Class (part 2) and Brighton

Today I had two more lectures -- AI programming and French art history.

The AI course is looking disappointing... it's going to be a bit dull. I wish I was taking the Web Services course I had picked out from the beginning. Art history, though, will be interesting. The professor actually has a few books written in French on the reading lists. He says we should at least look at the pictures, but maybe I'll make some attempt at reading (I also met two French guys today, and listening to them made me want to remember all the stuff I forgot from high school...)

And most importantly... I'm going to Brighton! It's a smallish seaside town in south England. I'll be there Thursday until Sunday, enjoying my lack of class. We decided to hit a coastal town before it got any colder -- today was blustery and rainy and pretty chilly, and it's not going to get any warmer until long after I'm back in the US

Other ideas for tentative future weekend travel plans include Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, London, and pretty much wherever the cheapest rail tickets can take us

I've Got Class

So, with a bit of luck, I'll have my schedule cemented tomorrow. If it goes as planned, this will be my class schedule:

Monday
10-1 film history (with a movie screening)
1-2:20 intro to Shakespeare
4-5 film history seminar
Tuesday
1-2 Artificial Intelligence Programming
3-5 French Art: from the Renaissance to Louis XIV
Wednesday
12-1 Artificial Intelligence Programming

You may notice something not on this schedule... Thursday and Friday. By some herculean effort, I managed to make the course offerings bend to my will. It didn't work 100%, because Internet and Web Services couldn't work out, but I'll accept that if it equals a four-day weekend

I had film history and Shakespeare today -- the film professor seems knowledgeable and interesting, and the Shakespeare professor is an amazingly funny Scottish man. If my other classes go as well, this is going to be an excellent semester

Fresher's Week, Part 2

Last night (Sunday) was the end of Fresher's Week and today was the first day of class. Fresher's Week was a pretty intense experience -- or it would have been, if I had partied like the freshmen. Some kids went out every night for the entire week, but I didn't attempt anything remotely like that. Evenings were spent mostly hanging around dorms or the student union bar. I did go to the final party yesterday, at Rock City (Nottingham's main music venue), but it was a bit of a letdown. The band on the main stage was rather disappointing, and the other bands in other rooms were pretty mediocre. I'm glad I went, just for the experience and all, but it was a bit silly.

And another side note -- the British love their chanting and yelling. The entire (15-ish minute) bus ride to Rock City was spent loudly proclaiming the superiority of Rutland Hall above all other dorms, with chants that had varying degrees of inappropriateness. This, too, was hilarious.

Potatoes

I just want to mention... I've been in my hall for over a week, and we've had potatoes prepared a different way EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I don't mind, because there are always other options, but I've never seen so many ways of cooking potatoes.

Tonight we had little fried things that looked like mozzarella sticks (which got my hopes up), but no! They were potatoes!

The English show their creativity in odd ways.

The Interwebs

A side note about the networking here, because I'm constantly comparing it to William and Mary...

Wireless is only available in some common areas. It bleeds into my room, but only because I'm right by a lounge. The wired connection works, mostly, though every couple minutes I try to load a page and get a proxy error. It works if I refresh, typically. Another weird bit (and if you have any ideas about this one, I'd like to hear them) is that the updates for both Ubuntu and Vista refuse to download. It tells me I need to update, it tries to start the download, but it never gets anywhere. I haven't messed with it a lot yet, but it seems like something is blocked. I emailed their IT about it, but they take at least a couple days to reply to a simple email

The best thing I've found is that we can get TV over the network (only in Windows, of course). It works pretty well, so I'm pleased with that

We also have room phones, but I don't think anyone has figured out how to use them yet

And finally, I won't even go into the horribly indecipherable mess that is the Nottingham website

Fresher's Week, Part 1

This week is the welcome week for all new freshmen at the university, plus all exchange students. Coming into this from the international orientation, I was already exhausted. On Sunday, all the British students began to arrive. The schedule for the week typically involved some sort of day trip, then going to some club at night. I ended up on a hall with several other Americans, and we were all rather disinterested in the copious amounts of clubbing. There has been some sort of party every night, starting Monday and continuing until Sunday's grand finale. So far, there have been three nights of clubbing, and I have yet to attend any of them.

