Orientation Daze

My "first week" is over, and I can hardly believe how much has happened! I'm really exhausted, but I've got a lot of pings from people wanting an update, so I figured I'd take a few quick moments to upload some stuff. So the week started and we checked in and got our schedules, nametags, tshirts and lists with our stream and group assignments. Here I am showing off my LBS welcome gear in front of the school entrance! cheesy? yes. necessary? maybe?? Anyway, first thing we did was meet our streams, who we will take every single class with in our first year - and our study groups - who we do all of our projects with for our first year. Go C5 (or, C5 is alive!)
Here we are at our first team pub meeting. Clockwise from me - Al (Morocco), Ken (Japan), Onur (Turkey), Berrin (Turkey/Germany), and Chris (UK). Our own little UN! I'm excited to work with them and I think we've got a good plan at least for getting the year started. Anyway, the week was full of orientation type stuff. Meetings to be welcomed over and over again by all the different departments, the student association, etc. One of my favorite things was when they did a home country role call, and would name a country and then we would stand up. There are 315 people in my class. We are from 58 countries! It was really pretty cool. There are about 50 Americans (Our class is 23% North American) . I've met loads of people, and it's just really neat to be standing at the pub having a pint and realize that you're talking to people from 4 different countries. I try to appreciate it whenever it happens. Another favorite thing was the International Citizen Game. We broke into our countries again, and then presented skits to explain some of the things you should know when working with people from other countries. I made a funny about outsourcing for the USA team - here's a pic of me and some of us on stage right after. Anyway, the week really was reminiscent of Mustang Corral for all you SMU peeps checking in on me. Lots of silly bonding stuff, some serious stuff, but mostly about meeting people and having a good time. And lots of pints. Lots. They drink a lot here. Which brings me to Wednesday...Kristen and I scheduled our gym orientation for Wednesday night at 7pm...which meant we were at the pub for an hour beforehand. Smooth move. But we actually did ok. The gym isn't big, and it was a bit crowded then, so we didn't have to actually do anything on the equipment. They did however check our weight, height, BMI and blood pressure...mine was really low. hmm, couldn't be the stupidly strong pint of british beer could it?? Fun times. Ok, and Thursday was the Career Services day, which was a lot of boring stuff considering I already have a job. But it gave me some ideas for internships and meetings I want to attend to learn more about what else is out there. We didn't have any class on Friday, so I had my first appointment at the NHS facility nearest me (free healthcare!) so now if I get sick or injured it's all ok because I'm registered with the system. hooray for healthy hilary. And then Friday night...which was the celebration of making it through orientation, or something, which is just kinda weird because it's not like it was that hard to make it through. But look at the cute ice sculpture! That's Amy with Kristen and I. She my new best British friend. :) This was before the party really got started. Then they opened the bar, and it was free all night. So we had drinks, then dinner and drinks, then we moved into the bar that is actually built into the school, where there was music and dancing and more drinks. Have I mentioned they drink alot here??? Anyway, it was a fantastic time. Here's a group of us outside, I think after dinner because Amy's mouth is open, and apparantly this is something she does in pics when she's been drinking a bit. haha. it still is making me laugh and this is like the 50th time I've laughed about it! (sorry amy, but you crack me up) Ok, so I somehow managed to pull my butt out of bed on Saturday morning at 9:45ish, and JJ, Kristen and I headed out to Finsbury Park where we joined the ALL DAY softball event run by the London chapter of the Texas Exes. It was a good time, but it was 5 hours of softball. That's a lot when your workouts for the past 2 weeks+ have been walking to the grocery store and lifting pints. In case you're wondering, softball looks the same here as it does in the US, but here is proof.

I played pretty well, which was fun, but then I went out again on Saturday night with LBB and some of her friends. And then I pulled myself out of bed and somehow managed to make it to Rugby practice. I don't have any pics of that, but I'm sure they are to come. I had a blast, except for the tired and soreness, but I am really excited to play on the team. The women play touch rugby, which is good. And they travel all around...still gotta figure out what kind of financial commitment that means, but I'm thinking that'll be a fun and active way to see some different places, so it could be a sort of double good thing. Ok, so that brings me to Sunday night, and although I know all of you get Labor Day over there, so technically today was a weekend for you, it wasn't for me. And I'm exhausted and therefore going to go to sleep. More to come next weekend! Hugs and love to all!!!