An American Girl in London: New Country, New Germs!

I have now been sick twice within the past three weeks.

I'm pretty used to catching a cold when I come to London (most likely from the flight over) but as soon as I got over that initial sickness, BAM! Sick again!

So as I drown myself in tea and vitamin C, I will attempt another blog post.

Now, because of my being sick a couple of times now, I really haven't done much that was incredibly interesting or exciting (other than possibly watching all five seasons of "Breaking Bad" in a week.) but there has been some new developments in terms of what I've been up to.

First off, I am officially a student again. Registered and given an ID (and a CSSD tote bag!). We were all filed into the main foyer of Central School of Speech and Drama and told to hang out for a bit until someone would inevitably bring us upstairs to begin the registration process. Strange as it may be as well, my fellow writers and I managed to all end up in the same spot. The first of my cohort that I met was a young woman from Australia, who is also an actor and wants to write her own shows and stuff (much like I would like to try and do). Of us all, there are three Americans (including myself), one Canadian, one Italian, one Chilean, and one woman from Hong Kong (the rest of us hail from around the UK).
Friday was the International Student orientation/welcome, which was basically to tell us what was in the info packet again and sometimes expand. Afterwards was what is known as the "Fresher's Fayre". A bunch of tables from people around the school and community getting people to sign up for things with the very subtle placement of a bouncy castle. I got a free tote bag (always my favorite thing to get) and a free water bottle! WooHoo! Plus I was able to sign up for a library card and get access to Senate House Library, so I guess that's good.

After we sweated out standing in the queue for probably a good 20-30 minutes to get a library card (we're so cool!) we ventured down to the pub with our cohort and grabbed a pint and shared some stories (well, I grabbed a pint (cider) and so did I think one other person, the others got Coke or a half pint, what's up with that?). Everyone in the program seems incredibly nice and insanely intelligent. In fact it made me a little intimidated (I'm sorry but I can't tell you one thing about Dostoyevsky-- well maybe that he's Russian and depressing, but then again those two go hand in hand). However, on Monday, after our third orientation (this time Post-Grads only) we grabbed another pint and I was able to sound somewhat intelligent when I had to go into detail about The Great Gatsby and F.Scott Fitzgerald. So to summarize, don't talk to me about scary, depressing, Russian writers, but I can hold my own when we talk about depressing, American writers who love and use imagery to a dizzying extent.

Back to the third orientation. I managed to find the rest of the writers (we tend to gravitate to one another it seems) and we were greeted by who we later found out was the Principal (he didn't introduce himself). A very Dickensian looking gentleman-- bow-tie and grey, three piece suit-- so you knew he was a higher up in the system. He told us what a big deal it is to be attending school here, but he wasn't stuffy about it. Instead every single staff and faculty member I have observed throughout the myriad of orientations we've had, everyone seems so pleasant and pretty down to earth, which seems strange for such an impressive institution. Of course my first impressions could be wrong, though I hope not. They then introduced a group of Alumni who divided us into groups where we had to go over a list of things and make basically averages of the people in the group's answers, then make a minute-and-a-half skit that covered it all. I was unimpressed by the whole thing, and apparently wasn't the only one, the rest of the writers thought the same thing. C'est la vie.

Eventually that night we made our way back to Central where in the Student Bar (yes, there is a bar downstairs) there as a DJ and quite the situation happening. Honestly none of us thought that is what we'd find. So we danced a little and drank some more (I had one pint of cider which ended up being £5!) until a few of us decided it was time to call it a night. I was one of those. After a rather loud sing-along with "Rolling in the Deep" (c'mon, you really didn't think I would sing that at the top of my lungs, did you?) I decided it would be best for me and my cold to head on back to my flat.

The next morning I was elated to find a package had been delivered! The first of many of my things from home to come my way in fact. This one containing, posters, photographs, my favorite tea, teapot, clothes, my red pea coat (since I left my other one only my plane), and probably best of all, my mom's homemade Marionberry Jam. So I spent yesterday making my flat finally look like home.

So without further ado, here is my flat.