I have soon spent one whole week in Britain and this post contains some of my experiences, overall feelings and events we've had.
It's been warm and sunny all week. People asked me to sit in the middle of them so that my skin could reflect the sunlight to all of them.
We spent the last weekend with different kinds of enrollments and official university stuff (which still continues). Freshers (2 week long welcoming event) for the first year students started on Sunday. During daytime students can pick up different leaflets and vouchers from the student union building in the middle of the campus which acts as the central hub for freshers. My best catch so far has been a free pizza and a goodie bag with a slinky and some candies inside. :) During nighttime there is a party of some sort for (at least) the next two weeks. I was kinda gullible and bought a relatively expensive freshers pass which would grant me access to all of those parties. Two days after I bought it I realized that I would probably attend to only two or three of those 14 events. I tried to stay in one of the fresher parties on Tuesday to get my money's worth but eventually I ended up leaving early.
I've been feeling down a few times this week. Those moments are usually closely connected to the parties. I constantly feel like I should attend to them or else I'm not a good student and I just waste my time but whenever I go to fresher parties I just want to get out of them ASAP. This has made me gloomy a few times. I feel guilty for not liking the parties despite the massive hype they receive. Luckily I've found out that there's a lot of other kinds of activities here as well and I'm currently signing up to them. In addition I'm certain that the hypnotist and comedy club that are part of the freshers' nightly events will be great.
Few pictures from the university campus:
It was a really sunny day! Again!
And again!
And again!
We've been walking around the town quite a bit and it seems pretty nice. I haven't gone outside the central town yet but I'll do that in time. The shops close damn early which is my biggest complaint but apart from that everything seems nice and peaceful.
I still have only one flatmate in my apartment. At least I've met him now. The other 5 are either older students whose studies start later, or students of another university altogether. I'm really glad I didn't go and buy any kitchen utensils, because this student apartment's trash cans hide a beautiful treasure behind them! Old tenants can apparently leave any stuff they don't want to take with them behind the trash cans and the new ones can freely pick up whatever they want from there. I've snatched quite a bit of plates already for myself as well as for future flatmates and today I took a frying pan, kettle and some utensils. I don't even need to clean them myself. Just throw them into the washing machine and set the program to "intensive". <3
Yes, they're pretty clean. ;)
The electronic stuff is not as clean though. I haven't taken any of those yet.
The kettles and frying pans look much nicer on the "right" side.
The common room is much cleaner now than it was a week ago. Still a bit dirty IMO but good enough for pictures. :)
View from our common room.
Our actual course hasn't started yet so we haven't done any school work. We met our international coordinator and few other important guys (whose roles I can't remember) just a few days ago and they all seem very relaxed and cool guys. We don't have any personal student tutors like in Kajaani and we've had to find our ways around the campus by ourselves. People are nice and will always help when asked but we don't really have any guidance. Getting the best grade here is very easy. You get A if you receive 70-100% from the modules. Lower grades have a 10% slot each. Studying is very independent. We were told that there are very few lectures and workshops and that most of the work has to be done during your free time. The course leaders were scaring everyone with this while me and the other Finnish guy attending the same course were simply changing "Really?" looks with slightly raised eyebrows. After doing more or less independent studies in Kajaani from 8:00 to 16:00 every day for 1,5 years I really don't feel like stressing from any independent work they throw at us here.
This will be enough for now. Until next update everyone! \o
Signing off.
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