Part 6: One Month Down

Hey, guys! Writing this blog post about 2 weeks later than I had originally intended to get it out due to quite a bit of stuff managing to occupy my time. It's been an absolute whirlwind of activity mirrored with some incredible laziness on my part.

Settling Down...
Where the first couple of weeks here at Uni (College actually refers to some other, earlier form of schooling here) were mostly filled with fun, bonding, parties and social activities, it's pretty clear to see that everyone's calming down as work builds up. Not to mention the monetary aspects to heading out to the pub/club more than once a week can get quite expensive, especially when combined with transportation costs, club cover charges and the inevitable late night snack purchases.

Uni is more oriented towards individual study rather than excessive lectures multiple times a week and rely heavily on essays/big tests rather than smaller assignments to make up your final grade. Though I do enjoy the "free time" this provides us with here, it also means a ridiculous amount of emphasis is placed on only a few big pieces of work and increases stress quite a bit. In any case, I used some of my free time to make sure and get a couple of early essays out of the way as well as delve into some "Additional Screenings" for a film class that painted such screenings as optional when they in fact... were not...

Gutter Trash on Ice...
After realizing that American Football's intense commitment and pace weren't for me, and having not been good enough to play on the equally serious UEA basketball society's team, it was all down to Ice Hockey as the final sports club I'd check out. Luckily, it's proved to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of my time here at Uni so far. The group of people involved (Captain, Vice Captains, team members etc) are all really great people and provide quite the atmosphere for learning and developing skating. I, accompanied by 1 or 2 flatmates and sometimes the majority of my floor, have been to the rink outside of scheduled practices in order to continue building on the preliminary skills taught to us. Both necessary and enjoyable, these trips help me cover areas where I need more work and let me focus entirely on the task at hand.


The Norsemen are the rec hockey team for the city on which a lot of the UEA club leaders play.

Not only is this good exercise (when I push myself, which I mostly do) but it also kind of clears my mind. When I'm out there practicing, a similar experience to doing some cardio or lifting weights, my mind rests on the task at hand and kind of assuages both the stresses of school and pangs of homesickness I experience every so often (more often some days, especially when I have more free time). It'll be a great day when we finally get scrimmaging and I can apply any development in my skating ability (which is just above dismal) to the game of hockey. Yeh!

Amsterdam bound...
The international student club here at Uni has a pretty great Amsterdam trip planned out for the 10th, including 2 nights in a hostel, travel to and from the country and some promo for nightclubs there. The entire cost is equivalent to 1 roundtrip ticket through KLM, so it was a no brainer to go with the club's travel package rather than shell out more dough for essentially the same thing. Sure, we'll be doing bus and ferry rather than flying, but I guess I can just get more reading done (probably not).

Now that there are a few of us going on the trip, it's time to start researching and getting excited for my first big excursion of the trip. Hell, I've spent a month lying around Norwich which has been nice and overall pretty fun, but there's only so much this city has to offer. It will surely be fun to get out and explore, perhaps inspiring me to get the travel bug and spend less on food/drink in order to travel more. Scotland's not far, for instance. I've never been to Ireland. In any case, I'm sure to snap quite a few photos on the trip since I don't have much for you this time. My camera died right as I was about to take some photos of the latest flat trip out to the ice rink and so you'll just have to sit tight for more soon. Sorry!

Writing...
The city of Norwich and the UEA aren't exactly adjacent in the way that it's roughly a 45 minute walk from the center of campus to the center of town. Though I've never done this walk, I've bused it quite a bit. Venturing into the center provides a much-needed break from the aesthetics and distractions of campus life. Not to say that my flatmates are merely distraction, just that I find I'm more creatively productive when I remove myself from the typical and everyday routine-based environments here on the UEA campus.

I've spent my fair share of walking around the city and seeing all the different little nooks and crannies of the center, trying to get a lay of the land and discover anything tucked away without just googling "best kept secrets" or something. I've discovered the Mm..Food vinyl in a record shop, for instance, and had to purchase it. Getting it home might be tough but whatever, it was a direct result of one of these walkabouts and I'm really glad I took the time to do it.


