Days 6-8

The Weekend:

On Saturday I went grocery shopping. I got important stuff like food and laundry detergent. Then at night I went to a club called Glam. (First I went to an apartment where everyone else engaged in what they call "pre-drinking" which is Welsh for getting really drunk so dancing for ten hours straight with strangers will appear more rational.) At the club, I saw some pretty interesting things:

1. Several lurking boys.
2. One very drunk lady who did a lot of funny stuff--dancing in front of the fan, trying to dance with much younger boys, stealing one boys drink, taking a sip and then handing it back (he was NOT happy), etc.
3. One boy stroked my head like I was a dog. It was weird.

On Sunday I tried to go to church but failed. I took a wrong turn and ended up who knows where (about half an hour away) and had to back track. I finally found the church, but they were praying and the entrance was near the front of the sanctuary. I was also an hour late. But since I was already in the building, I went into the bathroom to wash my hands (See, there was a guy outside at a bus stop who had seen me go inside, and I didn't want to look creepy leaving two seconds after I went in). I also took a bulletin. Unfortunately, when I went out, the guy was still there, and I looked creepier.

After I left the church I tried to go back to my dorm but ended up going in the wrong direction. I kept going because I realized I was headed to the Centre, and I needed to go there anyway. I got lunch and did some shopping (socks that prevent ankle bleeding from my evil shoes, an ugly set of cardboard drawers to hide miscellaneous papers that don't have a place but look dumb on my desk, scissors, etc.).

I then took the bus back (after successfully finding the bus stop that eluded me my first night in the Centre) and walked down to the corner store to get some paper towels. At the corner store I found a sweet deal on Naan, so I made Indian food for dinner.

First Day of Class:

Today was my first day of class. I had a total of one class. My class is big compared to Gordon classes, but I am a really bad judge of numbers, so I will just say it was large. My professor seems nice and made a couple of jokes that I understood, so I think it will be a good class. The first book we have to read is over 700 pages long, but so was the fourth Harry Potter, right? And The Mysteries of Udolpho is pretty much exactly the same as Harry Potter.

After my class, I went to the Security office to get a new i.d. card. (I forgot to write about this in my blog concerning Friday: I got my i.d. card and lost it within two hours. I think it might be a record.) They said, "We never issued you one." I said, "Yes, you did. It didn't work, but I had one." They said, "Are you sure you are a student here?" I said, "Yes." They said, "We have no record of you." I didn't really have anything to say after that, so they told me to go to registry which is far away from the security building.

After lunch (leftovers... I'm like a real person now. I can make my own dinner and eat leftovers for lunch the next day out of a plastic container and heated up in the microwave), I took the bus to the Centre and walked to the registry building where they told me I was in the system but that the card people had given me the i.d. number of Christopher Andrade (who I am NOT) and that everything would be fine if I presented a letter, which they gave me, to the security office.

Instead of walking to the security office, which I will do tomorrow, I went to the movies to see Avatar. I'm pretty excited about this because it was one of my life goals to go see a movie by myself. I felt a little bit like a loser when everyone else walked in in groups, so I put on a face that hopefully told everyone else that by being alone I was actually cooler than them. I am not going to admit whether or not I think it worked. The movie itself was entertaining, and I am discovering that I don't really mind being on my own.

After the movie, I took the bus home. I was really worried about missing my stop, and so when the bus went past my stop, I noticed and freaked out. After trying to tell myself that I could just get off at the next stop, I freaked out again because we were getting further and further away without stopping. At the next stop, I asked the driver if he would be going back. He asked me if I had missed my stop. I said he never stopped at it. He asked if I rang the bell. APPARENTLY, there is this magic bell you have to ring (by pressing a button) if you want to bus to stop. I didn't know that because there are always other people getting off at my stop so I had never had to do it before. Luckily, the bus driver was going back, and we had a nice conversation about where I was from and the habit of people in various cities.

For dinner I had pasta, which I don't really want to talk about besides saying that I miss the cheese of America.

I also got my very own cupboard and now can put my jeans back into the drawer that I was using to hold all my food. Very exciting.