the Dalaverse

Well. Here I am at last. I suppose the best way to go about this is to offer a brief summary of the past week.

Monday/Tuesday: managed to finish packing approximately ten minutes before leaving the house. I'm not too partial to Dulles, but we didn't have much choice in tickets. Mom and Dad did not handle the departure very well, as they hung around the queue for security and I had to rush to hug them very quickly or lose my place. But the flight on Virgin Atlantic was good. They fed us well, and I watched "Waitress" (that movie is just lovely), an episode of "The Office," and the highlights of AWE just before we landed. I also played a million games of Tetris. What I did not do is sleep. I took about a twenty-minute nap, which actually left me feeling refreshed but would soon prove to be woefully insufficient. Landed, went through customs with a minimum of hassle, and found the gathering of Southampton international students. I met a girl from my programme there, from Hawaii by way of Arizona (which is why I can't spell her name for you). We chatted and sat together on the coach, along with a guy from Michigan who's doing marine engineering, or whatever boats + engineering is called. He lives in my halls complex and I've seen him around since - very nice, and pretty cute.

It was when we arrived on campus that my exhaustion caught up with me. Some combination of the sleep deprivation, realizing from the other girl that I hadn't signed up for courses when I was supposed to, finding my room hadn't been cleaned when I arrived, being unable to work the phones, and just general all-around self-doubt and angst caused me to crash pretty hard. I cried and watched "Gilmore Girls" on my iPod, took a very, very long walk (in the opposite direction of the campus, as it turned out, but I felt better anyway) then went to bed early on the crappy mattress and pillow from the overpriced bedpack.

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday: things immediately got better after twelve hours of sleep. The official activities on Wednesday consisted of a lecture to all international students in the theatre, which wasn't terribly remarkable. I straightened out my course situation, which was not nearly so dire as my freakout would have led me to believe, and found my way into the city centre to do some shopping. There's a ginormous five-storey mall in Southampton, in addition to smaller shops along the main drag. I hit Marks & Spencer and Boots to buy a better pillow and case, a flat sheet, a plate, a bowl, a mug, and a hairdryer. I was also much cheered by tasting Thorntons chocolate again.

On Thursday we had a Humanities gathering, which drove the total number of people down considerably. The lecture was mostly geared toward non-native English speakers, but its highlight was meeting another girl from my programme - Mehvash, from Bombay, with whom I hit it off immediately. We went over to the Avenue (Humanities) Campus to request bank letters, then came back and watched "Chocolat" that evening. Any person who appreciates Johnny Depp is a person I'd like to know. Friday was more of the same, with the group narrowing a bit and touring the Humanities building. I met a very nice Canadian girl named Sarah who's here doing her PhD in archaeology. She refers to her husband as her partner, which again is a sort of conversational marker that makes a person interesting to me. Then Mehvash and I went back into the city for some exploring. I didn't buy much except for a raspberry-colored pashmina...until we found out there was an open market going on around the big chunk of castle that sits in the middle of the square. I bought some excellent sundried tomato-and-onion cheddar, a huge loaf of country bread, and some fresh strawberries. We had a pint of cider in a pub, chatted some more, and then wandered along the remains of the 14th century city wall before returning to campus.

Saturday/Sunday: Saturday I did absolutely nothing. I didn't even leave my room. I read a bit and I caught up on my American TV (about which I might post later). It was a good kind of lazy day. On Sunday, Mehvash and I were planning on attending a trip to Arundel Castle because she'd been told there were extra tickets, but when we got there there was just one extra, so we scrapped it for the city yet again. Here I confined my purchases to silverware and a stapler from the Poundstore. We did manage to hit the Maritime Museum just before it closed, which is tiny but nice enough. And then I spent three freaking hours trying to help my parents call me. They finally managed to get through to my cell phone after I called Dad's cellphone from it, thereby revealing the actual number to be dialed.

And today I am feeling quite motivated and ambitious. To be done:

• drop off undergrad loan deferment request at Student Services Centre


• pick up bank letter from Humanities, then open account at HSBC


• do proper grocery shopping at Sainsburys

I was somewhat planning on dropping by the archaeology building in an attempt to ingratiate myself for employment purposes, but I'll wait until I get my resume updated. I would really like to work there, and I'm hopeful if there are any positions open because I do have plenty of experience in labs. In any case, I did contact the guy who runs the university's temp agency.

So how have you guys been? I really did appreciate the well wishes before I left; I was just too emotionally fragile for awhile to answer them. Now is the time when we post more.