Through the Looking Glass

Guess what! It's different over here. I was prepared for the big things, such as looking the other way for cars, not understanding people, and how expensive things are (ok maybe I wasn't really prepared for exactly how REALLY FREAKING EXPENSIVE everything is), but I wasn't prepared for the small things (like that computer science students here have no idea how to use linux!!!!1), which I won't list right now because that's what this post will cover.

First, there are nagging bothers. These are the things that are just odd, but don't really matter. Everything is a bit smaller. They leave their garbage in bags outside rather than in bins (which I assume is because they just love small creatures so much).Their sinks don't combine the water in one spout, so you either wash your hands with scalding water or ice water (this I assume is because they don't want their children to be weak). I know they have the technology for this, since the shower is nice. Toilets use probably 3 times as much water as in the states. Urinals don't have a flush button, they just do it automatically every so often. Oh my, it's terribly wasteful. Their streets are labeled with a sign about a foot off the ground on a wall if you're lucky enough that they are labeled. If you're really lucky they're on the side of a building about 10 feet up. It's ok though, because I have GPS. It was terrible when I didn't, though.

Then there are things that are slightly better. The city is pretty clean for a city, which is probably a result of litter fines and a response to unemployment (paying people to pick it up). The toilets are in a pretty nice condition, since there are less and they are less accessible I guess. Fries are really freaking amazing. They're also much worse for you. The cheese is brilliant. I got the cheapest cheddar I could find... best cheddar of my life. I am probably eating far too much of it. Imagine if I bought more expensive cheese!

Second, there are the big deal things. Those things that just really make you want to tell someone they're wrong and they need to fix this. All the guys and girls that go to the pubs look like they're from Jersey Shore. Yes, orange, too much makeup, the outfits, and the hair. It's a bit sad. It's expensive. It's about double what you'd pay stateside. This makes grocery shopping a little stressful, not to mention that the grocery stores are super small and don't really have anything. Also, stores close at 6. We were downtown, went into a thrift store at 530, walked out at 615, and everything on the street was closed. It was more than a bit spooky. The internet sucks because they stream TV over it a lot here. Greedy. They've blocked all gaming ports on the internet. This is a sad occasion. I don't watch TV, so I'll probably be pretty bored and study a ton during my afternoons. Last, the professors seem unnecessary, but that may not be true as time goes on.

They do some things much better, though. If you buy a beer, they basically give you food free (good food) at most places. This a great scheme to get you to go to a specific place, and is great for pre-gaming (slang which they don't know over here yet, but I'm bringing. They just say pre-drinks, how boring is that?). They don't skimp on the trans fats or the oils. Mmmm, tasty. Mars bars are delicious. And their clubs are discriminatorily priced (totally a word), meaning that you pay a membership fee rather than the school just gives them your money. This is good because everything else is REALLY DAMN EXPENSIVE. They also only pay $5k in tuition. That's pretty dang right. My student email account also gets about one email a day. This is a relief.

Now that you know how I feel about my daily life, I can talk about events. My first day of class was today. I thought that I had class at 9 am. I planned about 10 minutes for getting lost. I left right on time and discovered the building exactly 5 minutes late. Well, no big deal, I'll just take a seat and learn some Computer Sci..physics? Do I have the wrong room? No, I double checked. Wrong building? Maybe. So I just walked out. I eventually found some computers and found that my class was actually at 10. Hmm, time to kill. Facebook! At least this isn't China. I went back to the classroom and a bunch of guys were standing outside waiting for class. Yeah, no girls, must be the right class. They laughed at that. Walk in, sit in the second row on the right side of middle like I always try for. Everyone fills up the rows behind me. Odd omen. But the class is full so the room decided it would be as well. The professor starts up the syllabus normally, and asks how many people use linux. This is a 3rd-year (their last year) course so they should be pretty well versed in comp sci by now. I was the only person to raise my hand. That's not a good sign Queen's. You ought to know better than that. Maybe it's not expensive enough for them.

Alright, you get one more story, but only because I like talking about myself. I went to a hockey game with the International Students. Their stadium is pretty small and their team was pretty low budget. As in no instant replay low budget. There were a lot of fun little things, much like a St Paul Saints Game. For example, you could pay a pound or two to enter into a drawing to win the shirt off the back of one of the players. I was tempted to try my luck, but I'd already paid 10 pounds for the game, so I bought an ice cream for a reasonable pound instead. I hate those unreasonable pounds; they're so full of themselves.

Note: There are pictures on facebook and I have captions explaining them. Mostly from tours and the hockey game. I'm too lazy to embed them into such long posts. Maybe as life gets boring. I wouldn't like your odds.