With these walks has come a kind of rudimentary knowledge of where things are and a sampling of the local cafes. Yes, as stereotypical as it might sound, I have spent quite a few hours writing (whether screenplay or novel) over coffee at a back table in a cafe in the center. Headphones in and instrumental music pulsing (trance, downtempo, mellow hip hop = best for me) let most of the outside world be blocked out and focus turns instead to the creative task at hand. On top of this, my new favorite cafe located in the same building as the library has some kind of wireless network that doesn't gel with my laptop's Airport and so I don't have the added distraction of the net which is one of the most seductive and time consuming things ever. EVER. Plus, I can pop over to the library and have a browse once I'm feeling brain-drained. We'll see if this results in good work or not, but for my sake, let's all just cross our fingers that it's some nice fiction.


The Forum building, home to the library and cafe.

Until next time, my friends, I'll try and do loads of exciting stuff to make sure every post is a better read. Always improving (except when I'm feeling lazy, like most days)!

Part 5: School...?

School...?
I suppose that, being part of a study abroad program, the time would come where I would actually... you know... study. Yet it seemed like I was still on vacation as I spent time in lecture halls listening to my instructors and screening films. Sure, I've been keeping up with the readings that are just as needlessly wordy as back in the states, and starting some outlining for the big essays I'll have due before I fly home in December, yet there's almost a subconscious refusal of a school year mentality when I'm so far away from the U of O.

All the same, I think it's high time I slow it all down and get some writing done. Going out most nights has been a blast, and a great way to bond with the flatmates, but I don't want to burn out on the fun or spend all my damn money so I better cool it. Just think of all the fun that I can studying Media Practices and writing thousands of words about it! Doesn't sound interesting? It.. isn't so far.

Birthdays...
These Freshers are young! One of the girls in my hall turned 20 on Thursday and so we all planned to head down to the Norwich city center to celebrate with an evening of yelling at one another to be heard over loud music followed by dancing. We settled on a club called Lola Lo's all tropical themed and dark. I couldn't decide if it the bamboo and tribal wallpaper was ultra tacky or awesome, but the lights were low and the music was good enough to have me on board. Imagine a restaurant at Disneyland by the Swiss Family Robinson mockup, entering a pair of glass doors and walking over a short wooden bridge into a nighttime jungle theme peppered with blacklight and a kind of sweet aroma emanating from the bar (also done in bamboo). It wasn't terribly busy at first, and we managed to get in without much of a wait (always a bonus) but soon filled up with various societies from the UEA having their social night out. We were shortly joined by the rest of our flat and some friends from Constable Terrace also arrived later in the evening to complete the set.

Nothing like hearing Get On The Good Foot to get me smiling and wiggling around at the table before hitting the dance floor. The DJ threw on a smattering of different genres, peppering a few big electronica anthems in between old school hip-hop, indie rock, Journey, Maroon 5 and more. It's obviously more fun when you know the words, and even better when no one can hear you belt them out thanks to the volume. Probably coming out of my shell a little bit and adjusting more to the club atmosphere after being severely deprived for years back home.

I think the most important part of the whole evening is that everyone seemed to have a good time, no one was too drunk or upset, and the taxi ride back provided enough cooldown time to return to the flat a little more subdued and ready to see if I couldn't skype with my girlfriend before heading off to dreamland.

Travel...
Finishing Week 2 marks the second time that I haven't done anything aside from kick back and relax on my weekends. Those of the Americans I've met who're here for an entire year have the right idea in taking it slow, working on school and saving their money for bigger trips. However, I don't have the luxury to bide my time and head off to Spain during winter break. Instead, I need to plan out all of my weekend trips so that I can achieve at least some of them before it's time to head back to Oregon. A rough idea would be:

Week 3 - Cambridge
Week 4 - The coast? The weather's rapidly getting worse but I can't just ignore how close the ocean is
Week 5 - Amsterdam ? Supposedly everyone studying abroad pays a visit to the Netherlands, I don't want to be left out!
Week 6 - Edinburgh? Will I run out of money after this?

