first essay for my Bronte seminar, which was a flurry of research. Speaking of which, I love JSTOR. Finding journal articles and reviews online has never been so easy. I've also been told to check out Google Scholar, so I'll have to do that sometime soon. Anyway, the actual content after finding sources was good fun, because I was analyzing Charlotte Bronte's Villette, which was her second attempt at writing the story of an English narrator who goes to teach in a foreign land. The first attempt was The Professor, which she didn't expect to publish, and thus was only released after her death. It was interesting on an intellectual level for the ideas she wanted to present on the dynamics of student-teacher relationships, on foreignness, and on her narrator's strategic reticence, but it wasn't very smoothly written, and the narrator was not very likeable at all.

Villette vastly improves on its first iteration, but still carries over the main themes that Charlotte wanted to address, so I looked at how the narrator's reticence actually facilitates her study of foreignness. The narrator, Lucy Snowe, presents as almost a nonentity to begin with, but she slowly inhabits herself as an actual personality by defining what she isn't--namely, French and Catholic. The reader constructs who she is by drawing around her all of her observations of foreignness, thereby finding her through her negative image, so to speak. I was able to address the idea on a number of different levels, all of which need some fleshing out still, but seeing as this was an unassessed essay and therefore a sort of rough draft for the real one at the end of the semester (plus it was limited to 2000 words), I think I hit my main points enough for now, but will go into them more deeply in the future.

So yes, all of this was done Wednesday night, but then I had to finish up some reading the morning before seminar, so all in all, until the afternoon I was all productivity. After that, though, not so much! I went over to Erin and Marta's in the evening, and we went to the bonfire at the park, which had to be at least fifty feet high, and laced with firework sparklers. There were tons of people milling around, along with concession stands, and some guy from the city council gave a introduction. A half hour in, they started a real firework show, which was quite elaborate and well planned. So all in all, quite fun. The fireworks continued all around the city until midnight, so I got to see some distant sparks (along with hear various explosions) from my window after getting home. Definitely a most bombastic birthday!

And now, I'll be resting up this weekend and then plunging into reading week, which is meant for undergrads because they have exams or something coming up, but means that I don't have class all of next week, so I'll be using the time to talk to professors about my dissertation topic, and trying to get a head start on some massive readings I have for my seminars. I'll be reading Daniel Deronda for one, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for another, and lots and lots of essays, both for classes and for my annotated bibliography, due at the end of the month. The bibliography is meant for my dissertation, which is great as a way of finding tons of sources early on in the process, but it is due for my Research Methods lecture in a formal capacity, which is a bit less exciting. So yeah, lots of work coming up. We'll see how it goes!

Thanksgiving!

Weekend success! We just had our international Thanksgiving celebration at Erin's flat yesterday, which was quite fun, and actually worked in terms of food and getting everyone together. Behold!

It was quite international both in the compromised date between Canadian and American Thanksgiving, but also the cuisine--apple pie, chicken and mashed potatoes were served with a Japanese stew and Yorkshire pudding. It was delicious, and I was very relieved that I hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. Everyone contributed something, so it was an honest team effort. This week is shaping up to be quite festive as well, seeing as Bonfire Night is celebrated Thursday, so we're all going out to Hyde Park to watch the fireworks. For serious: Best. Birthday. Ever.

I also turned in my first assignment today: a critical review of an article of my choosing. It was quite brief, only 700 words, but a good exercise, and useful because I picked an article I can use for my dissertation. It analyzed the Gothic elements of Dickens' Bleak House to prove that Dickens was repurposing the Gothic as a way of raising social issues, rather than just sensationalizing. The paper was well researched, so it will definitely be useful in the future. Now, onto my Bronte essay, due Thursday, and I declare my dissertation topic on the 16th. Things are picking up!

York Adventure

On Saturday Erin and I made an afternoon excursion out to York. It's only about a half hour train ride from Leeds, so despite us not setting off until late-ish, we had a good amount of daylight left to have a look around. It was a really nice change from the more modern landscape of Leeds--tons of medieval structures and cute little shops. Unfortunately it rained for the first couple of hours that we were there, so we hopped on one of the tour buses for a while to see all the landmarks without getting too wet. It did clear up by the time we got to Clifford's Tower, however, so we had a nice chance to walk around a bit and then meet up with Erin's friend Rachel, who she knew from undergrad and now attends University of York. We had a nice dinner with her, and then headed home. Overall, it was a nice low-key excursion, and though we didn't get to see everything York has to offer, the cost of the trip was low enough that we can do a second run when the weather's a bit friendlier.

ETA: Pictures!
Here's Erin and I at the Shambles, which is a Medieval alley-ish street with cute shops. I managed to step in a very large puddle, but did not kill myself on cobblestones, so that was good.
To the left, I menace the to scale model of York as it was a century or two ago, if I remember correctly. Because I am a dork.

Below that is Clifford's Tower, which we didn't get to climb as the steps up were wet and therefore hazardous, but next time we'll take a walk around the top of the tower. We settled in the meantime to watch the Canada geese and gray geese compete over grass and honk at each other. Overall, fun times!

Piano Win!

I have piano lessons! After much email tag among various members of the music department, I was finally able to get a hold of a PhD student named Georgia, who teaches piano in addition to working on her degree in musicology. I just met with her this morning, and she liked my playing (despite it being quite crappy--not only have I not touched a piano in at least six weeks, but the piano at our disposal was a very temperamental upright with very little volume control), and said she would be happy to give me lessons. She's going to email the department to see about getting me access to the practice rooms. Even if that fails, she indicated that since she's in the building working all the time anyway, she can let me in secretly. It was a good meeting, and she seems very nice, so I'll be happy to work with her. Exciting! Finally!

This weekend was quite nice as well. I went into town with Marta a couple times, and then was able to hang out with Erin back at their flat. We're getting revved up about our Thanksgiving plans, which we're holding on the 1st of November. I have to make an epic trip to Morrison's to get all of the baking stuff I need, but with some planning I may be able to go with a group, and then we can split the price of a taxi to get back. Anyway, it will be fun times.

Also, on Sunday Erin and I got our craft on and made picture frames through one of the little bonding sessions the union holds for the students, which was both random and fun. Kind of an activity for 5-year-olds, including poster paint and ridiculous feathers, but we met some cool people, and managed to be slightly more sophisticated in our designs than children. In a couple of weeks, we're going to paint mugs too!

I am secretly still seven. But with better motor skills.

And now I must chug coffee before seminar and finish A Tale of Two Cities, which I'm quite enjoying. I don't know why all high schools insist on students reading Great Expectations first, because that is by far my least favorite Dickens novel so far. Maybe it's the whole bildungsroman thing.

Incidentally, the reason I'm now finishing Dickens today instead of yesterday is that I got distracted by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you haven't heard of it, it is literally Jane Austen's novel word for word (she's credited as the co-author), except that in addition to dealing with Regency issues of class, society, and romance, the Bennets must also deal with the fact that England has been overrun with the walking dead. One would think the device of zombies would get old after the first hundred pages, but it really doesn't. Mostly because not only are there zombies, but also ninjas. Also, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy bond over beheading zombies with katanas. It's like if Quentin Tarantino decided to direct a Merchant Ivory film. Gold. Pure, ridiculous gold.

So yeah, a very entertaining few days, in many different ways.

A very Gothic day!

Today started off a little hectic and ended up quite fun! I stayed up absurdly late last night because my brain refused to turn off, which was quite frustrating. On the other hand, the issue which my brain couldn't leave alone happened to be my dissertation topic, so in a way, it was a bit useful. I may be drifting a bit from my original idea, which was to frame a year of literature in the context of scientific or religious debate. Firstly, that's an incredibly broad topic, and secondly I'm finding it a bit uninspiring and a bit unfocused. So I'm leaning back towards an old love of mine which I had previously dismissed as too sensational: The Gothic. Granted, the Gothic of the 18th century is overwrought and a bit ridiculous, but I had been under the impression that it died out a bit once the Victorians came along. It didn't, of course, which I should have known given the dark and misty moors of Wuthering Heights and such. What's interesting to me, however, is how it changed in the Victorian period. Industry had effect on its character--the sublime could now be found in the steam engine, as well as the cliffs of Moher, and darkness was in the heart of London. Imperialism had its contributions to make as well. So I'm finding myself quite taken with the idea of studying this new Gothic. I'll have to email some people to find out whether it's viable. Also, what texts I should be using to focus the argument. Anyway, this is all the product of an overactive brain at 4:00 in the morning, so who knows whether it will actually work.

What this all adds up to is that I had to finish some reading this morning before seminar and then proceeded to oversleep a bit, so there was some manic balancing of breakfast and books. We read some poems from the anthology, The Poorhouse Fugitives, which seeks to compile works by self-taught and working class writers of the early 19th century. Some were clearly meant to be considered not as artistic works, but as political ones, while others took the artistic side seriously in addition to trying to get a point across. We focused mainly on the Chartists as a complement to Sybil, and while I can't say I was particularly taken with the verses, the varying agendas of the working class during the time was quite interesting. Some nice examples of the sublime in industry too, which I may need to take a second look at, considering my new dissertation thoughts.

The theme of the Gothic continued when I met up with Marta after class, and after wandering around a bit and grabbing some coffee, we saw the new adaptation of Dorian Gray. First of all, movie screens are vast here. It's quite a treat. As for the movie, it was not as bad as I expected it to be, but I had set the bar quite low, so take that as you will. The acting was acceptable, but the decadence was a bit overwrought, and they changed the last third of the movie almost completely, which was sort of inevitable given the brevity of the original work, but left me nonplussed. Hopefully Wilde won't have to roll over in his grave too many times. It was a nice ending to the evening, in any case. I have the urge to read some Poe now.

Life at Leeds, and other things

I realize that in these accounts I haven't actually given much space to daily life-type things, so I'm going to do that now, while it's on my mind.

I finally met my fourth flatmate, who is very friendly and studying graphic design and advertising. So hooray, another artistic type! She, like Summer and Fiona, hails from China, though she didn't say whereabouts. Anyway, nice to know someone's actually living in that last room. I was beginning to wonder. What has also become apparent is that I'm probably the least competent cook of the bunch, or simply don't plan ahead as much. Fiona and Summer make a habit of doing various soups every few days from scratch, and I'm pretty sure Yetande makes some awesome stewlike concoctions which she can freeze and reheat all the time. I'm very much a sandwich person--I've never really gotten used to making things in bulk. I'll have to work on that. I think the problem is that I never think of buying the basic ingredients and things when I'm at the store, so I never have the supplies. I'll amend that at some point, hopefully. If I don't continue to be absentminded about it. Food is not terribly expensive here if one sticks to raw ingredients, so I really have no excuse.

My locale is sort of wonderful, in that I'm not so far down the hill from campus that it feels like a trek, but I'm also far enough from the city centre for the atmosphere to be suburban, rather than urban. Also, since the apartment complex is in a ring shape, and my room faces outward, it's very quiet for me even when various revelry is going on in the middle recreation-type area. In the afternoons, at least a few people let their dogs run around on the field outside my window, which is fun to watch. Beyond the field is a panorama of the city, which is even better! There are also quite a few families in the apartments just outside the complex, so there are a lot of kids running around, in addition to students.

Other random thing: I love having a washbasin in my room! It's totally random, and yet makes complete sense. I can do my makeup and things without hogging the bathroom. I also love that there are actually bookshelves provided in my room. In general, despite the overenthusiastic installation of fire doors everywhere, accommodation is pretty sweet here. It seems consistently true as well, from what I've seen of the other dorms and complexes.

I think I've gotten the timing on getting to class down now, and it's not bad unless I have to go towards the science block. 15-25 minutes of walking will get me just about anywhere, I estimate, including down to the city centre. I can't say that I've been terribly adventurous in terms of moving beyond the parts of the city I know I can get back from, but I'm hoping that on some free days I can get someone to get on the bus with me to the other side of the city, along the river. I hear there are some killer restaurants over there, as well as some nightclubs that aren't as clogged with students as the ones on the main drag just beyond campus are.

On the academic side, I've devised a new note-taking system that's working out fairly well, and makes me feel weirdly official. The essentials store at the union sells these nice black notebooks that look like actual books, rather than spiral bound ones, with just the right amount of pages for a semester of both preliminary notes and topics during seminar. So I have one for each module. All handouts are paperclipped in. I don't think I've been so organized in ages. It's enabled by the uniformity of my subjects, but the written work's corresponding uniformity has, I think, made me more consistently productive.

Also helpful? I've gotten totally awesome at speed reading. I can do a 500 page novel in about a day, and now that I have my good note-taking system in place and write down all the themes and ideas I come across in a neat and consolidated place (and not in the margins--I can never find my work in the margins) I actually remember things to say in seminar. I probably should have come up with this system ages ago, but somehow I didn't. Maybe I'm finally getting over my slacker tendencies. I'm still a procrastinator, but I've been led to believe that that's genetic...I guess the point is that while I still tend to leave things until the last minute, I'm at least producing better-quality rushed things. Ergh, that doesn't look quite as good on screen as it did in my head. But I think my mind is a bit better organized now as well, so maybe I won't need to rush things as much as usual anyway.

I think that's covered most things for now. One last random thing, though: I had a dream the other day, very vivid, that I had rediscovered this very long and involved fantasy book series that I had loved as a kid and remembered the plot of quite well. It had been adapted to a film I actually liked and rewatched part of, and I even managed in the dream to scrounge up copies of most of the books involved...anyway, it all felt very real. I woke up wanting to reread the whole series, only to realize that I'd entirely fabricated the whole thing. It was rather depressing. It isn't the first time I've envisioned a book in a dream that was just awesome beyond belief, that I even knew intimate details of down to the fonts used and the illustrations on the covers, only to find it wasn't real. I can never write them either, because they're never my style and, you know, only make sense in the dream. I'm fairly sure this most recent one was extremely meta, in that many of the characters were actually authors who I happen to like. Neil Gaiman showed up at one point. Anyway, thought I'd share. I have no idea why I have dreams like this--the next stage up from my wild and epic ones? I do not know.

