A Little Adventuring
It's been a few days since my last post. I've been spending the time adjusting to my surroundings: getting to know the campus, buying groceries, learning how to cook those groceries, and getting acquainted with my classes.
The campus is nice. My window has a nice view of a large field that you can walk across to get to the lake and the surrounding walking trails. Those trails go on for miles, and we've only done a little bit of exploring. If you take the right trail, you can find a farm with ponies and donkeys. They're pretty fat because people enjoy feeding them.
My dorm building (or flat as they say around here) is called Ziggurat. I've looked it up, and that word describes the stair-step pyramid shape of the building. It's really interesting to look at from the outside, but nothing all that special from the inside. The buildings aren't traditional, in case you're wondering if the whole campus looks like this. I believe they were designed to attract attention to their school. The rest are just ordinary concrete buildings.
I will say that I do miss the classic New England brick buildings that Clark University has. I also miss how easy it is to get from one place to another. For some reason, I'm not finding this campus all that pedestrian friendly. I live on the ground floor, and I have to walk up 60 steps if I want to get to the concrete bridges that run through the campus. And most of the buildings' access points are through those bridge walkways. But I'm getting the hang of it and learning to like this place a little more. It's much larger than Clark, about 14,200 students to Clark's 2,300, so I may never become completely comfortable here. But that's okay.
I'm finding the class structures a little awkward too. The professors have already told me that I should know what I'm doing for the final, rather than waiting until we've learned the material before making that judgment. It seems more like it's up to me to teach myself the stuff I need to write my essays, so I'm getting a little confused at the point of it all. But it's only been the first week, so maybe I'm missing something.
Another thing Alisha and I accomplished was going to the City Centre of Norwich. It's a really nice looking city. One of these days we'll have to do a more scenic tour; at the time we were just there to buy some essentials we didn't yet have, like dish soap and better sheets and towels. The markets are a bunch of small, well, markets, with little shops ranging from cuisines from different cultures, yarn stores, and pretty much whatever else you can think of. I saw a little record store in there too.
It's been a whirlwind. I can't say what's in store for me, or even how much time I'll have for traveling or blog posting with these essays I'll have. But hopefully I can still have an enjoyable time here.
