This is the week that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends

Hello again! I am going to take up the tale of orientation week where we left off, which was Wednesday, Feb 1st, I believe.

WEDNESDAY

Today we had more orientation of the being talked at variety, and got our syllabi for classes! I am so excited. The syllabus for my British Detective Fiction class looks awesome. Two Agatha Christies, P.D. James, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, and so much more!  I'm a little intimidated by the 5 plays I have to read for my Shakespeare class, four of which I have never read (the other being Hamlet).

We also started 'diagnostics' today, which are these tests that every student has to take for every class she has. They are supposed to give the professors an idea of where their students are in their knowledge of the subject and their writing ability, but it doesn't count towards your final grade. They were a pain, but not very stressful or anything. My first one was Shakespeare, which was not so bad, and then when everyone else was taking their second diagnostic, I went to go meet with Footprint Publishing, who I have my internship with! Fiona is the other student who is interning there, so I met her today as well.  Andrew Butterworth (and the award for best name goes to...) walked us to the office to meet Alan, the head of the company, who is Scottish by the way.  He was really cool, and we decided that my schedule would be 9-5 every Tuesday, and I would work on an editorial project, which is great because that is really where my passion is. Further good news: I do not have to dress up to go to work. Hooray for small businesses!

Later we had a welcome reception at Bath Abbey, where they put out tea and cakes for us, and gave us a quick tour. Below is a picture of some of the beautiful stained glass in the Abbey.

After the tour, or before, I'm not sure, but the when is not important, the point is we discovered the absolute best hot chocolate ever. It is at this cute little cafe thing next to the Abbey, and it does not even have a name, it just has signs on the windows that say "chocolate," "ice cream," and "champagne." It is a wonderful world we live in, ladies and gentlemen. (edit: I have discovered that it is in fact called Minerva's)

That night we went out to a pub called the Porter. Right around the corner we met this man who was looking for the Porter as well, so we walked together, and it turned out that he was in the British military, and he was meeting a group of friends who were all also in the military! Umm, yes please? So we spent about an hour in the pub just talking to a whole bunch of awesome military guys! The one we talked to the most, we realized after we had no idea what his name was, but we thought maybe Nigel was a good fit. So we talked to Nigel anyway for a really long time about American politics, and it was absolutely fascinating to hear an outsider's point of view! I found I actually agreed with mostly everything he said. For example, we were talking about how the USA tends to just bomb other countries willy-nilly, and it makes everyone hate us. His metaphor was that "the USA is the big kid on the playground just flailing his arms around and hitting other kids at random," and nobody really likes that kid, do they? One thing I did not really agree with was that he said it was weird that we call our soldiers "heroes" all of the time. I mean, they pretty much are. I guess in England they don't say that about their military. He was probably just jealous that nobody ever called him a hero!

Well after about an hour we decided to leave, since we had to be up early, so we said goodbye to our new friends, and went back home. It was a great night though, and I was so exhausted when I got home that I slept all the way through the night for the first time! Yay!

THURSDAY

Today, for any of you who were in high school band with me, a very exciting thing happened. This is what it was:

Now ThisWater doesn't mean anything to most of you, but for a few of my readers it was our drink of choice throughout our entire England trip junior year of high school. We were absolutely obsessed with it, and couldn't stop talking about it when we got home. Years later, I have to admit it is not as good as I remember, and definitely was not worth all of the giggles and obsession. But it is still yummy, and a very fond memory.

Anyway, besides that exciting thing, we had our two remaining diagnostics, and book collection. Getting my books was the most exciting thing, especially for my detective fiction class! I absolutely cannot wait to get started! I can't believe I am actually taking a class that requires me to read Hound of the Baskervilles and Murder on the Orient Express. Guys....this is seriously the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I had soup at Jacob's for lunch (Liza you were right again), and we made grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. We decided to stay in, since we'd gone out the last two nights, and we watched Leap Year and the first two hours of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. Colin Firth IS Mr. Darcy. I LOVE MY LIFE, and everything and everyone in it!

Okay so I think that will be it for this post. I hope you are enjoying following my adventures as much as I am enjoying living them! (I doubt it though)