Saturday 13 August 2011

Ponderings and presumptions

I feel that this entry is going to be filled with a lot of presumptions on my part. As the time gets closer to leave and more bits of the year abroad puzzle fall into place, I am starting to build up an image of what I think it will be like- from the location (though i'm hardly presuming on this one as opposed to just looking on google earth, wahey for modern technology!) to professors. There is one professor of a course on the representation of minorities, who shall remain anonymous, but whose picture screamed LESBIAN. I'm doing a Miranda's mum style accent on purpose here because this women is not in hearing or reading distance;) Not that there is anything wrong with this at all but it was so obvious that it had to be commented on!

So with only a month to go I suppose some progress has been made towards my departure:
I have now enrolled in all my courses and have a timetable waiting for me when I arrive...unfortunately it comprises of many more hours than I am used to. Pray tell how I will make it up for an 8am literature seminar or 'discussions' as they are called. Is this term meant to make them sound less formal? I have an image in my head of a slightly eccentric older man with longish hair, retro glasses and possibly sporting some kind of knitted cardigan with an Elvis t-shirt on underneath. He is reminiscing about the good ol' days of the 60s where he spent the majority of that decade high, reading the works of the Beats. It is a literature module focused on San Francisco so I don't think I could be far wrong!

Got my accommodation all sorted; Apartment block 4, room 210 in Cowell College. My roommates name is Molly and though I have yet to have any kind of conversation with her, there is nothing too frightening of intimidating about the name! Another presumption but at the moment this is all I have to cling to. The idea of sharing a bedroom with someone, got to admit, freaks me out. I'm sure it will be fine but having never shared a room with any siblings or anything (besides on holidays) makes it daunting. There are times when you just like being by yourself...maybe we could get a screen or something! The uni is also specific enough to say that you can put posters and pictures up but that they can only cover 1/3 of the wall! Is someone honestly going to come in and measure? I highly doubt it. I'm putting up as many photos as possible to make up for the sheer lack of them in our second year house and also because I won't be seeing the people in these photos for a while!

Monday is the day where I shall be jabbed and prodded with needles as the Hepatitis A and B vaccine is administered so I can complete my UCSC Health Centre (sorry centER) forms. Fun times. Nah, I don't mind injections that much. What makes it annoying is that you feel like you've been punched in the arm for a while and for what? I'm going to California, not some exotic jungle somewhere. My sister informs me that you contract Hepatitis B through contaminated blood and A through faeces in food....these are things that I do not foresee myself doing but I guess you never know! Again, i'm presuming that I won't be doing these things.

The banking issue is also something that is annoying. To transfer any amount of money to an account overseas costs! Did you know this? I sure didn't. So to open a bank account over there and then transfer money into it from my UK accounts is going to cost me money! What?! I haven't even spent the money on anything! I have just paid to see some figures (because lets face it, we all wish we had vaults with piles of cash like in Gringotts but alas we do not) residing in another bank. Just so you know, i do not presume the people to work at the bank on campus to look like goblins. Though this would be magical.

Enough musings for one night I think.