Vandint

Sussex notes
2002-09-14 18:53:01 (UTC)

Mon and Tues

The next day was the first day of class for a lot of
people. I was not one of them, however. I'd met my prof
(Metham) at the Saturday Orientation. He's very cool, very
nice, very energetic. It sounds like we may get invited to
his house for dinner at some point (although I think he
might also be scatter brained enough that that may not
happen :P). I kinda wandered around campus, trying to get a
feel for it, since I'd missed the tour. At some point, I
should attempt to describe it, but I'm far enough behind at
this point, I don't think that now's the time. I also get
registered for class. Now registration here is actually a
matter of paying your bills, not a matter of picking
classes. I'm not sure when most people pick classes, but it
ain't at registration. I gather the people in September are
lucky, because the main registration involves around 10,000
people trying to work their way through the queue to handle
their paperwork. BLEH!

That night we headed to one of the many pubs on campus.
Prices as a whole were quite reasonable. Beer over here in
general seems to have a lot more flavor, which is pretty
cool I think. Definitely going to go back home pretty
spoiled, but whatever. What was really cool was this
gigantic Jenga set, the pieces were 2X4's in size, maybe
about a foot long. The towers got to be about the size of
the people building them. Pretty intense competition with
the other people in the bar really getting into it too. The
music they were playing was good stuff too. A good night.

The next day was my first day of class. I'd been relying on
my watches alarm and a little travel ararm clock, neither
of which is wonderful about waking me up if I'm in a deep
sleep, but more often than not, it works. That morning it
didn't (no, not because I'd had a lot at the bar, just that
the curtains in the dorm are actually nice and actually
keep the light out, so I tend to sleep deeper in the dorms
than with the virtually non-existant shades at UR). The room
was also hard to find due to a odd building scheme. So I
was about half an hour late for the first day. But
it seemed like it was fine and all. It was the first day,
so we didn't do all that much. We got our assignments for a
in class presentation (being late, I didn't really get a
choice; doing some stuff with disease), got our reading
assignments for the next day (the general topic was
pollution, particularly pesticides, with an emphasis on the
issues raised by "Silent Spring", the book that came out in
the late 60's and essentially started the entire
environmental movement; Again, being late, I didn't have
much choice and my topic had to do with the fact that
sparrows have virtually disappeared from the UK recently,
with a lot of people fearing a 'canary in a mine' type
warning, which was actually quite interesting), and
watching a brief movie. As I said, the prof is very cool,
very knowledgeable, very entertaining, very informal. It
looks to be a good class. More on this later, as this entry
is just to catch up on what I've been up to, rather than
any deep thoughts sparked.

That night we watched the first part of Lord of the Rings.
The person's computer died partway through, so we didn't
quite finish. Do my reading for class and turn in.




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