Free Friday

Yesterday was both fun and productive, despite not having class. I met with a couple of fellow students from my Victorian Lit. class to discuss some poems we're supposed to do a brief presentation on next week, and we ended up having a really good casual discussion not just about the poetry, but about our theses and various other classes. I'm not used to actually having friends who are in my own discipline! But it was nice to be able to talk about which professors to email, and what topics sound interesting and unexplored.

In the evening, I had dinner at my friend Zouina's flat, which is further down the road from mine, and brand new, so the kitchen was quite fancy. Our two Italian friends took charge of cooking, and Carmella immediately went into mothering-mode by stuffing too much food down our throats, which was both hilarious and delicious. It was also a very multi-lingual evening, as at least two people seemed to each have working knowledge of either French, German, or Italian in addition to English, which was really fun even for me and my vast ignorance. Afterward, we went out on the town a bit, because it was apparently "light night," meaning that the city lit up the more significant buildings with projections and light shows. So we wandered around, looked at the projections, and gossiped about English fashion, since most of the student population was out bar-hopping. Altogether, a good night!

Rain and Disraeli

Ack, I had a coughing attack TWICE in the middle of seminar. At least this time I wasn't stuck in a lecture hall, and could excuse myself to go be disruptive outside. I think my professor thought I was dying, though. It only happens when I'm sitting down too, which is not conducive to class participation. Okay, enough whining. It means my cold is going away, so hooray, I guess.

Anyway! Sybil was...interesting. Disraeli, being the political animal that he was, couldn't help but vacillate between trying to tell a romance and giving a treatise on historical and political theory, with some race and class analysis thrown in for good measure. Not precisely entertaining stuff, but it was a fairly good survey of the political climate and the state of unrest among the working class in the 1830s and 40s. It was published the same year as Engels' Conditions of the Working Class in England, and one can see Disraeli warring a bit with those socialist views in the Sybil, which was quite interesting, particularly since Disraeli was fairly conservative, and had some rather interesting opinions about how aristocrats should completely separate themselves from the working class so as to better care for them in a terribly paternalistic way. However, my basic knowledge of Marx, or even Carlyle, did not prepare me nearly enough to parse what precisely Disraeli wanted to say about his own political model, because he made it incredibly dense, convoluted, and often a shade hypocritical. That, woven in with the romance of Sybil-the-woman, and Sybil-the-ultimate-symbol-of-Albion-itself, made for some seriously uneven text. But hey, those are more fun to have discussion about, because then we have room to complain a bit.

Incidentally, getting to class was a bit of an adventure, as all us poor English students had to venture into the giant scary complex of science buildings in order to get to our assigned tutorial room. I was very glad to run into some classmates before actually getting into the building, because otherwise I would have been woefully lost. There is some seriously bizarre architecture around that whole block, which reminded me a bit of the H.R. Giger architecture from the Alien movies, except in concrete rather than black piping and slime. I'll post pictures when I finally track down a cable to attach my camera to my computer. I'm very glad I don't have to deal with that part of campus that often. It's even more confusing on the insides of the buildings.

In other news, today was my first genuinely rainy day in England. It's rained a bit during the night before, but I had to drag myself through a light to medium downfall to get to class this afternoon. It was a bit unappealing in terms of actually willing myself to go outside, but it wasn't bad once I was out there, so I suppose that bodes well for my general tolerance the weather here. I'm also mostly used to looking to my right first before crossing the street, sorting out the shapes of all the coins and knowing their corresponding value, and generally getting about. I'm even getting used to saying that 18 degrees is nice weather. So all in all, it's been a fairly easy acclimating period, no doubt aided by massive ingestion of the BBC.

However, I will say this: I cannot for the life of me understand Manchester accents. They are impossible. The guy who came to fix my faucets had a broad Manchester accent, and about four in every five words he said was completely unintelligible to me. Same with Erin's housemate, who's also from around the Manchester area. I'm going to have to develop my ear a hell of a lot to get used to that.

Argh I do not like colds they are gross.

Well, I had an embarrassing coughing fit in the middle of lecture as postlude to my weekend of being miserable in bed (apparently something is going around), but I managed to get some further information on how dissertations are done around here, as that was the focus of today's Research Methods class. So far, news is still all positive. The dissertation will run between 13-15,000 words, which is not so much longer than my undergrad thesis, and it seems like I have a lot of leeway in terms of branching out beyond the School of English, so my fixation on history can definitely be addressed. More intimidating is the emphasis on being a legitimate contributor to the academic community, an originator of research...ack! I'm going to have to start reading lots of journals.

On a side note, apparently MAs write dissertations, and PhDs write theses here. I had no idea.

