Living in Newcastle: Week 5

Before I actually start talking about my week, I just wanted to mention the change in the title of these entries. It seems simpler to label them by week than by day, because that will eventually get a bit long (seeing as how I’m here until mid-June or so). Just wanted to get that out of the way.

Anyways, the past week has been mostly uneventful. It’s mostly consisted of doing reading for my modules, which has been somewhat time-consuming, since professors here seem to feel that instead of having students write essays, they should just drown them in reading. I’d say it adds up to a few hundred pages of reading for each module per week. They also tend to be web-based journal articles, which makes it even more annoying because I either have to constantly switch between the browser and Microsoft Word in order to type, or have both open side to side, which means that the text in both gets smaller, and it feels like it takes even longer to read. Printing isn’t really an option, because it would take a lot of paper, and it would get expensive real fast, even when I only pay 4p for each sheet of paper I use to print. I’d also end up recycling it all anyways, so it seems like even more of a waste. At least the professors assign some readings in the textbooks once in a while, which is somewhat easier on the eyes. Well, that and the fact that I only go through the readings that look really important (which, to be fair, seems to be something the professors encourage, because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough time in the day to get them done).

Well, I also participated in the Castle Leazes pub quiz on Sunday night. I’m amazed how badly my team and I did: we were a bigger group than the week before, but we managed to do even more badly (last place this week versus fourth during the previous quiz). I blame our poor performance on the fact that most of the questions are so English in nature that not even the people from Ireland and Scotland could figure out the answers, so you can’t exactly expect people from Canada, the US, or France to really get them (well, unless they have something to do with Doctor Who, Blackadder, Sherlock Holmes, or Yes, Minister).

Wait, scratch the comment about the week being uneventful, the fire alarm seems to be going off. Be back soon.

(20 or so minutes later)

Well, that seems to have been a bit of a false alarm. There was some smoke, but it doesn’t look like there was a fire. Probably some idiot decided he wanted to have a smoke in his room or something. Well, that’s all I really have to say for this week.

Living in Newcastle: Days 14-27

Sorry about the long gap between posts; I completely forgot about writing last week. The week after my previous post was mostly uneventful, since I was feeling sick and ended up not doing much. I have been planning my March break with some friends, which will involve travelling in France and the UK, though there still isn’t much planned beyond the first week (the rest is still in the planning stages). The most eventful thing to happen in the past two weeks has been a day trip to Durham, which was last Saturday. It was just me and 8 girls (Antoine ended up deciding not to come). When we got off the train at the station in Durham, I joked that we were like the Fellowship of the Ring (I had just finished getting through the extended editions of Lord of the Rings a few days before). I also said that I was probably the Gandalf of the group by virtue of three things: a) I had a hat (admittedly a baseball cap, but that’s still more of a hat than what the others were wearing) b) I was the only one with a beard (it would have been odd if I wasn’t, considering most girls tend to not grow beards) and c) I was pretty much the tallest one in the group (which is an odd feeling for me, because I’m usually the shortest one). We went to go see the Durham Cathedral, which was immediately visible from the train station and was quite close by. Bit of an uphill walk to get there, though.

The Cathedral proved to be somewhat larger than I expected. I only managed to get some pictures of the outside and of the cloister, since photography is normally forbidden inside, and the cloister was the only part of the building that I felt I could get away with taking pictures of without some irate priest asking me to leave. Also, the cloister was immediately obvious to me as a location in Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies, so I felt it was worth the risk of snapping a quick picture. We then headed over to the castle, but couldn’t get in yet because only guided tours could go, and those only started at 2. Instead, we started looking around for someplace to have lunch, and soon settled on a nearby pub (Varsity, if I remember the name correctly). I decided to avoid the temptation of fish and chips, and decided to order scampi with mushed peas instead. Soon after I had placed my order, I was told that the pub had run out of scampi, and when I was asked to order something else, I immediately blurted out “fish and chips.” It seems that my attempts to try and eat healthy once in a while are being foiled by my stomach. At least they gave the mushed peas too.

We then managed to get on a tour of the castle, which, as it turns out, is not uninhabited. In fact, it’s currently one of the residences for Durham University… not that I’m jealous or anything. I couldn’t take pictures inside there, either, since they don’t allow it. Nice place, though.

Afterwards, we all decided to get coffee at Starbucks to kill some time before the train arrived. Instead of just sitting there, we all ended up having a 2 and a half hour debate on subjects like the death penalty and the influence of pharmaceutical companies on how doctors treat patients (ie how often they just resort to prescribing medication). It didn’t get too heated (fortunately). We then went to the station and got on the train back to Newcastle and then all walked back home.

Geez, it’s hard to believe I’ve been here for almost a month already.

Living in Newcastle: Days 7-13

Apologies for the long wait between posts. I’ve been so busy this past week that writing has completely slipped my mind. Suppose I should get around to it now, since there’s a lot for me to write about.

