While I've been in London for the past few weeks, I've been surprised at the lack of culture shock I've had. Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but so far, my frustrations have been limited. Besides having to always carry a converter for the three huge electricity plugs they use here, and slowly getting used to the love for coins, I think I've actually mastered crossing the street/ and looking the opposite way (I've even biked "on the wrong side of the road" already).
wall sockets here in case you didn't know
I've gotten used to changing how I say certain words because I get strange looks. And surprisingly, so far, the weather has been pretty nice. It rain's but its that overcast-drizzle-stop-the start again- rain. Which for now I prefer more than crazy downpours. I'm expecting it to get grosser/colder out though. English food, is not the best, they have good fries chips and their into healthy and organic stuff, so I love that there are fresh outside fruit and veggie markets.
But MAN does London have AMAZING restaurants. Seriously, I think this city might beat Paris on the quality of international/gourmet restaurants. I haven't been able to try many, have been to a couple this last few days when my parents where here, but everywhere you walk there are restaurants, and I always stop to admire the menus and die with envy at the business men eating there. If i have any money after I graduate, I'm going to properly celebrate finishing my masters and eat at one of those 5 start restaurants around here. So needless to say I haven't had trouble with the food, besides I'm cooking for myself a lot as well.
And I've also, so far have had a pretty good time meeting people and making friends. Originally that was one of my main concerns. How do you make new friends when you move to a new country. I think it's definitely helping that I'm in an academic setting, living in a undergrad and grad school hall and I'm literally in the middle of 4 or 5 other college campuses. The first weekend was a bit lonely, but I knew id meet people soon. The international orientation helped a lot, and I've gotten a good group of international friends, who are all so nice, interesting and all going through similar experiences so I'm hoping we stay friends so I can continue asking them questions/sharing my frustrations (such as why in a major city like London the tube closes at 12am!?) Plus we've already been planning to go to the harry potter studios when we have time, and already planned having some sort of a thanksgiving and seeing each other on Halloween. I saw most of them this weekend as well. In my course (aka major) there are 14 girls. Of course my developmental psychology (child/adolescent psychology for those who don't know) course is all females, who would expect differently :). All of the girls are really nice, and were all so excited yet so terrified of the year to come. I see all of them in all my classes so its nice to have a small group. I've also made some friends here at the hall, which is nice when they say Hi when they see you coming in and out, because its nice to know like at least someone knows your name. The undergrads are in the whole OMG-everyone is my friend-lets get drunk and not go to classes together- phase, but us post grads are in the HOLYSHIT i have to read all this crap this whole term-wait did the Internet just go out-I'm about to murder someone-phase, and having someone say HI makes you feel a bit normal.
Woo I've been writing alot. So I'm getting used to the amount of reading we have to do in grad school. It's alot more than under gad, but what I find most frustrating right now, is the lack of guidance on WHAT to read. I guess I'm used to professors in undergrad being like look this is the book we will use, and you need to read this chapter for this class. In grad school- at least here- they give you a "reading list" for the week that includes literally entire textbook and are like yea so this is the recommended reading list. OK recommended, so does that mean I should read all of it, or only the ones i want to or what!? I've been reading mostly parts of everything, that are relevant to the next lecture and hoping that how people are doing it. I signed up for a bunch of academic writing workshops, which will help me, because all my classes are graded with only ONE final essay. My entire grade in the class depends on ONE essay, and if i fuck up I'm screwed. So needless to say my dyslexic self is going to write 523945849320 essays before I turn the final ones in.
I got to see my parents this week, i loved it, and they loved London. Mom help me organize my entire room today, before they left, and it's looking so much homier. They brought me tapestries from Uganda and I've put up a bunch of pictures :). Saw my cousin on my dad's side this weekend too, she lives here with her family-adorable 2 year old daughter. I'm excited to get to know her better, as we haven't lived in the same country in forever. Ok now I'm hungry, so I'm off to make dinner and continue reading the one fun recommended read in my genetics of development class.
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