Other things:

-I saw a guy in a UMass sweatshirt standing outside the bus stop on my way home today. It was very surprising, but I'm getting the sense that Leeds is far more well-known than I previously thought, especially in Europe and beyond.

-Apparently I have a very clear (or maybe just familiar) American accent, so that my English is easy to understand for a lot of the European students, which means I've been officially assigned by some of my international acquaintances the post of answering grammar questions and correcting English mistakes. It's sort of fun, and again, I like being helpful. Although I feel silly when I can't actually answer questions about my own language. Knowing rules entirely by ear can be problematic.

-Tonight, I'm dragging myself over to FOCAM's first social over at the Union just to say hi to some fellow musicians and composers, and then it's back to reading. Fun!

Lists!

I have managed to come down with a cold--argh!--and thus today's entry will be in list form. Let's begin!

Interesting things I've learned about differing school systems internationally:
-The Chinese students are all starting their master's degrees at around 23 years old, but I'm not sure how that works since, according to Summer, they start school at about the same time and each level of education I asked about seemed roughly the same amount of years as the American system. Incidentally, they all look younger than me as well, which is a bit confusing. I'm still the youngin in my flat, apparently. The Nigerian system may be similar, as Yetande, my Nigerian flatmate, is also 23.
-I am, however, the correct age in comparison to the Brits, since their undergrad program is 3 years.
-The Italians don't believe in seminars, and so the two Italian girls I've befriended are freaking out about actually having to do work the whole year round, rather than just studying madly for exams and then being done.
-The Germans strongly believe in presentations, so they're all relaxed about leading discussions, while I am mildly concerned about having to do that for my Bronte seminar.

Speaking of my Bronte seminar:
-Another really good group of people! We had a good discussion about The Professor, a novel in which not a lot happens, but the characters are nonetheless extremely complex, and the issues at hand are gone into in real depth. It's not exactly a book that's easy to enjoy, even though it's got a lot to offer; the narrator is quite unlikeable, his adventures in Belgium aren't particularly engaging, but somehow he manages to marry an extremely capable and independent woman. Still, it's clear how this, Charlotte's earliest work, was a fantastic warm-up to her later novels.
-We're reading a novel a week, except at the end when we read poetry and then Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte. I'm doing a presentation on poetry. At least I'm prepared for it after a summer of poetry analysis!

Other things:
-I'm reading Disraeli's Sybil for Tuesday, which will be entirely new and different, as I'm fairly sure I've only read his essays, and none of his creative work.
-Jane Eyre is up next week for The Brontes, which will be great Gothic fun.
-It is really bizarre to have a fairly intimate knowledge of NYC while abroad. I've forgotten, in my various trips to visit family and friends, just how iconic a city the place is. Every time I mention that I'm American, I get questions about New York, and am surprised by just how much draw the place has. It makes me feel bizarrely worldly, despite it being merely happenstance that I have knowledge of the city at all.
-It is very annoying to not be able to pick up Tylenol or some other equivalent drug from the local convenience store. Oh, over-medicated America, I miss your willingness to ply me with NyQuil when my head is congested.

And on that note, I'm off to bed.

Seminar Numero Uno

Okay, first day of class for real this time. Had my Reading Victorian Lit. seminar, and it was really good. The atmosphere is very friendly and there was a lot of intelligent conversation to be had. We discussed the nature of literary eras: why we insisted on defining them, how we defined them at all, and the issues that come with having to try to sort out the massive world of English literature in history. We also had a brief discussion of Modernity (which you, Dad, would have loved, given your disdain for the terms Modern and Postmodern) and what it actually means as a historical movement, as a feeling, and as a definition of time in relation to other, past times.

The fluidity of what we like to call revolutionary movements continues to surprise me--I, and I think many other scholars, love to fall into the trap of putting things neatly in boxes, and time and history are simply not that organized. I remember watching a documentary during my literature course this summer at UMass in which it was stated roughly that, "when Wordsworth died, it was the end of the Romantic poets, and the era". It sounds fairly innocuous--Wordsworth was the last Romantic poet to die, as his compatriots like Byron and Keats died so young. But really, Wordsworth wasn't even made Poet Laureate until 1843, more than a decade after many scholars mark the "beginning" of the Victorian era with the Great Reform Act of 1832. There's just so much bleed-through between so-called eras that we really have to be careful when throwing around adjectives like "Victorian" because, as my professor said today, "just because we slap a label on something doesn't mean we've defined that label". It doesn't mean that we even could define it if we tried.

Anyway, it was a good discussion, and I like the group so far, including our professor, who seems to strike a good balance between responding critically to our statements and also occasionally letting us go off on tangents. We have a nice mix of students, as well--three American, two Japanese, five or six English, and one Irish student. So, lots of perspectives floating around.

And now, I am off to some sort of international meet-and-greet with Marta and Zouina. Should be fun!

