One Month

Soooo.....what to say about the last week. Now that I'm in school and have someone of a set routine life is much less exciting. These probably won't get shorter because I can go on and on about nothing, but they certainly won't be more entertaining. Sorry :(

Anyway, Monday I had human anatomy once again. We are doing the cranium, which is actually quite hard. There are a lot of bones in the human skull with a lot of little parts that we must know. I also came down with some sort of bug on Monday. I may have actually started to get sick on Sunday, but I wasn't sure until Monday. After class I went straight home to bed and slept for most of the day. Then Tuesday I repeated the strategy. I think I had a fever that broke over Monday night and Tuesday was rough. I wasn't feeling quite as bad, but I hadn't slept well so it was very hard to concentrate during the lecture. We were learning about taphonomy, which is the process by which bones are changed after they come out of the animal, basically. Luckily I have a little experience with that from my work in Bolivia. So I'm not behind, but I need to spend more time in the lab this week to make up for it.

Wednesday I slept most of the day again and then headed to campus for choir rehearsal. It was fun, but I'm not sure about this choir. Sometimes I wonder how well the director reads music... I may try out the Tuesday night choir this week and see how that goes... After choir I met up with a friend to see a foreign film that was playing on campus. They didn't have the film that was advertised and ended up showing a Spanish film about the right to die. I wasn't too much of a fan.

Thursday I went to campus to spend some time in the labs. When I go to the human bone lab I really don't feel like I accomplish a whole lot since we're just left to do whatever we want. The animal lab is a lot better. My prof leaves tasks for us to do to learn the topic. This week it was looking at bones and identifying how they had been modified. She left a bag of samples of the different modification processes that happen.

Friday I was going to go back to campus, but it was icky out and it was my friend's birthday, so I went to the Poole museum with her instead. It was a very nice little museum of local history. And I felt accomplished because I saw some bones in a display and identified them as sheep before I read the sign. So I'm learning :) Anyway, later that night a bunch of girls went out for a Diwali party. Diwali is the Indian festival of lights and my flatmate invited us all to a party that was happening at a club in Bournemouth. So we headed down to Bournemouth figuring we'd find an Indian restaurant to eat and then head to the club. We couldn't find an Indian restaurant near the club and the man we asked was unhelpful. He mostly just wanted us to eat at a Spanish or Portuguese resaurant. So we walked for a few minutes, but then decided just to head to the Italian restaurant that we had seen. It was called Pinnochio's and was ridiculous inside. Disney may sue if they find out about it ;) It was quite good though. I got lasagna, like always. It was really cheesy and delicious. Especially because I was starving. Everyone else enjoyed their food as well. When we were finished we headed to the club. There was hardly anyone there and the place never filled up. They were playing really repetitive house music and only played two Indian songs the entire night, despite being and Indian celebration. So I don't know what that was about, but it wasn't great. The night was fun overall, and waiting for the bus we met a lovely man who told us all kinds of touristy things that we have to do while we're here.

Saturday I spent the entire day reading. Then at night I went to the flat next door for curry and movie night. The curry was really good and the movies were okay. It was all girls so we watched rom-coms, of course. The Ugly Truth: not that good. Probably don't bother. It was fun overall though.

Today I meant to spend the whole day reading, but I got a call from a friend that there was an open house at the Lighthouse, which is the theater near my house. So I took a break from reading to go to that. We got a bunch of pamphlets about things going on there and then got to see a short concert of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It was awesome. They perform every Wednesday night. So if I switch choirs I could go to their concerts. Its 50% off for students and they have 5 pound tickets if you do standby. After the concert we went and got coffee and then went to a shop for a couple people to look for water pitchers. While there though, I found my new pet. I've named him Theodore and he's a lovely, feathery, blue bird/pen. When we got back from shopping I got my reading done, found some more resources and feel very accomplished right now.

Other things from the week. On Saturday they sent us an email from our dorm telling us not to use the small light above our beds and desks. Then they sent a man around to take the lightbulbs. Apparently they are exploding and catching fire and they entire socket needs to be replaced. So in the meantime we have no lights in the living room and it is quite hard to read in the bedrooms as the overhead light is not very good. There is no timetable on when we will be getting new lights, but my assumption is 1-2 months if the trackrecord thus far stands. Not much incentive to get you to pay your rent.

On that note, I get to pick up my student loan refund check tomorrow!! The student loan checks came in dollars, so we had to turn them in and then the school had them switched to pounds and then they took tuition out of them. So I don't know how much I'm getting back, but I'll see tomorrow. Then I have to put it in the bank and then I can pay my rent here after the check clears. Which I hear takes 4 business days. So hopefully I'll have money by Friday. Then I can join the gym! Woo!

Well, I suppose that's all I've got. I'll keep you updated on my light situation because I know you'll be dying to know if I can study without getting eye strain or not. But hey, at least here if I get eye strain I can go to the doctor for free! Just gotta look on the bright side... Well then, until next week.