Twenty-Eight Days - Speed Up Time, Please!

Less than a month now. The anticipation is heavy - all I can think about is England, my new University, the journey there, my new dorm, my classes... Basically, if it doesn't have to do with studying abroad, it's not in my thoughts. I go to sleep every night wondering what it's going to be like. Where will I buy my bedding? Who will my roommates be? Will my teachers be amazing? What if my luggage gets lost? Will the weather shock me?

I've been poring over the students in the Facebook group for my residence hall. Students from UEA, London, Manchester, UC Davis, Australia, Vietnam, Norway... In a way, I'm extremely excited to live in a dorm again. Though living on my own was always more freeing, living in a dorm is a really special sort of experience. I was never lonely - my roommate and I got along famously and if she wasn't around, there was always another friend to talk to down the hall.
I remember my first week, sitting down in the lounge in a big circle. Someone had the idea to introduce ourselves to one another using the blues. So, someone else pulled out a guitar and began playing a blues riff, as we all told our tales through song. No one was very good at it (I think mine went - I'm Rose and I work at Starbucks/Just tryin' to make a dollar/I live on 4-Mo with Carrie/So come and give us a holler), but it was so much fun.
Of course, I don't expect my time in my dorm (Orwell Close, it's called) to mimic what I had at Manzi-Mo (the Arts dorm) at U of A. Arts majors are a special breed and we're very, very odd ducks, and so living with large groups of us results in strange pastimes. Photo shoots on the smoking patio, over-dramatic screaming and faked deaths while playing murder mysteries, dancing to musicals in the lounge... Compared to that, Orwell Close will be so normal.

Well, I hope not!

Glorious Emails

I love opening my email to find gems from UEA. This afternoon there was not one, not two, but THREE emails from my new university!

The first was the least exciting - a response to an email I sent the IT HelpDesk about being unable to upload a photo for a Campus Card. Thankfully, the issue was on their end and has now been resolved! I think it's absolutely amazing that you get to choose which photo you want as your card picture. At U of A, they click it during your orientation. As orientation is during the summertime, that usually means the pictures are full of sweaty, frustrated froshers and not very attractive. The picture I chose is alright - it had to fulfill a number of criteria.

The second email was from my housing director about a special Facebook group just for the 2009-2010 students living in my accommodations! I'm excited to peruse the profile pages of my new dormmates and get an idea of who I'll be living with. I don't know if it will live up to my exciting freshman year at U of A, in Manzanita-Mohave... ;P Just kidding! I'm sure it will be comparable, if not a million times better! After all, I'll have my own room. Loved my roommate freshman year, but I've gotten used to living in a room by myself!

But the third and most exciting email was my module enrolment confirmations! That's right, my class schedule! At UEA, students take 60 units. That sort of sounds like a lot in comparison to U of A's 18 credit limit! But each course is actually 20 units, not 3-5. So despite my busiest semester at U of A being comprised of seven classes (back when I was a music major), I'm limited to three classes at UEA. That's okay by me! More time to explore!
The classes I get to take this semester are:
Creative Writing: Prose Fiction - Standard writing class, necessary for U of A credits. I love these classes though!
The Language of Literature - I think this is just about rhetoric and craft. Can't hurt!
Words and Music - I am SO excited for this class. I can't wait! This is exactly the kind of thing I love studying; lyrics, music within literature, etc. This is the class I am most looking forward to.

I am so excited! Just about a month to go!