week one

As my first real week at Sussex comes to a close I have many things to reflect on. I’ll start with my new classes. For the most part each of my four classes has two one-hour lectures and one one-hour seminar a week. The seminars have about 15 to 20 students in them and so far seem to be interesting. I really like all of my classes and find each one to be pretty interesting so far. I’m taking developmental psychology, communicating art (an art history course), culture and the everyday, and the look of America. My favorites so far are culture and the everyday and the look of America. The culture class seems like it has a lot to do with sociology, my minor, and also already has me thinking about my everyday life and the choices and decisions I make every day that effect my day, week, month or even year. You may be wondering why I’m taking an American studies course while I’m studying abroad in England and to be quite honest I chose this course in hopes of an easy A and because I needed to take four classes. It’s turning out to actually be really cool and I’m glad I chose to take it. The material focuses on how America and different events and time periods in American history are portrayed through the media. We’re starting at the Civil War and going right through to present day. It’s interesting to hear what other people think of us and I was surprised to hear how well they know their American history. Different people’s perspectives on anything always intrigue me so I think this course will prove to be quite enjoyable.

The biggest difference from college at home that I’ve noticed is that most courses are taught by multiple professors. All of my classes have two or three professors who take turns lecturing and a few teaching assistants who run the seminars. 9am classes also seem to be more of a pain in the ass than at home since most students live off campus and buses are usually really busy in the morning. I had a 9am start on Tuesday and the professor didn’t show up which caused major uproar from the class of 250 students. Apparently the weather was bad so the buses and trains weren’t running at full capacity so he couldn’t get in to campus. Oh well.

This week I went to dinner in town a few times and saw Sherlock Holmes, which was really great. I finished up my essential shopping and stocked up on food. The highlight of the week was definitely Thursday night. I went with a few of my flatmates to a club called Jam. On Thursday nights they play 50s music, reggae, and a bit of jazz. It might not sound like these genres go together but the set seemed to flow together very nicely. Everyone was dancing and just having a really great time. It was a lot of fun and my feet were wicked sore the next day, but in a good way of course.
I’m finding that I don’t have much to do here and may go a little crazy with so much free time. I did hear that there’s a club fair next week or the week after so I’ll check that out and hopefully join a few clubs. I don’t really have any written work due for any of my classes until March or April and only have a small fraction of the amount of reading as I do in a normal semester at Clark so I feel like I’ve been sitting around twiddling my thumbs a bit.

Today me, Riley, Jesse and Carey decided to be hardcore tourists. It was the first sunny day we’ve had since we got here so we took advantage of it. With cameras in hand we walked along the beach and up and down the pier and I had my first fish and chips. The pier reminds me of Old Orchard in Maine a bit and looks like it’s going to be really fun when it gets warmer and everything is open. It smelt delicious as we walked past all of my favorite fair foods. After a week of rain and snow I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.





Here are some new things I’ve learned about England:
-there are two faucets (they’re not called faucets but I forget what they’re called) at most sinks; one for hot and one for cold. I don’t think they believe in warm water here. You have to be one extreme or the other.
-everyone smokes cigarettes. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t.
-Welsh is the strangest language I have ever hear. Here’s a link to the longest name of a town in Great Britain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNN3Cpnur1k&feature=related
If aliens were to come to Earth they would speak Welsh.
-baby carriages are encased in plastic, I’m assuming to protect the babies from the cold, although I’ve always been told not to stick my head in a plastic bag.
-new words: all of the terms referring to college are different. Here, college is before university, universities are called unis, course means major, module means course and timetable means schedule. Pants means underwear and trousers means pants. Candy floss means cotton candy.