Supersizing

Hey y'all!

It's Martin Luther King day tomorrow so we have a long weekend this weekend, brilliant!

Things are finally calming down a bit now, we've sorted out all the international'y stuff that takes forever and can start just being students... All our classes have closed I think so we can't take any more now, only drop them. I got into the Arthurian class I wanted and also the Milton one which I was v happy about! The drama one is so much fun, I love it, the teacher reminds me of Cameron Diaz and speaks just like her... I'm also doing African poetry which is going well. Its just basically getting nitty-gritty with poems and the teacher is so enthusiastic. I was sat in her class the first lesson and it made me laugh, as whilst she was speaking the ceiling opened and there was this sci-fi-esque appearance of the projection screen from these opening panels, and it just zoomed on down. It was so weird to me but the others didn't even flinch! They're quite high tech here. My Arthurian Romance class is looking promising too, its run by an amazing old guy who smells like my grandparents, and is very comical when speaking. It was so very strange in that class as he was putting up postcards of where he's visited in the UK, and a picture of him with Hadrian's wall. He also started off with a picture of the Excalibur hotel in Las Vegas [[example of Arthurian legend pervading culture today]] and one of the girls was like, I live there! To me that is so crazy, Vegas would be an incredible place to live though I'm not sure i'd want to from what I saw! You can barely step outside in the middle of the day without dying of heat as its literally just a city plonked in the middle of the desert. Visiting's just enough for me.

I do still have to go pick up a duvet though! Still sleeping under a sheet.. Which isn't too much of a problem right now as my room is like a little sauna, always so hot. My suitemates' room is always freezing because they're next to the outer wall of the building, so I don't like to turn it off but consequently my room is boiiiiiiiiiiiling.

As it says, this post is centred around the sheer excessiveness of everything over here. It's crazy. About 10 times a day I think to myself...Only in America.

Even the gym was huge. What an experience. They all run laps round a circuit which is basically a huge balcony running round the basketball courts [ no complaints! ;) ]  I got onto the cross-trainer and it felt like I was slow-mo running for a film or something, the machine's are just massive. And getting onto the leg weight machines felt like I was on a flipping roller coaster ride, they're super-padded too. Maybe the sense of size is heightened because I'm short, but still.. When I got back people were so surprised I'd gone to the one on the "other side of campus" (i.e.a 15 minute walk), the concepts of distance here are insanely different when I'm used to London. They're all horrified when I say I walk 45 minutes down to uni every day!

One of the Auzzie girls Freya  had to leave this week which was SO sad. Her modules(classes) didn't comply with what she needed for her course so she had to go all the way back home. I think it's pretty ludicrous that they made her return and couldn't let her stay or have told her BEFORE flying half way across the world to be here. Apparently they said she'd have to do another year in Australia or something so she didn't think that was worth it. Would be so hard to go back now....

We went for lunch with her to say bye on Wednesday  :'( What an experience though. I went over to the campus restaurant a that's where the others have a meal plan for, and its huge. I lived in a London hall last year called Commonwealth and this place is about 5 times the length of the little food counters we had in there. You have to walk all around first and check out the different stalls/counters/stands/refrigerators just so you don't find something else you want after your plate is full - this ALWAYS happens. Hence the excessiveness of many American eaters. Anyway we were walking around there and they have a whole bunch of pizza's, the end one of which is a caramel'y colour. No, I think, they wouldn't just put a sweet pizza in here casually hanging out would they?!? Lo and behold, yes. Not caramel, but a peanut butter and chocolate pizza. Ah. Only here would they POSSIBLY even think to do this... It looked so gross.

So. of course, we tried it.

It was Olivia's (Australian) 21st birthday yesterday, so we all went to the 'mall' and then out for dinner and a bar in the evening. The mall was amazing. SO big, and very pretty with about 4 fountains along the street of outside shops, leading up to the big indoor center. Thing's were cheap too, however there were mainly shops which are expensive in the first place, (Urban Outfitters, Shoe shops, A&Fitch, etc) so we want to go find some old navy's or something... We went to 'Spanky's' for dinner [[don't ask me what they were thinking when they called it that!]]. Then to a bar. They have all these '18 and over' nights here, which is SO wierd. I feel like such a 15 year old again, everyone being all paranoid about i.d and being questioned about drinking. It's bizarre.

Anyway, off to campus to pick up some stuff and then the gym -- things may be supersized over here but they 'aint gonna supersize me!

xxxxx