Research Methods

First day of class! It was very uneventful, as it was my only lecture course, "Research Methods". The professor was very winding and tended to repeat himself, resulting in an hour class being extended to an hour and twenty minutes, despite him really only needing to outline about three things. Ah well. The course is team taught, so I won't be seeing him all that much. Additionally, what he did manage to say sounded really great--the aim of the course is basically to facilitate the transition between undergraduate work and research. We write our annotated bibliographies for our dissertations as the final assessment, but more than that, the course even guides us through the process of applying to PhD programs and funding and other practical elements of academia. That's more support than I've ever gotten for applications or my general career, so color me thrilled.

Even better is how the priority of the course is to support my other two courses--I'm used to having to work to make connections between my classes, so it's incredibly satisfying to know that all of my courses are now aimed towards shaping my single, specific interest, and that I'm supposed to borrow knowledge and work from one course to enhance another. Obviously this is the new norm, given that the emphasis is now on specialization, but I'm still pleased about it.

I have lots of reading to do for tonight, so I'll be off. I'm reading Charlotte Bronte's The Professor right now, which is interesting for both its literary merits and not-insignificant flaws. Always worth while to read authors in their developmental stages.

Conversation win!

I finally had a proper conversation with one of my flatmates! Her name is Summer, or rather, the Chinese word for summer, though she allows everyone to just call her by the English translation. I've known her to be around for a while, but we'd only really exchanged hellos before, but today she was fantastic and outright asked me if she could practice her English on me. We had a really good chat, and I did my best to speak clearly and explain the distinction between words like "religion" and "belief" in a lucid manner. I'm finding it really fun and interesting to have these sorts of conversations since I have to think hard about semantics and why English is the way it is. I told Summer she was welcome to knock on my door any time to ask questions, and I hope she does. If I'm going to suck at being bilingual, the least I can do is help other people be better at it than me.

Academia, Trips, and Hypnotism!

First department meeting! It was fairly standard; lots of welcomes were said, I finally met the excellent Clare Lewis, who is the administrative head of the English department, and basically sold me on Leeds by being scarily efficient. The professors I've seen so far seem a very friendly bunch, and to my pleasure the atmosphere from the students was far less pretentious than it was at Vassar. This bodes well for my willingness to talk in class.

I had some brief conversations with a couple of fellow Victorian lit. students as well, and again, good vibes. I had been a bit concerned with how much knowledge I should have of the period and the literature going into the program, but it seems that I'm in the right place according to what I heard from my peers. One of them had studied Art History at Trinity, and was just now switching to English, so I'm not the only one who didn't study Victorian all through undergrad. Very comforting indeed.

I was also alerted to a number of societies open to me, one of which is an optional research seminar wherein students can present papers and ideas to a casual audience of peers every fortnight. I have little to share as yet, obviously, but it's nice to have that open, and if I have something to contribute I can email the person running the group and can come in to bounce my ideas off of everyone else. It will definitely be good practice for defending my PhD thesis, when the time comes. Which is far from now and I'm definitely not already thinking about that. Anyway.

On the non-academic side of things, Marta and I picked up some packets about group trips the Union runs out to places like Manchester and Edinburgh, which we'll be taking advantage of, hopefully. There are also little random activities too, like painting picture frames and mugs, and participating in any of the "have a go" meetings of the various clubs. They're designated for people who have no experience in the subject of the club, and just want to see if it suits them. So, since Marta is really into rifles, I said I'd join her for the Rifles Club and "have a go" at learning how to shoot. Could be fun? I may be overcome with the desire to wear tweeds, ruffle my mustache and shout "By Jove!" a lot. It will be obnoxious.

Finally, tonight Marta's flat and I went to a hypnotist's show at the Union, and it was hilarious. The guy had about ten students under his control, and beyond just the sort of "get up and dance when I say" orders, he managed to get one girl to speak in Martian, another to translate, and a guy to spontaneously understand Martian and laugh with the first girl when she told a joke. Best part, though--he willed the three most impressionable people to believe him entirely invisible, and then chased them with a "floating" handkerchief, cigarette, plastic shark, chair, and person he piggybacked around. The resulting quote from one of the hypnotized, when he asked her what happened: "Oh god. THE CHAIR."

I nearly died.

In any case, it was very impressive. I will never be trusting myself to a hypnotist, unless there is absolutely no audience.

Clubs, Language, and Holidays

Having still not started classes, because it seems a universal fact that all English Departments see fit to delay everything for as long as possible and have as little to do in the mornings as possible, today shaped up to be mainly social, which was quite pleasant. I headed over to the Union first to sign up for some clubs, and ended up on the mailing lists of FOCAM (Forum of Composers and Musicians) and the Opera Club. I was not meaning to sign up for the Opera Club, but the two tables were side by side, and somehow I ended up giving them my email address. As I understand it, I may end up in the chorus of Cosi fan tutte. I'm not averse to the idea!

