Hello there!
Academics- Eh, they're fine. I had my first practical (lab) this week. It was so different from the Haverford labs. I had probably around 40 to 50 people in my lab section and there were ~6 teaching assistants that were there to help us along. The level of my MCI (Microorganisms, Cells and Immunity) lab isn't too far off (so far) from a Haverford lab, it's just so different. I had no idea where any of the materials for my experiment were, so that was a struggle. Also, there are different rules here, such as always keep a bunsen burner on when you're working so it sucks up all of the toxins that could be floating around in the air. Its all good and well until you forget you're working next to a flame. Also, never take for granted the pipettes at Haverford that label their range. They don't do that here, so I was going off remembering which color tops each sized pipette had. The blue top goes to 1 mL?! I'll have to learn...
Otherwise classes are going fine. There isn't much to report. I go to class, I take notes. I don't really ever have any homework though, which is super awkward because my roommate is working 24/7 on hers. I am such a slacker. But I really don't have anything to do. Every once in a while I go to the library, read a few chapters, but that's really all I have to do at this point in time. It won't be until May that I really have to do any work.
Social- On Tuesday night, I went to dinner at my school's student center (called Teviot), which happens to have like 6 bars in it. (What?!) We ate at this little cafeteria/cafe type place. I had fish and chips for dinner, which was pretty good and such a huge size for the price. I finally felt that I wasn't getting ripped off by the prices. We then moved across the building to the Library Bar, which is definitely my favorite part of the student center. We met up with some other friends and had a really nice, casual time. We've got a nice little Brown-Haverford consortium going on here.
Wednesday night was a traditional Scottish holiday, Burns Night. Look it up. Basically, the country of Scotland celebrates the life and poetry of beloved poet Robert Burns (the guy who wrote Auld Lang Syne). To celebrate, everyone gets dressed up in their finest Tartan, drunkenly reads Burns poetry, eats massive amounts of haggis, and dances in traditional Scottish styles. This is a huge thing here, as you can tell. Sadly, by the time I realized I wanted to go to the one in Teviot, the tickets were sold out. I then planned with my friends to celebrate it in a pub, where similar actions would be taking place. However, we decided to start our night in a flat drinking some (classy) wine called Buckfast. Don't believe me- it was NOT classy. So, as we made our way to the pub to celebrate Burns Night, my stomach told me to just go home instead. Sadly, I missed out on Burns Night. But there will be other great cultural experiences in my future, don't you worry.
Thursday night two of my friends and I decided to check out a society, the Cocktail Society. Basically, they just hang out trying different cocktails and learn how to make them. Yes, I know. This sounds incredible. (Also, don't worry about me. I know it sounds like I'm drinking a lot and that I'm going crazy. I'm truly not.) But anyway, we went to that and surprisingly, I had an AMAZING time. I met a lot of really cool people who I'd really like to hang out with again. So I decided to join the society. We hung out at the bar until around 12 I think, then they convinced us to go with them to this one club that was having a motown night. The club was SUPER small so a tad awkward. I ran into another group of my friends there, so that was a nice surprise. Four of us stayed until the club closed and then went searching for some late-night food. When we found that everything was in fact closed because it was 3 in the morning, we just hung out in one of the guys' flats. It was such a great night. Worth every penny- which happened to be quite a few.
[Interesting sidenote- this week, I've met other students here who went to high school with some of my friends from Haverford. Such a small world. Just this week, there's been 4.]
Friday night, I went out to dinner with two friends from orientation. We went to this small pub Greenmantle, which has a really cute and fun atmosphere. Of course though, as with any pub, we walked in around 6 and there were some men who were already drunk. Typical Scotland. As we ordered our food at the bar, the one guy (who is probably around 45/50) decided to start talking to us. He told us how beautiful our names were, asked what we thought of Obama and then hugged me. After that, he realized that I smelled wonderful and told me so. I told him that I better smell ok because I had just showered. At that point, the bartender, who was much closer to our age, told the guy to go back to his drink and leave us alone. Which he did. (This wasn't as scary as this may seem, Mom. He was a very friendly guy, that's all.)
My Scottish girl friend texted me that I was welcome to come out with on Friday night, which I said yes to. But then, my dinner wasn't sitting well with me and I was super tired, so I wound up canceling on her. She said it was fine and that I should text her at any time if I ever wanted to go out. SUCH a nice girl.
Saturday I woke up early to go on another ISC trip to Caerlaverock Castle and a little town near it, Dumfries. It was about a 3 hour trip, that may or may not have been worth it. It just felt like a really long trip. The castle was pretty cool, but I think next time I see a castle, I may want to see one that is actually completely still standing. Although we could go up a few levels in certain places, so that was pretty cool. In this castle, you could really tell which rooms were meant for what (kitchen, bedroom, etc). The moat was pretty cool too- mainly just that it had one. Dumfries was about 20 minutes away and pretty cool, but mainly just like any other larger town. It was basically like a Moorestown or Haddonfield. To me, anyway. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy myself; I really did. It just wasn't exactly what I expected.
Oh and it was super cool because I made two really friends on this trip, a guy from Michigan State and a guy from Uganda. That was a huge plus; they're really nice people.
Saturday night, the Haverford kids hung out with the Brown kids again. We had originally planned to go back to Malones, but my own friend who is from Mexico was denied access because they didn't believe her ID was real. It was. It just turns out Mexican IDs don't look real. So we wound up having fun in Sonia's flat then transferring to a club that would accept us. The club was SUPER crowded, probably because it was Saturday. However, it was really fun and my group of 6 was superb. Also, having a guy as part of my group helped when we had to push our way through places.
Ok, well I think that's about it for now. I'm hopefully going to work on internship applications today. Wish me luck.
