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Oct. 1st, 2010 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bagheera_sanI'm settling in very nicely in Durham, much better, to be honest, than I thought I would. I have a lot to do, but enough time and space to myself so I can regenerate, and as a result I'm feeling extremely social. I've also found out that I love meeting people from different countries, which is great - many exchange students are unhappy because they feel they don't get enough contact with native speakers, but actually I'm quite fine with that. It's not my ambition to aquire an accent, and I can train speaking English no matter who I speak it to.
My college seems nice but a bit badly organized so far, but they had a night out for international students yesterday which was very nice, and their kitchen is quite good (so far the most English thing they've cooked was fish&chips). I've finally met all the people from my flat, and actually they're not all Chinese - three of them are, but the fourth is an American girl from New York who's of Korean descent and extremely nice. Together we're going to battle the dirt that's apparently mostly been caused by our two male flatmates.
Unfortunately the internet connection at my student hall is excruciatingly slow, I'll have to do something about that. Everything takes ages to load, and pictures are an impossibility. I need not have worried about the TV licensing - I couldn't steal British TV if I wanted to!
All my English studies module choices got accepted, so I'll be doing four English courses, all third year: Shakespeare, Post-War Fiction, Literature of the Romantic period and maybe a course on Toni Morrison, but I'll try to switch that one if I can because I've discovered that her novels really aren't my cup of tea. I'm in the mood for something medieval, so I'll try to get something in that direction. On top of that I'll do two German modules (Durham requires its students to do this many modules) one on Love & Death in German Literature, and one mystery module that got changed by the department and I don't know what it is.
I keep having to explain to people that although yes, I'm twenty-four, and yes, I am in my fifth year, I'm NOT a postgraduate. I guess it will baffle the freshers who arrive tomorrow even more - I can't imagine what the city will be like with even more students in it, it already seems like the population is 70% students at least.
My college seems nice but a bit badly organized so far, but they had a night out for international students yesterday which was very nice, and their kitchen is quite good (so far the most English thing they've cooked was fish&chips). I've finally met all the people from my flat, and actually they're not all Chinese - three of them are, but the fourth is an American girl from New York who's of Korean descent and extremely nice. Together we're going to battle the dirt that's apparently mostly been caused by our two male flatmates.
Unfortunately the internet connection at my student hall is excruciatingly slow, I'll have to do something about that. Everything takes ages to load, and pictures are an impossibility. I need not have worried about the TV licensing - I couldn't steal British TV if I wanted to!
All my English studies module choices got accepted, so I'll be doing four English courses, all third year: Shakespeare, Post-War Fiction, Literature of the Romantic period and maybe a course on Toni Morrison, but I'll try to switch that one if I can because I've discovered that her novels really aren't my cup of tea. I'm in the mood for something medieval, so I'll try to get something in that direction. On top of that I'll do two German modules (Durham requires its students to do this many modules) one on Love & Death in German Literature, and one mystery module that got changed by the department and I don't know what it is.
I keep having to explain to people that although yes, I'm twenty-four, and yes, I am in my fifth year, I'm NOT a postgraduate. I guess it will baffle the freshers who arrive tomorrow even more - I can't imagine what the city will be like with even more students in it, it already seems like the population is 70% students at least.
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Date: 2010-10-02 12:06 pm (UTC)You'll get used to the postgrad thing. Just tell them you are at a postgrad level. It's true anyway with the way Bachelor and Master degrees work.
The slow net connection seems to be a common problem in England in recent years. I still had a lightning fast connection compared to German dial-up at the time, but now the problems are so dire that you can regularly read about it on the BBC. You might want to try surfing early in the day. I found that many British students don't bother getting up before 1 a.m. after the first couple of weeks.