Mon 21Jan08: Spring Semester Commences?

It was the first night we arrived; I had no blanket. I was freezing til I kept on being awake for dunno-how-many times to wear more and more layers. There is a heater in my room and in the hallway, but the hallway heater is not functioning at the moment, and the room heater is being on and off in certain hours by the accommodation management. Having no choice, I finally woke up at 5am – such a healthy lifestyle that I have never done in my life, especially considering my sleeping time during the exam period – and showered. All of us wake up almost the same time, but luckily there was no cramp in queuing for the bathroom. Anyhow you could just opt for not showering since the weather was so cold (around 6-7⁰C) and dry =p

We were told to be present in a particular building in University Park at 9am, and so did we. At first we were finding a bit difficulty in where the building is (we did have map but it was a bit confusing coz there are loads of building around), and there we found another lost guy from Malaysia Campus. His face was so familiar that I was quite sure I saw him before but I wasn’t sure. I even saw him the previous night when I was searching for the exact location of my flat – I passed by his kitchen located in ground floor where he was chatting with his flatmate. Instead of calling him, I ‘stared’ at him for few seconds right after they realized my ‘spying’. At that time I just threw away that thought, convinced myself that I saw a wrong guy, and prioritized myself in searching for my flat. So there I saw him again, and only after Elvin greeted him I knew I was not wrong! His name is Faiq a.k.a Faizi.

As I had expected, the building was quite old-fashioned, and the hallways are narrower than they are in Malaysia Campus. Oh yeah, one significant thing that distinguishes the two: UK buildings have LOADS of doors at least one in every 10 meters, I think. This is purposely done in case of fire emergencies so that the smoke will not spread too rapid to the entire building. Anyway, back to our story, we found out that exchange students from Ningbo Campus were totally outnumbered the Malaysia Campus (50+ vs 10 people), as they were cramming in the hallway, not to mention the local students who were going to attend their classes next to suppose-to-be our venue. Why suppose-to-be? Because, surprisingly, it was later found that ‘our’ venue clashed with the other class schedule, and it was us being dumped in the end. Never imagine this kind of thing could be found in so-called our Top 10 University in UK. Having no choice, we were told to gather in the common space, and we collected our university card and brochures about the UK campus and Nottingham City. It was then decided to postpone the compulsory induction in the following day. Plenty of us asked plenty of similar questions to the International Office staff but most of them had disappointing answers – such as regarding bank account (it would be on Wednesday), commence of spring classes (it was THAT day, yeah, I missed it already), the nearest department stores (good news is they PROBABLY know what they are, bad news, they do not know WHERE exactly they are neither HOW to get to the city). So much for a helping offer by the International Office – SIGH!!

After Jia Qian was done with her university card, and me & Meei Yunn with banking thing, we (6 of us plus Faiq) decided to find our way to Tesco by asking people around. Apparently it is in the Victoria City Centre, and off we go by bus. It was not that far though, and the place was quite easy to recognize – could see some clothes shops, banks and restaurants/cafes. We went inside and let ourselves in to Tesco Metro – smaller Tesco, but it was a drop of water in desert for us since we had ZERO at the moment. Then we bought some kitchen utensils in other shops since this Tesco didn’t sell. In the end, we carry stuff like crazy – toilet rolls, duvet (Jia Qian’s), pillows, bread, oil, cooking utensils from pans and knives til plates and cups, and some food stuff & drinks. Unfortunately our hands were too full that none of us could preserve this rare particular moment in a picture… Too bad!

Rushing back to put all the stuff in the fridge, we walked to the Jubilee campus for our Module Selection session at 2.30pm. Again, we witnessed the contrast in numbers of Ningbo and Malaysia students. This was quite useful session for us as we were given our module entry form, introduction from the director of studies and from our respective tutors, as well as the administration staff and personal tutors who would be in charge of all mobility students. Also, we received our university card (for those who didnt get this morning) and timetable: MY CLASSES ARE SPREAD FROM MONDAY TO FRIDAY! This is so pathetic! And, yeah, well, the modules for FAM students this semester demand for more contact hours because each of the 5 compulsory subjects has labs/tutorials, not to mention the 2 group projects and 2 individual coursework – what a contrast to last semester. Pity Elvin that he has classes at 9am, Monday to Friday. Since we are having classes every day, it’s quite hard for us to have ‘small trip’ during weekend to explore UK. Oh, I miss Malaysia Campus!

Cooking preparation starts at around 5.30pm – guess we have nothing to do so at the moment that we just decided to cook.

Fusilli Carbonara is tonight’s dinner. It was considered a successful first-home-made dinner for us, noting that we haven’t had an appropriate, complete ingredients and tools to do things. And it tastes nice! Slurrp!! Yummy!

Starting early, finishing early. Nothing much can be done, there are still lots of doubts and questions around my mind. We didn’t attend any class yet so we have no lecture notes to stare. The only thing can be done is to lock ourselves in the room, do a lil bit of tidying (di-di da-da in Tse Tyng’s language) and experience the high-speed internet connection. Life seems to be very boring and eventually I fell asleep around 9.30pm, having difficulties in visualizing what will surface to us soon. This is when the journey begins (Lord of the Rings 1, lol)