I finally started my classes here… sorry, I mean my modules, since that’s what they’re called around here. I have two one-hour lectures for each module per week, along with another one-hour seminar. First class I had was Aspects of British History, which basically consists of learning about, well, different aspects of British history, mainly politics, society, and culture. That was early Tuesday morning last week, though we didn’t actually do much learning in the lecture that day: it was more about the professor explaining what the module will cover and how everything works, including how to sign up for seminars. We were also told that the second lecture of the week (normally early Wednesday afternoon) wouldn’t be held that week, but that we still had the seminars, and thus would need to do the necessary reading for them. I also noticed in the course handout that there was a lot of reading to do: more specifically, we need to read 2 or 3 articles for each lecture and the seminar, and that we should be ready to discuss the readings for the seminar. I got started on that in the afternoon, then got a call from Jennifer asking if I wanted to join everyone in going to the movies later that afternoon. We all met on the campus and walked to the local movie theatre, and ended up seeing the Iron Lady. If you don’t know that one, it’s the movie where Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher (aka the Iron Lady). The acting in the movie was good, but it makes Thatcher look more sympathetic than she actually is in real life (I’ve been reading the book the movie was based on, which is much more even-handed and shows a lot of Thatcher’s bullying and stubbornness). We all ate at a nearby Pizza Hut, since the dining hall at the residence was closed by the time the movie finished, and I was reminded of why I stopped eating at Pizza Hut. Also, it took forever to actually get seated when the restaurant wasn’t even that full, and I don’t even want to get started on how long it took for the servers to get utensils or take our orders. We did all decide that we would make the Tuesday movie a weekly event, since they’re much cheaper on Tuesdays (only 3 and a half pounds, which is still cheaper than a Tuesday movie in Montreal, even when converting to the dollar).

I had my other two lectures the next day. Russia under Lenin and Stalin seems like an interesting course, and I had to keep myself from laughing out loud about how stereotypically British the professor was (though he has a sense of humour, which is good). Japan since 1868 is also an interesting course, though it looks like I’ve got a lot of readings for that course too (about as much as for Aspects of British History). Luckily, there are only exams at the end of the semester and no assignments, so I have lots of time to do the readings for all my modules (since I don’t have to move into a library to do research like in previous semesters, which is a nice change of pace for me).

I normally have the seminar for Russia under Lenin and Stalin and the second lecture for Japan since 1868 on Thursdays, but the seminar was cancelled for that week, so my day was shorter than usual. I spent some time hunched over at my desk taking notes in the afternoon, but I went out later to meet friends (including Jennifer and another Jennifer, who is from Idaho). We all found out that Jennifer had never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail before, so we all agreed that since I had brought the DVD with me to Newcastle, we should all get together later that night to watch it in Jennifer’s room using Antoine’s giant laptop (though it’s big enough that I’m not sure it could be considered a portable computer). We all had a good time, which is probably due in part to the fact that we were also having cheap wine and chocolate while watching the movie. We then started to watch Four Weddings and a Funeral, which we all agreed may have been good when it first came out, but isn’t very watchable these days.

And no, I’m not going to specify which Jennifer is which; it’s funnier when readers try and guess.

Friday was supposed to be a busy day for me: Japan since 1868 seminar in the morning, Russia under Lenin and Stalin lecture at noon, and the Aspects of British History seminar at 3 in the afternoon. The seminars went well, but the lecture ended up not happening. We all ended up sitting in the lecture room for about half an hour before we all decided to leave. I got an email later from the professor apologizing, saying that he had gotten the times mixed up and that he would try and make up for the lost time next week.

On Saturday, we all went to the coast at Tynesmouth in the afternoon. I suspected the weather wouldn’t be very good because the forecast predicted rain, but I didn’t expect it to alternate between snow and freezing rain, with a constant freezing wind blowing in my face. We all took the requisite pictures and fled back to Newcastle after a few hours. I did manage to buy a small Dalek to decorate my desk at the market near the train. If you don’t know what a Dalek is, go watch some Doctor Who to find out. Better yet, go watch Doctor Who anyways, you won’t regret it. Go on, you can go watch some episodes now. Not like I’m going anywhere. I’ll wait.

Done yet? OK then, back to my blathering on about my life.  Sunday consisted of me mostly sitting at my desk taking notes, though I took a couple of hours in the middle of the day to go out and get some lunch, buy some groceries (Thank God for Nutri-Grain bars; I don’t know how I’d live without them, since I can’t find any Triscuits around here), walk around taking pictures, and buying music from HMV.

Monday was fairly similar, only replace the middle of the day part from the previous day with “going to the Freshers Carnival,” which is basically a club fair. I put my name down on some mailing lists (including the list of applicants for film writers for the school paper, The Courier, because why not), then went to look on the student union site for the list of clubs that weren’t at the Carnival, which was much more interesting. I ended up signing up for the Anime and Gaming clubs (obviously), the Politics and History clubs (well, I am studying those), the Psychology club (because that could be interesting), and finally the Jewish club (what? I haven’t met any other Jews around here yet). The last one got a hilarious reaction out of my mom when I told her on Skype, since she started to laugh (I had told her before I left that I didn’t intend to join such a club, and she predicted I would) and the connection froze in such a way that her image looked like the “AW YEAH” meme. If you don’t know what that is, chances are you are more than 25 years old or don’t spend that much time on the Internet. Or both, I guess.