Unfortunately, however, such participation still does not grant me access to the practice rooms in the department, and no one has heard of the one piano in the Union, so my last chance may be to talk my way into lessons. The instrumental instructors are hired out by the university, so I have to wait for all the majors to get placed before I can ask, and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be some extra slots. Until then, I at least have the assurance that with FOCAM, I might be able to get my own works performed, as well as collaborate with others to do theirs. It should be interesting at least.

As I was leaving the Union by elbowing my way out of some massive crowds (the rest of campus has arrived at last, accompanied by considerable chaos), I ran into Erin and her flatmate, Marta, who I had ended up hanging out with Sunday night. Marta is Polish, and curious about Erin and I employing our various English colloquialisms, and so we ended up talking a lot over lunch about how ridiculous the English language actually is. It's particularly enlightening for us to hear her questions, because so often we can't explain why we favor one phrase over another, or why, for example, we use the word "random" to describe something "weird". As Marta said, at least German has proper structure that everyone employs. With us, not so much. We're constantly making stuff up, abbreviating and recycling words in completely different capacities, infinitely variable by what company we keep, where we come from, etc. Even comparing notes between my New England turns-of-phrase and Erin's New Brunswick-isms shows the miles between our respective language styles. The sheer volume of slang employed daily by English speakers is astounding, and I find myself really feeling for and admiring the students who have learned English as their second language and are doing such a great job of communicating with us. We don't make it easy for them at all.

In any case, we ended up continuing our conversation all the way to Erin and Marta's flat, which is conveniently located on campus. The living situation is quite different from mine--while the setup of narrow hallway lined with doors for bedrooms and kitchen is the same, there are ten people living there altogether, and they all tend to gravitate towards socializing in the kitchen, where there's a cute sitting area for all of them. It's a far more mixed bunch too--four guys and six girls I believe, and several of them are undergrads. Those that I met seemed very friendly and fun, and one of the British undergrads shares my love of the movie "Face/Off", so there will definitely be some movie nights over there in the future. Also in the works between Erin and I is a proper Thanksgiving, which will be celebrated mid-November, as compromise between Canadian and American Thanksgivings. And finally, I've been assured that Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, as it's referred to around here, is definitely taken seriously. So my birthday should be quite a bit more exciting than usual this year, complete with fires and effigies and fireworks. All in all, good times for everyone!

And now, I'm off. Thursday will be my first department meeting, and until then I'll be kept busy doing some preliminary reading for my Brontes seminar.

Orientation: Part Deux

Today was productive--got my ID card, making me officially registered and thus not in danger of being kicked out by customs (and I always smirk in pictures, even when I don't mean to smirk, why is that?). Then I walked into town to have a look around, and met up with Boboo and another Kate (from Philly) for lunch before going over to orientation. This time we covered culture shock and academic expectations, along with security and the student support network. I was amused to find that the way I've heard Brit comedians describe the culture have held true--apparently queuing and whinging about the weather really are the top two activities of British people, according to them. Luckily, I'm adept at both things already, though the weather hasn't been terrible so far--cloudy, but no rain, and just warm enough not to bother with a jacket, especially when climbing the hills of Leeds.

The academic expectations part of discussion was fairly straightforward, and not too intimidating. I'm going to have to accustom myself to British spelling, and there are different citation systems in place here, but there are definitely resources available to keep those straightened out. We're also all given personal tutors, whom I presume oversee our theses and keep an eye on us outside of our modules (courses). We then have the secondary support of our module tutors, followed by administrative support of the department. It's an elegant chain of command, which is very encouraging, since I often shy from asking questions when I'm not sure whether I've chosen the right person to ask. I'll be meeting all of these people on next Thursday, when we have our introductory departmental meeting.

Tomorrow will be running final errands, and then relaxing, maybe cooking with some people. I've offered my pie-making skills to the group I've fallen into, so perhaps the promise of strawberry rhubarb will draw them to my apartment. We shall see!

Orientation: Part Une

Today was the first half of orientation, which meant actual human interaction! I've so far met two other Americans, a Canadian, a German, a great many Chinese students, and one very friendly girl from Thailand named Boboo, who I ended up running errands with after the presentations were over. We managed to not get lost in the city center, picked up a bunch of random supplies for our respective rooms, and scoped out a grocery store much closer to campus, so it was an all-around successful excursion. There were two Lebanese students tagging along with us to begin with, as well as one of the Americans and the Canadian, but they finished their shopping before us, and went off on their own. Still, I managed to get some conversation in with them.

