Settling in so far?

It's Tuesday. Tuesday is post day. Or at least it's supposed to be. However, I'm not feeling particularly inspired nor do I feel remarkably witty, but I am going to suffer through it (just for you, aren't you honored?) and babble on about what has happened in the last week..... If I can remember.

As you might imagine, a lot has happened. This "a lot" has also happened VERY quickly. So forgive me if things are a little hazy in terms of a timeline.

So last Tuesday I registered officially with the university. What a huge pain in the ass that was. I honestly stood in line, or rather "queued" for 5 hours. They have no organization or any semblance of a practical process for registering. Any UK/EU student had minimal wait. Anyone else international had to stand in the mother of all "queues" for hoursandhours just to get their passport and visa photocopied. It was ridiculous. Wednesday, we had a psych mini-lecture about stuff going on in the department and we registered for our classes for both semesters. For the most part there was no choice, but second semester we do have one optional class (or Module, as they call it) that we could choose out of 4 options. That was the night before Momsie left, so I spent the rest of the day with her wandering and probably having tea. Thursday we had a Consumer psych-based mini-lecture given by the head of the course/program, and then my friends and I went on a psych department trip to the Welsh Mountain Zoo! It was pretty awesome. On the train out we saw castles and ocean, and then the zoo itself was pretty cool with a surprising variety of exhibits, including the most amazing penguin show I've ever seen. They literally paraded out in front of us on a grassy hill with essentially no barrier. A Penguin approached my foot. It was amazing.

The whole weekend, starting Friday afternoon, was a big jumble of entertainment. (Also, what I haven't mentioned is that so far, the evenings have also been sprinkled with drinking at the university-run bar.... Europe is a wonderful place). After a brief IT intro meeting, we (friends and I) wandered down to the high street to grab lunch, run some errands, and look around. That night, we went to a psych department sponsored party at Hendre Hall on the outskirts of Bangor, which is temporarily being used as the student union-esque bar location (the old SU was torn down along with the 2 bars that were in it and will be rebuilt). Saturday we ran more errands and did more stuff around town, then went all out on a night out starting at a bar off the high street and then heading over to the club, Octagon. What a night. It got crazy... in a 'Saturday night in the local club the last night out before classes' kind of way. Oof. Sunday was relaxing though, we met, chatted, slept....nothing wild.

Monday (yesterday) was the first day of classes. I'm a real live grad student now! Yesterday's "module" was Marketing Strategy. Sounds like it could be dry, but from the introductory lecture I think it's going to be alright. The focus is on application of marketing concepts on two accessible case studies of companies that exist around Bangor. Also, the professor looks like Robin Williams and sounds like Snape, but with a more positive and multi-intonation spin. Today's class was Consumer & Applied Psych: the reason I am here. And it was great. The professor(s) are really laid back, and we just discussed ads and things the whole time. I think this one is really going to be good. My next two classes between tomorrow and Thursday have real potential to be AWFUL, but we shall see. Maybe they'll surprise me and not be so bad. I'll let you know.

Aaaand that officially brings you all up to date (more or less) on my life here so far. It has most definitely been interesting, but the best part of all is that I have met some faaaantastic people already and they are amazing friends. THAT is what is going to get me through this year.

We have plans for at least one cool thing this weekend, so hopefully I'll have material for next week's post. And hopefully it won't be so painfully long and rambling. In appreciation of you reading this whole thing, here's a penguin: