Super Amy

Apologies for the technical issues. I forget that September is the month when my domain name expires. They were emailing me, yes, but to an email that doesn’t work anymore. Things have been taken care of now, quite obviously.

I, however, really need a cup of coffee. I also need a good book to read, and I don’t have one. Of either of those things. Obviously, I shouldn’t be in the lab.

I’ll have pictures as soon as I can figure out how to get them off of my camera.

If you’re so inclined:

Amelia Lockaby
Faculty of Arts
University of Winchester
Winchester
Hampshire, UK
SO22 4NR

It doesn’t come directly to me; I have to go check the “pigeonhole” for the “L”s in the Faculty Office, and who knows how often I’ll do that. So, if you send me something, and it’s really cool or really urgent or really anything at all, send me an email or something a few days later and let me know so I can look out for it…

Laptop update:

In the UK, students start deciding what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they’re fifteen or sixteen. By the time they get to University, they’ve already narrowed it down. They don’t take gen-ed courses like we do; they simply take courses directly in the subject they’re studying. That makes students like me, who are taking five different subjects spanning across several departments, very strange indeed. What this means is that, while everyone else’s meetings never overlap and they never have anything strange to do, I’m always having to run around and explain myself.

“No, I’m an exchange student. I’m studying internationally, so I’m taking several subjects. No, I don’t have to specialize, because all of my courses will transfer back. Yes, I am supposed to be here, because I’m both an Arts student and a Social Sciences student.”

While running from building to building yesterday, making various arrangments for my schedule, I managed to lose touch with the group I normally go scavenging for food with. (Eating with the british students is currently out of the question until I get my catering card, as they don’t understand that yes, a £3 appetizer is indeed too expensive.) Instead, I walked into town to Sainsbury’s, the in-town grocery store. I have never before had to go grocery shopping while being so limited. Most refrigerated foods were out, since the Rugby team regularly goes through and cleans out refrigerators when they get hungry. Foods requiring any sort of utensils were out, seeing as I have none of those. Foods requiring any sort of preparation on a stove, in an oven, or in a toaster are out. And, unless it’s insanely, unreasonably cheap, it’s out, because I’m short on cash.

I came out with a large pack of “cream custard biscuits,” chocolate chip cookies, string cheese, a chicken salad wrap (marked to £.50 since it was expired), and chocolate granola bars. All for just £2.80. Sweet.

It’s not that I’m too broke to eat. Honestly, I knew it was going to be expensive, and I’ll be fine. It’s just that I’m still in shock from what it costs to buy anything here. Which is a lot. It costs me $220 to get £100 from the ATM.

I have a phone. In a strange sort of way, I have two phones, I guess. I have one strange looking hot pink pay-as-you-go phone, and two separate phone numbers, and two separate top-up accounts. One of them gets cheaper calls internationally, and one of them gets cheaper calls locally. Neither gets cheap calls, though. Anyway, the point is that I will have my local sim card in most of the time, so I can get in touch with people here. Let me know and I’ll send you both numbers, so you can call / text if you need to.

Still fighting the laptop… maybe there’s still hope, just maybe…

1 – Preliminary Disclaimer. I am not dead. It took a while to get here, and we didn’t sleep much, and immediately had to jump into orientation and whatnot, but I am absolutely positively alive, despite lack of communication.

2 – Tech Stuff. About the communication thing. Until registering today, I had no login to the network, and thus no internet. I am SO HAPPY to be online right now. You can’t even imagine. However, there is bad news to go along with that. Something terrible, really terrible, has happened to my laptop. I think it might be a goner. I won’t go into details, as I don’t want to alienate those of you who don’t care, but. It’s sad. SO, it’s computer labs for me. It’s okay, I’m used to it. These keyboards, though, are so different..

3 – Overseas. England is absolutely beautiful. Winchester, especially, is absolutely what you would picture it to be. I wish that I were able to show you pictures right now (not that I’ve taken nearly as many as I should have). It’s completely picturesque. The temperature has been at about 60 or 65 degrees so far, and today it is cloudy and damp, though we got a good bit of sun yesterday. It’s fantastic. Although we’ve been really busy with orientation, I’ve had a few chances to wander around town. The whole city is very, very hilly and steep, so there’s lots of exercise to be had, but the city isn’t much of a walk from the school — ten minutes gets to High Street, where pretty much anything can be found. There are bakeries and coffee shops and bookstores and grocers and a pound store (think dollar tree) and a farmer’s market and cellular companies and almost anything else you can imagine. The Winchester Cathedral is also within walking distance.

4 – Food and Money. Our meal cards won’t be active until next week, which means that we have to buy all of our food until then. Cafeteria food is very expensive, and judging by my one experience, not very good. Our “five day plan” meal cards are declining balance cards, and everybody tells me that they aren’t realistic, and will only cover two or three days’ worth of food, if that. I hope this isn’t true, because everything here is insanely expensive. My cafeteria roast beef cost $11. Sodas are about $2.50. Sometimes it gets better, but mostly it gets worse. I am walking about five miles a day up and down steep hills, and eating very little. I will likely return to you a skeleton.

5 – Differences. The people here are very funny. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but they’re just funny. There are lots of expressions I’m not used to. Everytime I run into someone on my hall and they say “Hullo! You okay?” I want to know if I look not okay, instead of saying “Great, and you?” I always forget not to ask where the bathroom is, but where the toilet is. bathrooms have showers, and toilets have, well, toilets. I have been laughed at many, many times while here. They think Americans are pretty funny, too.

6 – Social Things. Until today, most of the students on campus were either international students or freshmen. Since the legal drinking age here is eighteen, and also because there are two or three bars on campus alone, most of the social gatherings the school has sponsored for the first few nights are all targeted at getting the freshmen drunk. This doesn’t much appeal to me (nor does the thought of $8 and $10 drinks), so until the rest of campus fills up, I’ve been spending most of my time getting acquainted with the town and with the other Lander students who are here. There is a Christian Union group here, and this week they’ve been open in the Chapel several times a day, giving away coffee and hot chocolate and cookies and things. I stopped in last night because they had live music, and they were really, really, ridiculously nice. They’re much more friendly to Americans here than it seems America is to overseas visitors. Which is sort of sad.

7 – Etcetera. I don’t have my music. I have a little on my mp3 player, but the rest is on the laptop. I don’t know if it’s fixable, which means skype is probably a definite no until I figure out what to do. I will, however, have a cell phone as soon as I can get back into town to pick it up. I bought an international sim card for it, so that I’ll get better international rates, but here “better” doesn’t really mean “good,” so it’s sort of an emergency phone — it costs about 11 cents a minute and 32 cents per text. I have the number, but it’s pretty crazy and I don’t know the international extension, so I’ll just email it to some of you once I have the phone. I miss being able to talk to everybody, so send me a gmail, and I’ll get back to you when I’m able to, okay?