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