The Ice Palace of Temptation

I've just been to Tesco in Egham to get essential stuff like a whisk so I can make pancakes. Whilst I was there I went into Iceland to see what was on offer. I had forgotten what a magical place it was! 2 Pizzas for £1.50, Ready-Meals £1 each, 6 fish fillets for the price of 6! I'll soon become fat from all this frozen goodness.

Stand in line and empty your wallet at the door!

So, this being freshers week, I went along to the Freshers Fayre today. I've decided I'm going to be far more involved with societies than I have been before. Plus, I don't know many people here so I need to try and make as many friends as possible.
This year I've joined: the French Society (£5), the Photography Society (£5), Ninjitsu (£7 with the first training session being free) and I'm going to sign up to Karate (£7 possibly with a free first session). On top of that everyone who wants to join a society has to buy sports insurance (£6), plus I also got some room contents insurance (£79) which is cheap until you factor in insuring a laptop.
I also signed up for the Milkround which is a free service which sends details of carreer and internship opportunities, and some Entrepreneur thing (I couldn't really hear as we were right next to a speaker in the uni hall but it was free). I'm probably going to take a look at joining the Tech crew at the union if I've got any time. They do the sound and lighting for union events and, as well as being interesting, it's also paid!
I didn't do too bad for freebies either. There was someone from The Happy Man (a local pub) giving out vouchers for a free drink, I got some cinema vouchers, a notebook, some Haribo, and some condoms which inevitably get thrown out at student events such as these.

Level Up

I've just been to the language department "Welcome Party". It was mainly attended by final years and it seems that, now that we're back from our year abroad, we qualify for the next level in small talk.
No longer are the first questions someone asks us, "Where are you from?", "What are you studying?" or "Where are you living?", but rather "Where have you been?" and "What did you do?". I could read this as the establishment of a whole new pecking order of who had the most successful year, who went to the most exotic destination, who got the best results and who had the most rewarding experience........but then again, it could be just another topic of small talk.

The Forgotten Student

Computer Science is a normal degree course. French is a normal degree course. Computer Science with French is not a normal degree course and as such everyone seems to forget about me (I'm talking about admin people here). No-one seems to know about my course and so I end up telling the admin people things they should already know. I went to hand a form in at the French office and was told that I wouldn't have to do the oral exam as, now that I've changed to Computer Science with French the year abroad doesn't count. Erm, wrong. I showed the lady the piece of paper from Comp. Sci. describing the courses which clearly states that I have a year abraod between my second and final years which is organised by the French department.
Ah well, it'll all get sorted eventually.

Back at Uni! Huzzah!!!

Finally, university has started! I moved back up on Sunday with everything packed into my Beetle. The car made it without any problems and, unlike when we'd packed it for a car boot sale earlier in the summer, I could see out of the windows this time (which does help when you're going along the M25).
I'm staying in Gowar, one of the new halls, this year. Rooms are arranged in flats of 8 ensuite bedrooms with a shared kitchen and mine is at the end next to the kitchen. Considering the halls are 2 years old I expected them to show at least a little sign of having been lived in but they are almost pristine. I say almost because my sink has a crack in it where the building is still settling and things in corners keep breaking but that is being replaced.
It hasn't taken long for things to begin to feel normal again. For instance last night (my second night here) we had our first fire alarm go off due to someone spending too long in the shower with the door open, or having a candle in their room, or something along those lines. As usual it was at midnight but it's the little things like being woken up in the middle of the night by a loud, high pitched noise that make things feel familiar.
I don't have much on this week as it's fresher's week which is basically just a week to spend queueing and doing admin stuff. As I'm doing a weird course combination (Computer Science with French) things aren't straightforward for me. For example, my college card expired at the end of June so I have to get a new one. I also have to get a new NUS card (as we do each year) but can't get that until I've got my college card....which they aren't issuing until next week. Oh, and I didn't receive the email about the French oral exam which was sent a month ago and so I only found out the details by chance last week when I asked a friend.
Still, I didn't get eaten alive when I went to hand in a form at the Computer Science office. It's often hit and miss as there are 2 secretaries and only one of them seems to be nice at any one time....and it's not always the same one.
I've got my timetable and have 8 or 9 hours of lectures per week (plus a meeting with my project advisor) and I have Mondays and most Wednesdays off so there's plenty of time to drink study.
Tomorrow I'm going to work on preparing for this oral exam and then there's the Fresher's Fayre to battle through on Thursday/Friday and my exam on Friday.

A wonderful time at Blackgang Chine

I'd forgotten how much fun it could be to act like a kid.
On Sunday I went to the Isle of Wight with a couple of friends. We went to Blackgang Chine for the day to celebrate the birthday of one of them (which was on Monday). Blackgang Chine can, loosely, be described as a Theme Park - it is a park, with attractions, different "lands", and even a rollercoaster. However, if you take a look at the website, you will notice that it doesn't quite match Alton Towers for thrills. We made the most of what was there and had a great time acting like children. The "Funny Mirrors" are indeed very funny and are an excellent way to enter the park (ok, perhaps a hint of sarcasm there).
The rollercoaster there gives some hope of including a thrill in the day, however I'm afraid in this case it's important to emphasise the "coast" in rollercoaster (for 2 reasons in fact - it's slow AND it's next to the coast!). Indeed, the bus journey was more sickening than the rollercoaster. It took 2 different bus rides to get from Ryde to the Park (which is on the south of the island) and we decided to sit on the top deck of the double decker bus. I should point out that this was a bit of a novelty as we don't use buses often (sad I know). It was only during the journey that we realised just how hilly the Isle of Wight is.
Although definitely for the child in you, if you do ever take a trip to Blackgang Chine, I can particularly recommend the "Funny Mirrors", the rollercoaster, the knobbly dinosaurs and of course I mustn't forget the gnomes!

Congratulations!

Unfortunately, due to my "no-names" policy with this blog, this post isn't going to be very good to anyone other than my friends from home. But anyway....

Congratulations to my two good friends who got married last Saturday. I wish them both every success and hope they will be very happy together.

With them getting hitched and other friends getting jobs etc having graduated this summer, I'm beginning to feel a little left behind. Still, I'm really looking forward to getting back to uni.

Big City Life

I went to visit some friends this weekend up in London. I've decided I'm going to be living there once I've finished uni.
I went up on Friday afternoon to meet a couple of good friends I lived with in my second year of uni. They have a 2 bedroom flat in Clapham North and are about 5 minutes walk from Brixton undergraound station. Despite its reputation, what I saw of Brixton high street seemed really nice. Ok, we only got as far as the high-street but the whole area seemed clean, calm and well policed (OK, so seeing 2 groups of about 7 policemen walk past may be a sign but even so....) We spent the evening catching up and the following day we went into London.
It really made me think about when I was in Paris and how much I loved being so close to the city. My friends' flat is in an ideal location being in the (slightly) cheaper part, south of the river, just outside central London.
Saturday evening was the other reason I was up in London. A friend of mine from home/college was having his Stag night! We went for a meal and a few drinks and had a really good time. I don't think we got him drunk enough though as he was the first to wake up the next day.

As I said earlier, I'm definitely going to move into London after my degree. The friends I stayed with suggested about me moving in with them next year which would be great if they're still up for it.
I can't wait to get back to uni. It feels a bit like life is moving on without me but I want to catch up so I can move on too. Whereas I had thought I would probably move back home after uni and find a job here (as I quite like it in the south), I'm beginning to see that there's not really going to be much to come back to. My old friends will have jobs and may have moved away and most of my friends I've made at uni or in France will be scattered too. We're moving house soon so it's not like I'll have that to keep me here.