There's also a Norwich City premier league game on the 29th that I'd absolutely love to go to and get my support on with loads of dedicated fans. The team supposedly has one of the most loyal crowds this side of London that have supported the club rain or shine. A friendly taxi driver described the atmosphere to me on the ride back from grocery shopping with the flatmates and it sounds pretty ideal.

In the meantime, I think it's time for some movie watching, novel writing, schoolwork completing (lower on the list? Don't tell!), and fun in the rain here in Norwich. Next post I'll discuss the quiet night in that ended in nudity (not me, of course) and how I learned to ice skate! See you sooner rather than later.

Part 4: Enter Norwich

Long time no post, guys! The train from London to Norwich provided a nice little view at some English countryside and some of the smaller towns in between that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. The sun was out in full force and the train moved quickly. After finally managing to finish the first chapter of a novel I've been trying desperately to write, I put the laptop away and resumed reading a Dean Koontz novel I was close to finishing before the train pulled in.

First Arrivals...
I knew only very vaguely the route I was supposed to take to the hotel, so I picked the direction Google Maps told me was right and luckily managed to find it after a bit of an uphill walk. The Lansdowne Hotel sat in between an office building and another hotel on a 2 lane street up a hill from the train station. It looked like an old-style house that had been fitted with loads of extra rooms and this is precisely how it felt. The old carpet, narrow winding staircase leading to upper levels, and even the old women (I'm pretty sure it was run solely by old women) at the counter gave it an old-style homey feel. Their elevator was terrifying slow and came to a halt with a big lurch that put me on edge as I opened the door to my room.

The City...
Finally, a Queen bed, desk, tiny television and my own bathroom. I shaved, showered, and just had a nice little rest session spreading my arms and legs out over the sides of the bed. Feeling the space. Awesome. I dumped the suitcase and most of my backpack's contents and returned down the hill to the train station. Continuing on, I soon arrived at a beautiful bridge arching over a narrow river with boats moored along one edge. There was even a floating Thai restaurant which I really want to try. It a little like Kyoto did last summer, my hostel that time being across the river from the town center as well. This bridge led on to Prince of Whales street (or road, who knows) that was lined with restaurants and night clubs (loads of them) and then went up a hill towards a castle rested atop a grassy incline. I walked in no particular hurry, staring at all the buildings and trying to absorb how different this place was from the frenetic pace and energy of London. It's certainly a different vibe here.

There are two shopping malls mere blocks from one another here in Norwich City Centre. The Castle Mall, located directly by the castle, is a little less interesting, featuring decent stores but not on the level of Chapelfield which has the convenience of being right by the bus stop for the Centre. I explored both, along with the pedestrian side-streets between each. The city retains a kind of small-town feel while being about the size of Eugene, though the centre here is much more contained and centralized than our downtown and biggest shopping areas back home. It manages to be both a pleasantly local experience with small businesses and eateries while simultaneously providing all the essential big names in case you're looking to buy the latest Blu Ray or get some fashionable threads.

The UEA is farther out of the centre, looking like they just chopped down a bunch of the forest encroaching on the city and placed a concrete university in its place. The aesthetic is rather 1970s prison, much of the buildings hideous grey boxes that make me yearn for the old-style buildings and Lillis complex of the U of O just to get some kind of visual pleasure. The dorms (I live in Suffolk Terrace C Block) are concrete ziggarauts that fit the style on one side, and make grand windowed pyramids on the other. My room, a single with sink, looks out on a massive grass field leading up to a lake ringed by trees along its border. There isn't really a beach perse and there's no swimming allowed, but at least the UEA provides benches along the edge for some nice sitting-and-reading time.