I think I'll go sooner or later, just to have the experience, but I'm in no hurry. It's weird being surrounded by little freshmen, mostly 17 and 18-year-olds, who have left home for the first time. They're going a bit overboard with the partying, and us exchange students are mostly just waiting for it to calm down a bit.

Tonight there are two events going on. One's a bit early in the evening - a big band is performing movie/tv themes and classic music on campus, within walking distance. The other event is yet another club. I'll probably be going to the first one and not the second...

Another frustrating bit has been the day trips. Tuesday they went to the Cadbury World (yes, the chocolate company), and Wednesday they went to Sherwood forest. I wanted to do both of these things, but this was when I had to register for classes. A bunch of us will probably end up doing this stuff later on our own, but it seems like poor organizing on the part of the fresher's week people.

The other big part of the week is Fresher's Fayre -- where all the student societies show off. I signed up for a film society and a traveling society -- there's a film showing every week, and the traveling society takes a bus to somewhere different in England every other week. I'm pretty excited about meeting people in these societies who are closer to my age... not little freshmen

Class Registration: navigating the campus and nottingham.ac.uk

So I just finished course registration, which was an adventure. I even managed to completely screw it up (I'll get to that in a moment)

Back in the spring, there was a listing of courses for this semester. Come summer time, they totally changed that list, so many of the courses I'd looked at previously changed or became unavailable. Then, a few weeks ago, they finally put the timetables online so I could find out when the courses were held. Of course, all my new picks overlapped, and I had to change everything again. (Let me note that you have to coordinate information on two totally separate websites before you can begin to figure any of this out.)

I sorted it, though, and registered over the past two days. Registration does not happen online... you have to visit each department individually if you want to take a class their, during a specific time slot. Many of the time slots overlapped, though thankfully none of the ones I wanted had that problem. I showed up an hour early for each one, because several of the departments eventually had extremely long queues.

On Tuesday, for my film history course, I went to the American and Canadian studies department. The guy there was completely misinformed, but after about a half an hour of discussion we eventually got to sign up for class. Then I signed up for an art history course -- Italian Art in the age of Caravaggio and Bernini. On Wednesday, I showed up at the English department at 8am so I could be queued up for the 9am registration (I was fourth in a line of at least 50). I signed up for an Intro to Shakespeare course. Finally, I took the bus over to the Jubilee campus, and signed up for Internet and Web Services with the CS department.

After all that, I sat down and looked at what I had. Some courses offered multiple time slots for their seminars, so I navigated the website to pick which seminar I wanted. I made a discovery -- I essentially misread one of the numeric codes for my CS course. Instead of a lecture with my choice of one of two seminars, it was two lectures and a seminar (no choices). The second mandatory lecture overlapped with my film studies course. So I have to rearrange things

I don't really have that many other CS options; basically, I can switch to Artificial Intelligence Programming, or I can take no CS at all. I don't really care for that AI course, but I really can't afford to drop the film studies course, because it was pre-approved for transfer credit. Plus, if I switch to the AI CS course, I have to change my art history course as well

Everything is super complex and easy to misread... and I'm not even sure if there will be openings in the courses for me to switch into... I may just be screwed. I'm going to try and sort it out tomorrow (Friday) morning, which will be fun.

I really can't believe that course registration isn't online - even all the international exchange students from other countries say this is unusual. It's painful.

Pictures! (#1)

University Park Campus

Nottingham City Centre

Highfields Park

Jubilee Campus

Wollaton Park

International Student Orientation

Today is the final day of international student orientation. I'm in the process of moving into my permanent room (I have to hang out and wait for them to clean it before I can actually move in, so I'm in a lounge). I'll mention that I sorted almost all my problems from before -- I got the power back in my room, got my laptop charged up, etc. Now I just need access to a phone, and I'll be set.

We had a busy few days, with lots of events around Nottingham. I toured the nearby Jubilee campus, where the Computer Science building is located. I took the bus into the city with friends, which is about a 15 minute ride. We visited Nottingham castle and the museum/art gallery inside. Outside the castle, there is a statue of Robin Hood -- we took pictures with it. Then we went to the Old Market Square and the Broadmarsh shopping center. Other events include watching Ocean's 11, touring Beeston (the closest town and shopping area), visiting the student union pub, walking through the two parks that flank the sides of the main campus, and attending assorted meetings.

Busy... and now we have another week, "fresher's week," the normal orientation for all new students. Eventually class starts or something... I'm not really sure

The Temporary Dorm Room

So, from Tuesday until Saturday, we have International Student Orientation. All the local students do not arrive until Sunday, so we have time to settle in and adjust. However, for these days, we are temporarily located all together, in a dorm that is different than the one I will have for the fall semester. It's been... interesting

The room itself isn't bad. It's a single with a hall bathroom, with a desk, fridge, sink, wardrobe, and some shelving in the room. It's a bit cramped because I can't really unpack (since I'm moving again Saturday). All was well until I tried to use some of my American electronics. The adapter I brought with me to plug into English electrical sockets didn't seem to work, which wasn't too big of a deal. I went to the student store, and bought a new one relatively cheaply. Last night, I plugged it into the wall, and then plugged my laptop's power cord into it. The outlet had to be turned on with a switch, so I flipped it. I promptly lost my lights and all the power in my room. I have no idea why. The fuse switch was in the room, and I flipped it back and forth multiple times, with no success. As of leaving my room for breakfast this morning, I still do not have power. I talked to one of the orientation aides, who said she would tell the building's porter about it, so hopefully they'll get my power working again. I don't know what to do about the adapter.

Then, using some of my laptop's remaining battery life, I lit up the room enough so that I could try to call home with the room phone, only to find out it had no dial tone. I tried dialing anyways, and nope, it's no good.

Finally, I've been trying for multiple days to get my computer hooked up to the network, and along with everyone else in the building, it doesn't work. We connect, we get an IP, it tries to redirect you to a Nottingham page, and then gives you a 'no page found.'

I'll be happy to move to my permanent room and get this all sorted out. I've been taking pictures around the school and from my excursion yesterday into town, but I can't really do anything with them until I have my laptop working.

Don't get me wrong -- the school is pretty amazing. The dorm situation, at the moment, is just a bit frustrating. I'm sure it will work out in the end.

The Story So Far

After two hours driving, two more in BWI, seven on the plane, one in Heathrow, and a three-hour bus ride, I've finally made it to Nottingham. Cloudy, chilly, and utterly English -- it's all very exciting. I'm with over a thousand total foreign students (most are just freshmen, with exchange students as the minority). Besides being totally exhausted, everything is going well! It's almost time to meet up for dinner here, so I'll keep this short. Hopefully once I get my computer set up, there will be pictures to follow

Preparations

In eleven days, I take off from Baltimore and make my way to the right side of the Atlantic. I've been organizing my paperwork, arguing with the William and Mary financial offices, pronouncing words like "vitamins" funny, and mostly wondering how on earth I'm going to get my stuff into two suitcases. I figure there are at least two people who may want to know what I'm up to while I'm gone (...hi, mom and dad), so I'll post anecdotes of pub brawls, getting tattoos, being deported, exterminating Daleks, et cetera.

But regardless, I'll try and let people know what I'm up to every once in awhile, and hopefully put up some pictures now and then. Comments are appreciated, so I know that at least somebody is looking at this...

With luck, the next time I post something, I'll be in England. Thanks for reading, and I'll see everyone in January!