Comparing notes on driving, drinking age, and other universal details of life was fascinating. It's great to hear about the impressions America gives to the rest of the world--one of the Americans I talked to related to me that she had been asked whether all Americans drove like "The Fast and the Furious", which is both hilarious and disturbing. A second-year Indian student handing out fliers inquired of me whether we were far more "emotional" than the Brits. And Boboo had a particularly interesting impression from her excursion to Ohio--she was taken to church every Sunday by her host family, even while they assured her repeatedly that she wasn't obliged to do so. I may have ranted a bit about how divided in attitudes different parts of the States are in response. She luckily didn't seem to mind. She had notes to compare of her own, mainly about many of the South Asian countries, whose histories she's actually getting her master's in. I'm looking forward to talking to her again.

All that said, I'm also looking forward to actually meeting British people, of whom I've encountered very few except in passing. I managed to find out so far that my one flatmate is Nigerian, and awesome from what I've seen of her, but the rest have yet to move in. I'm hoping they're Brits, so we can ask stupid cultural questions and get a slightly more local flavor in the flat as well. Maybe they'll even be more on the arts-side of things, since most of the foreign students tend towards the sciences and social sciences. I could use a few less askance looks when I tell people my concentration!

In less fortunate news, I've been informed that practice rooms in the music department are only available to music students proper, so I'm now devising plans to circumvent such restrictions. There's one practice room in the Student Union, but that will likely be crowded. I think my best bet will be joining a choir, getting lessons, or joining an ensemble who have enough clout to talk the department into giving me access. There's an activity fair next week that will include such groups, hopefully, so I'll definitely be there. I'm always surprised when this happens, but I itch to practice. Go figure.

Tomorrow means more orientation, followed by possibly some decorating so that I can actually prop my door open with pride. Hello, poster sale! And hopefully, hello more friends! I am not quite as socially awkward as I feared.

A New Englander in England

So! Beginning something like this always seems a bit awkward to me, but that may be a function of my overthinking, so I will introduce this blog as follows:

For those not already in the know, I recently graduated from Vassar College with a BA in English. Despite how an entire song has been devoted to how useless a BA in English is, I decided that instead of trying something with more potential usefulness after graduation, I loved school enough to pursue my Master's in English as well, specifically in Victorian Literature.

So, on the recommendation of a couple of my professors, I chose to go the University of Leeds, in the northern part of England. This is a totally new experience for me--I've never lived in a city, I never took a semester abroad so I've not lived in a foreign country before, and I've never placed myself in a situation this large that I've known less about. Vassar had been an easy choice for me--other people from my high school had gone there, I'd visited a couple of times and loved it, and going had felt very natural. This, not so much. I know Leeds basically from tiny snapshots and the circuitous university website. I know the southern part of England a bit, but not the north at all. This is an exercise in complete displacement, of plonking myself into a new place and out of complacency, and hopefully getting a degree in the process. Right now, I'm really hoping it works. I think it will.

Now, with that out of the way, progress so far!

I arrived in Leeds today after getting up rather early in the Dublin Travelodge and schlepping over by way of Ryan Air. My parents and I have been in Ireland for the past ten days, touring around seeing fabulous cliffs and drinking beer, which was great fun, though hard for me to concentrate on when all I could really think about was what's to come. Dublin Airport, by the way, is quite the zoo--we weren't given our gate number until after getting through security (which I managed not to fail at this time--hooray paranoia), and after that the signage was fairly abysmal. Still, we got here in one piece, and were greeted by some very nice volunteers from the uni and taken by bus with some other international students to our respective residences.

I'm living in Montague Burton, an extremely cute complex of apartments about ten minutes down the hill from campus. I've met only one of my flatmates so far, and only in passing, so I'm not sure of her name yet. I've heard some others scuttling about in the neighboring doors, but other than the kitchen, the space doesn't exactly lend itself to socializing--all of our rooms are along a narrow hall, and the doors shut automatically. Thus, I've not actually seen anyone else in the flesh yet. I'm going to need a doorstop in order to seem more accessible.

Anyway, walking around the city today was a bit daunting, but I have a week to wander about and get my bearings, so I'm not worried. The centre is not particularly large, but the streets surrounding are rather confusing, what with the tendency to have streets like Archery Road and Archery Lane close together and yet being entirely different places. Googlemaps proved fairly unhelpful in this, so my sense of direction had better man up. The campus is large, but far easier navigation-wise due to much signage.

Other things today included getting a UK phone, which is possibly the girliest thing I have owned in ten years, at least. It's pink. They had no other color. I feel compelled to cover it in stickers or something. On the flip side, it has hilarious techno ringtones, and it slides to open, which I love. Also wonderful: I only pay for calls I make, not those I take. Take that, US cell services!

Okay, I think that's more than enough for now. All other entries will hopefully be shorter. Tomorrow, I get registered, get my ID, get a bank account, and get room accoutrements! Much getting. Exciting stuff.