New Home...
Moving into the hall was a bit eerie; being the first one in a hall built to house 15 people gave me a kind of isolated sentiment that only waned when the first of my flatmates arrived. I occupied myself with a healthy helping of video games, reading, writing, and taking care of a few administrative things ahead of the designated International Student Orientation just to be ahead of the game. I again went into town and explored the Centre more, coming upon the City Library which is absolutely fantastic and the BBC office/building that is currently hosting a Music Video Festival in a viewing room stocked with cushy seats and beanbag chairs. They were even playing a video to one of Onra's amazing productions and I found the room by following the familiar music.

As all the students began to arrive and move in, my hall remained pretty empty. I and one other roomie are the only internationals on our floor, and so we would not be receiving any more neighbors until the weekend. I continued the routine of using a consistent and fast internet connection to catch up on my email and skype sessions looking forward to getting to know everyone arriving in a day. Finally, the excitement of starting a new experience replaced any kind of homesickness I felt (although I don't imagine I'll ever stop missing certain people). When the day came that most of my flat moved in, campus was bustling with activity and there were so many new people to meet. I'm pretty terrible with names, so it took me a few tries to remember everyone that now are my core friendgroup here at the University. Their ages vary between 19-20, and most of them would be Sophomore's in the States aside from the odd Freshman. It took me a while before I realized this fact and, when I finally did, it became a bit weird for a few hours relating to these younger people not far from my sister's age. Suppose I never considered my family in the same light, but I think it's finally time to recognize her as an equal as I do my neighbors.

They're an energetic, fun group to hang around with. As Fresher's Week kicked off (A Freshman orientation equivalent, but way better), every night had an awesome musical event and socials designed to acclimate the new students to their surroundings. I didn't have tickets to a lot of it, but neither did at least a handful of my new neighbors and so there was always somebody to hang out with in the evening. These guys, with very little in the way of lectures in their first week, have no homework to worry about and so have had some kind of social drinking function every night to attend to, and I've tagged along most times to have a laugh and get to know everyone. Though it's only been a week, I'm pretty sure everyone gets along well and has formed a kind of initial bond.

Societies and Sports...
Part of our first week featured a Societies (clubs) fair and the following day Sports. The LCR (EMU equivalent, student union) was filled with tables housing different clubs and sports that students could pay a fee to join for the year. Of course, being here only 3 months meant that some of the prices were a bit high (Basketball cost me 35 pounds, a decision I might regret here in a minute) but still worth it for the social aspects. I joined the Film Society and Creative Writing club, and the following day signed up for American Football, Ice Hockey, and Basketball.

Saturday was the day we had our first Rookie Day with the American Football club. It was scorching hot and I downed my 1 litre waterbottle almost instantly. They ran us through drills for 3 hours and at about the halfway point I started to feel a combination of light-headedness, a strong urge to vomit, and my heart kind of hurt every time I took a breath. Having never experienced this, I checked myself out and sat in the shade. Initially, I thought I'd take a few minutes to cool off and get back out there, but I didn't feel straight even at the very end. This put me off the experience and I realized that, though the people involved in the club are really great, it's too serious for me. I want to casually play some sports in between classes and homework, have a fun time, and then go home. These guys really love the game, and I appreciate their determination.

Today is basketball, and I'm hoping there's more of a recreational option to the club rather than trying out for the team. I'm really dying to get into Ice Hockey and see what it's like so I'll certainly write in about that in my next post provided they actually hold a session.

Classes...
I started the week off with 2 of my 3 classes having lectures. Unfortunately, I had to swap out of my favorite one due to a requirement issue and needing to fulfill Film Major stuff back at Oregon and so it has been replaced with a more generic Film Theory class that might be entertaining.

I remain the only male student in my Women and British Cinema class and I got some surprised glances from some of the girls in class when I hustled into the screening a bit late after having a fiasco with the bus back from the grocer's. My other class doesn't have a session here until Week 2 so I'm a bit unsure how it'll be. Still, exciting, interesting stuff that coupled with societies and sport should keep me damn well occupied.

Until next time, there's a bit of an update from me. Photos:


Dorm Room 1

Dorm room, my sink

Outside the...

Castle

Old Wall

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