I had a class today! It was strange. And not just because all of my American friends are enjoying their Monday off and I have to go to class. I’ll have my revenge when bank holidays roll around.
Firstly, I failed at reading my schedule and showed up 20 minutes early. For whatever reason, classes don’t start on the hour here. So my class was at 4:15 instead of 4:00, and I was very early, so I stood around awkwardly in front of the door to the lecture hall wondering if I went to the right place.
Apparently, everyone in England likes to lurk in front of the lecture hall. Back home, people hang out inside the hall. Not here. I guess because the lecture halls are legitimately inside a building instead of opening out into the cold helps, but I still found it bizarre to be awkwardly standing in front of the lecture hall with 50 other people. At least I knew some of the other EAP kids, so I wasn’t lonely for too long.
The lecture itself was more or less like every lecture I have ever been to. A professor talked about things (sonnets, in this instance). The seats were the weird things. It was almost like a movie, where there was a long row of table and everyone sits behind that on fold-out benches. Well, you never really see the benches in the movie, but still. And, obviously, the professor had an English accent, so he was a little easier to pay attention to than the standard professor. I also learned some things about Petrarchan sonnets that I probably should have figured out myself, but there you go.
Oh, and the bench I was sitting on had this weird tilt to it that was slightly uncomfortable.
Then I went and had the best dinner ever. Well, the best dessert ever. Maybe it’s because I eat nothing on weekends, but I ate entirely too much food. I ate so much food that I am not physically capable of going to the social event I had planned for tonight, but I suppose that’s OK because I have more social events planned for the rest of this week. Also, I don’t really like wine.
Anyway. Dinner. It was some sort of quasi-Indian chicken and rice thing with naan, which excited me because I LOVE INDIAN FOOD. ESPECIALLY NAAN. The rice was kind of bland but whatever, it’s dorm food. It’s not supposed to taste awesome. But the dessert. It was like heaven in a bowl.
It was a crumble filled with berries or something (I’m not sure of the filling, but it was red). Now, when the English eat crumbles, they pour custard on it. And custard is the most delicious thing I have ever graced my taste buds with. Especially when it has crumble involved. I seem to recall not liking custard for whatever reason, perhaps because the name sounds vaguely unappetizing, but after tonight I would gladly eat it forever. But I couldn’t finish my delicious crumble/custard dessert because I ate too much dinner, and now I’m trapped in my room with a mild food coma.
I HAVE NO REGRETS.
In lieu of attending the wine and cheese night that is graciously being hosted by one of the international students societies, I will go to their pub crawl. And possibly go out to a club tomorrow night, because I ran into a few EAP kids on campus today and we exchanged regrets about not hanging out more. So that’s pretty exciting. I have never been clubbing!
And just because I’m not going to officially sanctioned international student functions doesn’t mean I’m not meeting international students. I did meet those Minnesotans a while back (I have not seen really any of them since, bizarrely), and my English major friends are from the East Coast somewhere. Two of the girls in my flat are from Hong Kong, another is from Poland, and I met a girl from Austria today.
This is a really freakin’ international school, and it is amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment